The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [231]
North Korea's shift from self-reliance to engagement began amid very mixed portents. The launching of a long-range DPRK rocket late in 1998 accentuated fears in Japan and redoubled concern in the United States, while charges of nuclear duplicity in clandestine underground activity further marred the atmosphere. At the same time, below the level of most outside awareness, domestic develop ments in Pyongyang began to set the stage for dramatically different policies that would alter the central relationships on the Korean peninsula.
INTO THE HEAVENS, UNDER THE EARTH
At seven minutes after noon on August 31, 1998, North Korea sent a three-stage rocket roaring into the heavens from a launching site on the shores of the Sea of Japan, which both North and South Koreans patriotically call "the East Sea." The first stage fell away from the rocket ninety-five seconds later and landed in the sea 156 miles away, short of Japan. The second stage flew over the northern tip of the main Japanese island of Honshu and landed in the Pacific 1,022 miles from the launch site. The third stage, a solid-fueled rocket that North Korea had not previously demonstrated or been known to possess, sought to place a small satellite in a global orbit broadcasting the revolutionary hymns, "Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong Il." So far as U.S. monitors could determine, the effort to launch a satellite failed. But the range of the rocket, especially its third stage, was a most unpleasant discovery for those concerned about North Korea's potential for launching ballistic missiles with highly lethal and destructive warheads.
The test launch of the rocket, called the Taep'o-dong by western analysts after the area where a mock-up of the projectile was first spotted, touched off an intense alarm, bordering on panic, in Japan. A manmade projectile from an unfriendly country flying over the Japanese islands was the most tangible physical threat to the country since the end of World War II, and a nightmare to many Japanese. The government of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi sought to contain the furor with uncharacteristically quick responses. A Japanese official had been scheduled to sign an agreement in New York that very day to provide $1 billion toward the light-water reactors promised to North Korea under the 1994 Agreed Framework. After the test, Japan announced it would not sign (though it proceeded with the project under U.S. pressure several weeks later). Japan also announced that it was halting humanitarian food aid to North Korea and suspending its offer to continue talks on establishing diplomatic ties, which would be accompanied by large-scale reparations to Pyongyang. Most significantly, in the long run, the Taep'o-dong test emboldened the previously divided Japanese government to override its traditional pacifism and move into the arena of militarized space, deciding to produce its own satellite reconnaissance system for early warning and to move toward joining the controversial U.S. antiballistic missile project in the Asian region.
In the United States, the test came exactly two weeks after the New York Times reported that US. intelligence had detected what appeared to be a secret North Korean underground nuclear weapons complex in violation of the 1994 accord. Taken together, the possibility that North Korea was secretly continuing its quest for nuclear bombs, while rapidly improving its potential ability to deliver them via long-range missiles, sounded