PYONGYANG, North Korea: Despite North Korea’s warnings that the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula is so high it cannot guarantee the safety of foreign residents, it literally trotted out athletes from around the world on Sunday for a marathon through the streets of its capital — suggesting its concerns of an imminent military crisis might not be as dire as its official pronouncements proclaim.

As it prepares to celebrate its most important holiday of the year, the birthday of national founder Kim Il Sung on Monday, the mixed message — threats of a “thermonuclear war” while showcasing foreign athletes and even encouraging tourism — was particularly striking on Sunday.

Pyongyang crowds lined the streets to watch athletes from 16 nations compete in the 26th Mangyongdae Prize Marathon in the morning and then filled a performance hall for a gala concert featuring ethnic Korean performers brought in from China, Russia and Japan as part of a slew of a events culminating in Kim’s birthday — called the “Day of the Sun.”

After racing through the capital, the foreign athletes and hundreds of North Korean runners were cheered into Kim Il Sung Stadium by tens of thousands of North Korean spectators. North Korea’s official media said the marathon was larger than previous years and that enthusiasm was “high among local marathoners and their coaches as never before.”

“The feeling is like, I came last year already, the situation is the same,” said Taiwan’s Chang Chia-che, who finished 15th.

Showing off foreign athletes and performers as part of the birthday celebrations has a propaganda value that is part of Pyongyang’s motivation for highlighting the events to its public, even as it rattles its sabers to the outside world. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has said it could not vouch for the safety of foreigners, indicated embassies consider evacuation plans and urged foreigners residing in South Korea to get out as well.

But there does not appear to be much of a sense of crisis among the general population, either.

Pyongyang residents are mobilizing en masse for the events marking the birthday, rushing to tidy up streets, put new layers of paint on buildings and erect posters and banners hailing Kim, the grandfather of the country’s new dynastic leader, Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang’s statements are commonly marked by alarming hyperbole and it has not ordered the small number of foreigners who are here to leave. Several embassies in Pyongyang refused to comment on the suggestion they consider evacuating, referring questions back to their home countries. But there were no reports that any diplomatic missions had actually left.

Even so, its warning has heightened concerns in a region struggling to assess how seriously to take North Korea’s recent torrent of angry rhetoric over ongoing U.S.-South Korea military maneuvers just across the border. Officials in South Korea, the United States and Japan say intelligence indicates that, fresh off a successful nuclear test in February, North Korea’s leaders are ready to launch a new medium-range missile.

North Korea has also taken the unusual move of suspending work at the Kaesong factory complex on its side of the Demilitarized Zone, a major source of foreign currency and one of the last remaining symbols of inter-Korean rapprochement.

On Sunday, it rejected South Korea’s proposal to resolve tensions through dialogue. It said it has no intension of talking with Seoul unless it abandons what it called the rival South’s confrontational posture.

Secretary of State John Kerry, in the region to coordinate the response with U.S. allies and China, warned North Korea not to conduct a missile test, saying it will be an act of provocation that “will raise people’s temperatures” and further isolate the country and its people.

Kerry was in Tokyo on Sunday after meeting with Chinese leaders in Beijing on Saturday. In Tokyo, Kerry and Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, opened the door to direct talks with North Korea if certain conditions are met. Kerry said the U.S. was “prepared to reach out” to North Korea, but that Pyongyang must first lower tensions and honor previous agreements.

North Korea has issued no specific warnings to ships and aircraft that a missile test is imminent, and is also continuing efforts to increase tourism.

“We haven’t experienced any change,” said Andrea Lee, president and CEO of Uri Tours, which specializes in bringing tourists to North Korea. “They have been encouraging us to bring in more people.”

Lee said about 2,000-3,000 Western tourists visit North Korea each year and that the level is rising, though the recent tensions have sparked a significant number of cancellations. Air Koryo, North Korea’s flag-carrier, announced it is planning to add more regular passenger flights to and from Beijing, another sign that Pyongyang — while certainly not ready to throw open its doors — wants to make it easier for tourists to put North Korea on their travel itineraries.

