North Korea test-fires what could be new kind of longer-range missile

The U.S. Pacific Command confirmed the test-firing, which it said took place around 5:30 a.m. at a site near Kusong, North Korea.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile flew for about 30 minutes, reaching an altitude of more than 2,000 km (1,245 miles) and was believed to have traveled some 800 km before falling into the Sea of Japan about 400 km outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said the launch, which was likely conducted at a steep “lofted” trajectory and hit the highest-ever altitude recorded by the Defense Ministry, could be of a “new type of ballistic missile.”

Later in the day, a senior Defense Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that even a ballistic missile with a range of about 1,300 km usually hits an altitude of several hundreds of kilometers at its highest point. The official said the “rather unusual” altitude means the missile could have been lofted, meaning Pyongyang may have intentionally fired it at the higher altitude to shorten its flying distance.

The Pacific Command, however, ruled out the test being one of a long-range missile capable of striking the U.S.

“The type of missile is being assessed and the flight was not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile,” Pacific Command spokesman Maj. Rob Shuford said in a statement.

Japan swiftly condemned the test-firing amid growing concern over the North’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.

“These repeated missile launches by North Korea are a grave threat to our country and are in clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters following the launch.

Calling the behavior “absolutely unacceptable,” Abe said further provocations by North Korea are expected. Abe said Japan will continue to work with the United States and South Korea to do all it can to ensure the public’s safety.

In Washington, the White House issued a statement condemning the North Korean “menace” and the United States’ “ironclad commitment” to its allies, Japan and South Korea.

But the statement also made an unusual reference to Russia, a member of the all-but-dead “six-party talks” aimed at dismantling the North’s nuclear program.

“With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil — in fact, closer to Russia than Japan — the president cannot imagine that Russia is pleased,” the statement said.

“Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea,” the statement added.

The reference to Moscow — ahead of U.S. allies — is likely to stoke concern amid investigations into interference in the 2016 presidential election.

It could also, however, be part of the White House strategy of piling “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang to rein in its nuclear and missile ambitions.

“The identification of Russia is indicative of Trump’s ‘all-in’ approach on North Korea and his desire to make it a top issue with all states in the region,” said J. Berkshire Miller, a Tokyo-based international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. “Clearly Russia is a key stakeholder here and remains — after China — a significant source of trade and cash for the regime in Pyongyang.”

Speaking in Beijing, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, was quoted as saying Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula, including the latest launch and expressed “mutual concerns” about growing tensions.

Putin is in Beijing for a conference on a plan for a new Silk Road. Delegations from the United States, South Korea and North Korea are also there.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference Sunday morning that Japan was analyzing the test-firing, noting that the missile had flown for as long as 30 minutes.

That flying time is much longer than past North Korean ballistic missile launches. For example, when Pyongyang fired a satellite launch version of the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile in February last year, it flew only for 14 minutes though it traveled as far as 2,500 km before falling into the Pacific Ocean.

Suga also said Japan is ready to “firmly cooperate with” the United States and South Korea in dealing with the North Korean military threat.

South Korea’s Moon has advocated for dialogue with Pyongyang, raising concerns among Japanese diplomats that he may take a conciliatory approach toward the North and could disturb trilateral cooperation among Tokyo, Seoul and Washington.

Asked about the concern, Suga emphasized to reporters that Seoul and Tokyo “have clearly confirmed that Japan and South Korea will firmly cooperate” in dealing with North Korean issues.

At the same time, Japan, South Korea and the United States “also need cooperation of China and Russia,” Suga added.

Later the same day, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, talked by telephone for 15 minutes, agreeing to “closely cooperate” and to “put pressure” on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and missile programs, Kishida told reporters.

Suga also said that because the missile was not a threat to Japan, the government had decided not to activate the government’s J-Alert emergency advisory system. The nationwide system provides rapid alerts from the central government to municipal authorities to facilitate speedy evacuations and other actions in the event of a disaster.

Moon on Sunday strongly condemned the test, describing it as a grave threat to regional security and a clear violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The launch came just days after Moon’s swearing-in, during which he said that he is willing to visit the North if circumstances are right.

U.S. President Donald Trump has also said he’d be “honored” to talk with leader Kim Jong Un under the right conditions.

On Saturday, the top North Korean diplomat in charge of U.S. relations, Choe Son Hui, said in Beijing that Pyongyang officials will be willing to meet with the Trump administration for negotiations “if the conditions are set.”

David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the flight time, if true, means the missile has a “considerably longer range” than any of the missiles currently in the North’s arsenal.

