“The white paper issued on August 2, full of hackneyed expressions, distorts China’s justified and reasonable defense work, heightening issues in the South China Sea and the East China Sea”, China’s defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
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The first missile fired Wednesday exploded soon after launch.
Japan said the one missile had landed 155 miles off its northern coast and within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
It was the first time a North Korean missile has been fired direct into Japanese waters.
Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe said the test launch posed a grave threat to the country’s security and that Tokyo had protested strongly against it. Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman.
Seoul and Washington officials said they need the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system to better cope with what they call North Korea’s increasing military threats. North Korea called the system a provocation that it says is only aimed at bolstering USA military hegemony in the region.
The launches came after North Korea threatened “physical action” in response to the planned deployment of a sophisticated US anti-missile system in South Korea, and just weeks before the start of annual joint South Korea-US military exercises.
“We need to increase the layers of air and missile defense to counter the growing arsenal of missiles in North Korea”, Brooks said during a keynote speech at a meeting of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank. After the missile tests in July, North Korea’s state media showed Kim seated before a map of the region with all of South Korea within missile range.
Hyon Kwang Il, director of the scientific research department at the North’s National Aerospace Development Administration, told The Associated Press last week that Pyongyang’s military had mastered “the main and core techniques in long-range ballistic missile technology, including the starter engine technology, how to separate the different stages, guidance control techniques and re-entry and it’s all ready to be operational”. The Scud missile has a range of about 300 to 1,000 km. A Rodong fired in March flew about 800 kilometers (500 miles) while two other Rodongs launched in 2014 flew about 650 kilometers (400 miles).
The US Strategic Command said North Korea had fired two presumed Rodong missiles simultaneously.
Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula since the January nuclear test. The twoKoreas remain technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.
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US and South Korean officials insist the THAAD is necessary to guard against the growing threat from North Korea.