“I never considered canceling,” said Sandra Cook, a retired economics professor from Piedmont, California, who planned her trip in November, before the tensions escalated. “I think it is a particularly interesting time to be here.”

With Lee as her guide, Cook and several other Americans and Canadians toured the North Korean side of the DMZ, Kaesong and a collective farm. She said that aside from the North Korean DMZ guides’ harsh portrayal of the “American imperialists'” role in the Korean War and on the peninsula today, she was surprised by the seeming calm and normalcy of what she has been allowed to see.

“The whole world is watching North Korea, and there we were yesterday peacefully strolling along the river in the sunshine. It’s surreal,” she said. “If you didn’t know about the tensions, you would never know it. You would think everything is fine. The place feels so ordinary.”

SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s point man on North Korea said Monday there is an “indication” that Pyongyang is preparing for a fourth nuclear test, a day after another Seoul official said a Pyongyang missile test may be in the works.

Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae told a parliamentary committee Monday that “there is such an indication” of nuclear test preparationsat Pyongyang’s site in the country’s northeast.

South Korean defense officials have said the North completed preparations for a nuclear test at two underground tunnels. The North used one tunnel for its last nuclear test Feb. 12. The second remains unused.

Either a nuclear test or a missile test would escalate tensions that have been rising for weeks on the Korean Peninsula, and would likely invite a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions over North Korea’s nuclear and rocket activity. The U.S. and South Korea have been raising their defense posture, and foreign diplomats were considering a warning from Pyongyang that their safety in North Korea could not be guaranteed beginning Wednesday.

Ryoo made his comment about a nuclear test in answering a lawmaker’s question about whether there had been increased personnel and vehicle activities at the North’s nuclear test site.

After Ryoo spoke, a ministry official said Pyongyang has been ready to conduct a nuclear test any time it wants. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

North Korea has unleashed a flurry of war threats and provocations over U.N. sanctions for its last nuclear test, and over ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills, which the allies say are routine but Pyongyang says is a preparation for a northward invasion.

North Korea’s warning to diplomats prompted South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s national security director to say that Pyongyang may be planning a missile launch or another provocation around Wednesday, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing.

During a meeting with other South Korean officials, the official, Kim Jang-Soo, also said the notice to diplomats and other recent North Korean actions are an attempt to stoke security concerns and to force South Korea and the U.S. to offer a dialogue. Washington and Seoul want North Korea to resume the six-party nuclear talks — which also include China, Russia and Japan — that it abandoned in 2009.

The roughly two dozen countries with embassies in North Korea appeared to be staying put, for now at least.

Sweden, which looks after U.S. interests in North Korea because Washington and North Korea lack diplomatic relations, and Brazil have no plans to withdraw any diplomats from Pyongyang at this stage, according to their foreign ministries Sunday. Brazil said it is keeping a close eye on the situation but at this time see no reason to change the decision. There has been no advisory that staff at the Egyptian Embassy will leave or suspend their work.

The Pentagon has strengthened missile defenses and made other decisions to combat the potential threat, and postponed a missile test, scheduled for this week in California, to avoid raising tensions further. U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said Sunday that he doesn’t believe North Korea will engage in military action soon, “but I can’t take the chance that it won’t.”

Dempsey said the U.S. has been preparing for further provocations or action, “considering the risk that they may choose to do something” on one of two nationally important anniversaries — April 15, the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, and April 25, the creation of the North Korean army.

Tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang led South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to announce Sunday that its chairman had put off a visit to Washington. The U.S. military said its top commander in South Korea had also canceled a trip to Washington.

The South Korean defense minister said Thursday that North Korea had moved a missile with “considerable range” to its east coast, possibly to conduct a test launch. His description suggests that the missile could be the Musudan missile, capable of striking American bases in Guam with its estimated range of up to 4,000 kilometers (2,490 miles).

