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Asia in 3 minutes: from North Korea’s missile test to India’s ban on commercial surrogacy
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North Korean missile launch earns rebuke from unusual bedfellows
On Wednesday, North Korea launched a missile, said to have had a range of 1,000km, from a submarine. It only managed half that distance, but that was enough to rattle the usual critics of Pyongyang’s missile, space and nuclear programmes. The launch coincided with more US-South Korean war games, which the North regularly describes as rehearsals for an invasion of its own territory. Within hours, representatives of Japan, China and South Korea, who were at a meeting in Tokyo, were united in agreeing that the North should show restraint and that the three countries needed to cooperate when dealing with Pyongyang, despite their mutual overlapping animosities. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said: “There are various outstanding issues among Japan, China and South Korea, but it is important to overcome them with political wisdom to promote cooperation.”
What next? Statements from North Korea’s neighbours – or anyone else for that matter – rarely affect what Pyongyang does, so the latest rebuke is unlikely to stop the weapon tests. The North argues that, since it is only trying to develop the kind of defence capabilities most of its critics already have, their complaints amount to hypocrisy.
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