It is Pyongyang\u2019s first ballistic missile launch since November, when it staged a test after US President Donald Trump approved South Korea\u2019s plan to build a nuclear-powered submarine.<\/p>\n
One analyst said Trump\u2019s Saturday military operation against Venezuela likely played a role in the decision to carry out the launch.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang has for decades argued it needs its nuclear and missile programme as a deterrent against alleged regime change efforts by Washington. The US has offered Pyongyang repeated assurances it has no such plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey likely fear that if the US so chooses, it could launch a precision strike at any moment, threatening the regime\u2019s survival,\u201d Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe underlying message is likely that attacking North Korea would not be as easy as a strike on Venezuela,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Lee bound for China<\/p>\n
The test also came just hours before South Korean President Lee Jae Myung departs for Beijing for talks with President Xi Jinping, whose Government is a key economic backer of North Korea.<\/p>\n
Lee hopes to possibly harness China\u2019s clout over North Korea to support his bid to improve ties with Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang has significantly stepped up missile testing in recent years.<\/p>\n
Analysts say this drive is aimed at improving precision strike capabilities, challenging the US as well as South Korea and testing weapons before potentially exporting them to Russia.<\/p>\n
Pyongyang is also set to hold a landmark congress of its ruling party in the coming weeks \u2013 its first in five years.<\/p>\n
Economic policy, as well as defence and military planning, are likely to be high on the agenda.<\/p>\n
Before that conclave, leader Kim Jong Un ordered the \u201cexpansion\u201d and modernisation of the country\u2019s missile production and the construction of more factories to meet growing demand.<\/p>\n
Today, state media reported that Kim had paid a visit to a facility involved in making tactical guided weapons.<\/p>\n
He ordered them to expand current production capacity by 250%, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.<\/p>\n
– Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is Pyongyang\u2019s first ballistic missile launch since November, when it staged a test after US President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,3017,95,130491,9218,607,11586,3806,26663,63,1888,42,7799,11551,5511,13734,34546,3331,13489,647,64797,2510,43,529,1118,3048,130492,1240,4485,23850,1865,40,38,41,39,3040,379],"class_list":["post-216057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-ahead","tag-and","tag-ballistic","tag-before","tag-china","tag-coast","tag-east","tag-fired","tag-fires","tag-first","tag-headlines","tag-heads","tag-hours","tag-just","tag-korea","tag-koreas","tag-launch","tag-leader","tag-military","tag-missiles","tag-multiple","tag-news","tag-north","tag-of","tag-said","tag-seouls","tag-south","tag-strike","tag-summit","tag-today","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}