For North Korea to fully test its intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) it was going to have to fire over Japan and the ongoing UFG exercise gave them the cover to do so:
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile traveled around 2,700 kilometers (1,677 miles) and reached a maximum height of 550 kilometers (341 miles) as it flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. The launch appeared to be the first of a North Korean missile to cross over Japan, though some rockets it said were used to put satellites into space have done so. It also appeared to be the North’s longest-ever missile test, but South Korean officials couldn’t immediately confirm. [Associated Press]
The North Koreans have now proven that their IRBM works on a nominal trajectory which also proves they have the capability to strike Guam. However, what I haven’t heard yet in any news articles is whether the reentry vehicle successfully reentered the atmosphere? We will probably hear more about this in the coming days.
Here is what the Japanese government had to say after the launch:
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that the government had a grasp of the situation immediately after the launch. He called it “an unprecedented, grave and serious threat” that damages the peace and security of the region, adding that Tokyo had lodged a firm protest with Pyongyang.
However, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters that the North may have “held back” in its latest launch by not targeting the area around the U.S. territory of Guam. In an earlier threat, the North said it had formulated a plan to send missiles into the waters near the island, home to key U.S. military bases.
Kono also told reporters the government had requested that a United Nations Security Council meeting be convened over the launch. That meeting was expected later Tuesday. [Japan Times]
Where is Hans Blix when you need him?:
Here was the ROK reaction to the missile launch:
(Footage of a previous Hyunmoo-II launch shows the bunker-busting munition blowing out a cave and incinerating a dummy.Ankit Panda via Twitter)
In Seoul, South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered his country’s military Tuesday to demonstrate its “overwhelming” capabilities, should the North decide to attack, the presidential Blue House was quoted as saying by the South’s Yonhap news agency.
The show of force involved the dropping of eight Mark 84, or MK84, multipurpose bombs by four F-15K fighter jets at a shooting range near the inter-Korean border in Taebaek, Yoon Young-chan, Moon’s chief press secretary, said.
Seoul also made public rare footage of its testing of new ballistic missiles. The state-run Agency for Defense Development’s 86-second video clip showed the test-firing of a 500-km-range ballistic missile with “improved warhead power” and that of another one with a range of 800 km. The footage showed the missile accurately hitting mock targets on the ground and in the water. The tests were conducted last week and were the last ones before the deployment of the missiles, it added. [Japan Times]
Quite possibly the most remarkable development from this launch is the measured response that President Trump has taken:
U.S. President Donald Trump slammed North Korea Tuesday after the communist regime fired another missile in defiance of international warnings, saying “all options are on the table.”
Earlier Tuesday, North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japanese territory.
“The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior,” Trump said in a statement.
“Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table,” he added. [Yonhap]
Considering how measured President Trump has been in his public comments; it leads me to believe there must be something going on diplomatically behind the scenes. My guess is that sometime after the UFG exercise we will find out what the diplomatic approach is.
Here is the latest South Korean movie that is expected to rekindle anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea:
The shape of Hashima Island resembles a warship from a distance as shown in this photo taken by South Korean photographer Lee Jae-gab in July 2008. The photo was provided by Lee. (Yonhap)
When Choi Jang-seop left for Japan more than seven decades ago, the 16-year-old did not know that the journey would change his life.
He was one of hundreds of Koreans who were conscripted into forced labor on Japan’s Hashima Island as part of the country’s mobilization of Koreans during World War II. Korea was under Japan’s colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
Choi — wearing only underwear — toiled eight hours in a hot, cramped undersea coal mine with the constant fear of death. Other survivors said they worked for 12 hours at a time as three eight-hour shifts gave way to two 12-hour shifts with the rising demand for coal during the war.
What’s worse is that forced laborers, mostly in their teens and 20s, were given food that was mostly remnants of beans after the vegetable oil had been extracted, a situation that led to malnutrition and starvation among some forced laborers.
“I was hungry all the time and life was miserable beyond description,” Choi recalled of his days on the island between 1943 and 1945 in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency at his small apartment in Daejeon, some 160 kilometers south of Seoul. [Yonhap]
You can read much more at the link, by the way has anyone seen the movie yet?
This expected purchase of an Aegis Ashore system seems to make sense considering it can provide a persistent missile defense capability for Japan without having to rotate in and out their current Aegis BMD ships:
Japan is planning to deploy a new U.S.-developed ground-based missile defense system.
The Defense Ministry is to provisionally request that the fiscal 2018 budget cover planning costs for installing the Aegis Ashore system, according to a ministry official. “We are being urged to enhance our capabilities to continually protect the entirety of Japan from the threat of a missile attack,” the official said. (……)
Japan’s Defense Ministry has studied whether to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system or the Aegis Ashore shield. But it has not planned for Aegis Ashore installations. The system is not included in the current National Defense Program Guidelines or mentioned in mid-term defense planning documents. The official said Aegis Ashore plans will be finalized by the end of the year. [Asian Review]
It is pretty cool that this couple has been able to make this marriage work despite being in two different militaries:
Brandon and Yuriko Reed pose with their 9-month-old son, Lucas, last month at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan. Brandon is a Navy religious program specialist, while Yuriko is an intelligence specialist serving in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. TYLER HLAVAC/STARS AND STRIPES
While it’s not unusual to see American servicemembers with Japanese spouses in Japan, couples like Brandon and Yuriko Reed are a lot less common.