Amid North Korea’s threats and warnings, it has blocked South Korean workers and cargo from entering its Kaesong industrial complex, where South Korean companies have employed thousands of North Korean workers for the past decade.

North Korea is not forcing South Korean managers to leave the factory complex, and about 500 of them remained at Kaesong on Monday. But the entry ban at the park, the last remaining inter-Korean rapprochement project, is posing a serious challenge to many of the more than 120 South Korean firms there because they are running out of raw materials and are short on replacement workers. More than a dozen of the companies have stopped their operations in Kaesong.

A high-level North Korean official visited the industrial zone on Monday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. It said that Kim Yang Gon, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, blamed South Korea for making it impossible to operate to zone as usual.

South Korea’s finance minister, Hyun Oh-seok, said Monday that it is “quite ridiculous” for North Korea to be closing the border at Kaesong. “North Korea has nothing to gain from this kind of things,” he said at a news briefing.

SEOUL, South Korea: For the past decade, the world’s most powerful nations have turned to sanctions in an attempt to punishNorth Korea for a series of rocket launches and nuclear tests. Their stated goal: to stop North Korea’s march toward acquiring an arsenal of nuclear-armed long-range missiles.

The sanctions, however, have failed to slow Pyongyang down. It conducted a third nuclear test Tuesday despite warnings of more international punishment.

Once again countries are looking to the United Nations to tighten already harsh multilateral sanctions.

But the U.S. and its allies will also consider boosting their own national penalties against North Korean companies and individuals.

Here’s a look at these countries’ current non-U.N. sanctions and the reasons why many argue that for any real change to happen in North Korea, a reluctant China must also embrace tough, unilateral penalties against its ally.

CHINA

China is seen as the only major power with any real influence on North Korea as it pursues nuclear weapons. It provides most of North Korea’s fuel, a good deal of its food and accounts for an increasing share of its trade and investment.

But despite recurring nuclear and missile tests by Pyongyang, Beijing has been reluctant to take unilateral action against a neighbor it sees as a valuable buffer between U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and Japan.

“China can make a difference,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul. “The question is whether it will make a difference.”

Beijing’s current options range from issuing harsh condemnation to supporting sterner U.N. sanctions, something it did after the North launched a rocket in December that the U.N. said was a cover for a banned missile test.

But many outsiders are pushing for more, including calls for China to restrict its food and fuel aid.

Beijing, for example, could turn “off the spigot of the Daqing pipeline that supplies (North Korea) with much of its oil, as Beijing did nearly a decade ago in March 2003,” according to Elizabeth Economy, an Asia specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But Kim Dong-gil, deputy director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies of Peking University, said that although China will likely sign on to whatever measures are agreed upon at the U.N., he strongly doubts China will take unilateral action against the North.

China’s “unpleasant choice,” Lankov said, is “between a nuclear, relatively stable North Korea, and a non-nuclear but unstable North Korea.” For China, political collapse in North Korea “is a greater evil than North Korea’s nuclear adventures.”

Still, there is growing disgust among the government and the public in China with Pyongyang’s behavior.

The nuclear test, which took place less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Chinese border, was widely criticized on China’s popular Twitter-like Weibo microblogging service, with users calling it anti-social and urging the government to reconsider its assistance to the Pyongyang.

“Can China really allow this insane country to have nuclear weapons,” wrote a user identified as Little Eagle King.

UNITED STATES

The U.S. does not maintain a comprehensive embargo against North Korea, as is sometimes presumed, and Americans are still free to travel there.

But legislation and executive orders, some dating back six decades, strictly regulate trade and aid, and assets are blocked for dozens of sanctioned North Korean companies, government agencies and individuals.

Washington is considered a sanctions trailblazer.

