Why is North Korea increasing its missile launches at the start of the year?

Published on : 01/18/2022 – 17:19

It is an unusual series, even for North Korea, the most closed country on the planet and renowned for its military provocations. Pyongyang confirmed on Tuesday, January 18, having fired two tactical missiles which hit the day before “with precision a target island in the Eastern Sea of ​​Korea”, according to the North Korean state agency KCNA.

Since the beginning of the year, North Korea has already carried out four launches, including hypersonic missiles flying at Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, making them more difficult to intercept.

The frequency and variety of missile tests show that North Korea is “trying to improve its technology and operational capabilities to carry out covert actions, so that other countries will find it difficult to detect signs of preparations for a shot,” said Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi during a press briefing.

“It’s quite new that North Korea is testing so many missiles in January,” confirms France 24 Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research. “By contrast, these firings fit nicely into a test campaign that North Korea began in 2019, with dozens and dozens of short-range missile firings. The objective is to be able to penetrate the South Korean anti-aircraft defenses by going faster thanks to its hypersonic missiles, or even by improving the maneuverability of its projectiles”.

Hypersonic missiles are among the “top priorities” of North Korea’s five-year plan, state media said last year.

North Korean “Techno-nationalism”

With this series of firings, Pyongyang sends a clear message of firmness to the international community, as the Biden administration imposed new sanctions on the Kim Jong-un regime and urged the United Nations Security Council to do so. same.

“North Korea wants to show the international community that despite the sanctions, the country is holding firm and continuing to develop its ballistic capabilities,” analyzes Antoine Bondaz.

>> To read: Ten years of power of Kim Jong-un : still isolated, North Korea in economic crisis

These launches allow Pyongyang to reaffirm its power of nuisance two months before the presidential election in South Korea and while its only strong ally, China, is preparing to host the Winter Olympics.

This show of force would also serve the regime to mobilize its population in a context of food shortages.

Kim Jong-un thus pursues the staging of a North Korean “techno-nationalism”, believes Antoine Bondaz. “The regime wants to show that despite limited means, the country can do almost like the big boys by developing modern ballistic capabilities,” explains the researcher.

Pyongyang would thus like to impress the population with military prowess since “it has become clear that the North will have difficulty in shining on the economic ground”, assures for his part Cheong Seong-chang, of the Center for North Korean Studies in Seoul Sejong Institute.

A diet at bay?

A chronic problem in North Korea, food shortages have worsened with the Covid-19 pandemic and the closure of borders. Added to this were catastrophic floods for crops in August 2021.

However, the North Korean strategy is changing and a sustained recovery of Chinese imports seems to be on the agenda. As a sign of this change of course, a freight train crossed the border between China and North Korea on January 16, a first in a year and a half.

North Korea has actually been preparing for several months for the resumption of trade, explains Nicolas Rocca, RFI correspondent in Seoul, citing “the transformation of an airport near the Chinese border into a depot to disinfect and quarantine imports”.

According to some experts, this unprecedented series of missile launches and the resumption of land trade would be proof of Kim Jong-un’s desire to bring the regime out of its isolation.

>> To read: The Yongbyon site, jewel of the North Korean nuclear program

The United States this week renewed its call for dialogue “without preconditions”, but the prospect of further talks with North Korea in 2022 looks very uncertain. Talks between Americans and North Koreans have been deadlocked since the failure of the Hanoi summit in 2019 between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.

“We see that international sanctions don’t work because they don’t force Pyongyang to come back to the negotiating table. Moreover, the incentives coming from South Korea did not work any better,” notes Antoine Bondaz. “It is an admission of impotence by the international community whose objective remains the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea”.

With Reuters and AFP