Rocket reaction follows familiar
trajectory By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - As North Korean leader Kim
Jong-eun completes his official ascent to power
this week at rare party conferences, Pyongyang
will almost certainly go ahead with its launch of
what it claims is a satellite but which other
countries insist is a ballistic missile.
The United States, Japan and South Korea
have all indicated that they will call for United
Nations Security Council (UNSC) action if North
Korea presses ahead with its launch between April
12 and 16. The United Kingdom and Russia have also
demanded that North Korea cancel it, while even
ally China has expressed concerns.
Pyongyang says the launch is part of mass
celebrations to mark the centenary of the birth of
founding father Kim Il-sung, and has warned that
despite the mounting international pressure, any
interception of the
"Earth-observation satellite" Kwangmyongsong-3
would amount to "an act of war".
The same
threats were heard during a similar North Korean
rocket launch in April 2009, and analysts say that
in many aspects, history is repeating itself.
"The current situation seems to be
following the same pattern as 2009," Masao
Okonogi, emeritus professor at Keio University in
Tokyo and a well-noted expert on the affairs of
the Korean Peninsula, told Asia Times Online on
Wednesday.
A repeat of 2009? It
may be worth while looking a little deeper into
related events in 2009.
On April 5 that
year, North Korea launched an Unha-2 rocket
carrying a satellite called Kwangmyongsong-2; it
was a startling early-morning wake-up call to then
traveling US President Barack Obama, who was in
Prague.
In the following week, the UNSC
issued a presidential statement condemning the
launch as a violation of UNSC resolution 1718,
which was adopted in October 2006 in the aftermath
of the North's first nuclear test in the same
month. North Korea must not "conduct any further
nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile"
wrote resolution 1718, adding that it must
"suspend all activities related to its ballistic
missile program".
Pyongyang reacted
harshly at the time. It declared that the Security
Council statement "violently infringed on our
republic's sovereignty and gravely defiled our
people's dignity" and vowed to not return to
six-party talks aimed at the North's scrapping of
its nuclear arms program that hadn't - and still
haven't - been held since December 2008.
Pyongyang warned that it would "strengthen
its self-defensive nuclear deterrent in every
way". The North conducted a second nuclear test on
May 25, 2009, six weeks after the statement was
issued.
North Korea claims the impending
launch is of a satellite launch vehicle (SLV) as
opposed to a ballistic missile, as it claimed
during a similar test in April 2009. But they are
effectively the same technology. Even the launch
of a SLV would strengthen North Korea's ballistic
missile capabilities. For this reason, UNSC
resolution 1874 is relevant. Adopted in June 2009,
it demands Pyongyang "not conduct any further
nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile
technology".
"North Korea is now playing a
diplomatic game with two dimensions," Okonogi
said.
According to him, Pyongyang's first
aim is to develop nuclear and missile programs
that boost its negotiating stance against the US.
Okonogi says that this is part of a strategic
"grand design" to acquire the deterrent
capabilities that will ultimately achieve a peace
treaty with the US, which includes provisions for
the withdrawal of US combat troops from South
Korea.
"In this sense, North Korea will no
doubt conduct a third nuclear test," Okonogi said.
The second diplomatic game, which Okinogi
says is on a smaller scale, deals with the
so-called "leap-day deal" on a nuclear moratorium
with the US.
After talks between top US
and North Korea officials on February 29, the
North agreed to stop nuclear tests, uranium
enrichment and long-range missile launches, and to
allow checks by nuclear inspectors. In return,
Washington said it was ready to go ahead with a
proposed 240,000 tonne food aid package and that
more aid could be agreed to based on continued
need.
Okonogi said that with the US
presidential election approaching, Pyongyang
thinks Washington won't be able to take hardline
measures that create yet an additional diplomatic
problem to the tensions with Iran over its nuclear
program. A third nuclear test by the North would
give fresh ammunition to Republican
presidential nominee former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Obama's critics, hurting
his chances of re-election.
Kim Jong-eun
is likely copying other successful instances of
North Korea adopting a belligerent stance towards
the US. For example, the George W Bush
administration in October 2008 removed North Korea
from its list of state sponsors of terrorism even
after the Pyongyang's first nuclear test in
October 2006.
Pyongyang at that time had
resorted to its favorite tactic of brinkmanship to
escalate tensions and wring concessions. It said
it was working on restarting its nuclear plant and
dismissed the prospect of being removed from a US
terrorism blacklist in return for a disarmament
deal.
The Bush administration, however,
was very eager for a rare foreign-policy success
in its final months in office and made a series of
compromises toward Pyongyang - a similar pattern.
The Obama administration must measure a
tougher stance against Pyongyang with concerns of
a third nuclear test in coming months. On the
other hand, backtracking hands North Korea's young
master Kim Jong-eun a diplomatic victory against
the US. Once again, the North presents Washington
with a thorny dilemma.
China against
further UN sanctions Complicating the
issue, analysts say China will veto any UN
statement suggesting fresh UNSC sanctions as well
as any US attempts to impose additional punitive
measures against North Korea following the launch
of its Unha-3 rocket.
"If the US, Japan or
South Korea ask for additional sanctions, China
will oppose them," said Satoru Miyamoto, an expert
on North Korean affairs in Japan and an associate
professor at Seigakuin University's General
Research Institute in Saitama prefecture,
Miyamoto said Beijing would do everything
in its power to prevent North Korea from being
destabilized, citing neighboring China's
geographical and geopolitical closeness to the
Hermit Kingdom.
He points out that since
2009, China has opposed UN statements against
North Korea to avoid letting the situation
deteriorate further for the sake of Beijing, and
that Beijing has a vital interest such as the
North's alleged March 2010 sinking of South Korean
navy corvette Cheonan.
"All sides
should respect international law to prevent the
worsening of tensions on the peninsula," Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said on
April 10.
Beijing is concerned that the
launch, which could take place around the time on
the centenary of Kim Il-sung's birth, will trigger
a new regional crisis, much to Beijing's
embarrassment.
Kosuke Takahashi
is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. Besides Asia
Times Online, he also writes for Jane's Defence
Weekly as Tokyo correspondent. His twitter is
@TakahashiKosuke
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