Brandon, a Navy petty officer first class and religious program specialist, is married to Yuriko, a petty officer third class and intelligence specialist serving in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
The Reeds, who wed in 2012 and have two children, met while both were stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni. It was Brandon’s first duty station and Yuriko’s second, after a stint as a trumpet player at a Japanese base near Hiroshima.
The couple met through mutual friends after Yuriko sought an American who could help her practice English.
“Everyone wants this crazy story,” Brandon said. “But that’s really all there is. Nothing spectacular.”
Through careful coordination with their respective services, the Reeds managed to secure orders for both to be stationed at Yokosuka. Brandon said he and Yuriko are lucky that his job allows him to be stationed at any major Navy or Marine Corps base. Because the JMSDF has no permanent installations outside of Japan, Yuriko is generally limited to just a handful of U.S. and Japanese bases in Japan. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but I can’t ever recall meeting anyone in the US military married to someone in the South Korean military. Has anyone else seen such a marriage?
A project to set up the donated statue of Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun is underway at a park in Euijeongbu, north of Seoul, on Aug. 8, 2017. The Charhar Institute, a Chinese civic think tank, donated the statue to the city to promote friendship between the two countries. The Korean national hero shot and killed Hirobumi Ito, the first Japanese governor-general of the Korean Peninsula, at a railway station in the Chinese city of Harbin in 1909. The statue depicts Ahn pulling out a gun to shoot the governor while running toward him. (Yonhap)
It seems to me that Japanese geographers would not include Dokdo on their maps in the 1800’s because no one cared about two worthless rocks in the Sea of Japan at the time. The two rocks only gained value in modern times when national borders and thus exclusive economic zones could be tied to them. Using the logic this Korean researcher is using does he support Japan’s claim to the Kuril Islands based on this map?:
On the map of Asia from Okamura’s textbook compiled in 1886, a red line is drawn to mark Japan’s territory. Dokdo is not included on the map. / Yonhap
A scholar recently unveiled maps of a government-approved Japanese textbook which show that Japan did not perceive Dokdo as its territory in the 19th century.
The findings will give weight to Korea’s ownership of the islets off the country’s east coast, which Japan claims as its own, referring to them as Takeshima Islands.
Prof. Han Cheol-ho of Dongguk University’s history education department displayed maps of a geography textbook compiled by Okamura Matsutaro in 1886 in a presentation at a conference held at the Northeast Asian History Foundation’s Institute of Dokdo Research last week.
The textbook’s map of Asia does not mark Dokdo as its territory. On the map is a red line marking Japanese territory, but not only is Dokdo not included in the area inside the red line, Dokdo is not marked on the map at all.
The border lines are marked the same way in textbooks compiled by geologist Manziro Yamagami in 1902 and 1903.
“The textbook’s map of Asia has the Oki Islands marked, but not Ulleungdo and Dokdo,” Yonhap News Agency quoted Han as saying.
“If Japan perceived Dokdo as its territory it would have drawn the islets on the map and stretched the line to include Dokdo.” [Korea Times]
Here is the latest development on the Dokdo front:
An ancient map found in Japan shows Dokdo to the right of Ulleung Island in the East Sea / Yonhap
An antique map from the 19th century depicting the Dokdo Islands as part of Korean territory has been discovered in Japan.
Nam Kwon-hee, a professor of library information science at Kyungpook National University, said he confirmed a Japanese collector has a hand-drawn map of “Daedongyeojido,” a Korean map made by cartographer and geologist Kim Jeong-ho in 1861 that marks Dokdo to the right of Ulleung Island in the East Sea, according to Yonhap News.
The research was co-conducted with Professor Kim Sung-soo of Cheongju University and professor emeritus Yukio Fujimoto of the University of Toyama in Japan.
The map was originally in the collection of the Pyongyang Provincial Library, but was smuggled out via an unknown route. The atlas has the library’s registration number and Aug. 30, 1932, marked as the date acquired.
Professor Nam estimates that the hand-drawn map including Dokdo was created between 1864 and 1889. The map supplements the woodblock book printed by Kim, which does not mark Dokdo. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I look at this map and that does not look like Dokdo at all. It makes more sense that the island to the right of Ulleongdo is actually Jukdo Island. The island on the map looks like Jukdo and is located where Jukdo is near Ulleongdo. Also back in the 1800’s no one would have cared about two insignificant rocks in the middle of the Sea of Japan to make them so big on a map like this.
