[LINK] "North Korea’s bomb test imperils already strained relations with China"
MacLean's carries an Associated Press article noting China's displeasure with North Korea's newest nuclear test. Angering North Korea's only ally cannot possibly be a good strategy, I'd think.
China sees North Korea’s claim to have conducted its first hydrogen bomb test as yet another act of defiance, and will likely retaliate by joining tougher United Nations sanctions and could possibly even impose its own trade restrictions.
Wednesday’s test was staged close enough to the border to send palpable tremors into northeastern China, prompting schools to be evacuated. The political reverberations in Beijing will likely be just as dramatic, boding ill for a relationship already under strain.
“Relations will become colder than ever,” said Lu Chao, director of the Border Studies Institute at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences in the northeastern province that borders North Korea.
North Korea acted “wilfully in disregard of the opposition of the international community, including China, and caused a real threat to the lives of the Chinese people living along the border,” Lu said.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it would summon Pyongyang’s ambassador to Beijing to lodge a formal protest, and said environmental officials were monitoring air quality near the border though they had found nothing abnormal so far.
China sees North Korea’s claim to have conducted its first hydrogen bomb test as yet another act of defiance, and will likely retaliate by joining tougher United Nations sanctions and could possibly even impose its own trade restrictions.
Wednesday’s test was staged close enough to the border to send palpable tremors into northeastern China, prompting schools to be evacuated. The political reverberations in Beijing will likely be just as dramatic, boding ill for a relationship already under strain.
“Relations will become colder than ever,” said Lu Chao, director of the Border Studies Institute at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences in the northeastern province that borders North Korea.
North Korea acted “wilfully in disregard of the opposition of the international community, including China, and caused a real threat to the lives of the Chinese people living along the border,” Lu said.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it would summon Pyongyang’s ambassador to Beijing to lodge a formal protest, and said environmental officials were monitoring air quality near the border though they had found nothing abnormal so far.