North Korea threatened South Korea yesterday and said sanctions passed this week were a “declaration of war,” even as China and the US sought to pressure Pyongyang into backing down on a planned nuclear test.
In the latest in a series of bellicose warnings from Pyongyang sparked by a tightening of UN sanctions, the North’s top body for inter-Korean affairs threatened the South with unspecified “physical counter-measures.”
“Sanctions amount to a declaration of war against us,” the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement.
“If the South Korean puppet regime of traitors directly participates in the so-called UN ‘sanctions,’ strong physical countermeasures would be taken,” it added.
The warning, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, came a day after North Korea’s top military body threatened to conduct a third nuclear test and boost its ability to strike the US.
In an unusually frank warning yesterday, China’s state-run media indicated that Beijing would decrease aid to Pyongyang if it goes ahead with a nuclear test.
“If North Korea engages in further nuclear tests, China will not hesitate to reduce its assistance,” the Global Times, which is close to China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party, said in an editorial.
“China hopes for a stable peninsula, but it’s not the end of the world if there’s trouble there,” it added.
As North Korea’s main economic lifeline, China is seen as the only country with any genuine leverage over the impoverished, isolated and nuclear-armed state.
Pyongyang has long played on Chinese fears of the consequences of North Korea’s collapse to defy Beijing’s efforts to rein in its nuclear weapons program.
Mushrooming trade with China has helped North Korea mitigate the impact of UN sanctions already imposed after Pyongyang’s previous nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
The Global Times editorial expressed official displeasure at a lack of North Korean understanding of Beijing’s role in softening the sanctions outlined in Tuesday’s UN resolution.
“It seems that North Korea does not appreciate China’s effort,” the newspaper said.
The current upsurge in tensions has its roots in Pyongyang’s defiant decision to push ahead with a long-range rocket launch on Dec. 12 — insisting it was a peaceful mission to place a satellite in orbit.
The rest of the world saw it as a banned ballistic missile test and on Tuesday the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that expanded the number of North Korean entities on an international blacklist.
The US, supported by Japan and South Korea, spearheaded the UN resolution.
Pyongyang reacted furiously, vowing to boost its nuclear arsenal and to conduct a third nuclear test and even longer-range rocket launches in an “all-out action” against its “sworn US enemy.”
In Washington on Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney criticized the North Korean threat as “needlessly provocative” and stressed that any test would be a “significant violation” of UN Security Council resolutions.
US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the US was “fully prepared” for a test from Pyongyang.
“But I hope ... they determine that in the end, it is better to become a part of the international family,” Panetta said.
In addition to the UN measures, the US added names to its own blacklist that freezes any US-based assets of designated individuals and groups, and makes it a crime for anyone in the US to assist them.
The UN resolution was notable for receiving the backing of North Korea’s sole major ally, China.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
RSS