Korean Missile Distraction
On August 31, North Korea launched a missile over Japanese territory, past Japan, and into the Pacific Ocean. The multistage Taepodong rocket has a range of over 1,200 miles, which makes it easily capable of hitting Seoul, Tokyo, and virtually any other city in South Korea or Japan. (And, it should be noted, Vladivostok and several other Russian cities.) Especially given North Korea's recent forays into nuclear weapon technology, the ramifications of such a launch are devastating.
Then, the North Koreans announced they were just kidding. It wasn't a missile, they said. It was three-stage rocket that carried North Korea's first satellite being launched into orbit. And a successful launch it was, they proclaimed. It was transmitting messages including "the melody of the immortal revolutionary hymn 'The song of General Marshal Kim Jong-il,'" said Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea's official news agency.
Never mind that a senior Pentagon official told CNN that "the U.S. Space Command in Colorado -- which has the capability to track objects in space as small as a softball -- has not detected any new space objects." (CNN's words, not necessarily the official's.) And never mind that a rocket with a 1,200-mile range (with a low arc trajectory) probably doesn't have the horsepower to launch something into orbit. Oh, and never mind that one US official has said that no radio transmissions between North Korea and any satellite have been detected. Ignore all that. It was a satellite. Really it was. And North Korea really is a democratic people's republic. And they aren't starving.
Needless to say, a lot of people are really annoyed at the North Koreans. The United States, which has recently suspended oil aid to North Korea because they were selling missile technology to Pakistan, has not yet released an official statement on whether the launch was a missile or a satellite, but the Pentagon is understandably concerned, since whatever the purpose, the launch demonstrated technology that could easily be adapted to become a medium-range missile, if it isn't already one.
South Korea broadly condemned the launch. Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi banned flights between the nations, broke off talks about restoring relations, cut off aid towards building nuclear power reactors agreed upon in 1994 multi-party talks, and ended the food aid that North Korea still desperately needs.
KCNA responded by "bitterly denounc[ing] Japan for making a fuss over a matter that belongs to our sovereignty." It also asked Japan for more food aid.
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