North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles off its east coast early Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, the country’s first launch of the year and a show of force just hours before South Korea’s president departs for a summit in China.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said it detected “several projectiles, presumed to be ballistic missiles,” launched from the vicinity of Pyongyang around 7:50 a.m. local time (10:50 p.m. Irish time Tuesday). The launches appeared to head toward the Sea of Japan, known in Korea as the East Sea.
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“The military is maintaining a full readiness posture, having strengthened surveillance and vigilance against possible additional launches,” the ministry said.
Japan’s Defense Ministry also reported tracking what it assessed to be a ballistic missile, saying it splashed down around 8:08 a.m. local time (11:08 p.m. Irish time Tuesday). Authorities did not immediately report damage or casualties.
The launches underscore the peninsula’s volatile security environment and arrive at a politically sensitive moment. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is due to leave for Beijing later Wednesday for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. China is North Korea’s key economic backer and a central player in any effort to tamp down tensions on the peninsula. Lee has said he hopes to leverage Beijing’s influence as he seeks to stabilize ties with Pyongyang.
North Korea has significantly stepped up missile testing in recent years, a program it claims is needed to deter regime-change efforts by the United States. Washington has repeatedly said it has no such plans. Analysts say Pyongyang’s testing spree is aimed at improving precision strike capabilities, complicating defenses for the United States and South Korea, and proving systems that could potentially be exported to Russia.
“They likely fear that if the United States so chooses, it could launch a precision strike at any moment, threatening the regime’s survival,” said Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification. He added that the message behind the launches is that attacking North Korea would be far from straightforward.
Wednesday’s firings were the North’s first publicized missile activity of the year, extending a cycle of tests that has included short-range systems designed to target bases in South Korea and longer-range advances that challenge regional interceptors. Each round tests allied response times, radar tracking and policy resolve, while giving Pyongyang political leverage ahead of key diplomatic set pieces.
Domestically, the launches also align with North Korea’s internal calendar. The ruling Workers’ Party is set to convene a rare congress in the coming weeks — its first in five years — where economic policy, defense planning and military modernization are expected to dominate the agenda.
State media highlighted that push on Wednesday. The official Korean Central News Agency reported that leader Kim Jong Un toured a facility involved in producing tactical guided weapons and ordered managers to expand current production capacity by 250%. In recent directives, Kim has called for an “expansion” and modernization of missile manufacturing and the construction of more factories to meet what he described as growing demand.
The United States, South Korea and Japan have tightened trilateral coordination in response to North Korea’s weapons programs, expanding joint exercises and real-time data sharing on missile launches. Seoul said its forces remained on alert and were assessing trajectory and performance data from the latest missiles to determine the systems involved.
There was no immediate comment from North Korea’s mission to international bodies, and the White House and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command did not immediately issue statements on the launch reports. South Korean and Japanese officials said monitoring would continue amid concerns that additional tests could follow during the diplomatic flurry and ahead of the ruling party’s congress.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
