Missiles from North Korea, Tokyo: “An indignation that cannot be forgiven”

BEIJING — Following yesterday’s exchange of launches between the two Koreas with the 23 missiles launched Pyongyang – Record in one day – the North started shooting again this morning. Alarms triggered in some Japanese cities.

At least three ballistic missiles were fired: two at close range and one suspect Icbm (an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead), which Japan initially said it had overflown its territory just to correct it. The South Korean army reports that the launch of the latter missile failed. However, in three Japanese prefectures, Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata, evacuation alarms rang this morning, television programs were interrupted to tell people to take cover.

“The repeated missile launches from North Korea are a scandal and absolutely unforgivable,” says the Japanese prime minister. Fumio Kishida. Also condemned by Use and South Korea: “deplorable and immoral,” say South Korean Deputy Secretary of State Cho Hyun-dong and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. According to the South Korean military, the long-range missile flew about 760 km at a maximum altitude of 1,920 km. Those in short range for 330 km with a maximum altitude of 70 km.

The feat of Kim Jong Un When South Korea and the US arrive, the largest air exercises of all time have begun Vigilant Storm, which will last until tomorrow. Exercises that Pyongyang has always seen as a provocation and the prelude to an invasion. “The North Koreans are trying to keep up to show they are capable of waging nuclear war,” Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told NkNews. there yesterday North Korea fired 23 rockets, record. And for the first time, one fell south of the Northern Boundary Line (Nll), just 57 kilometers east of the South Korean coast.

What does Marshal Kim hope to achieve? The escalation serves Kim to test the weapons in his arsenal and send the message that missile development is a “sovereign right” that should be accepted by the rest of the world. The strengthening is a way for Kim to put pressure on Washington and Seoul in particular to accept his country as a nuclear state, an acknowledgment the dictator says is necessary to achieve – at least in part – the lifting of international sanctions. However, the Marshal has no intention of denuclearizing: he knows that his arsenal is his “life insurance”. The proof came two months ago with the new law allowing Pyongyang to “preventively” attack “enemy forces”. It’s a scheme that Kim has already used in the past, in 2010 and 2017: first to escalate tensions to very worrying levels, then to demand commitment and concessions from South Korea, Japan and the United States.

With the US distracted by the Ukraine issue, Kim is raising the bar — he feels “forgotten” by the West — shifting the focus to that part of the world and making East Asia’s security dynamics even more precarious. Unlike five years ago, however, the international situation changed at the time of the last major North Korean escalation: the new balance created by the Russian war in Ukraine; the new White House and Blue House administrations in Seoul, where the “hawk” Yoon Suk-yeol arrived after the mandate of the more talkative Moon Jae-in; the intensification of alliances between the US, South Korea and Japan; and Tokyo’s “more active” role on the global stage. Marshal Kim must also take this into account.