NUCLEAR DETERRENT
Japan will be seeking further reassurance from Washington in meetings between Japan's defense chief and foreign minister and their US counterparts on Thursday."The strategic environment is becoming harsher and we need to discuss how we will respond to that," a Japanese foreign ministry official said in a briefing in Tokyo."We will look for the US to reaffirm it defense commitment, including the nuclear deterrent."The Liberation Day holiday, celebrated by both North and South, will be followed next week by the joint US-South Korean military drills.North Korea has persisted with its nuclear and missile programs, to ward off perceived US hostility, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions.China, North Korea's main ally and trading partner, has repeatedly urged Pyongyang to halt its weapons program and at the same time urged South Korea and the United States to stop military drills to lower tensions.On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the crisis was approaching a critical juncture and urged all sides in the standoff to help "put out the flames" and not add fuel to the fire.Hua said she noted comments by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about using diplomacy to resolve the issue, saying China hoped these words can be put into action."We also call on North Korea to echo this in response," Hua told a daily news briefing.Asian shares rose for a second day on Tuesday and the dollar firmed after Kim's comments further eased tension and prompted investors to move back into riskier assets after a sharp selloff last week.Kim Dong-yub, a professor and a military expert at Kyungnam University's Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, urged caution in assuming North Korea was bluffing with its missile threats."There is no stepping back for North Korea. Those who don't know the North very well fall into this trap every time (thinking they are easing threats) but we've seen this before."The United States and South Korea remain technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.North Korea is currently holding three US citizens it accuses of espionage or hostile acts but now was not the right time to discuss them, KCNA cited a foreign ministry spokesman as saying in a separate report.Pyongyang has in the past used detainees to extract concessions, including high-profile visits from the United States, which has no formal diplomatic relations with North Korea.US officials have in recent days played down the risk of an imminent conflict while stressing their preparedness to respond militarily to any attack from North Korea.Mattis said on Monday the US military would know the trajectory of a missile fired from North Korea within moments and would "take it out" if it looked like it would hit the US Pacific territory."The bottom line is, we will defend the country from an attack; for us [US military] that is war," Mattis said.On Guam, home to a US air base, a Navy installation, a Coast Guard group and roughly 6,000 US military personnel, residents expressed some relief at the lessening of tensions."I'm reading between the lines that I don't see an imminent threat," Guam Lieutenant Governor Ray Tenorio told a media briefing in the island's capital of Hagatna.