China's not too happy with North Korea
 

China may be losing patience with NKorea By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer
24 minutes ago



SEOUL, South Korea - China's patience with its longtime ally North Korea appeared to be wearing thin on Tuesday as Beijing warned Pyongyang that its staging of a nuclear test would harm the two countries' relations.

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Fears of a new regional nuclear arms race eased when Japan's leader said his nation still had no intention of seeking atomic weapons.

China's Foreign Ministry said North Korea's nuclear test would damage ties between the allies who sided against American-led U.N. forces in the Korean War.

"The nuclear test will undoubtedly exert a negative impact on our relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters.

But Liu added that China is "firmly against" a military strike against the North.

"Taking military action against North Korea would be unimaginable," he said.

China also has long opposed sanctions sought by countries such as the United States, which is pressing for potentially crippling new measures against Pyongyang.

A permanent U.N. Security Council member, China has a decisive say over how stern a punishment the international community can mete out to North Korea.

A South Korean envoy, returning to Seoul from Beijing, said Tuesday that China appeared to be leaning toward backing strong U.N. measures.

The North stepped up its threats aimed at Washington, saying it could fire a nuclear nuclear-tipped missile unless the United States acts to resolve its standoff with Pyongyang, the Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday from Beijing.

Even if Pyongyang is confirmed to have nuclear weapons, experts say it's unlikely the North has a bomb design small and light enough to be mounted atop a missile. Their long-range missile capability also remains in question, after a test rocket in July apparently fizzled out shortly after takeoff.

"We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes," Yonhap quoted an unidentified North Korean official as saying. "That depends on how the U.S. will act."

The official said the nuclear test was "an expression of our intention to face the United States across the negotiating table," reported Yonhap, which didn't say how or where it contacted the official, or why no name was given.

But Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, told reporters that the nuclear test would make the possibility of direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang more difficult, Yonhap reported.

The U.N. Security Council was weighing a U.S. proposal for potentially crippling sanctions. America has asked the council to adopt a measure that would aim to curb the North's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, prohibit all trade in military and luxury goods, and crack down on illegal financial dealings.

There have been worries that the reported nuclear test would prompt Japan to build its own bomb. But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told lawmakers Japan's anti-nuclear policy would remain unchanged.

"There will be no change in our non-nuclear arms principles," Abe said.

Japan's pacifist constitution bars the use of force to settle international disputes, and Japan has maintained a policy of not producing, possessing or using nuclear weapons.

South Korea said that it believed the North had exploded a nuclear device on Monday, but officials claimed that it might take up to two weeks to confirm whether the test was successful.

Although the reported test drew worldwide condemnation and talk of harsh sanctions, the South said it would stick with its efforts to engage the North, though the policy would be reviewed.

North Korea celebrated a holiday Tuesday marking the 61st anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea. There was no traffic across a key bridge on a border river between China and North Korea.

China canceled leave for its soldiers along the North Korean border and some units were conducting anti-chemical weapons drills, the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po reported in Hong Kong. The paper didn't elaborate.

There was no sign of heightened security in the Chinese border city of Dandung, and reporters saw two boatloads of North Korean tourists on the river, smiling and waving to people on the Chinese shore.

____

Associated Press Writers Kwang-Tae Kim in Seoul, Kana Inagaki in Tokyo

bumpity bump..

What kills me is when China says "we will absoluetly never invade North Korea".

The question I have is, if you won't ever invade, why get upset? You will not do anything about it anyway.:stupid:

How about if China did a underground test of a hydrogen bomb right on the border of North Korea?

Didn't China "invade" Korea back in about 1950 or 51? Hmmmm. Well, "sort of" invaded it. I think my dad would have vouched for that fact anyways. Went all the way into S Korea as I recall him saying....
Gilly

I'm not surprised one bit.

I personally think the Chinese are the ones responsible for N. Korea's nuke development program. They may put on a show for the UN concerning sanctions, but in the end they won't support sanctions of any consequence. I don't trust the Chinese anymore than I trust the N. Koreans. They are not our allies or friends, more like the opposition in a new cold war kinda way. Beware.

has anyone seen that movie "Team America?"

"Team Ameeerrrica, f**f yeahhhhh!!!!"

Or Die Another Day.....

Same director made this short for youtube.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?eurl=&v=7h3GPc_yMCE

The relationship between China and Korea is many thousands of years old. The Koreans will eventualy do what the Chiness want them to do.

If not there may be some governmental changes in NK, of that you can be sure of.

Nuke? The blast was only about 5-15 kilotons. Probably a pile of old TNT and spare bombs they had out back.

Compare that to Russia's Tsar Bomba at about 50 megatons.

I'm betting that a pile of explosives has a different seismic signal from a nuke. Here's why.

A nuke contains a small amount of conventional explosives that concentrate tremendous, focused compression waves on the fissile mass in order to get it super-critically dense. The chemical explosion is initiated with high-precision timed detonators and is followed almost instantaneously by an extremely violent, initially relativistic expansion of the nuclear blast.

Chemical explosives have a burn rate measured in feet per second. IIRC high explosives burn at something over 6, 000 m/sec. So let's guess NK piled 1,000 - 4,000 tons of high explosives into a cavern. TNT is 1.6 g/cc =6,000 m^3 (good God, is that right?). So to cross from the center of the pile (assume sphere to keep me from going nucking futs) to the outside is 77 meters so it should take what, a millisecond, more or less? I'm ball-parking here so check my math.

Contrast that with the nuke expansion of 300,000,000 m/sec. In a millisecond the shockwave moves 300,000 meters.

So a seismic analysis should show an energy progression of approximately a millisecond for the chemical explosion and an instantaneous rise for the nukular explosion.

Ha, call me Edward Teller!

B

apparently some excellent facts there. (as if i would actually know)

but they seemed to say that a small explosion wouldnt register at all. so maybe the initial explosion which initiates the nuclear explosion wouldnt register.

tom w

I don't know how much explosive it takes to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. I'm betting that particular item is a subject of deep secrecy as it would inform a weapons builder of what the design should be. What I mean is that the instantaneous density required for reaction is not unknown, heck, it's probably on the internet somewhere. If somebody mentioned the amount (and type) of explosive charge needed to get that density then reverse-engineering the geometry of the fissile mass would probably be the next step (speaking as a botanist here).

Be that as it may, if we look at the photos of the WWII devices and the hoisting elements needed to get them in place, I'll bet the entire bombs weighed under 2 tons. I seem to recall that there was 20 kg of plutonium in one of the bombs. Give a ton for the various non-explosive bomb parts and casing and that leaves perhaps a ton of chemical explosives. I'll bet it's much less than that, but so what?

No way that 2 tons of detonated explosive is going to be detectable around the world. So I think that your conjecture (initiating explosion is undetectable) makes sense.

Here's one way that the NK's could use conventional explosives to mimic a nuke: Use the highest-velocity explosive available and install LOTS of detonators throughout the explosive mass, all timed to explode simultaneously. If the ramp-up for the shockwave could be shortened to indistinguishable from nuke explosion with seismic sensors then NK makes the claim without the nuke and gets away with it.

And I'm betting that's why the airborne radionuclide sensors are being flown all over the place--to pick-up the characteristic decay products of the chain reaction so that two independent lines of analysis can be compared.

Too bad there isn't a spy on the ground, huh?

B