SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans' stomachs are the latest front in the standoff with North Korea.

South Koreans have been told not to eat at North Korea's restaurants around the world, although such visits aren't illegal, the South's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Most of the restaurants are in China, and Chinese and other nationalities frequent them more than South Koreans do, so analysts see little impact. But the move is symbolic of a tougher stance from the South since North Korea's nuclear test last month and its recent rocket launch, which many outsiders see as a banned test of ballistic missile technology.

Washington and Seoul have been calling for more stringent financial and trade sanctions against Pyongyang. President Park Geun-hye has taken a much harder line than during past standoffs with the North, closing a jointly run factory park that the South believes helped finance Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program. Park on Tuesday also warned of "regime collapse" in the North, formerly a taboo subject in the South, which cherishes the notion of an eventual peaceful reunification on the peninsula that was divided at the end of World War II by the Soviet Union and the United States.

A man walks past a branch of the North Korean-operated Haedanghwa restaurant in Beijing, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press

North Korea runs about 130 restaurants in other countries — about 100 in China and the others in Russia, Southeast and South Asia, according to a South Korean National Intelligence Service official who didn't want to be named, citing office rules. South Korean officials wouldn't say how many South Koreans visit those restaurants or how much money the businesses generate for North Korea, reportedly more than USD$100 million (3.5 billion baht) annually.

Restaurants such as Beijing's Okryukwan, known for its cold buckwheat noodles and grilled marinated beef, have been popular among some South Korean leisure and business travelers.

Story: Kim Tong-Hyung / Associated Press

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MONG ARK, Myanmar — On a freshly scarred battlefield, a diehard rebel army is facing off at gunfire range against a military that for decades has imposed iron-fisted rule over this Southeast Asian nation. Overhead, vultures circle the mountainous terrain while insurgent soldiers crouch near deep foxholes, prepared, they say, to throw back another possible assault.

Myanmar's civil war – the longest in modern world history – hasn't ended, even with democracy triumphant in recent elections and the winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, pledging to end hostilities between the central government and a host of autonomy-seeking ethnic minorities. Prospects for stopping the bloodshed are balanced on a knife's edge.

Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy swept November's elections, has promised that bringing peace will be the top priority when her government assumes power April 1. "We will try for the all-inclusive ceasefire agreement," the Noble Prize laureate said recently. "We can do nothing without peace in our country."

But suspicions of the country's military were again aroused as it battled the Shan State Army-North in these remote hills of northeastern Myanmar just as voters were casting their ballots across the country. As the countdown to democracy proceeds, so do clashes with the Kachin Independence Army, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and others.

Rebel fighters of Shan State Army North stand close to a wood fire on Feb. 5 after participating in morning drills in Wan Hai, an area under their control in northeastern Shan state, Myanmar. Photo: Esther Htusan / Associated Press
 

The rebel armies represent various ethnic groups that for decades have been fighting for autonomy while resisting "Burmanization," a push by the Burman ethnic majority to propagate its language, religion and culture in ethnic minority regions.

"No, no, no we don't trust them," Shan army Maj. Gen. Hso Hten said of Myanmar's military, vowing they would only lay down their arms if their goals were fully implemented, the foremost of which is a federal system in which ethnic minorities are granted genuine autonomy. That would include use of ethnic languages in schools and greater control over forests, hydro-power and other natural resources.

During the battles in Shan state, which ended with a fragile ceasefire at the end of November, government jet fighters and helicopter gunships strafed and bombed military and civilian targets. They swept into villages, driving more than 10,000 from homes they looted and sometimes destroyed, according to refugee and Shan army accounts.

Both sides accuse one another of sparking yet another round of warfare in an insurgency that erupted in the early 1960s among the Shan, the largest of 135 officially recognized ethnic minorities that make up 40 percent of the population. The first uprising, that of the Karen, was launched 67 years ago, shortly after the country's 1948 independence from Great Britain, followed by numerous others.

The generals ceded power to a military-backed government in 2011, paving the way for the recent elections. But the armed forces remain the country's most powerful institution, stoking fears they will take orders not from the elected government but their commander-in-chief.

A rebel fighter of Shan State Army North adjusts his equipment Feb. 4 as another soldier follows, at rear, to the front line in Mong Ark, an area under their control in northeastern Shan state, Myanmar. Photo: Esther Htusan / Associated Press

Hso Hten, who joined rebel ranks in 1958, expressed some hope in Suu Kyi's future government, given her overwhelming popular support.

