SEOUL, South Korea – Russia’s war in Ukraine continues.
China has doubled down on its take-up commitment Taiwan.
In the United States, clashes between Democrats and Republicans have exacerbated political divisions.
With the Biden administration busy on multiple fronts, North Koreaa tiny, isolated nation of 25 million people, it seems determined to get Washington to pay attention.
their boss, Kim Jong Unwarned that the United States should no longer be considered a superpower”unipolarr” in a new “cold war”.
Kim spent much of the year taking on the United States and its allies, testing record numbers of missiles (86) and even try to launch a nuclear missile against South Korea.
In just one day this month, North Korea fired 23 missiles, one of which crashed into waters just 35 miles off South Korea’s east coast, prompting islanders to seek refuge underground.
In recent weeks, he has flown Soviet-era warplanes and fired hundreds of artillery shells near the border with South Korea, as well as launching an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan.
With Russia hinting at threats to use nuclear weapons and worsening relations between Washington and Beijing, Kim most likely senses an opportunity:
In an increasingly destabilized world, there’s no better time to test your weapons, show off your advanced technology and taunt your enemies. with virtual impunity during the attempt acquire diplomatic influence.
“North Korea shot everything it wanted to shoot; it tested everything it wanted to test,” said Lee Seong-Hyon, senior fellow and North Korea expert at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.
“But we’re at a point where neither the United States nor South Korea can do much about it.”
By Kim’s own admission, North Korea’s economy is in severe pain, hit by years of UN sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.
But Kim, 38, who seized power more than a decade ago, seems to see that the geopolitical tide turn in your favor.
In a parliamentary speech last year, he described the rise of a “new cold war” around the world.
In another speech, he encouraged his country to prepare for “the transition from a US-backed unipolar world to a multipolar world,” in which China and other US adversaries. lead equally.
These developments have given Pyongyang hopes that North Korea can once again enjoy the kind of financial and military support it received from Beijing and Moscow during the former Cold War, analysts say.
“No country welcomes a new cold war like North Korea because it increases its strategic value to China and Russia,” Lee said.
“For an isolated and underdeveloped country like North Korea, which is in constant confrontation with external enemies, no environment is more conducive to its survival than a cold war.”
There is a school of thought that the Cold War never ended and that the demarcation line between the two Koreas, known as the Demilitarized Zone, is a symbol of unfinished business in the duel between the great powers.
(The Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953, meaning the two nations are technically still at war).
The Kim dynasty’s plan for survival has long been tied to its nuclear weapons program and the promise of economic development in the face of Western rebuke.
Kim sees its nuclear arsenal as essential to ensuring the security of his regime and maintaining an advantage over South Korea, which he derides as a modern vassal state following Washington’s lead.
Kim not only hopes for a larger nuclear arsenal to consolidate his national leadership, but also seems to believe it will increase his bargaining power, should they resume negotiations with the United States.
After multiple rounds of failed talks and more recent unanswered calls to revive them, Washington has grown increasingly skeptical that serious negotiations with Pyongyang remain possible, leaving North Korea more determined than ever to demand your attention.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo say North Korea can do a nuclear weapons teststhe seventh, at any time.
If so, Washington and its allies could find themselves with their hands tied as they try to impose sanctions.
This month, the United Nations Security Council failed to pass new sanctions against North Korea in response to its recent missile tests, which violated United Nations resolutions.
China and Russia, two powers with veto power in the council, they opposed to the proposal led by Washington.
North Korea is familiar with the game of one superpower against another.
When Kim started his diplomacy with the president Donald Trump in 2018, he hedged his bet by meeting the Chinese leader for the first time Xi Jinping.
Xi, whose relationship with Kim up until then seemed patchy at times, was eager to keep North Korea
It is a buffer between Chinese and US military installations in South Korea.
As relations between Washington and Beijing deteriorate, Xi looks more anxious than ever for keeping Pyongyang in its orbit.
Kim’s unprecedented diplomatic flirtation with Trump has helped the young leader reassert his country’s geopolitical value to China.
Xi visited Pyongyang in 2019 after talks between Trump and Kim collapsed and said he would help address North Korea’s economic and security concerns “to the best of my ability.”
When the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosivisited Taiwan in August, North Korea returned the favor to China calling the visit “blatant interference” in Beijing’s “internal affairs”.
Kim also saw an advantage in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and aligned his country more closely with Moscow.
North Korea is one of the few nations that officially supports the invasion.
This month, Washington accused the North of secretly sending artillery shells to Russia to aid its war effort.
(Pyongyang and Moscow have denied this.) Both Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin have recently threatened to use nuclear weapons if they feel their country is in danger.
While North Korea’s record provocations this year may suggest a bolder and more powerful Kim, some analysts say the barrage of missile fires, as well as the decision to destroy the North’s decrepit Soviet-era warplane, could reflect a growing anxiety. in the country.
“Kim Jong Un cannot afford a protracted and costly confrontation with Washington,” said Park Won-gon, a North Korea expert at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul.
“So he’s mobilizing everything he has to make rapid progress.
What we see is a familiar pattern of North Korea resorting to calculated risk.”
Kim’s ultimate goal, some analysts say, is for his country to be recognized as a credible nuclear power and to involve Washington in arms reduction talks, hoping to sell only a fraction of its nuclear arsenal in exchange for relief from sanctions.
North Korea has been testing new missiles in recent years, Kim probably thinks it’s an expanded arsenal it will increase your influence at the negotiating table.
North Korea has declared that it can attack the United States with nuclear-tipped ICBMs.
But analysts questioned that claim, as the country has never flown its missiles to their full intercontinental range or demonstrated that its missiles can survive violent re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere after flying into space.
fears
However, Kim’s determination to expand his country’s arsenal has deepened fears that North Korea’s nuclear technology could end up in the hands of US adversaries or prompt South Korea to consider switching. to nuclear power.
Seoul officially denies any plans to build its own nuclear weapons.
The United States reaffirmed its commitment to defending South Korea by ramping up the two countries’ joint military exercises this year after Trump scaled back the exercises and hampered them due to the pandemic.
The North used the return of those exercises as a excuse me test as many weapons as possible.
Since 2019, the country has tested a variety of new, mostly short-range missiles, some designed to fly at hypersonic speeds or to maneuver while in flight.
They were launched at random times and from various locations, including trains and an underwater silo, to make them harder to intercept.
If the North Koreans resume nuclear testing, they could test smaller, lighter “tactical” nuclear warheads that the country plans to mount on its new short-range missiles, increasing the threat to US allies in the region. Korean defense officials say.
Testing them is not only a political but also a technical question.
“They have to be technically ready,” Shin Beom-chul, South Korea’s deputy defense minister, said in a televised interview broadcast last month.
“It may not be a one-time test. North Korea can conduct two or three tests in a row.”
c.2022 The New York Times Society
Source: Clarin
