With
North Korea declaring its intention to push ahead with a third nuclear test
following the United Nations Security Council resolution on its launch of a
long-range rocket, it seems hardly a coincidence that the US, China, and Japan
have launched their own interceptor missiles and spy satellites. As the
intensity of the North Korean nuclear crisis soars and the strategic
competition between the US and China, and between China and Japan, heats up in
the Asia-Pacific region, military tensions are on the rise in Northeast Asia.
On
Jan. 26 (local time), the US Defense Department announced that it had succeeded
in a test of a missile defense system that can intercept intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that are aimed at the continental US while they are
still outside the atmosphere. This test is part of a project that is being
conducted to defend the continental US from the ICBM threat posed by North
Korea and Iran.
The
Missile Defense Agency (MDA), a section of the US Defense Department, said, “We
were successful in our launch of a three-stage ground-based interceptor (GBI)
from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.”
The
test was conducted as part of the development of the Ground-based Midcourse
Defense (GMD). A ballistic missile’s trajectory is divided into the launch
phase, a middle phase when it is in outer space beyond the atmosphere, and a
final phase where it enters the atmosphere once again. GMD refers to
intercepting a ballistic missile in this middle phase.
“We
didn’t launch a real missile to serve as a target for the interceptor,” the MDA
said. “However, if such a target missile had existed, the Exoatmospheric Kill
Vehicle (EKV) that was attached to the interceptor rocket would have collided
with the target and destroyed it.
During
a test launch by the MDA in Dec. 2010, the EKV failed to intercept the target.
This test involved actually launching a target object and attempting to destroy
it. The most recent test took place after correcting the flaws in the guided
missile technology that became apparent in the former test.
China
also succeeded in a test launch of a ground-based mid-range interceptor missile
conducted inside its own territory on Jan. 27, the country’s news agency Xinhua
reported on Jan. 28, quoting a Defense Ministry official. “The test launch
achieved the goals that we had set. The test was defensive in nature and was
not targeted at any country,” the official emphasized.
This
is the second time that China has officially announced that it has conducted an
interceptor missile test. On Jan. 11, 2010, China said that it had successfully
completed the test of a mid-range interceptor missile. At the time, the US
press saw this as China’s response to the US Defense Department’s decision to
permit sales of the MIM-104 Patriot interceptor missiles to Taiwan.
The
interceptor test is a response to US moves to establish a missile defense
perimeter in East Asia, suggested Song Zhongping, who served as an instructor
with China’s Second Artillery Force, the strategic missile unit of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA).
“If
the US does not accelerate its movements to establish a strategic missile
defense system in the East Asia and Pacific region, and if it doesn’t upset the
strategic balance, China won’t need to conduct an interceptor missile test,”
Song said in an interview with Fenghuang Satellite TV.
On
Jan. 27, Japan launched the Radar-4 information-gathering satellite, which
functions as a spy satellite, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima
Prefecture. Now that the satellite, delivered on an H-2A rocket, has entered
its planned orbit, Japan’s surveillance network has expanded to five
information-gathering satellites three optical satellites and two radar
satellites that are capable of monitoring every spot on earth once each day.
Japan’s development of information-gathering satellites was triggered by the
1998 launch of the Taepodong missile in 1998.
Called
information-gathering satellites, in reality they are spy satellites. “The
satellites circle the globe about ten times a day. If there is only one optical
and one radar satellite, a blind spot forms. There have to be two each in order
to get rid of this blind spot,” the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported.
The
day before North Korea’s long-range rocket launch took place on Dec. 12, 2012,
Japanese satellites had detected the rocket being removed from the launcher.
However, after that, the area moved into the blind spot, and Japan was not able
to track any further movements, the newspaper reported.
With
the satellite launch, which was the sixteenth consecutive successful launch of
Japan’s H-2A rocket, the country proudly displayed its rocket technology, which
uses liquid hydrogen fuel.
“It’s
not yet clear whether the simultaneous launch of interceptor missiles and spy
satellites by the US, China and Japan took into account North Korea’s recent
statements about missile launches and nuclear tests,” said a diplomatic source
in Beijing. “However, we will need to watch carefully to see whether the major
powers neighboring the Korean peninsula will treat moves by the North as a
pretext to take measures to strengthen their own military might.”
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