"We are compelled to trust her because we don't have any choice," said the 80-year-old general in an interview in the town of Wan Hai from which his rebel army says it commands more than 10,000 troops and 18,000 square miles (46,600 square kilometers) of territory.

Like the other major insurgencies — notably the Kachin and Karen — this Shan group is not a classic guerrilla outfit swooping down from jungle hideouts but more akin to a state within a state. It runs 28 departments, including health and agriculture, schools, a hospital and orphanage, and even issues its own vehicle license plates.

The Shan treasury, which gathers revenue from taxes on residents, can purchase weaponry on the black markets of China, Thailand and Cambodia. Some groups in the Shan State and elsewhere in Myanmar have traditionally financed their insurgencies through drug trafficking.

On the frontline, some 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Wan Hai, soldiers wield everything from Czech pistols to U.S.-made grenade launchers from the Vietnam War. A 24-hour alert is in force, and at night the soldiers observe the campfires of the Burmese military dug into a range of undulating hills.

The fighters sleep burrowed into tiny molehill-like shelters camouflaged against aerial attacks by withered brown leaves. Use of airpower is a recent development in the fighting, and some powerful ordnance appears to have been dropped: one bomb crater measured some 1.5 meters (5 feet) in depth.

The soldiers talk of combat in October and November that killed 70 of their comrades. They file past a shattered house where they killed a Burmese commander with a rocket-propelled grenade. A few meters (yards) away, stretching across a beautiful valley carpeted by terraced rice fields, begins a no-man's land sown with mines.

"We have this small piece of territory and want to live in peace but they still come and attack us," said Lt. Sao Mong. "They are all over these mountains. If they don't intend to attack again why are they still here, why don't they withdraw?"

The Shan State Army-North, one of two main Shan rebel armies, refused to sign a ceasefire agreement last October between the government and eight insurgent groups. But none of the more than 20 armed insurgencies have given up their weapons. The Shan general said the armed groups in total field some 100,000 soldiers, although analysts believe the figure may be less.

"The government has always said, 'Put down your guns and we will talk politics,' while the insurgents said, 'Let's talk politics and then we will put down our guns, maybe.' That issue is still there," says David Steinberg, an American author of several books on Myanmar.

Suu Kyi's party promise to expunge the legacy of nearly seven decades of hatred, suspicion and blood may prove difficult.

While some rebel groups have committed unlawful acts, including the recruitment of boy soldiers, international agencies, the United Nations and others have over several decades detailed widespread rape, torture and extra-judicial killings of civilians, even crucifixions, by the military. Villagers have been used as human minesweepers. More than half a million people have been driven from their homes just in eastern Myanmar.

The former government acknowledged that some atrocities did occur while its forces were fighting what it called "terrorist organizations." But nobody has been brought to justice, Suu Kyi has announced no plans to do so and the military continues to operate in its former fashion, although the scale of atrocities appears to have lessened.

"We ran away with only the clothes we were wearing. We are afraid to go back," said Pa Phit, a 45-year-old woman who fled with all other 60 residents when government troops entered Ho Nam village while firing their guns. "We have nothing left, not even a small spoon."

Among more than 1,400 refugees encamped on a bare hilltop was 102-year-old Nai Nang, carried over the hills by grandchildren after the troops occupied her village.

With such acts, the insurgents do not lack for fresh recruits to their cause, even if a private in the Shan army earns just $8 a month.

"We have been facing injustice, bullying and oppression since I was young," said Sao Siha as he walked around a Wan Hai monastery where damage from mortars and air-launched rockets had been freshly repaired.

After years of witnessing killings of innocent people, he finally had enough when in October the military attacked his town of Maing Naung. The abbot of a Buddhist monastery and a monk for 36 of his 45 years, Sao Siha made what he said was a wrenching decision – to exchange his robes for a Shan army uniform.

"I wanted to take action against injustice," he said. "I had no choice."

Story: Denis D. Gray / Associated Press

Additional reporting Esther Htusan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan said Wednesday that China had positioned anti-aircraft missiles on a disputed South China Sea island, as Australia's foreign minister began talks in Beijing expected to deal with tensions over China's moves to assert its maritime claims.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said in a statement it had "grasped that Communist China had deployed" an unspecified number of missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel group. The Philippines said the development increased regional tensions.

