The Daily Beast
North Korea fires first missiles under Biden presidency
JUNG YEON-JE / AFP via Getty ImagesAfter loudly denouncing the joint US-South Korea military exercises that ended last week, North Korea challenged President Joe Biden with his administration’s first missile tests. North Korea conducted short-range missile tests last weekend, according to The Washington Post, while Biden’s team was in the middle of a review of North Korea’s policy. When completed, the review will likely include demands for North Korea to give up its nuclear warheads and end its dire human rights violations – including public executions, torture and long-term imprisonment in a vast gulag system for those suspected of working against the Kim Jong Un.US regime officials confirmed that the North Koreans fired at least one, perhaps two, missiles, but did not say where they were fired from or where they landed. Nor, by the way, did they identify the type of missile, let alone say how high or how far it went. North Korea says it is fantasizing Endless calls and emails from the BidenKim team have ordered missile tests, despite its recent focus on economic reform measures for a country hard hit by the pandemic COVID-19 and UN economic sanctions and from the USA. For weeks, intelligence analysts reported activities at the main northern nuclear site in Yongbyon, 65 miles north of Pyongyang, and also at test sites elsewhere. The missile fire report came after Kim exchanged messages with China President Xi Jinping emphasizing “the need to strengthen unity and cooperation between the two parties and the two countries to deal with the general challenges and obstructive movements of hostile forces” , the Korean Central News Agency of Pyongyang said, this dialogue followed contentious talks in Anchorage between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, head of foreign affairs for the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Blinken faced Yang after he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met their opponents in Seoul and pushed for much closer cooperation between the U.S. and South Korea in North Korea. US analysts have long predicted that Kim will request missile tests to get Biden’s attention and intimidate President Moon, whom North Korea criticized in recent statements. loved to bow to the United States by agreeing to joint war game exercises. supply of food and medical aid to North Korea. Southern unification minister Lee In-young, according to Yonhap News, called for “humanitarian cooperation” in order to “substantially improve the human rights situation in the North” and “open the door”. South Korea, he said, must help the North “as much as our capacity allows”. During the past military exercises, North Korea’s deputy foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, said it would be “a waste of time to sit with the United States as it is not ready to feel and accept new changes and new times. ”In the meantime, she promised that her government would“ keep track of all the bad actions in which the new US regime is involved. ”American officials are not terribly concerned by the short- and medium-range missile tests that Korea Korea continued to test while Donald Trump was president before and after his three meetings with Kim Jong Un in 2018-2019. The concern, however, is that North Korea is preparing to test a long-range ballistic missile capable of take a warhead to targets in the country. Kim has not yet ordered a long-range missile test since November 2017, several months before starting talks with Moon and then in Singapore in June 2018 with Trump. eorgetown, Victor Cha, who worked with the National Security Council during the presidency of George W. Bush, told The Daily Beast that he doubted Biden was interested in getting involved in the summit diplomacy with Kim, “especially if North Korea perform missile tests “. Not that Biden was “against the idea in principle,” he said, but the talks “should be based on expert-level discussions.” Still, Cha explained, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the government initially authorized negotiations for a pulse of what the North Koreans are thinking, and to avoid an early crisis like Trump and Obama have experienced.” can be a precursor to exactly this type of crisis. “Pyongyang has typically engaged in highly provocative behavior, such as a nuclear or missile test at the beginning of the new administration in the United States and South Korea,” said Bruce Klingner, a former – CIA analyst who now works for the Heritage Foundation. “Pyongyang believes that doing so provides an advantage against his opponents, although at times it has led to a stronger political response than the regime predicted.” “Kim will try and do something to get Biden’s attention,” Bruce Bechtol, a former Defense Department intelligence analyst and author of several books and articles on North Korea’s leadership, told The Daily Beast. North has done this with all the other presidents since Clinton. ” Bechtol also cited the possibility of incidents along the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas or in the Yellow Sea. caught Americans and South Koreans by surprise. Read more on The Daily Beast. Read our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you . To know more.