Wright said that if the missile had been flown on a standard trajectory instead of lofted, “it would have a maximum range of about 4,500 km.”

“That is considerably longer than the estimated range of the Musudan missile, which showed a range of about 3,000 km in a test last year,” he said.

Such a missile would put U.S. bases on Guam — which is 3,400 km from North Korea — within reach.

Reaching the U.S. West Coast would require a missile with a range of more than 8,000 km. Hawaii is roughly 7,000 km from North Korea.

Wright said Sunday’s launch may have been of a new mobile, two-stage liquid-fueled missile the North Korea showed off in a massive military parade on April 15.

Last month, the North conducted two tests of apparent intermediate-range missiles from a site near its eastern coast, but both launches ended in failure. It launched another missile just two weeks ago, on April 29, that failed just after liftoff.

There has been mounting speculation that Pyongyang will conduct an intercontinental ballistic missile test after Kim used a New Year’s Day address to claim that the North was in the “final stages” of developing such a weapon.

But while the new missile likely represented a breakthrough for the North, Wright said it still remains “a difficult technical step to increase the range to intercontinental distances.”

Pyongyang has conducted a spate of missile launches and two nuclear tests over the past year in violation of United Nations resolutions as it seeks to master the technology needed to mount a warhead on a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking the continental United States.

Shea Cotton, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, said the North has conducted 10 known missile tests this year — one more than the pace at the same point last year — and the 76th test since Kim took power in December 2011.

“With this launch appearing to be successful, Kim Jong Un’s overall missile test record is 59 successful, 17 failures. A .776 batting average,” Cotton wrote on Twitter.

These tests included the near-simultaneous firing of four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan in March — a move the North said was a rehearsal for attacking U.S. bases in Japan. Those missiles, three of which fell into Japan’s exclusive economic zone, flew about 1,000 km and were characterized by Abe as “a new level of threat.”

Missile experts said the hypothetical target of that drill appeared to be U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Observers said the undisguised threat to U.S. bases in Japan was rare, even for Pyongyang, which routinely serves up colorful invectives.

The U.S. Pacific Command said it detected and tracked the launch at 4:59 p.m. of a “medium-range ballistic missile” from near Pukchang, in the central portion of North Korea. It said the missile was tracked until it landed in the Sea of Japan.

According to the South Korean military, the missile flew some 500 km (over 300 miles), reaching an altitude of about 560 km (350 miles), the Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean military official as saying.

The launch was the latest in a spate of missile tests that have unnerved the United States and its Asian allies.

Abe said the country’s repeated missile launches “trample on the efforts by the international community” to work toward a peaceful solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Later Sunday, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said the missile fell in an area about 400 km from the Oki Islands in Shimane Prefecture and about 700 km from the Oga Peninsula in Akita Prefecture.

The altitude of about 560 km was not “unusually high” for a ballistic missile, Inada was quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

The government’s top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, told an emergency news conference earlier the same day that the missile landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, and that Tokyo “will never tolerate repeated provocations” by the North.

The launch “clearly violates” resolutions issued by the United Nations Security Council, and Tokyo has already filed a protest with the North Korean government, he said.

In response to the test, the government did not activate the J-Alert emergency advisory system, according to public broadcaster NHK. The nationwide system provides rapid alerts from the central government to municipal authorities to facilitate speedy evacuations and other actions in the event of a disaster.

The launch is the 11th test-firing by the country this year, according to a database compiled by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

White House officials traveling in Saudi Arabia with U.S. President Donald Trump said the missile had a shorter range than those launched during North Korea’s most recent tests, media reports said.

The missile test was the second in a week and is likely to complicate plans by new South Korean President Moon Jae-in as he looks for ways to reduce tensions on the peninsula. Moon pledged during his campaign to take a more moderate approach to dealing with Pyongyang.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said the tests are “reckless and irresponsible actions throwing cold water over the hopes and desires of this new government and the international community for denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea successfully launched a new intermediate-range missile on May 14 that experts say points to a significant advance in the reclusive nation’s progress toward mastering the technology needed to hit the continental United States with a long-range, nuclear-tipped missile.

The North has bragged that the missile test was aimed at verifying its capability of carrying “a large-size heavy nuclear warhead.” That missile was believed to have flown for about 30 minutes, reaching an altitude of more than 2,000 km (1,245 miles), according to the Defense Ministry in Tokyo. It was likely conducted at a steep “lofted” trajectory, hitting the highest-ever altitude recorded by the ministry.

