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| Daily News Brief May 20, 2013 |
Top of the Agenda: North Korea in Third Day of Missile Firings
North Korea fired two short-range missiles (Reuters)
today after firing four others over the weekend in response to what the
government calls "mounting war pressures" from the United States and
South Korea. China has asked North Korea to release a Chinese fishing boat with a sixteen-man crew (BBC) seized May 5 in what China says were Chinese waters. North Koreans have asked for a $100,000 ransom for the ship and crew.
Analysis
"The missile launch by North Korea is something that no other countries want to see, and China's reaction will be predictable.
The government will likely condemn any action threatening the peace and
stability in the peninsula." Professor Wang Fan , director of the
Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs
University, tells the South China Morning Post.
"The
United States and South Korea should reach out to China based on the
understanding that there is a time limit for North Korea to come back to
negotiations and that denuclearization must be a main agenda
for any new dialogue, recognizing that China is vested in the status
quo. Only by trying to bring China along will it be possible to prove
that peaceful options for transforming North Korea have been exhausted,"
writes CFR's Scott A. Snyder.
"Pyongyang
wants to be acknowledged as a member of the adults-only nuclear club.
It bridles at any attempt to restrict its sovereign desire to test its
missile program. And it takes exception to both economic sanctions and joint U.S.-ROK military maneuvers
near its borders. The response to all this was decidedly intemperate.
But it was neither irrational nor inexplicable," writes John Feffer for
the Huffington Post.
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