North Korea playing usual game with missile launches

Now what? Just when we thought things were getting better, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea pulled the rug out from under everyone by announcing a planned satellite launch to commemorate Great Leader Kim Il-Sung’s 100th birthday celebrations.

Pyongyang pretends to believe that there is a difference between long-range ballistic missile tests (which it recently foreswore) and satellite launches using the same launch vehicle — a distinction lost on most others, specifically the United Nations Security Council, which banned “all missile activity” by North Korea, including “any launch using ballistic missile technology.”

So what is Pyongyang up to? Nobody knows for sure, but many are speculating that the contradiction between its Feb. 29 declaration of a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests and the satellite launch announcement reflects a power struggle between the foreign ministry and the military and party leadership. That’s possible, but recall that the Leap Day announcement came a week after bilateral U.S.-DPRK negotiations; the foreign ministry had plenty of time to vet the agreement.

It is equally possible that this was the plan all along. Raise hopes, then test the others by trying to fly a rocket through a perceived loophole in the agreement.

This action is sure to prompt heated debates, especially within South Korean political circles, over whether to yield to the North’s interpretation and turn a blind eye to Security Council resolutions, or to allow the Feb. 29 “breakthrough” to break down.

Sound familiar? Creating divisions within and between its interlocutors has long been a DPRK ploy.

North Korea experts can no doubt come up with a dozen more explanations. Announcing the decision now, for example, will draw attention away from the South’s diplomatic success in hosting next week’s second Nuclear Security Summit while drawing attention to itself instead.

Rather than continuing to guess what Pyongyang is up to, however, it’s more important for the rest of us to know what we are going to do in response. Seoul has already branded the North’s announcement a “grave provocative act against peace and stability.”

Washington has also branded the announced launch a “direct violation” of Security Council mandates, a threat to regional stability, and “inconsistent with North Korea’s recent undertaking to refrain from long-range missile launches.”

The U.S. has correctly placed the food aid on hold while it waits to see if the North actually attempts to place a satellite in orbit during its announced April 12-16 launch window. The odds are extremely high that it will try, but less certain it will succeed.

Once again, it all comes down to China. In 2009, when faced with a similar impending satellite launch, the U.S. (and almost everybody else) made it clear to Pyongyang that this would be a violation of Security Council resolutions and that there would be serious consequences. The Chinese and Russians were more circumspect. They had to be dragged into a mild presidential statement condemning the activity, after the fact, as a violation

This time around, the Russians are already on board, expressing “serious concern” over the North’s announcement while calling on Pyongyang to avoid confrontation and refrain from actions which could delay resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

One would have thought that China, having learned the lessons of 2009, would have done likewise. Wrong. Beijing has “taken note” of Pyongyang’s announcement, but the most we have got thus far is another one of its maddening calls for “all parties” to act constructively.

It’s time for Beijing to stop empowering the North. At a minimum, it should state unequivocally that any launch would be a violation of Security Council resolutions and would open the North up to new sanctions (enforcing current mandatory sanctions would also be a nice gesture).

Otherwise, if the past is precedent, we are likely to see a North Korean missile launch, followed by a mild Security Council statement, which China will try its best to water down, followed by another North Korean nuclear test to really demonstrate how strong it is. This would attract a new round of Security Council sanctions that China will endorse but then halfheartedly enforce, eventually followed (after some renewed saber-rattling by the North), by yet another “breakthrough,” which will then result in renewed food aid and the resumption of Six-Party Talks destined to go nowhere.

All this will happen according to Pyongyang’s plan. And they call the North crazy?

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Ralph A. Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based nonprofit research institute.