“Attention will now turn to Washington to see if the Obama administration lives up to its promise of significant repercussions if Pyongyang so blatantly and quickly disregards the latest U.N. resolution,” said Bruce Klingner, a former U.S. intelligence official and now a North Korea analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.

Justification for U.S. restrictions includes Cold War-era legislation that regulates U.S. dealings with communist countries, worries about the spread of weapons of mass destruction and North Korea’s poor record on human rights, religious freedom and human trafficking.

Trade between the countries is minimal. U.S. companies can export to North Korea, but have to apply for a license to do so.

For nearly all items, other than food and medicine, there is a presumption the request will be denied, according to a 2011 report by the Congressional Research Service. There are tight controls on access to computers and software. Arms transfers and sales are forbidden.

The Treasury Department must approve any imports from North Korea, and weighs all requests on proliferation concerns and on questions of who might profit. Transfers from the North Korean government itself are generally prohibited. Using a North Korea-flagged vessel for any transaction is prohibited.

The U.S. blocks North Korea from receiving support from international financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Aid from the U.S. itself is also heavily restricted. North Korea is barred from government programs offering credit and investment guarantees.

The U.S. blocks assets and business transactions with individuals and entities on a sanctions list maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control because of their suspected involvement with North Korea in weapons proliferation and other arms-related material, money laundering, counterfeiting, narcotics trafficking and trade in luxury goods.

Klingner called for Washington to set up more unilateral sanctions against not only North Korean entities but also “all those other banks, businesses and government agencies of other countries that have facilitated North Korea’s behaviors. Washington needs to call upon other nations to match our efforts.”

SOUTH KOREA

Seoul slapped independent sanctions on rival Pyongyang after the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul blames on Pyongyang. North Korea denies involvement in the sinking, which killed 46 South Koreans.

Those measures banned North Korean ships from entering South Korean waters, slashed cross-border trade, restricted South Koreans from traveling to North Korea, and prohibited additional investment in North Korea. Humanitarian aid was drastically cut, except for certain cases, including that for infants and other vulnerable people. Travel restrictions have been eased in some cases.

South Korea also bans luxury items from being shipped into North Korea. That includes liquor, cosmetics, leather goods, fur products, carpets, jewelry, electronics, vehicles, boats, optical equipment, watches, musical instruments and antiques.

Seoul says it is open to all possibilities but isn’t currently mulling new unilateral sanctions and believes the 2010 penalties are putting pressure on North Korea.

JAPAN

Japan bans exchanges of people, goods, ships and flights between the two countries. In principle, noNorth Korean citizens are allowed to visit, while Japanese are asked to abstain from traveling to North Korea.

Tokyo also limits the amount of cash that can be carried to North Korea to 100,000 yen, while payments of 3 million yen or more must be reported to the government. Japan also bars North Koreans from receiving technical education and training related to sensitive nuclear technology.

A government official, who requested not to be identified because the information was not given through formal disclosure procedures, said Tokyo will follow the lead of other major nations in determining any further sanctions.

“We believe that action taken by the Council should be prudent, measured, proportionate and conducive to stability,” Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said after the vote.

The decision by China, North Korea’s biggest ally and economic supporter, to approve the U.N. resolution — including sanctions — may reflect frustration on Beijing’s part toward its neighbor, analysts said. In the past, China has vetoed applying sanctions for past provocations.

“China has limited influence with North Korea,” Zhang Liangui, a researcher with the ruling Communist Party’s main research and training institute, said in Beijing. “Beijing disapproves of any nuclear test or new missile launch, but there’s not a lot it can do.”

China’s support for the resolution, with targeted sanctions, signals that it agrees that North Korea’s launch was a test of its ballistic missile technology, but it is still trying to protect the ally.

“China is striking a balance here. It wants to punish North Korea for the latest launch and tell it not to undertake a new ballistic missile launch. But it doesn’t want to put unbearable pressure on Pyongyang,” said Shen Dingli, a regional security expert and director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University.