US at UN condemns North Korean ICBM launch, as China and Russia defend ally

Emergency Security Council meeting sees Washington calling on Pyongyang to put diplomacy over missile tests after country conducts its 31st this year
China envoy, citing US dispatch of weapons to peninsula, warns of escalations if ‘vicious cycle of aggressive assertion of power cannot be broken’

North Korea

Mark Magnierin New York

Published: 8:00am, 20 Dec 2023

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The United States and its allies on Tuesday condemned North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile a day earlier during a UN Security Council meeting, calling on Pyongyang to end its dangerous conduct and instead focus on diplomacy.

But China and Russia defended their socialist ally, countering that it was American aggression – including military exercises and the recent South Korean port call by a US nuclear submarine – that sparked the crisis, not Pyongyang’s launch.

“It is on Russia and China to join us, to act as if their credibility as responsible permanent members depends on it,” said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the UN.

“We are here because the DPRK must understand that the only viable path forward is through diplomacy,” he added, referring to North Korea by its official name.

Robert Wood, US deputy ambassador to the UN, confers with advisers during a UN Security Council meeting in New York on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

The meeting followed talks on Monday between top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi and his North Korean counterpart Pak Myong-ho during which the two countries reaffirmed their long-standing bonds.

While Russia repeatedly criticised the US by name at the council on Tuesday, China took a more indirect approach, although the object of its blame was unambiguous.

“We also note the moves by a certain country to provide extended deterrents to his ally and its dispatch of strategic weapons to the peninsula,” said Geng Shuang, China’s deputy ambassador to the UN.

“If this vicious cycle of aggressive assertion of power cannot be broken, I’m afraid the peninsula could see further escalations.”

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The launch of the ICBM on Monday, and a shorter-range missile on Sunday, brought urgency to a trilateral, real-time missile information- sharing system between the US, South Korea and Japan announced at a historic Camp David summit in August.

Hours before the UN meeting, the three allies revealed that the monitoring system, aimed at detecting projectiles launched by North Korea, was live.

“Following recent tests that verified the full operational capability of the DPRK missile-warning data-sharing mechanism, the mechanism is now active,” the Pentagon said, adding it would detect and assess North Korean missiles in real time.

The three allies also announced a multi-year military training programme to “regularise trilateral exercises and execute them more systematically and efficiently”.

Security Council members noted Pyongyang has launched 31 missiles this year, including five ICBMs and three space launches, which are steadily gaining in range and capability.

The latest launch was believed to be a Hwasong-18 missile propelled by solid fuel, which is more stable, faster to launch and more difficult to detect than past rockets.

North Korea’s long-range rocket reportedly travelled just over 600 miles (965 kilometres) before splashing down in the sea northwest of Tokyo.

The sharpest exchange during Tuesday’s council hearing involved Russia and the US, with each side requesting extra time to attack the other.

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“We have been witnessing the American military machine being actively deployed in the region since the middle of the past year,” said Anna Evstigneeva, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN.

“The Freedom Shield and Ssang Yong exercises led by Washington were nothing but a show of force,” she added.

“What cannot be explained is the inclusion of the United States among the so-called victims of North Korean provocations, even though its borders are thousands of kilometres away.”

Countered Wood: “I will just remind our Russian colleague, it is the DPRK that is under Security Council sanctions, not the United States.”

Geng Shuang, China’s deputy ambassador to the UN, speaks during a Security Council meeting in New York in March. Photo: UN

Most representatives on the 15-member council condemned the North Korean launch, saying the impoverished country should focus on feeding its people and addressing human rights violations rather than funding expensive weapons programmes.

Meanwhile, a Chinese readout of Monday’s meeting between Wang and Pak said the two exchanged views on issues of “common concern” without elaborating, while Pyongyang’s state media, KCNA, said it was characterised by a friendly atmosphere.

Their meeting took place a few hours after the ICBM launch, and neither account touched explicitly on it.

Analysts said North Korea appeared to choose the timing of its latest ICBM launch because it needed to test its more advanced technology, coincided with the anniversary of the death of its former supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, and sent a message of defiance.

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“China cannot be happy about the circumstances,” said Scott Snyder, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The US-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not.

“But it should have plenty of opportunities to demonstrate the extent (and limits) of its influence on North Korea on the 75th anniversary of China-North Korean ties” next year.

Officially, North Korea is China’s only ally, bound by a 1961 treaty in which they vow to take all necessary measures, including military assistance, to come to each other’s aid in the event of an attack or an attempted attack by a third country.

Monday’s ICBM launch, which came 12 hours after the short-range missile launch on Sunday, meant North Korea had tallied the most ICBM launches it has ever carried out in a single year, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Pyongyang has a history of taking provocative actions, and the launch dropped a third crisis on the Security Council’s plate as the international community grapples with wars between Israel and Hamas and between Russia and Ukraine.

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The council on Tuesday also convened several hearings on the Middle East.

For its part, Pyongyang has condemned Washington for orchestrating what it has termed a “preview of a nuclear war”, including the arrival of a nuclear-powered US submarine in South Korea on Sunday.

“The United States and the other hostile forces have persistently committed acts of military threat against the DPRK throughout this year,” Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, told the council on Tuesday.

“The ICBM launch conducted by DPRK this time is a warning countermeasure in the face of this prevailing situation.”

Security Council resolutions have banned all North Korea’s ballistic missile activities, although Pyongyang counters that they are part of its sovereign right to self-defence.