In Berlin Wednesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said North Korea must suspend its nuclear activities, but "on the other side, the large-scale military maneuvers in Korean waters should be halted".
The U.S. signal of a willingness to exhaust non-military avenues came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group approached Korean waters, where it will join the USS Michigan nuclear submarine. "North Korea is not a Syria, it's not an Iraq, the consequences could be extremely high".
(Toru Yamanaka/Pool Photo via AP).
In addition to North Korea's struggles with building functional missiles, also absent from Harris' comments were serious doubts about the effectiveness of the USA anti-missile systems, with experts saying that the Pentagon's claims are nearly certainly overstated.
Anti-THAAD protesters clash with police as the US and South Korea move parts of the anti-missile defense system to its planned deployment location in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province in South Korea.
The US anti-missile system created to mitigate the threat of North Korea's missiles will soon be operational, the top US commander in the Pacific said Wednesday. The U.S. and South Korea agreed to deploy the $800 million system last July in a deal brokered under the now-impeached South Korean president, Park Geun-hye. On top of the recent controversy over lies concerning the course change of the United States aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, the Trump administration is breeding distrust about its policy toward the Korean Peninsula.
The moves to set up THAAD within this year have angered not only North Korea, but also China, the country that the Trump administration hopes to work with to rid the North of nuclear weapons. Russian Federation also sees the system's powerful radars as a security threat.
The U.S. says the THAAD system is not an offensive weapon - a point that Adm. Harris reiterated on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
Over the past year North Korea's missile program has apparently progressed, despite some spectacular launch failures involving intermediate range mobile launched missiles.
According to the Yonhap news agency, the parts include two or three launchers, intercept missiles and a radar.
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Mr. Kim said about 200 protesters rallied overnight and they would keep up their opposition.
On Tuesday, North Korea conducted what it called its largest ever combined live-fire drills, near the east coast port city of Wonsan.
North Korea's official media reported Wednesday that leader Kim Jong Un personally observed the exercises, which involved the firing of more than 300 large-caliber artillery pieces and included submarine torpedo-attacks on mock enemy warships.
North Korea's U.N. mission said Wednesday the nation would react to "a total war" with Washington by using nuclear weapons. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who spoke to Trump on Monday, is urging restraint from both Pyongyang and Washington.
Harris said that he takes Kim Jong Un at his word when he threatens US targets. "One of these days soon, he will succeed", Harris said. The U.S. 7th Fleet said two American destroyers were conducting simultaneous maritime exercises with naval ships from South Korea and Japan.
Washington has said all options are on the table, including military strikes, but officials have stressed that the current focus is on stepped-up sanctions on North Korea, which are expected to be discussed at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The North marked the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army on Tuesday and the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung on April 15.
The Trump administration is also upping the ante diplomatically.
Tillerson is chairing a U.N. Security Council meeting Friday created to get nations to enforce existing penalties on North Korea and weigh new ones. His spokesman, Mark Toner, said Wednesday that another tactic is getting nations around the world to close down North Korean embassies and consulates, or suspending them from worldwide organizations.
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