North Korea's reclusive regime, led by Kim Jong Un, often conducts its weapons tests to coincide with days of national significance. "As the upcoming nuclear test could potentially be hazardous to Northeastern China, sanctions imposed by Beijing within the United Nations framework will increase, thus dramatically decreasing the amount of petroleum exported to North Korea", as the Global Times put it.
It was the second phone call between the two leaders since their summit at Trump's luxury resort in Florida early this month.
Trump, in his phone call with Xi, criticized North Korea's "continued belligerence" and emphasized that its actions "are destabilizing the Korean peninsula", the White House said.
"They are working with us on North Korea".
In a interview at the Oval Office on Friday, Mr Trump told AP that he declined to label China a currency manipulator mostly because he needed Mr Xi's help with the North Korean crisis. Trump has repeatedly promised that China will earn a better trade deal with the USA if it helps to exert pressure on its allied neighboring nation. The apparent move to send the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, to waters near the Korean peninsula, looked like a tangible escalation.
North Korea also detained a USA citizen as he tried to leave the capital Pyongyang.
The United States and its allies fear North Korea could be preparing to conduct another nuclear test or launch more ballistic missiles.
In the past, it has used important anniversaries to test its weapons.
The US government has not specified where the carrier strike group is as it approaches the area.
South Korea also said it was considering drills with the carrier group, which is now conducting joint exercises with Japan in the Philippine Sea.
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"The North Koreans, this very erratic, unstable regime, may soon have the capability to harm us directly", Bolton told host John Catsimatidis. He said Kim was detained by officials as he was trying to leave the country from Pyongyang's worldwide airport.
A separate editorial on the North's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri said the dispatch of the Carl Vinson signalled "that an invasion of the North is nearing day by day".
In lieu of that, Pyongyang may test another missile.
The arrested man, a Korean-American professor named Tony Kim, had been teaching at a university in Pyongyang set up by a Korean-American Christian businessman, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Kim Sang-duk, a Korean-American lecturer who taught at the Pyongyang University of Science for several weeks prior to his arrest, was detained on Saturday with no official explanation being given for the decision.
North Korea has arrested and jailed several United States citizens in the past decade, often releasing them only after high-profile visits by current or former U.S. officials or former USA presidents.
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton offered up a solution Sunday on New York AM 970's "The Cats Roundtable" to keep North Korea from using nuclear weapons in the future.
"I think there is consensus they can't strike the continental USA, if they could we [the United States] would be bombing them already".
Updated Monday 18:00 with background and details.
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