North Korea on Wednesday criticised the United States’ (US) plans to hold trilateral exercises with South Korea and Japan in August, saying the Pacific Dragon drills are yet another indication of its attempt to create an “Asian NATO.”
State-owned Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) noted in a release on Wednesday that military officials from the three countries “decided to stage the exercises overtly and regularly to further strengthen their security cooperation” during a joint meeting earlier this month.
It claimed that the US had also decided to carry out a trilateral “missile-warning drill, which has been staged intermittently so far, once in a quarter regularly and overtly.”
“This shows that the US is sticking to the scheme for militarily grasping Japan and South Korea in a more undisguised and frantic manner,” it stated.
including the Indo-Pacific so as to demonstrate G7 unity to the world. I will also take advantage of the opportunity of the #NATO Summit to raise #Japan’s cooperation with NATO to a new stage. (June 25)
— PM's Office of Japan (@JPN_PMO) June 26, 2022
It thus argued that the US is “hell-bent” on military cooperation with its “stooges,” to the detriment of regional security and with the aim of “containing rivals” such as China and Russia and “gratifying [its] wild ambition for world domination.” It further alleged that these drills are designed to prepare for an assault on North Korea, saying the US is determined to achieve this “long-cherished desire.”
Along with the US, the news agency also blamed the new Kishida administration in Japan, which has sought to increase the country’s defence spending and possess the “capability to attack enemy bases”, as well as “the pro-US and pro-Japanese conservative forces in South Korea, which advocate the confrontation” with the North.
KCNA asserted that Japan and South Korea’s “kowtowing” to the “reckless” US is “evidently a dangerous prelude to the creation” of an ‘Asian NATO.’ Pyongyang asserted that this will have a “negative impact” on the security and stability of the Korean Peninsula, saying the US has no grounds to view it as a threat.
It thus posited: “This shows that the joint military exercises are clearly targeting the DPRK and that the U.S. hostile policy to stifle the DPRK has entered a more dangerous phase.” It warned that such moves “will only bring about catastrophic consequences of self-destruction.”
TODAY: 30 #NATO leaders are meeting at a pivotal time for our security.
— NATO (@NATO) June 29, 2022
They will be joined by partners Australia 🇦🇺, Finland 🇫🇮, Georgia 🇬🇪, Japan 🇯🇵, South Korea 🇰🇷, Sweden 🇸🇪, New Zealand 🇳🇿, Ukraine 🇺🇦 and the EU 🇪🇺#NATOSummit
These latest accusations come against the backdrop of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit for the first time. In fact, the pair are scheduled to hold a trilateral summit with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the event, marking the first such meeting between the trio’s heads of state since 2017. In addition, as mentioned in the KCNA release, the three countries will hold the Pacific Dragon missile detection and tracking exercises near Hawaii in two months.
The meeting between Yoon, Kishida, and Biden closely follows a meeting between the deputy foreign ministers of the three countries earlier this month.
The U.S., South Korea, Japan, Australia and Canada will participate in joint missile defense drills this August.
— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) June 27, 2022
One expert told NK News that these exercises tend to "assume that [they are] against North Korea’s missile attacks."https://t.co/hGyBI8zMxV
Against this backdrop, KCNA also republished an article by Kim Hyo Myong, a researcher at the Society for International Politics Study, saying in a recent article that the only “contribution” NATO “has made to world peace and security is the devastation of sovereign states, massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and generation of refugees numbering millions with its unlawful wars of aggression.”
Saying that NATO is “responsible for bringing disaster to Eastern Europe” and is now seeking to conduct “military moves” against North Korea, Kim asserted, “NATO is nothing but a perpetrator of the U.S. hegemonic strategy. It is simply a tool for local invasion.” He blamed the US for “sowing dissension, discord, confrontation, and conflict” in Europe through the eastward expansion of NATO.
He thus alleged that NATO is now “turning its sinister eyes” to the eastern hemisphere via “confrontational alliances” such as AUKUS and the Quad, “under the pretext of restoration of democracy” and strengthening of alliance.”” Kim described such ventures as a “trans-pacific encirclement ring aimed at containing and isolating China.”
Like the KCNA, he said this also represents part of NATO’s “Eastern Crusade.”
North Korea is not alone in its concerns regarding the growing trilateral cooperation. In a report published by Chinese state-owned media house Global Times (GT) ahead of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier this month, Chinese analysts argued that Japan leveraging the Russia-Ukraine war “to strengthen its military cooperation with NATO, and trying to channel NATO’s influence into the Asia-Pacific region or promote the establishment of a NATO-like military alliance in the region.”
“Such ill-intended plans” will “hijack regional peace and stability,” only to serve Tokyo’s own “ambition of strengthening its military power, containing China with a military alliance, and getting rid of the constraints of its Pacifist Constitution,” GT warned.
A productive meeting with South Korean @President_KR Yoon Suk Yeol ahead of the NATO Summit in Madrid. South Korea is an important partner in the Indo-Pacific region, and we discussed how we can work together in defence of sovereignty, democracy and human rights. pic.twitter.com/PEp56ZdZT8
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) June 29, 2022
Similarly, ahead of the NATO Summit in Madrid this week, GT said Japan and South Korea’s participation is a “very negative move” that could bring the Cold War to the Asia-Pacific by “inviting wolves into the house.” It warned that such moves are “bound to damage strategic trust with China, inevitably leading to consequences.”
In a further show of support for the secretive regime, China recently vetoed the imposition of new sanctions of North Korea in the United Nations Security Council, saying the hostility on the peninsula has “developed to what it is today, primarily due to the flip flop of US policies.”
Likewise, earlier this month, China expressed its support for North Korea’s presidency of the 65-member Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, despite 48 members voicing their stern opposition.
Hitting at China’s criticism of South Korea’s attendance at the NATO Summit, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said that it would be “a lack of courtesy” on Beijing’s part to protest President Yoon Suk-yeol’s participation at the NATO summit this week.
“If it is necessary for our security, we should go. It would be a lack of courtesy for China to say do it or don’t do it. It is not in line with mutual respect,” the PM said.
Pyongyang has already launched over 30 missiles this year, including six Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), and is allegedly gearing up for its first nuclear test since 2017, with South Korea claiming that preparations have already been completed.