The New York Times
‘Power for Power’: North Korea shows strength again
Seoul, South Korea – North Korea has issued warnings for more than a week. He swore that the Biden government would pay a “price”, accused him of creating “a stink” in the Korean Peninsula and called Washington’s effort to open a communication channel a “trick”, promising to deal with the United States “power to power. ” Now, it looks like North Korea just spoke. On Thursday, he gave his last warning by launching two short-range ballistic missiles on the east coast – the country’s first test of its kind in a year and its first significant provocation against the United States under President Joe Biden. Subscribe to The Morning newsletter of the New York Times. North Korea confirmed the test on Friday, saying its military hit a target 373 miles away with a newly developed tactical guided missile that used solid fuel and could perform “slide and pull up” maneuvers in flight. low altitude. He indicated that the new missile was a modified version of one of the three solid fuel ballistic missiles that he has tested since 2019. The new solid fuel missiles, which are in mobile launchers, are easier to transport and hide, take less time to prepare to launch and are more difficult to intercept because of their maneuverability, missile experts said. The North said its new missile would be a powerful deterrent for South Korean and American troops. The launch, which challenged the UN Security Council’s ban on ballistic missile tests by North Korea, reflected a country again resorting to displays of strength, heightening tensions to gain strength as the Biden government finalizes its policy review for the North Korea. The test was also seen as a signal to Washington that Pyongyang will carry out more provocative tests, involving long-range missiles, if it decides that Biden’s policies are unreasonable. “North Korea uses weapon testing strategically, both to make the necessary improvements to its weapons and to attract global attention,” said Jean H. Lee, a North Korean expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “With the United States implying that they will seek to tighten up the sanctions regime, North Korea will seek to expand its arsenal by intensifying testing.” The Biden government has been considering whether to deal with North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats with more sanctions, a new round of dialogue or a mix of both. As the policy review continues – and the possibility that the Biden administration will abandon former President Donald Trump’s top diplomacy grows – North Korea appears to be “returning to a familiar pattern of using provocations to increase tensions,” he said. Lee. The Northern maneuvers leave the Biden government with a difficult choice. Even if it involves North Korea in another round of negotiations, there is no guarantee that the country will give up its nuclear arsenal, which has continued to expand in recent years. In October, North Korea displayed what appeared to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile during an overnight military parade in Pyongyang. North Korean hackers stole $ 316.4 million from 2019 to November 2020, attacking financial institutions and virtual exchange offices to raise money for their weapons programs, according to UN diplomats familiar with the matter. American officials fear that North Korea will simply use more negotiations to buy time to perfect its nuclear capabilities. However, more pressure from the United States will lead North Korea to attempt more provocative missile launches and possibly push the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war, as it did in 2017. The regime in Pyongyang, which sees its leader, Kim Jong Un , as a divine figure, responds strongly to any possible contempt for the United States. The ballistic missile test on Thursday came a day after American officials considered a previous North Korean missile test to be “normal military activity”. That test, which took place on Sunday, involved two short-range cruise missiles. Biden said he did not create “any new wrinkles”. “This latest North Korean missile launch is most likely a reaction to the fact that US President Joe Biden downplays and seems to laugh at his weekend missile tests,” said Harry J. Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at National Interest in Washington. “Kim’s regime, as well as during the Trump years, will react to the slightest of what they feel is any kind of loss of face or derogatory comments coming from Washington.” North Korea conducted its last major weapons tests in late 2017, when it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that it said was powerful enough to launch a nuclear warhead into the United States. He then refrained from testing missiles while Kim engaged in diplomacy with Trump. After the collapse of a non-agreement Kim-Trump summit in Hanoi, Vietnam in February 2019, North Korea resumed a series of short-range ballistic missile tests from May 2019 until March last year, when the tests were carried out. interrupted in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump dismissed these short-range tests, proclaiming North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on long-range missiles and nuclear tests as one of his greatest foreign policy achievements. As details of the Biden government’s policy on North Korea become available in the coming weeks, North Korea is expected to continue to increase tensions, analysts said. Kim “will keep you going during the gradual escalation, culminating in an emphatic display of strength”, potentially including the flight test of a new, larger, but untested ICBM, that North Korea launched during a military parade last October said Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korean specialist at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. At a party meeting in January, Kim promised to further advance his country’s nuclear capabilities, declaring that he would build new solid-fuel ICBMs and make his nuclear warheads lighter and more accurate. He called the establishment of a nuclear force in North Korea “a strategic and overriding objective” against opponents. Kim also said that his foreign policy would focus on “containing and subduing” the United States, “our main enemy”. He emphasized that his policy towards North Korea “will never change, whoever comes to power in the United States”. And in the past few days North Korea has made its annoyance with the Biden government very clear. Last week, Kim Yo Jong, sister of Kim Jong Un and his spokesman for relations with Washington and Seoul, accused the United States and South Korea of creating “a stink” in the Korean Peninsula with their annual military exercises. North Korea also said that it did not feel the need to respond to the recent attempts by the Biden government to establish a dialogue, dismissing them as a “retardation trick”. On Friday, after a North Korean businessman was extradited from Malaysia to stand trial in a US court on charges of money laundering and violation of international sanctions, North Korea warned that Washington would pay “the price due”. The series of statements left officials and analysts wondering what would happen next. With its missile test on Thursday, “North Korea was following Kim Yo Jong’s warning,” said Cheong Seong-chang, senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a study center near Seoul. Analysts are watching Washington closely to see if Biden’s approach to North Korea will move away from Trump’s more direct engagement and toward former President Barack Obama’s “strategic patience”, which has meant a gradual escalation of sanctions. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Seoul last week, he said that the policy review included “pressure options and potential for future diplomacy” and that it would be completed in close coordination with South Korea and Japan. he asked China to use its vast economic influence over North Korea to help reverse its nuclear weapons program. US officials often complain that China has failed to crack down on evasions of North Korean sanctions that take place in Chinese territorial waters. They also said that China was probably helping North Korea with the cyber theft it used to finance its nuclear program in recent years. But the missile test on Thursday showed that China’s influence in North Korea remains “limited,” said Cheong. “North Korea believes that if the United States tries to impose sanctions, China will cover it,” he said. This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company