DPRK’s nuclear test strongly opposed
Beijing urges neighbor ‘to halt actions that will deteriorate the situation’
Beijing stated its “resolute opposition” on Wednesday after the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced earlier in the day that it had successfully carried out its first hydrogen bomb test.
Countries and international organizations said they were still examining the test’s details and impact, since some key facts were believed missing in the official statement released through the Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang.
The nuclear test, the fourth by the DPRK, was conducted at a site close to the Chinese border. Previously, the DPRK conducted three nuclear tests — in 2006, 2009 and 2013 — drawing fierce international objections and sanctions.
On Wednesday morning, the China Earthquake Network Center said a magnitude-4.9 quake jolted the DPRK at 9:30 am Beijing time “at a depth of 0 km”.
Then the state-run Korean Central News Agency said DPRK top leader Kim Jong-un had ordered the hydrogen bomb test on Dec 15 and signed the final order on Sunday. The test was a “total success” and was conducted “in a safe and perfect manner”, it said.
In response, Beijing issued a rare written statement in the afternoon, in which the Foreign Ministry said: “We strongly urge the DPRK to honor its denuclearization pledges and stop taking any action that will deteriorate the situation.”
China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection is “monitoring the data and will conduct an all-out radiation emergency test in the border area”, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
By 1 pm, local readings of gamma radiation had been normal, the environmental ministry said.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “China firmly champions the international nuclear nonproliferation system”.
The United Nations Security Council has planned an emergency meeting on Wednesday in New York. US National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Washington will respond appropriately to any “provocations”.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it hadn’t been confirmed that the DPRK had carried out an actual
Hua Chunying, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
nuclear test, and that all sides should “preserve maximum restraint”, AFP reported.
Republic of Korea President Park Geun-hye said on Wednesday that Seoul “should closely cooperate with the international community ”, R OK’ s Yonhap news agency reported.
Yu Meihua, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Peace Studies of the China Reform Forum, said the United States and its allies Japan and the ROK will take Pyongyang’s test as an excuse to “initiate the next arms race in the region” by having more military cooperation and deployment in the region.
Yu said fresh UN sanctions might be imposed and“D PR K’ s pace of economic cooperation with foreign countries will possibly see as lowdown ”.
Zhang Liangui, an expert of Korean studies at the Party School of the CentralCommittee of the Communist Party of China, said the nuclear test was “not a surprise”, as Pyongyang has renewed commitment to its nuclear plans in recent years.
We strongly urge the DPRK to honor its denuclearization pledges.”
The defense ministry and spy agency of the Republic of Korea on Wednesday questioned whether the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had tested a hydrogen bomb given the tiny size of seismic activity caused by the hydrogen device detonation.
ROK’s Vice-Defense Minister Hwang In-moo told reporters after a meeting with lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party that “for now, it is unlikely” for the DPRK to have succeeded in testing a hydrogen device, according to local media reports.
Hwang said that a procedure is needed to assess the explosion based on numbers by calculating how powerful it was and how it can be gauged through further data analysis.
The DPRK announced that it had successfully carried out its first test of a “miniaturized” hydrogen bomb, but the National Intelligence Service, ROK’s spy agency, said that there is a possibility that it was not an H-bomb test given the small size of the seismic activity.
The seismic activity, caused by Wednesday’s nuclear test, was at a magnitude of 4.8 on an explosive power of 6 kilotons. It was lower than a magnitude of 4.9 and a blast of 7.9 kilotons that were caused by the DPRK’s previous nuclear test in 2013 of an atomic bomb.
The DPRK’s first nuclear test in 2006 caused a 3.6 magnitude of seismic activity, with the second test of an atomic bomb in 2009 triggering a 4.5 magnitude of tremor.
The spy agency claimed that if it was an H-bomb, its blast size should have been hundreds of kilotons or at least tens of kilotons even under the failed test scenario.
The Korea Meteorological Administration, ROK’s weather agency, said that the artificial quake happened at a magnitude of 4.8 in a location near the DPRK’s underground nuclear test at Punggye-ri site in the northeast region.
All the three previous nuclear tests were conducted at the Punggye-ri nuclear facility.
The test on Wednesday was met with a burst of jubilation and pride in Pyongyang.
A DPRK television anchor, reading statement, said, “The test of a miniaturized hydrogen bomb was a perfect success that elevated our nuclear might to the next level”.
Song Chol, a resident of Pyongyang, said: “The United States is the aggressor with all kinds of nuclear weapons, waiting to invade our country, so having a hydrogen bomb is the right thing, the legitimate right of a sovereign state, which nobody can complain about. It would be stupid to put down your gun as you are faced by fierce wolves rushing at you.’’
The test ... was a perfect success that elevated our nuclear might to the next level.” DPRK television anchor, reading a statement