The threat of war is growing daily, with North Korea posing the greatest threat to world security, US national security adviser H.R. McMaster warned, as the North continued its rhetoric against Seoul and Washington.

In an interview with Fox News, McMaster said that North Korea is making progress in its long range ballistic missile program and that the international community must cooperate in convincing the North’s leader Kim Jong-un that his actions are headed to a “dead end.”

“What is clear is that every time, every time he conducts a missile launch and nuclear test, he gets better,” McMaster said in the interview.

“And whether it’s a success or failure isn’t as important as understanding that over the years, he’s been learning from failures, improving, and thereby increasing his threat to all of us.”

McMaster went on to say that China has “tremendous coercive economic power over North Korea,” and that Pyongyang’s longtime ally is changing its stance on North Korea.

According to McMaster, Beijing is “wholly committed” to the denuclearization of North Korea, and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed this stance during his recent meeting with US President Donald Trump.

He added that it is “in China’s urgent interest” to take measures that go beyond the UN Security Council resolutions in pressuring North Korea, and that completely cutting the country off from fuel is essential.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, continued to attack South Korea and the US, accusing the allies of increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula through their military drills.

In an editorial, North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun described the Vigilant Ace South Korea-US joint air drill as a “detonator” that could launch a nuclear war.

After its launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile Wednesday, Pyongyang claimed that its missile and nuclear programs have been completed. The latest missile is thought to be significantly more advanced than those of Pyongyang’s previous launches. North Korea said after its nuclear test in September that it had secured the technology to mount thermonuclear devices on ballistic missiles.

The editorial came a day after the North Korean Foreign Ministry released an official statement condemning the joint military exercise.

In the statement, the North Korean Foreign Ministry accused the US of increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula, and justified the country’s nuclear and missile programs as a means of defense.

“(The US) is engaging in (a) dangerous nuclear gamble on the Korean Peninsula, begging for a nuclear war,” the statement said.

“Nuclear armament is aimed at preventing and repulsing US attack on the republic (North Korea), and taking a retaliatory strike that will annihilate the origin of the attack.”

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)