Massive but muted
North Korea tones down on show of might at anniversary parade
Participants waving flowers as they march past a balcony, from where North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un is seated, during a mass rally in Pyongyang which left out weapons of mass destruction at the nation’s 70th birthday celebrations. —
Pyongyang: Thousands of North Korean troops paraded through Pyongyang as the nuclear-armed country celebrated its 70th birthday, followed by artillery and tanks, but it refrained from displaying the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that have seen it hit with sanctions.
Instead leader Kim Jong-un showed off his friendship with China, raising the hand of President Xi Jinping’s envoy as they saluted the crowd together afterwards.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the North is officially known, was proclaimed on Sept 9, 1948, three years after Moscow and Washington divided the peninsula between them in the closing days of the Second World War.
Such set-piece dates are a mainstay of the North’s political calendar, particularly when round numbers are involved, and have long been occasions for showing off its latest hardware.
But too militaristic a display might have risked upsetting the recent diplomatic dalliance on the peninsula, after Kim’s Singapore meeting with US President Donald Trump in June and his third summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in due in Pyongyang this month.
After a 21-gun salute, dozens of infantry units marched through Kim Il-sung Square, some in night-vision goggles or wielding rocket-propelled grenade launchers, as the current leader – the founder’s grandson – looked on from a rostrum.
Li Zhanshu, one of the seven members of the Chinese Communist party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s most powerful body, sat next to him, the two of them occasionally exchanging comments.
Armoured personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers and tanks followed, with biplanes flying over-
head in a “70” formation.
At one point, jets trailing red, white and blue smoke – the colours of the North Korean flag – roared above the Juche Tower, the stone monument to Kim Il-sung’s political philosophy.
Finally came the missiles, the traditional climax of the parades. But the only ones on show were the blue Kumsong-3, an anti-ship cruise missile, and the Pongae-5 surfaceto-air weapon.
There was no sign of the Hwasong-14 and -15 missiles that can reach the mainland United States and changed the strategic balance when they were first tested
last year.
“It looks like the North Koreans really tried to tone down the military nature of this,” said Chad O’Carroll, managing director of Korea Risk Group.
“There was no display of ICBMs, IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic missiles), which would really not have sat well with the whole idea that North Korea is committed to ultimate denuclearisation. So I think it will be well received.”
Immediately after the parade thousands of citizens walked through the square, escorting floats displaying economic themes and calls for Korean reunification. In April, Kim declared that the North’s development of nuclear weapons had been completed and “socialist economic construction” would be the new strategic priority.
In warm sunshine the marchers waved bouquets and flags and chanted “Long live” to the leader.
Washington is seeking the “final, fully verified denuclearisation of North Korea”, while Pyongyang has only publicly affirmed its commitment to working towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, a euphemism open to interpretation on both sides, and the process has become bogged down in recent weeks. —