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 North Korea said it set off a hydrogen bomb last Wednesday, its
fourth nuclear test since 2006, angering China, the North's main
ally, and the United States, which said it doubted the device was a
hydrogen bomb.
In a show of force and support for allies in the region, the United
States on Sunday sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber based in Guam on
a flight over South Korea.
North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling
Workers' Party, said the United States was bringing the situation to
the brink of war.
South Korean media said the United States may send to South Korea
B-2 bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and F-22 stealth fighter
jets.
A South Koran defense ministry spokesman declined to give details.
"The United States and South Korea are continuously and closely
having discussions on additional deployment of strategic assets,"
the spokesman, Kim Min-seok, said.
 China called for all sides to avoid raising tension.
"Safeguarding the peace and stability of northeast Asia accords with
all parties' interests," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei
said in response to a question about the U.S. B-52 flight.
"We hope all parties can maintain restraint, proceed cautiously, and
avoid successively escalating tensions."
'HIGHEST LEVEL READINESS'
The chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that
North Korea was likely to carry out further "sudden provocations", a
South Korean defense ministry official said.
The commander of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, General
Curtis Scaparrotti, urged them to be vigilant.
"I want you to maintain the highest level readiness from a long-term
view as joint military exercises are coming up," Scaparrotti told
U.S. and South Korean forces on a visit to a base, a U.S. military
official said.
He was apparently referring to joint annual military exercises that
usually begin in February or March and invariably provoke an angry
reaction from North Korea.
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On the diplomatic front, South Korea said its chief nuclear
negotiator planned to meet his U.S. and Japanese counterparts on
Wednesday to discuss a response to North Korea, and the next day, he
would meet China's nuclear envoy in Beijing.
North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions since its
first test of an atomic device. After its third test, in 2013, the
Security Council took about three weeks to agree a resolution that
tightened financial restrictions and cracked down on its attempts to
ship and receive banned cargo.
South Korea and Japan used a military hotline for the first time
after of North Korea's test, South Korea's defense ministry said, in
a sign the North's behaviour is pushing the two old rivals closer
together.
South Korea has also resumed anti-North propaganda broadcasts
through loudspeakers along the border, a tactic that the North
considers insulting. It responded with artillery fire the last time
South Korea used the speakers in August.
South Korea also said it would restrict access to the jointly run
Kaesong industrial complex just north of the heavily militarized
inter-Korean border to the "minimum necessary level" from Tuesday.
The complex, where South Korean factories employ North Korean
workers, is an important source of revenue for the impoverished
North.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Tony
Munroe; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)
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