Embarrassed by Rocket Crash, North Korea May Try Nuclear Test

(Reuters)- North Korea
said its much hyped long-
range rocket launch failed
on Friday, in a very rare
and embarrassing public
admission of failure by the
hermit state and a blow for
its new young leader who
faces international outrage
over the attempt.
The isolated North, using
the launch to celebrate the
100th birthday of the dead
founding president Kim Il-
sung and to mark the rise
to power of his grandson
Kim Jong-un, is now widely
expected to press ahead
with its third nuclear test to
show its military strength.
"The possibility of an
additional long-range
rocket launch or a nuclear
test, as well as a military
provocation to strengthen
internal solidarity is very
high," a senior South
Korean defense ministry
official told a parliamentary
hearing.
The two Koreas are divided
by
the world's most
militarized border and
remain technically at war
after an armistice ended
the Korean War in 1953,
according to Reuters
report.
The United States and
Japan said the rocket,
which they claimed was a
disguised missile test and
the North said was to put a
satellite into orbit, crashed
into the sea after travelling
a much shorter distance
than a previous North
Korean launch.
Its failure raises questions
over the impoverished
North's reclusive
leadership which has one of
the world's largest standing
armies
but cannot feed its
people without outside aid,
largely from its only
powerful backer, China.
"(There is) no question that
the
failed launch turns
speculation toward the
ramifications for the
leadership in Pyongyang: a
fireworks display gone bad
on the biggest day of the
year," said Scott Snyder of
the Council on Foreign
Relations.
In a highly unusual move,
the North, which still claims
success with a 2009
satellite that others say
failed, admitted in a state
television broadcast seen
by its 23 million people that
the latest satellite had not
made it into orbit.
The failure is the first
major and very public
challenge for the third of
the Kim dynasty to rule
North Korea just months
into the leadership of a man
believed
to be in his late
20s.
"It could be indication of
subtle change in the North
Korean leadership in how
they handle these things,
something that may be
different from the past,"
said Baek Seung-joo of the
Korea Institute of Defense
Analyses a thinktank
affiliated with South Korean
Defence Ministry.
"I mean it would have been
unthinkable for them to
admit this kind of failure in
the past, something that
could be seen as an
international humiliation.
The decision to have come
out with the admission had
to come from Kim Jong-un."
Embarrassingly, the rocket
flew for just a few minutes
covering a little over
100km to explode over a
sea separating the Korean
peninsula and China, far
less than the last rocket in
2009 that travelled
3,800km, alarming Japan
which it over-flew.
The launch is in breach of
United Nations Security
Council sanctions and drew
condemnation from the
United States, Russia,
South Korea and Japan.
But North Korea looks to
have avoided the threat of
fresh U.N. sanctions - which
neighbor
Japan is pushing
for - after Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said
that at talks with his
Chinese and Indian
counterparts they had
agreed new sanctions
would do nothing to help
resolve the situation.
Regional powers are
worried that the North is
using launches to perfect
technology to enable it to
build a missile capable of
delivering a nuclear
warhead to the United
States.
North Korea has repeatedly
defended its
right to launch
rockets for what it says
are peaceful purposes and
may have invested
hundreds of millions of
dollars in the failed launch.
China, the North's main
backer, again appealed for
"calm", although its failure
to dissuade Pyongyang
from undertaking the launch
despite
propping up the
ailing and impoverished
state, showed the
limitations of its diplomacy,
analysts said.
"North Korea's provocative
action threatens regional
security, violates
international law and
contravenes its own recent
commitments," White House
spokesman Jay Carney
said.
The North American
Aerospace Defense
Command, NORAD, said the
first stage fell into the sea
west of South Korea, and
the remainder was deemed
to have failed.
"No debris fell on land,"
NORAD said. "At no time
were the missile or the
resultant debris a threat."
CHINA HOLDS KEY DESPITE
DIPLOMATIC FAILURE
The launch came just
weeks after a "Leap Year"
deal that saw Washington
agree to provide food aid.
Among the promises
Pyongyang made in return
was not to launch any long
range rocket or undertake
nuclear tests.
There is likely to be
pressure from leading
countries to impose more
sanctions on the North. But
it poses difficulties for
China which will likely resist
further sanctions even
though its own diplomacy
failed to stop the rocket
launch.
"After giving so much aid to
North Korea, it still did not
listen to China, and this
hurt China-North Korea
relations and erodes
domestic support in its
continued support of North
Korea," said Shen Dingli, a
professor and regional
security expert at
Shanghai's Fudan
University.
"This also undermines
confidence in the U.S.-China
relationship, and whether
China had done enough to
persuade the North. So,
China is also a loser, but
not as big a loser as if
North Korea succeeded in
its launch," he said.
If the United States, Japan
and South Korea do ratchet
up pressure on North
Korea that could lead to a
show of defiance from the
North such as a nuclear
test, or an attack like the
one in 2010 that saw it
shell a South Korean island,
killing civilians.
"Rather than any
conventional provocation, I
think North Korea will watch
what U.S. and South Korea
are doing and prepare for
a nuclear test," said Chung
Young-chul, a professor at
Sogang University's
Graduate School of Public
Policy.
PRICE OF FAILURE FOR
"SUPREME COMMANDER"
Now led by Kim Jong-un,
North Korea had planned to
make 2012 the year in
which it became a "strong
and prosperous nation"
and the launch was part of
a program to burnish its
credentials.
It even, unusually, invited
foreign media in to cover
the birthday celebrations
and showed them the
launch site.
Kim was named First
Secretary of the Workers
Party of Korea earlier this
week and on Friday as
head of the National
Defence Commission, as he
accumulates titles and
posts similar to those held
by his father, Kim Jong-il
who died in December.
State newspaper Rodong
Sinmun on Friday dubbed
him "the sun whom all the
party members, service
personnel and people of
the DPRK (Democratic
Peoples Republic of Korea)
acclaimed out of their
heartfelt desire."
Although North Korea is
one of the most tightly
controlled states on earth,
with no free media and a
tight grip on its population,
such a high profile failure
could trigger a backlash
among the country's elite.
"This is the first crisis for
the new leader that has
just taken over," said Lee
Jong-won, a professor at
Waseda University in
Tokyo.
"It is inevitable that they
will look to find who is
responsible for the failure,
and I wonder what the
treatment will be for those
in the military and the
hard-line officers who have
pressed for the launch."