North Korea over the weekend tried to conduct a seventh Musudan missile test and it blew up shortly after launch:
North Korea test-fired an intermediate-range missile Saturday in its latest military provocation, but the missile exploded seconds after its launch, the South Korean military reported Sunday.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that the North launched what appeared to have been a Musudan missile from the northwestern city of Kusong in North Pyongan Province at around 12:33 p.m. Saturday. A Musudan missile has a range between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers (1,864 and 2,485 miles), long enough to reach U.S. military installations in Guam.
“The missile exploded in the air just seconds after launch. We are now looking into the cause of the failure,” said a military official on condition of anonymity. The official said South Korea and the United States had closely cooperated in analyzing Saturday’s failed launch and assessed it was a Musudan missile launch. The official added that South Korea’s military analyzed the failed launch by sharing surveillance data provided by the U.S. military obtained by its intelligence assets including satellites. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but this failure means that in seven test launches they have had one successful firing of the Musudan missile.
I agree with the concept that a “grand bargain” with China is the only way to end the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons program, but I don’t think what the professor is recommending that the US offers in return would cause the Chinese to turn on the Kim regime:
The United States should seek a grand bargain with China that commits Beijing to use its leverage over North Korea to end its nuclear program in exchange for American concessions like the scrapping of a decision to deploy the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea, a U.S. expert said Wednesday.
Amitai Etzioni, a George Washington University professor, made the point in an article in the National Interest, stressing that the “greatest threat” to U.S. security that the new American president will have to confront is North Korea.
The professor said that efforts to simply “urge” or “shame” China into acting won’t work.
“The costs to China if it were to move to rein in North Korea are considerable. China views living with a Communist-ruled nuclear-armed state on its border as preferable to the chaos of its collapse,” he said.
Instead, China should be offered a deal based on “differential salience,” which means that each side should get what’s important to its national interests from the other side by giving up what’s less important.
“China might well have a high interest in gaining assurances that if the North Korean regime collapses and the two Koreas are unified, the United States will not move its troops to the border with China,” the professor said. “This is a no- or low-cost proposition for the United States, because once the North Korean nuke program folds or the regime collapses, the United States should be quite content not to move its troops north.”
He also said that the U.S. could offer not to deploy THAAD because once the North’s s nuclear missile program is no longer an acute threat, the United States should be quite willing not to place THAAD in South Korea. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but for the Chinese to turn on the Kim regime I think they would want something extremely significant in return that meets their security interests. North Korea is a buffer state for them that can also be counted on as a third actor if conflict with Taiwan for example was to occur to tie up US forces. This is a huge strategic benefit from the Chinese perspective. That is why I think the complete removal of USFK from the peninsula is the only thing that would get the Chinese attention.
From the Chinese perspective if the Kim regime is removed and the Koreas are united what other reason would the US have to keep troops in Korea other than to threaten China? I don’t think the Chinese would even go for this proposal and would push for more US concessions in regards to Taiwan to really strike a deal, but I think any proposal would have to include the removal of US troops from Korea.
Maybe I am wrong, does anyone else have any differing opinions on what it would take to strike a deal with China?
The ROK must have gotten all the intelligence they could out of this guy before leaking to the media that he has defected:
A high-level North Korean official in charge of state surveillance defected to the South in 2015, a government source said.
The South Korean source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the official was a director-level member of Pyongyang’s state security department, Yonhap reported on Wednesday, local time.
The high-ranking defector was in charge of identifying trends in public sentiment among the residents of Pyongyang, the capital where the country’s elite reside.
“It is believed in interviews with [South Korean] authorities the official said public sentiment [about the North Korean leadership] in Pyongyang is ‘heated,'” the source stated.
The term “heated” is used to convey negativity about the Kim Jong Un regime, the source explained.
It is highly unusual for North Korean state security department personnel to flee the country, and the defector, identified as “A” in the Yonhap report, is believed to have left with confidential information on the Kim regime, and the leadership’s surveillance methods critical to maintaining control of the population.
The defector reportedly told South Korean government interviewers members of his bureau were uncomfortable with Kim’s rule, and after watching “others bounce,” state agents are “bouncing,” or exiting the regime. [UPI]
President Park has double down on her policy of encouraging the mass defections of North Korean refugees which the Kim regime has responded to by calling her a “impudent bitch”:
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Tuesday told her government to prepare for large-scale defections from North Korea, just days after direct appealing to its citizens to flee their country.
A recent spate of high-profile North Korean defections have provided a propaganda windfall for Seoul, which has spun them into a narrative of a Pyongyang leadership in crisis and riven with descent.
Notable defections have included the North’s deputy ambassador to Britain and a rare, group escape by a dozen waitresses from a North Korean-run restaurant in China.
In an address to mark Armed Forced Day earlier this month, Park had vowed to “keep the road open” for future escapees and urged North Koreans to “come to the bosom of freedom in the South.”
Pyongyang’s response was to call Park a “bare-faced and impudent bitch” in a commentary carried by the ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Park reiterated her defection appeal, and stressed the importance of preparing the ground for any new arrivals.
“Defectors are like unification that has arrived early, and a test bed for unification,” Park said.
“I hope we can swiftly secure sufficient system and capacity to accommodate North Korean citizens who come seeking freedom,” she added. [AFP]
I will never understand how these leftists continue to think that the Kim regime will ever denuclearize? How does he plan to do this? By more talks and negotiations with the North Koreans:
Rep. Moon Jae-in, a former leader of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea and presidential aspirant, called on the government Sunday to temporarily suspend ongoing procedures to deploy a U.S. anti-missile system to the Korean Peninsula, demanding diplomatic efforts resume to denuclearize North Korea.
In his Facebook post, Moon also pointed out that the agreement between Seoul and Washington to deploy a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to the peninsula by end-2017 needs parliamentary approval.
“Rather than arguing that only the THAAD deployment serves the national interests, there should be discussions about national interests from a more comprehensive perspective,” he wrote, apparently alluding to President Park Geun-hye’s defense of the deployment plan.
But he added it would not be easy to reverse the agreement with the United States, South Korea’s top security ally, to station a THAAD battery in a golf course in the southern county of Seongju, about 290 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
Moon, then, said that South Korea has already shown to the world a “strong resolve” against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs through the deployment decision, and that a delay would not cause any big change in the allies’ efforts to install the THAAD in Seongju.
“The fundamental resolution of North Korea’s nuclear problem is through the realization of (the goal to) denuclearize the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “A freeze on the North’s nukes is urgent, and then we should go in a direction towards a complement dismantlement of the North’s nuclear arms.” [Yonhap]
It looks like the Obama administration is about to make a bigger issue of North Korea’s human rights record:
United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power (C) at the truce village of Panmunjom on Oct. 9, 2016. (Yonhap)
The United States ambassador to the United Nations visited a settlement support center for North Korean defectors on Sunday, official sources said.
Samantha Power, who arrived in Seoul the day before, toured the Hanawon center in Anseong some 77 kilometers south of the South Korean capital and held talks with North Koreans who fled the reclusive country.
Authorities said she took part in a prayer session with some of the defectors who are receiving training so they can assimilate into their new lives in the South.
Government insiders said the trip reflects Washington’s drive to make an issue of the North’s deplorable human rights abuses that could lead to the matter being linked to additional sanctions down the road. Currently talks are underway at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to penalize the North following its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9. [Yonhap]
