China backs ‘some’ N. Korea punitive action

updated 12:29 a.m. ET Oct. 11, 2006

UNITED NATIONS - The North Korean nuclear crisis settled into diplomatic debate Tuesday, with China agreeing to punishment but not the severe U.S.-backed sanctions that it said would be too crushing for its impoverished communist ally.

Scientists and other governments, meanwhile, suggested that Monday’s underground test was a partial failure, producing a smaller blast than planned.

In Japan, jittery about a second test, media reported that the government had detected tremors in North Korea, leading it to suspect Pyongyang had conducted another detonation.

Officials quickly focused on a strong earthquake as the possible culprit.

“Japanese officials are now saying that this occurrence may be related to an earthquake in northern Japan,” White House spokesman Blair Jones said in Washington.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had no information to confirm North Korea had conducted a second nuclear test.

The Bush administration asked the U.N. Security Council to impose a partial trade embargo including strict limits on Korea’s profitable weapons exports and freezing of related financial assets. All imports would be inspected too, to filter out materials that could be made into nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

A North Korean official said Wednesday that Pyongyang would regard sanctions in response to its claimed nuclear test as tantamount to a declaration of war.

The North already is under limited sanctions by the United States and some allies. The U.N. Security Council is considering broader measures in response to North Korea’s claimed nuclear test Monday.

“Sanctions are nonsense. If full-scale sanctions take place, we will regard it as a declaration of war,” the Beijing-based official, who wasn’t identified, told Yonhap.

The statement is a reiteration of the North’s long-held stance on sanctions.

The official said he doesn’t know if North Korea is preparing a second nuclear test, but the North will decide whether to carry out another test “according to the development of the situation.”

The United States reiterated that it would not talk with the North Koreans one-on-one, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured the North that the U.S. would not attack.

MORE COVERAGE OF N. KOREA   Video: Inside North Korea NBC: China, N. Korea tension Who is N. Korea’s ‘Mr. Bomb?’ Democrats quick to pounce Newsweek: Kim's final gamble Interactive: The Nuclear Planet Newsweek: Global crisis? Fears grow of regional arms race   Slide show: Daily life in North Korea Full text: N. Korea announcement Profile: Kim, reviled and revered Newsweek: A challenge for China Timeline of N. Korea nuke tensions

Rice rejected a suggestion that Pyongyang may feel it needs nuclear weapons to stave off an Iraq-style U.S. invasion. President Bush, she told CNN, has told “the North Koreans that there is no intention to invade or attack them. So they have that guarantee. ... I don’t know what more they want.”

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton sounded upbeat after Tuesday’s round of talks at the Security Council, but said differences remained in advance of Wednesday’s meeting.

“Look, we don’t have complete agreement on this yet, that’s hardly a news flash, but we’re making progress and we’re I think at a point we can try and narrow some of the differences we do have,” Bolton said.

China, which reacted to Monday’s blast with a strong condemnation but considers North Korea a useful buffer against U.S. forces stationed in South Korea, said it envisioned only a limited package of sanctions — not what the United States and especially Japan were demanding.

China and Russia object to plans to interdict shipments and block financial transactions. They also oppose a new suggestion that Japan proposed Tuesday — to include mention of the North’s abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and ’80s.

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