In keeping with past practice, North Korea on Monday launched 3 test missiles into the Sea of Japan just as the G20 meeting in Hangzhou, China, had gotten started.
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South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reports that China may have providd North Korea with the submarine-launched ballistic missile the regime test-fired last week citing a U.S. weapons expert.
A senior US official called the launches “reckless” and a threat to civil aviation and local maritime commerce, and a USA statement strongly condemned the launches, which came as China, North Korea’s only global ally, hosted the G20 summit. “Today’s reckless launches by North Korea threaten civil aviation and maritime commerce in the region”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a written statement.
And in June, the North successfully tested a different medium-range missile that appeared to have been fired at a sharper angle, reaching an altitude of 878 miles, to demonstrate its potential to hit targets more than 2,000 miles away – far enough to reach US military bases in the Pacific.
North Korea has forced its way higher on the global diplomatic agenda this year with dozens of missile tests and a nuclear bomb detonation in January.
“Japan’s Foreign Ministry says Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approached South Korean President Park Gewn-hye during a coffee break at the G-20 and agreed to cooperate closely”.
From the summit, a senior USA official said the launch was “reckless” and could pose threats to civil aviation and maritime commerce in the region.
“He and I agree that there is really not any other missile that looks similar at all to this North Korean missile whereas the JL-1 looks like a carbon copy of it”, he said.
It appears the country was attempting to flex its military muscle as world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, continue to meet for the G20 summit in China. In response, South Korea said in July it would deploy a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, missile defense system from the U.S.by the end of 2017. Xi told Park that his country remains committed to “the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”. It has received no reports of damage from the North Korean missiles. Submarine-based missiles are harder to detect before launch than land-based ones like Rodongs. “The situation on the Korean Peninsula is very complex, and all sides should avoid action that could escalate the situation”. “Our commitment to the defense of our allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, is ironclad”.
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Delury says that while the Chinese “recognize that something has to be done about North Korea”, they view the THAAD system as “killing a chicken with an ax”.
