CHINA firmly opposes the latest nuclear test conducted by North Korea, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

    The ministry made the statement after North Korea announced yesterday that it has successfully carried out its first hydrogen bomb test.

    “China is steadfast in its position that the Korean Peninsula should be denuclearized and nuclear proliferation be prevented to maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced at a press briefing.

    She said China knew nothing about the test before North Korea’s announcement.

    “We strongly urge the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to honor its commitment to denuclearization and to cease any action that may deteriorate the situation,” Hua said.

    China is determined to advance denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, and settle the nuclear issue through six-party talks, Hua said.

    Residents in Yanji, Hunchun and Changbai in China’s Jilin Province — some of the counties closest to the North’s nuclear test site — were evacuated from buildings after feeling tremors from the test yesterday, China Central Television said on a verified social media account.

    “The republic’s first hydrogen bomb test has been successfully performed at 10 a.m.,” North Korean state television announced yesterday.

    “With the perfect success of our historic H-bomb, we have joined the rank of advanced nuclear states,” it said, adding that the test was of a miniaturized device.

    The television showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s signed order — dated Dec. 15 — to go ahead with the test, with a handwritten exhortation to begin 2016 with the “thrilling sound of the first hydrogen bomb explosion.”

    South Korean President Park Geun-hye condemned the test as a “grave provocation” and called for a strong international response as the U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting. Japan and Australia also condemned the test.

    The U.S. Government said it could not confirm the test claim, vowing to respond appropriately to any “provocations.”

    A hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb uses fusion in a chain reaction that results in a far more powerful explosion than the fission blast generated by uranium or plutonium alone.

    North Korea’s three previous tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013 triggered waves of U.N. sanctions. Their failure to prevent a fourth detonation will put the Security Council under intense pressure to take more drastic action this time around.(SD-Agencies)