The move would follow China's building of new islands in the disputed sea by piling sand atop reefs and then adding airstrips and military installations. They are seen as part of Beijing's efforts to claim virtually the entire South China Sea and its resources, which has prompted some of its wary neighbors to draw closer to the U.S.

The most dramatic work has taken place in the Spratly Island group, where the militaries of four nations have a presence, although similar work has also gone on at Woody and other Chinese holdings in the Paracels.

"The military will pay close attention to subsequent developments," the Taiwanese ministry statement said. Relevant parties should "work together to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea region to refrain from any unilateral measure that would increase tensions," the statement added.

U.S. network Fox News also said China had moved surface-to-air missiles to the Paracels, identifying them as two batteries of the HQ-9 system, along with radar targeting arrays. The missiles have a range of about 200 kilometers making them a threat to all forms of civilian and military aircraft.

Called Yongxingdao by China, Woody island is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. Along with an artificial harbor, it boasts an airport, roads, army posts and other buildings and recent satellite imagery appears to show it is adding a helicopter base likely dedicated to anti-submarine warfare missions.

Taiwan and China claim almost the whole 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea, including the Paracel chain. Vietnam and the Philippines claim much of the ocean, as well. Brunei and Malaysia have smaller claims.

Home to some of the world's busiest sea lanes, the ocean is also rich in fisheries and may hold oil and natural gas reserves under the seabed.

Foreign Reaction

China's move is likely to rattle Vietnam the most because of its proximity to the Paracels and because of a history of maritime tensions with China that spiked in 2014 with a standoff after China moved a massive oil rig into disputed waters.

Neither Bishop nor Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi mentioned the South China Sea directly during opening statements ahead of their talks.

In comments Monday to Japanese broadcaster NHK, Bishop said Australia — like the U.S. — does not take sides on the issue of sovereignty, but urges all parties to "exercise restraint, de-escalate tensions and not act in a way that would inflame the situation."

"Australia has called on all parties to cease reclamation, construction work and any militarization of the islands," Bishop said.

China regards Australia and the U.S. as unwelcome outside interlopers in regional waters. Wang and Bishop engaged in a testy exchange in December 2013 after Australia criticized China's unilateral declaration of an air defense zone in the East China Sea.

Ahead of Bishop's visit, President Barack Obama and the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations called Tuesday for the peaceful resolution of the region's maritime disputes.

Obama told a news conference that disputes must be resolved by legal means, including a case brought by the Philippines challenging China's sweeping claims over most of the South China Sea.

China has refused to take part in the proceedings, but Obama said parties to the U.N. law of the seas are obligated to respect the ruling, expected later this year.

Obama also accepted an offer to make a May visit to Vietnam, further strengthening a reconciliation between former foes driven largely by concerns over China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei reiterated Tuesday that China considered the legal proceedings initiated by the Philippines to be illegitimate and said they would "never be accepted by China."

China was deploying "necessary national defense facilities" on its territory, Hong said. He said Australia should be remain unbiased and refrain from doing anything to undermine regional stability.

Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the deployment of missiles on Woody Island "increases tensions in the South China Sea."

In Vietnam, about 100 people gathered to commemorate the start of a brief but bloody 1979 invasion by Chinese forces chanted "down with the aggressors," and "Hoang Sa, Truong Sa," the Vietnamese terms for the Paracel and Spratly islands.

Analysts say China's military moves in the South China Sea are primarily aimed at intimidating the Philippines and Vietnam, while solidifying its hold on the islands and boosting its ability to project force.

That is meanwhile strengthening those in the U.S., especially in the Pentagon, who "will want to more vigorously challenge China," said Thomas Berger, an expert on the region at Boston University.

The new bases are also highly vulnerable to U.S. attack in a conflict and the U.S. will continue to defy Beijing by sailing its Navy ships inside China's claimed territorial waters, said Edward N. Luttwak, a China expert and military strategist based in the U.S. state of Maryland.

"China, under President Xi Jinping, continues to work hard to endow the U.S. with allies all around its periphery," Luttwak said.

Story: Ralph Jennings and Christopher Bodeen / Associated Press