North Korea’s missile launches: A message ahead of the US-China summit?

North Korean state media released this photo of leader Kim Jong-un inspecting newly produced 600 mm super-large multiple rocket launchers at a munition factory on Sept. 16-18. (Yonhap)

North Korea carried out back-to-back ballistic missile launches Sunday afternoon, two days after threatening “responsive action” against US-led military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had detected a short-range ballistic missile launched from the Wonsan area toward the East Sea around 3 pm. The missile, which traveled about 450 kilometers, is believed to belong to North Korea’s well-known Hwasong-11 series of short-range ballistic missiles.

Three hours later, around 6 pm, the Joint Chiefs said the North had launched another “unidentified projectile,” with the projectile’s specifications and range still being analyzed. If the second projectile is confirmed to have been a ballistic missile, North Korea will have conducted two ballistic missile launches three hours apart.

The launches came amid ongoing North Korean protests against an array of US-led military activities in the region involving South Korea, Japan and other countries.

In a statement released on Sept. 18, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un and a department director in North Korea’s ruling party, denounced Pacific Vanguard, a multinational naval drill led by the US 7th Fleet, among other exercises. 

“The present situation,” Kim Yo-jong said, “stresses the need to break records in our responsive action, proportional or more offensive in its nature.”

Sunday’s ballistic missile launch was North Korea’s 14th this year and its first in eight days.

North Korea’s previous ballistic missile launch occurred early in the morning on Sept. 12, the day after South Korea, the US and Japan concluded Freedom Edge, their regular multidomain exercise. At the time, the North fired several short-range ballistic missiles from the Wonsan area toward the East Sea.

Two days later, Pyongyang disclosed in media intended for foreign audiences that the launches were part of a coordinated fire-assault drill involving a mix of four weapons systems: tactical ballistic missiles, attack drones, strategic cruise missiles and large-caliber thermobaric rockets.

The successive ballistic missile launches could be interpreted as the latest message in its tug-of-war with the US: If US President Donald Trump wants to resume talks with Kim Jong-un, as he has said, the US must give up its demand for the North’s denuclearization.

Trump publicly voiced his desire to meet with Kim last month while ordering that ROK-US joint military exercises be scaled back. During a telephone briefing on Sept. 18 about Trump’s upcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a senior US official reiterated that Trump was prepared to speak with Kim Jong-un either over the phone or in person.

North Korea will presumably be on the agenda of Trump and Xi’s summit on Thursday during Xi’s three-day state visit to the US, which runs through Friday. As the summit approaches, Pyongyang appears to be sending both Washington and Beijing a forceful message that its buildup of deterrence capabilities, including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, is not open to negotiation.