North Korea ups ante with apparent longer-range missile test

North Korea launched what may have been a longer-range ballistic missile Sunday morning — its seventh round of weapons tests this month — as the nuclear-armed country continues to highlight its ever-improving arsenal at an unprecedented pace.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the Japanese government’s top spokesman, said that that if the projectile was a standard ballistic missile, it was estimated to have hit a maximum altitude of around 2,000 kilometers, flying 800 km for roughly 30 minutes.

Matsuno said the missile did not land inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its coast.

The details of Sunday’s launch were similar to a May 2017 test by the North of a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile, which flew in a so-called lofted trajectory — almost straight up to avoid nearby countries such as Japan — hitting a maximum altitude of 2,115 km and traveling 787 km, according to state media.

If fired at a shallower angle, that missile would have flown more than 4,800 km, analysts said at the time, falling short of the continental U.S., but potentially putting Alaska within range.

The South Korean military also confirmed Sunday’s launch, saying the projectile had been fired from Jagang province, which borders China, into the waters to the east of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea warned earlier this month that it was considering restarting “all temporally-suspended activities,” an apparent reference to a self-imposed moratorium on tests of nuclear weapons and longer-range missiles that began in April 2018.

Any test of an intercontinental ballistic missile — which experts say could hit most, if not all, of the continental U.S. — would likely trigger another security crisis for the United States, which is already grappling with the growing threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.

Denuclearization talks between the North and the United States have been at a standstill since a series of meetings in 2018 and 2019 between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to deliver a concrete path forward.

North Korea test-fired two different weapons systems last week, state-run media announced Friday, while also highlighting Kim’s inspection of an “important” munitions factory.

The pace of tests in January — believed to be the most launches in a single month — has highlighted Pyongyang’s growing missile capabilities, including weapons designed to evade defenses such as a missile with a maneuverable re-entry vehicle and advanced cruise missiles.

Tests of ballistic missiles by Pyongyang are banned under United Nations sanctions resolutions.

Officials and experts say the latest launches highlight how crushing sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic have done little to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile ambitions.

Following the conclusion of a lengthy review of the United States’ North Korea policy earlier this year, Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, has repeatedly said that his administration harbors no hostile intent toward Pyongyang and is prepared to meet “unconditionally,” with a goal of “the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Kim, however, has condemned the U.S. offers of dialogue as a “petty trick.”

Observers say the North Korean strongman has no intention of relinquishing his nuclear arsenal, which they say he believes is key to his regime’s survival.

Some experts say that while the launches help Kim improve his missile tech, they also help return the North Korean nuclear and missile issue to the spotlight after years of languishing far down the U.S. list of priorities.

“North Korea is launching a frenzy of missiles before the start of the Beijing Olympics, mostly as military modernization efforts,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “The international message behind North Korea’s month of missile tests is about price.”

“By threatening stability in Asia while global resources are stretched thin elsewhere, Pyongyang is demanding the world compensate it to act like a ‘responsible nuclear power,’” he said.