North Korea: Boris Johnson demands China acts NOW after 'PERILOUS ADVANCE' in Kim's nukes

North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, which the state said was an advanced hydrogen bomb. 

Speaking in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary said: “North Korea tested the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated in the history of that regime.

“The underground explosion in a testing site only 60 miles by the Chinese border triggered an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale, ten times more powerful than the tremor created by the last detonation.”

Mr Johnson said China must do what it can to end the “grave crisis” provoked by the latest nuclear test. 

The Foreign Secretary told MPs: “China, which accounts for 90 per cent of North Korea’s overseas trade, has a unique ability to influence the regime – and the House can take heart from the fact that Beijing voted in favour of the latest sanctions resolution and condemned Pyongyang’s actions in the most unsparing terms.

“I call on China to use all of its leverage to ensure a peaceful settlement of this grave crisis.”

Mr Johnson said the world can treat the claim of the test consisting of a hydrogen bomb capable of being delivered on an intercontinental missile with some scepticism.

He said: “This latest test marks a perilous advance in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

“In a country blighted by decades of Communist failure, where in the 1990s hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation or who were reduced to eating grass and leaves to survive.”

Mr Johnson said the regime has spent its cash on building an illegal armoury of nuclear bombs. 

He called the house to join him in condemning the grave threat for the security of every country in East Asia and in the wider world.

He said he respected the restraint of South Korea and Japan who are in the firing line of Kim Jong Un’s “reckless ambition”. 

Mr Johnson backed the Prime Minister who said it was important to achieve a “diplomatic solution” to the crisis on the Korean peninsula. 

He said: “All hopes for progress rests on international cooperation.”

Criticising North Korea’s “brazen defiance” of the rest of the world, Mr Johnson said: “Just as North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons with single-minded determination, so the international community must show the same resolve in our pursuit of a diplomatic solution.”

The Prime Minister has called US President Donald Trump to discuss the North Korean situation by telephone.