Kathreb

North Korea Missiles

A diplomatic storm is brewing over how to deal with North Korea. Both China and South Korea have criticised Japan as over-reacting. Christopher Hill is in Beijing and has voiced the idea of excluding North Korea from future talks. Beijing is sending an envoy to North Korea. Japan is drumming up support for a sanction-approving resolution in the UN which is currently thought to have US, France and UK backing. It is unlikely that such a resolution could be passed though due to reluctance by China and Russia to take a hard-line.

It is hardly surprising that South Korea and China started having a hissy fitt at Japan. Any military stance directed toward an area of land as well-trodden by the feet of Japanese soldiers as North Korea is clearly going to be unpopular. But the gap between US/Japan voting for tough response versus Korea/China voting for more discussion has clearly widened. The patience of the Japan and US is clearly running dry.

There are quite of lot of editorials and such being printed analysing whether the missiles have had the desired outcome for North Korea. Some say it has been a failure and put them in a worse position, others suggest that events have gone in their favour. None of this makes much sense to me because for now, apart from a few diplomatic words, nothing has actually happened.

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