China cancels troop leave along North Korean border

A satellite image of Gilju where North Korea says it detonated a nuclear test device. Picture / Reuters

DANDONG, CHINA - China has cancelled leave for troops along at least part of the border with North Korea, a mainland-controlled Hong Kong newspaper reported today, a day after the North announced a nuclear test.

The Wen Wei Po said Chinese People's Liberation Army troops ranged along the border in northeast China's Jilin province "have had leave totally cancelled" and some forces were conducting "anti-chemical" training exercises.

But trains between the two countries appeared to be running as normal.

Officials and businessmen in Dandong, a bustling Chinese border city that looks across the Yalu River to North Korea, told Reuters that traffic across a bridge between the two countries would halt today except for special official cars.

A customs official said the main customs posts on North Korea's border with China would shut to most traffic, restricting one of the isolated North's key portals to the outside world.

It was unclear whether the moves were prompted by Pyongyang's reported nuclear test and the strikingly sharp condemnation it drew from China, its longtime partner and aid-provider.

Beijing condemned the test as "brazen" and Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the North and other powers against escalating the crisis.

In a phone call with US President George W Bush, Hu warned North Korea "not to take any more actions that may worsen the situation", according to the official Xinhua news agency.

But Hu, who was feted as a friend of North Korea when he visited late last year, said there was still room for negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.

"China has consistently advocated denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and opposed nuclear proliferation, arguing for peaceful settlement of the Korean nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation," Hu said.

China's 1400-km border with impoverished North Korea is guarded by troops on both sides.

The two communist neighbours are long-time allies, and in past years one of the Chinese troops' main tasks has been stopping North Korean refugees crossing into China, where they seek work or asylum in other countries.

Chinese commentators left no mistake that North Korea's nuclear announcement had badly bruised relations.

"North Korea's holding of a nuclear test has offended China and put China in a very awkward diplomatic spot," Xu Guangyu of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association told Ta Kung Pao, a Beijing-backed Hong Kong paper.

North Korea "humiliated China" by carrying out a nuclear test in defiance of Beijing's requests to curb its nuclear weapons ambitions, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

Downer summoned North Korea's ambassador in Australia, Chon Jae Hong, to his parliament house office for a protest meeting today, telling him "North Korea had humiliated the Chinese government".

"It was one thing to be offensive to the United States, Britain and Australia and their allies. But it is another thing to treat the Chinese, who have been such stalwart supporters of North Korea for such a long time, in this way," Downer said.

"The Chinese government had been working intensely to try and stop this testing from taking place."

Chon said the test was conducted "to defend the supreme national interest and security of our nation".

"We are under extreme threat from the US of a nuclear war," he told reporters ahead of his meeting with Downer.

World powers condemned North Korea on Monday after it said it had conducted its first underground nuclear test, and Washington sought harsh UN sanctions that could further isolate the communist state.

US President George W Bush called it a "provocative act" that threatened international peace and security and said it required an immediate response from the UN Security Council.

Downer said Australia would back UN sanctions and would ban North Korean officials visiting Australia, which is one of the few countries to have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang. But Australia would not expel Chon or cut off diplomatic ties.

He said Australia had confirmed the test, but he stopped short of confirming whether nuclear material was involved, saying details were still being analysed.

"There is some question about the size of the test and, if you like, the nature of the test," he said. "We can conclude at this stage safely that this was a very small device by the standards of nuclear devices."

The test was a sharp blow to Chinese President Hu Jintao's doctrine of using economic incentives and diplomatic coaxing to avert North Korea's drive to become a nuclear weapons state.

"China had always supported North Korea. Eighty per cent of North Korea's aid comes from China, 50 per cent of North Korea's trade is with China," said Downer.

"The North Koreans have treated China extremely shabbily in this particularly situation."

- REUTERS