N Korean missile test unites East Asia, temporarily

The missile that North Korea test-fired from a submarine off its east coast on Wednesday momentarily brought together three nations that have recently had reasons to squabble.

At a previously scheduled meeting in Tokyo, foreign ministers of the three nations – China, Japan and South Korea – criticised the missile test, which appeared to demonstrate a significant advance in North Korea’s efforts to build a harder-to-detect means to strike US and allied forces. The missile flew 310 miles toward Japan, much farther than previous tests.

Tensions between the three countries have intensified in recent months: Chinese vessels have repeatedly entered disputed waters surrounding a group of Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, setting off protests from Japan.

Tokyo opposed a visit this month by South Korean lawmakers to islands both nations claim. And China has vehemently criticised South Korea’s agreement to host an American-built advanced missile defence system that the Chinese believe could be used against their country’s missiles.

But North Korea’s missile launch briefly united the three other nations, providing a kind of diplomatic camouflage as the foreign ministers gathered in Tokyo.

“If there was a silver lining, it would be the fact that it provided the three an opportunity to have something in common, which is rare,” said J Berkshire Miller, an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Indeed, if the North Korean threat is to be truly defused, experts say, the three East Asian neighbours will need to find more common ground. “We all know that on days when North Korea doesn’t test missiles, tensions may be above the surface,” said Scott A Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But longer term, if you’re looking for conditions that would suggest real stability in the region, that is the sort of cooperation that would be needed.”

Past experience suggests that any cooperation is extremely fragile. But as North Korea continues to push boundaries, the East Asian neighbours could come under pressure to shift toward more meaningful collaboration on regional security.

The latest missile test came two days after the US and South Korea kicked off their annual joint military exercises. North Korea condemns all such drills as rehearsals for an invasion, and it has often responded with warlike words, or with missile tests.

At a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday, Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, said North Korea’s action “is simply not tolerated.” His South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, said the three countries “confirmed our common view that we must deter North Korea’s further provocative actions.”

Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, said that “China opposes the development of North Korea’s nuclear programme, and any words or deeds that create tensions in the peninsula.” He reiterated, however, China’s opposition to US efforts to build the missile defence system in South Korea.

Chinese commentators argued that the US was partly to blame for the North’s aggressive behaviour. An opinion article published by the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, denounced the US and its allies for “risking turning the region into a powder keg.” “Muscle-flexing leads to nowhere but a more anxious, more agitating and thus more unpredictable Pyongyang,” it said.

Still, on social media in China, many posts placed the blame squarely on Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, describing him as an erratic and untrustworthy leader and urging the government to do more to rein him in.

‘One-man dictatorship’

President Park Geun-hye of South Korea also denounced the North Korean leader in remarks during a visit to a front-line military unit Wednesday. “Given the fact that North Korea has an irrational decision-making system under a one-man dictatorship,” Park said, “and that Kim Jong Un is an unpredictable character, there is a high possibility that this threat could become a reality.”

The latest North Korean provocation comes at a time when Japan, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is debating its military future after roughly 70 years of pacifism mandated by a postwar constitution that was largely written by American occupiers.

Already last year, Abe pushed through a series of security laws that permit Japan’s self-defence forces to participate in overseas combat. On Wednesday, as Abe denounced the North Korean missile launch as an “an unforgivable act of violence,” his newly appo-inted defence minister, Tomomi Inada, said Japanese forces would begin training for overseas missions, including rescuing captured troops from peacekeeping missions.

Setsu Kobayashi, a law professor emeritus at Keio University and the leader of Kokumin Ikari no Koe, a group that opposes the security bills passed last year, called the new training drills a “historic turning point” and a violation of the country’s constitution.

“Now people outside of Japan will question if Japan can become a country that can wage war,” Kobayashi said. But other analysts said that the Japanese, who mostly opposed the security laws passed after a parliamentary struggle last year, might start to accept the incremental escalation of military activity that Abe is pushing.

“The more there are dangers in the neighbourhood – a rising China, a threatening North Korea – that puts wind in Abe’s sails,” said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo.

Ultimately, Abe wants to revise the pacifist clause in the constitution. But the public — as well as members of parliament, including some in Abe’s governing coalition — would most likely oppose him.

“Even with this more threatening environment, it’s not going to be easy at all,” Kingston said. “There is a deeply embedded attachment to the peace constitution as part of Japanese national identity.”

The significance of North Korea’s missile launch may take some time to sink in, as the Japanese have become somewhat accustomed to the missile tests.

“For Japanese people, the picture of the Chinese vessels surrounding the Senkakus is more shocking,” said Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, a research group, referring to the Chinese incursions around the disputed islands in the East China Sea. The North Korean missile launches, Watanabe said, sometimes “look like animation.”