TOKYO — North Korea’s military conducted huge live-fire drills Tuesday and issued more warnings that it would defend itself against the ‘‘American imperialists,’’ amid high tensions and a military buildup in the region.
But the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies showed their muscle as well by conducting military exercises of their own.
In addition, one of the largest US guided-missile submarines showed up in the South Korean port of Busan, presaging the imminent arrival in the region of a naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier.
And South Korea revealed Wednesday that key parts of a contentious US missile defense system had been installed, the Associated Press reported.
The military buildup on both sides comes amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and warnings from the Trump administration that ‘‘all options are on the table’’ for dealing with Pyongyang.
Kim Jong Un’s regime marked the 85th anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s army Tuesday with its typical bluster.
‘‘If the enemies dare opt for the military adventure despite our repeated warnings, our armed forces will wipe the strongholds of aggression off the surface of the earth through powerful preemptive nuclear attacks,’’ Defense Minister Pak Yong Sik said in a speech before a hall filled with the country’s top brass.
Analysts had been concerned that North Korea might seek to mark important dates this month — the birthday of the state’s founder was celebrated with a huge military parade on April 15 — with a nuclear or ballistic missile test. North Korea did launch a missile on April 16, but it exploded.
But on the latest anniversary Tuesday, the North instead conducted large-scale live-fire drills near Wonsan on its east coast, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said.
The South’s Yonhap News Agency reported that the exercises were North Korea’s largest to date, involving some 300 or 400 pieces of artillery.
Analysts warned against reading too much into the exercises with conventional weaponry, noting that North Korea’s annual winter training cycle culminates in big exercises every year around this time.
Still, North Korea remains defiant despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration and, increasingly, China, to stop its missile program.
‘‘China has a very, very important role to play’’ to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, Joseph Yun, the US special representative for North Korea policy, told reporters in Tokyo.
Yun met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts Tuesday in Tokyo, and China’s main point man on North Korea was in town, in a sign diplomacy is still alive.
President Trump called all 100 senators to the White House for a briefing Wednesday on North Korea. And in New York, the UN Security Council scheduled a special ministerial meeting Friday to discuss further sanctions on the regime in Pyongyang.
But with increasingly provocative statements and actions coming from North Korea, the emphasis is on military deterrence.
The Navy destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer began maritime exercises Tuesday with a South Korean destroyer in the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula. Separately, the destroyer USS Fitzgerald was conducting drills with a Japanese destroyer in the Sea of Japan, east of the Korean Peninsula. The Navy said the USS Michigan, a guided-missile submarine, had arrived in Busan ‘‘for a regularly scheduled port visit.’’
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, with two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser, are expected to arrive off the peninsula in a few days.
The moves to set up the THAAD missile defense system have angered not only North Korea, but also China, which considers the system’s strong radars a security threat.
