Asia Times Online :: Rocket reaction follows familiar trajectory
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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