Why North Korea sending missile over Japan is a major escalation

A missile test over Japan is a final prelude before Kim Jong-un tests a nuclear weapon, according to experts

Ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, an intermediate range ballistic missile flew about 2,800 miles, tearing the airspace from Pyongyang and Tokyo before coming down in the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday morning.

This was the longest distance a North Korean missile has travelled, sending alarms ringing across Japan.

It was the latest missile fired by Kim Jong-un this year – close to 40 so far – and experts are looking at Tuesday’s launch as a significant move, one that could have severe consequences.

Jamie Withorne, an affiliate and research assistant at research programme the Oslo Nuclear Project, told The Independent that the launch posed “a challenge to the international community”.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said the missile represented “a significant escalation over its recent provocations”.

And it could herald something much more profound.

“The Kim regime is developing weapons such as tactical nuclear warheads and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as part of a long-term strategy to outrun South Korea in an arms race and drive wedges among US allies,” said Mr Easley.

A larger threat looms because all the signs now point to nuclear weapon tests in the near future, according to Oliver Jia, a Kyoto-based American researcher on Japan and North Korea’s bilateral ties.

“Now that all the summits have failed, all the diplomacy efforts have failed, North Korea has gone back to missile testing. What a lot of us believe is that the missile test over Japan is a prelude to Kim Jong-un testing a nuclear weapon,” Mr Jia told The Independent.

With all eyes on Ukraine and China’s conflict with Taiwan, experts monitoring the situation between North Korea and its neighbours say that Mr Kim is gauging the global reaction with this missile test in particular.

Mr Kim was trying to test faster, better and stronger missiles, said Mr Jia, who is also the social media editor at Seoul-based NK News.

“Kim Jong-un is taking advantage of the current geopolitical situation because right now the international community is concerned with what is going on in Ukraine and with China’s relations with Taiwan,” he added.

And the nuclear muscle flexing by Pyongyang makes it all the more imperative for the international community to sit up and take notice, commentators say.

“This moment... is extraordinarily dangerous, with the risk of nuclear war especially heightened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is absolutely vital that the international response to this is to finally get serious about the need for disarmament,” said Tilman A Ruff, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

With similar threats emerging from Russia and now North Korea signalling its willingness to deploy nuclear weapons, all states should try to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, said Mr Ruff.

At this point, conflicts in East and West should not “become a driver for proliferation, with other nations feeling that they need nuclear weapons to prevent being invaded by larger countries, which would just escalate the danger and the risk enormously”, he warned.

“Diplomacy isn’t dead, but talks aren’t about to resume either,” said Mr Easley, pointing out how North Korea would make the talks between the nuclear states a challenge.

Calls for diplomacy were incredibly important in easing regional tensions, Ms Withorne said, but North Korea had made it clear that it would not disarm unilaterally, a stance made particularly evident by the number of launches this year alone.