Mike Pence Warns North Korea: ‘Era Of Strategic Patience Is Over

Mike Pence has warned that the “era of strategic patience is over” with North Korea and urged China to use its “extraordinary levers” to pressure the regime into abandoning its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to the heavily armed border separating North and South Korea on Monday, the vice-president described Washington’s commitment to South Korea’s security as “unshakeable”, a day after North Korea conducted a failed missile launch.

Pence arrived in South Korea amid claims that Sunday’s missile test might have been thwarted by a cyber attack by the US, and warnings from Donald Trump’s chief security adviser that tensions on the Korean peninsula were “coming to a head”.

Pence told US military personnel it was “humbling” to be at the demilitarised zone (DMZ), a four-kilometre-wide strip of land that has come to symbolise the standoff that has defined relations between the North and South since the Korean war ended in an uneasy truce in 1953.

“My father served in the Korean war with the US army, and on the way here we actually saw some of the terrain my father fought alongside Korean forces to help earn your freedom,” he said in an address at Camp Bonifas. “We are grateful to all of those who each and every day stand in the gap for freedom here at the DMZ. It is a testament to the unshakeable bond between our people.”

Pence will offer similar reassurances to Japan – the US’s other main ally in north-east Asia – when he visits Tokyo on Tuesday as part of a 10-day Asia-Pacific tour that includes Indonesia and Australia.