A senior North Korean official is assuring Chinese tour operators that there will be no war on the Korean Peninsula, even while Pyongyang was cranking up its bellicose rhetoric.

Kim To-jun of the North's General Bureau of Tourism was visiting travel officials in Xian, China, getting them to agree to resume flights between that city and Pyongyang.  North Korea is cash-starved and really needs Chinese tourists to sign up with that weekly 5-day tour that starts every Monday.  The tour includes Pyongyang, the Kaesong Industrial Area, and other sights.

This is going on while North Korea has moved two missiles to the east coast for possible test launches that could send them over Japan, or to the south past the rest of the Korean peninsula.  There is also increased activity in the far northeastern nuclear weapons test site.

Meanwhile, Chinese troops are reportedly amassing quietly on the north side of the Yalu River that separates China from North Korea.  An unusual number of troops, tanks, and personnel carriers have been sighted in the city of Ji’an in Jilin Province.  China has warned all sides to keep calm and not to do anything to upset the apple cart in northern Asia.