NORTH KOREA cranked up regional tensions in north Asia yesterday when it carried out its promise to launch a controversial long-range rocket, sending a Taepodong 2 missile over Japan and provoking international condemnation.
Washington and its allies in South Korea and Japan said the satellite launch was a cover for a weapons test.
The launch will be a major propaganda boost for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who is believed to have had a stroke in August. As a publicity stunt, the launch has succeeded in grabbing the world’s attention, with the UN Security Council holding an emergency meeting and President Barack Obama describing the launch as “provocative”.
“Scientists and technicians of the DPRK [North Korea] have succeeded in putting satellite Kwangmyongsong-2, an experimental communications satellite, into orbit by means of carrier rocket Unha-2 under the state’s long-term plan for the development of outer space,” ran a report by the North Korean news agency KCNA.
Pyongyang said that by launching a satellite it was merely trying to stake its claim in the space race, although there are issues about what a country which cannot feed its own people is doing developing a space programme.
The projectile was serenaded into space with a burst of the North’s extravagant propaganda on state TV, which said the satellite had immediately begun broadcasting “immortal revolutionary paeans” to leader Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung.
But Pyongyang’s claims that it had successfully sent a satellite into orbit were disputed last night by Washington, which said the rocket’s cargo had splashed harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.
“No object entered orbit and no debris fell on Japan,” reported the US Northern Command, adding that it had assessed the “missile” as “not a threat to North America or Hawaii, and took no action in response”. The commander of the US Pacific Command had earlier warned he would shoot down the missile “if ordered to do so”, a threat that Pyongyang said would be an “act of war”.
Analysts believe North Korea is testing the Taepodong-2 for military purposes. The technology for carrying a nuclear payload or for carrying a satellite is interchangeable, and with a range of 6,700km, the rocket could reach the United States.
China, North Korea’s only meaningful ally, called on all sides for a restrained response, as did Russia. Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi spoke on the phone respectively to US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the foreign ministers of Russia, Japan and South Korea, emphasising the “honest broker” role Beijing has cut out for itself in efforts to resolve the nuclear stand-off.
The reaction from North Korea’s neighbours was furious. South Korea branded the launch a “reckless” act and Japan’s prime minister Taro Aso condemned what he called an “extremely provocative act” that “cannot be overlooked”. There was also strong condemnation from the European Union.
The launch had been anticipated with dread in the region, as it is the latest sign that relations with the secretive Stalinist state are not improving, despite limited breakthroughs in six-party talks involving both Koreas, Japan, the US, China and Russia. Those talks are currently stalled.
Millions of Japanese followed the Taepodong-2’s progress on extended news bulletins yesterday morning as it hurtled across the “Bamboo Curtain” and high over Japan’s airspace. News last month that Pyongyang intended to defy Tokyo and its Washington ally with the launch sparked one of Japan’s largest military deployments since the second World War – a joint US-Japan arsenal of warplanes, submarines and at least nine destroyers.
Japan’s self-defence forces were put on a state of high alert and thousands of troops were mobilised around the country. Interceptor missiles were deployed in the north, closest to the rocket’s trajectory, and citizens were warned to stay indoors and look out for falling debris. Russia and South Korea, which is still officially in a state of war with the North, also sent warplanes and ships to the seas off their coasts.
Yesterday’s launch followed weeks of sabre-rattling and threats to exact vengeance if anyone tried to interfere with what Pyongyang always maintained was the launch of a satellite, even though firing the missile appears to be in breach of Security Council Resolution 1718, passed in 2006 after Pyongyang’s nuclear test and other missile tests.
The resolution demands that North Korea “suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme”. North Korea warned last month that even discussing the rocket launch in the council would be considered a “hostile act”.
The US, South Korea and Japan will now seek sanctions against Pyongyang from the council, but China is unlikely to agree to any action and will veto any efforts to censure its communist ally.
However, Japan’s top government spokesman Takeo Kawamura warned last night that his country was now considering extending and deepening already punitive economic sanctions against the state, a potential recipe for deepening North Korea’s isolation. Japan is a temporary member of the Security Council.
Japanese TV reported that the coast guard was searching last night for the first stage of the latest rocket, which splashed into the sea 280km off the country’s west coast.