US can't rein in DPRK by using force

The international community is keeping a close eye on the Korean Peninsula situation as Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in pays a four-day state visit to China, especially because Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency termed the just concluded US-ROK military drill a "projected war rehearsal" that will push the already acute situation on the peninsula to "the brink of nuclear war". The use of terms such as "projected war rehearsal" and "the brink of nuclear war" by the DPRK's news agency and the testing of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile by Pyongyang on Nov 29, which it claimed could hit the United States mainland, has made the stakeholders in Northeast Asia more anxious. Given that Pyongyang tested the ICBM despite the international community tightening economic sanctions after it conducted the sixth nuclear test in September, it seems United Nations Resolution 2375, which was expected to paralyze the country's oil imports, and textile and marine product exports, as well as the latest unilateral sanctions by Washington and Seoul are yet to make a difference to the DPRK. And the Donald Trumpled US administration's decision to put the DPRK back on the list of "state sponsors" of terrorism risks stymieing the progress made toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.