Experts said the missile would have flown a distance of some 4,500 km if launched on a standard trajectory, enabling Pyongyang to reliably strike U.S. sites on Guam, some 3,400 km from North Korea.

Last month, the North conducted two tests of apparent intermediate-range missiles from a site near its eastern coast, but both launches ended in failure. It launched another missile on April 29 that failed just after liftoff.

There has been mounting speculation that Pyongyang would conduct a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un used a New Year’s Day address to claim that the country was in the “final stages” of developing such a weapon.

Duyeon Kim, a visiting senior fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul, said Sunday’s test was “another reminder that Pyongyang is bent on achieving a fully operational nuclear-missile capability regardless of the day-to-day occurrences in the world.”

Kim said that while the motivations for the latest test-firing was unclear, the launch was still an early challenge to South Korea’s Moon and his coordination with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump has vowed that a launch of an ICBM by Pyongyang “won’t happen” on his watch.

Abe’s strong leadership was initially welcomed by many who had grown weary of the succession of short-lived administrations. Yet, if there is a golden rule of politics, it is that power corrupts as hubris inflates leaders’ egos and they begin to conflate personal interests with those of the state. After five continuous years in office, Abe increasingly appears to be suffering from this affliction.

The most recent sign is the Kake Gakuen scandal in which Abe is alleged to have pressured the education ministry to approve the opening of a veterinary medicine department at a university run by his friend, Kotaro Kake. After an application period of just eight days, with Kake Gakuen being the sole applicant, the permit was the first issued in 52 years. On the basis of this approval, the school operator was given free land worth ¥3.68 billion, plus ¥9.6 billion in subsidies.

To make matters worse, the former vice education minister whose claims lend support to the accusations against Abe has been targeted by smear stories in the government-friendly Yomiuri Shimbun. This gives the impression that the Abe administration is seeking to cover up its influence peddling through the intimidation of witnesses.

This scandal bears a striking resemblance to the recent Moritomo Gakuen case in which it is alleged that another private educational establishment used its connections with the Abe family to purchase a plot of land for less than 15 percent of its appraised value. This earlier scandal is made worse by the fact that Moritomo Gakuen is a nationalist organization that promotes prewar educational values and has been accused of hate speech against Chinese and Koreans.

Although the final truth about these scandals has yet to be revealed, the recurrent allegations raise concerns that Abe has become too comfortable in office and has begun to use the instruments of power to benefit his cronies and further his own radical views. This tendency has no doubt been encouraged by the contemporary weakness of opposition parties and the timidity of much of the media.

Voters have a tendency to tolerate a degree of corruption as long as it is accompanied by economic growth. In the case of the Abe administration, however, the concern is that the pursuit of self-interest is distracting from the crucial task of rejuvenating the listless economy. The stated purpose of Abenomics was to use monetary easing and fiscal stimulus to create breathing space to implement needed structural reforms. Increasingly, however, it is becoming clear that this economic respite is being frittered away on Abe’s ideological mission to reshape the Japanese state.

A clear example of this is the government’s handling of the controversial conspiracy bill, which criminalizes the plotting and preparation of crimes even if they are never carried out. Applying to 277 types of crime, there are widespread concerns that the law will be used to justify widespread surveillance of activist groups, including labor unions and political parties. Despite public opposition and direct criticism from the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to privacy, the Abe administration high-handedly forced the bill through the Lower House on May 23.

Similar disregard for the views of others is evident in Abe’s attitude toward the Constitution. Although it is the Diet’s prerogative to initiate constitutional revision, on May 3 Abe declared that a new constitution should come into effect by 2020. He subsequently specified that it is his desire to amend Article 9, the current Constitution’s famous war-renouncing clause. This unilateral intervention caused consternation even within Abe’s own Liberal Democratic Party. The opposition Democratic Party was also incensed when Abe refused to answer questions on the issue in the Diet, dismissively telling them to read the interview he had given to the Yomiuri Shimbun.

The proposed timing of the amendment also reeks of egocentrism. While the prime minister weakly claimed that the change should be hurried through by 2020 to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics, it was clear to all that his priority is to enforce the first-ever change to the Constitution while he is still in office. There can be no clearer example of Abe’s willingness to put his own desire for legacy above the nation’s interests.

Having changed the LDP’s rules to permit him to run for party president for a third term, Abe could potentially continue as prime minister until September 2021. If this is the case, he is currently little over halfway through his stay in office. Given the whiff of corruption and arrogance already emanating from his administration, supporters of liberal democracy must worry about what the next four years portend.

James D.J. Brown is an associate professor and academic program coordinator for International Affairs, Temple University, Japan Campus.