100 days of unreality
Standoff continues as Trump administration feels it is running out of time America is left in a difficult position after its bid to deal with North Korea via diplomacy at the UN is met with another failed ballistic missile test. Running the ruler over the
ANorth Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch yesterday, South Korea and the United States said – the third test-fire flop this month alone, but a clear message of defiance as a US supercarrier conducts drills in nearby waters.
North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North’s push for a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the US mainland. The latest test came as US officials pivoted from a hard line to diplomacy at the UN, in an effort to address what may be Washington’s most pressing foreign policy challenge.
US President Donald Trump said on Twitter, ‘‘North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!’’ He did not answer reporters’ questions about the missile launch upon returning to the White House from a day trip to Atlanta.
North Korea did not immediately comment on the launch, though its state media reiterated the country’s goal of being able to strike the continental US.
The timing of the test was striking. Only hours earlier, the UN Security Council held a ministerial meeting on Pyongyang’s escalating weapons programme. North Korean officials boycotted the meeting, which was chaired by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile flew for several minutes and reached a maximum height of 71 kilometres before it apparently failed.
It did not immediately provide an estimate of how far the missile flew, but a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was likely a mediumrange KN-17 ballistic missile. It broke up a few minutes after the launch.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, speaking after a meeting of Japan’s National Security Council, said the missile was believed to have travelled about 50km and to have fallen on an inland part of North Korea.
Analysts say the KN-17 is a new Scudtype missile developed by North Korea. The North fired the same type of missile on April 16, just a day after a massive military parade where it showed off its expanding missile arsenal, but US officials called that launch a failure.
Some analysts say a missile the North test-fired on April 5, which US officials identified as a Scud variant, also might have been a KN-17. US officials said that missile spun out of control and crashed into the sea.
Moon Seong-mook, a South Korean analyst and former military official, said the North would gain valuable knowledge even from failed launches as it continued to improve its missile technology. The South Korean and Japanese assessments of yesterday’s launch indicated that the North fired the missile from a higher-than-normal angle to prevent it from flying too far, he said.
‘‘They could be testing a variety of things, such as the thrust of the rocket engine or the separation of stages. A failure is a failure, but that doesn’t mean the launch was meaningless.’’
The two earlier launches were conducted from an eastern coastal area, but yesterday’s missile was fired in the west, from an area near Pukchang, just north of the capital, Pyongyang.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry denounced yesterday’s launch as an A failure is a failure, but that doesn’t mean the launch was meaningless. ‘‘obvious’’ violation of UN resolutions and the latest display of North Korea’s ‘‘belligerence and recklessness’’.
‘‘We sternly warn that the North Korean government will continue to face a variety of strong punitive measures issued by the UN Security Council and others if it continues to reject denuclearisation and play with fire in front of the world,’’ the ministry said.
The North routinely test-fires a variety of ballistic missiles, despite UN prohibitions, as part of its weapons development. While shorter-range missile launches are somewhat routine, there is strong outside worry about each longer-range test.
Yesterday’s launch comes at a point of particularly high tension.
Trump has sent a nuclear-powered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to Korean waters, and North Korea this week conducted largescale, live-fire exercises on its eastern coast.
The US and South Korea also started installing a missile defence system, which is supposed to be partially operational within days.
At the UN, the US and China offered starkly different strategies for addressing North Korea’s escalating nuclear threat, as Tillerson demanded full enforcement of economic sanctions on Pyongyang and urged new penalties.
Stepping back from suggestions of US military action, he even offered aid to North Korea if it ends its nuclear weapons programme.
The range of Tillerson’s suggestions, which over a span of 24 hours also included restarting negotiations, reflected America’s failure to halt North Korea’s nuclear advances despite decades of US-led sanctions, military threats and stop-and-go rounds of diplomatic engagement.
As the North approaches the capability to hit the US mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile, the Trump administration feels it is running out of time.
Chairing a ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council, Tillerson declared that ‘‘failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences’’.
His ideas included a ban on North Korean coal imports and preventing its overseas guest laborers, a critical source of government revenue, from sending money home.
He also warned of unilateral US moves against international firms conducting banned business with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes, which could ensnare banks in China, the North’s primary trading partner.
Illustrating the international gulf over how best to tackle North Korea, several foreign ministers on the 15-member council expressed fears of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, which was divided between the American-backed South and communist North even before the 1950-53 Korean War. The conflict ended with no formal peace treaty.
While danger always has lurked, tensions have escalated dramatically as the North’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, has expanded a nuclear arsenal his government says is needed to avert a US invasion.
No voice at yesterday’s session was more important than that of China, a conduit for 90 per cent of North Korea’s commerce and a country Trump is pinning hopes on for a peaceful resolution to the nuclear crisis.
Trump, who recently hosted President Xi Jinping for a Florida summit, has sometimes praised the Chinese leader for a newfound cooperation to crack down on North Korea, and has sometimes threatened a go-it-alone US approach if Xi fails to deliver.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would adhere to past UN resolutions and wanted a denuclearised peninsula. But he spelled out no further punitive steps his government might consider, despite Tillerson’s assertions in an interview hours ahead of the council meeting that Beijing would impose sanctions of its own if North Korea conducts another nuclear test.
Wang put forward a familiar Chinese idea to ease tensions: North Korea suspending its nuclear and missile activities if the US and South Korea stop military exercises in the region. Washington and Seoul reject the idea.
Tillerson said the US was not seeking regime change in North Korea, and he signalled American openness to holding direct negotiations with Pyongyang.
The US also could resume aid to North Korea once it ‘‘begins to dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile technology programmes’’, he said. Since 1995, Washington has provided more than US$1.3 billion to the impoverished country.
But the prospects for any more US money going there appear bleak. Even negotiations don’t seem likely.
Tillerson said the North had to take ‘‘concrete steps’’ to reduce its weapons threat before talks could occur.
Six-nation nuclear negotiations with North Korea stalled in 2009. The Obama administration sought to resurrect them in 2012, but a deal to provide food aid in exchange for a nuclear freeze soon collapsed.
‘‘In a nutshell, [North Korea] has already declared not to attend any type of talks which would discuss its nuclear abandonment, nuclear disbandment,’’ said Kim In-ryong, North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador. His government declined to attend the security council meeting.