(Bloomberg) — Kim Jong Un may be preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile or conduct a nuclear test to coincide with President Joe Biden’s trip to the region, as the North Korean leader battles a Covid-19 outbreak that poses one of the greatest crises faced by his regime.
“Our intelligence does reflect the genuine possibility that there will be either a further missile test, including a long-range missile test, or a nuclear test, or frankly both, in the days leading into, on or after the president’s trip to the region,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
“We are preparing for all contingencies, including the possibility that such a provocation could occur while we are in Korea or in Japan,” he said.
Biden will embark Friday on a trip to South Korea and Japan to coordinate with the US allies on security threats including that posed by North Korea, while seeking their participation in a new economic grouping to strengthen supply chains and reduce reliance on China.
South Korea national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo told reporters Wednesday that an ICBM test could be imminent, without giving a more detailed time frame.
North Korea’s ICBMs are designed to deliver a nuclear warhead to the US mainland, and the country fired one about two months ago for the first time in more than four years — highlighting the feat in a slickly produced video shown on state TV. Preparations can be watched by spy satellites, which have been trained on an area near Pyongyang’s main international airport after the two ICBM tests in March — only one was successful.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, told a briefing in Tokyo that North Korea’s ballistic missiles threaten peace and stability, without directly addressing a CNN report that a launch may be imminent.
Kim presided over a Politburo meeting on policies to halt a Covid-19 outbreak that his government said has infected about 1.7 million people and killed 62 in the past few weeks, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday. Top leaders also chastised officials who failed “to properly handle affairs in the current health crisis due to a shortage of their experience,” it said.
The coronavirus crisis is providing one of the biggest tests of Kim’s leadership since he took power a decade ago. His propaganda apparatus has tried to deflect blame for the outbreak to lower-ranking officials while his country has put on shows of its military might to remind its people of its strength in the face of a flareup that could crush its antiquated medical system.
North Korea has ignored offers of Covid-19 aid from South Korea and others, and the isolated country — along with east Africa’s Eritrea — is one of only two in the world that hasn’t started a vaccination program against the virus, according to the United Nations.
Pyongyang appears to have sent airplanes to China, its biggest benefactor, in the past few days to pick up medical supplies, NK News and Yonhap News Agency reported.
The country’s population is already vulnerable. The UN’s food aid agency estimates about 40% of its population is undernourished, which could magnify the impact of the virus.
Kim’s regime has not called the hundreds of thousands of infections “Covid,” likely because the country doesn’t have enough testing kits to confirm the cases were caused by the coronavirus.
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