Pyongyang parades its nuclear capabilities

North Korea held a large-scale military parade at the stroke of Saturday midnight to celebrate the 75th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party, revealing new versions of weapons such as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and a submarine-launched ballistic missile. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un boasted off the regime’s strengthening of war deterrence, saying, “Our military capabilities have improved in terms of quality and quantity at a desirably expected pace to meet our demands according to a predesigned timeline.”

The military parade was a typical example of promoting Pyongyang’s propaganda to ensure internal unity and show off military competence. In particular, the North Korean leader strategically mobilized a long-range missile that can strike the U.S. mainland and a new line of weapons targeting South Korea. Although Kim’s speech did not refer to Washington explicitly, He used intimidating expressions while calling for dialogue. Despite the barbarian killing of a South Korean civilian and the demolishment of an inter-Korean liaison office, Kim gave false hope to the South, mentioning “the day when we meet once again to hold our hands.”

Since driving the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war by performing a series of nuclear and missile tests in 2017, North Korea has been busy for the last three years secretly developing the new weapons systems, which it showed off during the military parade, while acting deceitfully during negotiations with Washington and Seoul and intentionally prolonging a deadlock. It is hard to ignore the significance of the fact that the North revealed a multi-warhead ICBM or an SLBM with a larger diameter than the previous one. By showing its strong determination to pursue nuclear development, it may demand a completely new bargaining chip or a recognition as a nuclear state. Furthermore, Kim even said, “Time is in favor of us.”

At the same time, Kim said that he will detail strategies and goals at the 8th party convention next January while refraining from provocations, seemingly intending to wait and see what happens after the U.S. presidential election scheduled on Nov. 3. He gave a watered-down message seemingly to Washington by saying, “We do not pursue the goal of increasing war deterrence to target any particular state.” Meanwhile, he used a tender expression‎ such as “dear South Korean compatriots,” probably hoping to take advantage of Seoul as a bridge in its relations with Washington. 　

The South Korean government and the ruling party seem to rejoice over the message from the North. In an emergency session of the National Security Council (NSC) standing committee on Sunday morning, South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said, “We pay attention to the fact that Pyongyang hopes to restore the inter-Korean relations.” In response, the ruling party and related authorities expressed their hopes by saying, “Pyongyang made an exceptional announcement. We regard it as a positive response to our determination and efforts.” Such comments were made in ignorance of Pyongyang’s intentions behind the demonstration of military power to show off a super-sized ICBM and clarify its return to the carrot-and-stick tactic of using both threat and dialogue.

North Korean leader Kim led a drama as a main actor on the large stage of Pyongyang by mobilizing the regime’s military troops and residents. He even expressed deep apologies in a sorry tone of voice and thanked North Korean people more than ten times during the speech. With deceitful tears welling up in his eyes, he acted as if he cherished North Korean people. However, Kim is just an indifferent dictator who did not care about a group of residents whose eyes were blood-shot during the midnight parade and poor troops suffering a knee pain due to duck waddling. He just said in exclamation, “It is a magnificent scene that takes away the breath of the rest of the world.” We should not fail to see through what all of this being fooled by Kim’s poor acting and fake show events.