China’s Response to N Korea Missile Launch May End Crisis

Donald Trump mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for having “nothing better to do with his life” hours after his regime fired a ballistic missile into waters near Japan.

The launch is the latest an increasingly frequent missile testing program, which the North says is rapidly approaching its aim of producing a missile capable of taking its nuclear capabilities to U.S. territory.

Tuesday’s missile launch also comes ahead of July 4 Independence Day celebrations in the US.

State officials announced the launch early Tuesday morning after South Korea had warned that the test appeared more advanced than usual. According to North Korean state TV, the ICBM covered some 933 kilometers in 39 minutes, reaching an altitude of 2,803 kilometers.

China’s UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi said that Beijing would push for the United States and South Korea to halt military exercises on the Korean Peninsula in exchange for North Korea suspending its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

South Korean Army Col. and spokesperson of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Roh Jae-Cheon said, “Our military is maintaining full preparedness against the possibility of North Korea’s additional provocation”.

Lee Illwoo, a Seoul-based military commentator, told the AP the North’s missile, launched Tuesday, traveled for a much longer period of time.

North Korea has long wanted to build a rocket that could deliver a warhead to the USA, with indications that the latest rocket flew for longer than previous launches and might have been capable of reaching Alaska. “We continue to monitor North Korea’s actions closely”, the PACOM said.

“Japan can not tolerate NK’s repeated provocative acts and (has) lodged stern protests against North Korea”.

We assume it a medium long-range ballistic missile. “That showed [Pyongyang] has ignored repeated warnings from the global community”, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe told reporters which the channel quoted. USA missile analyst David Wright says that would give it a potential range of over 6700km.

His tweets follow North Korea’s latest missile launch. The two leaders, along with their delegations, met in Washington last week where North Korea threats was the top-most topic discussed.