With a missile over Japan, North Korea shatters brief interlude of calm

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North Korea's late-summer quiet was short-lived, shattered first by a weekend burst of short-range missiles and then early on Tuesday morning by the launch of a missile over Japan that suddenly returned the Korean peninsula to a state of high tension.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe decried the "reckless action" after a medium-range missile flew over the country's northern Hokkaido island and fell into the sea, calling it an "unprecedented, grave and serious threat."

The unannounced launch as the United States and South Korea are conducting joint military exercises prompted Japanese authorities to warn local citizens to take cover. It shattered a brief interlude of calm in a year of provocations from a country whose rapid pursuit of deadly new weaponry has earned it the world's fury.

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"They're aware of the political statement it makes," said Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif.

North Korea has warned it has drafted plans for a multimissile strike on waters off the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. But it has not made good on that threat over the course of several weeks, prompting the White House to praise its restraint. U.S. President Donald Trump last week said of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, "I respect the fact that he is starting to respect us."

Mr. Kim did not allow that sentiment to linger long. Flying a missile over Japan sent a deliberate message that its "Guam threat could be turned into a reality," South Korea's intelligence service told local lawmakers, according to Representative Lee Wan-young, who serves with the opposition Liberty Korea Party.

Analysts believe the missile was a Hwasong-12, the same type North Korea said it might fire at Guam.

"There was a lot of crowing in the U.S. about the North Koreans backing down. And that usually is not an effective strategy with the North Koreans," Mr. Lewis said. "I think they felt they needed to go through with something to indicate their displeasure with the exercises, and show they have not really backed down. And this is a very easy way to do this."

In so doing, Pyongyang has once again dared Mr. Trump to make a harsh response, after the President earlier vowed a reprisal of "fire and fury" against any threats to U.S. soil.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump issued a statement saying, "The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear: This regime has signalled its contempt for its neighbours, for all members of the United Nations and for minimum standards of acceptable international behaviour.

"Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table."

The Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's official newspaper, was defiant.

"The U.S. should know that it can neither browbeat the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] with any economic sanctions and military threats and blackmail nor make the DPRK flinch from the road chosen by itself," it wrote.

The country's central news agency did little to dispel fears that the country remains intent on menacing U.S. territory, saying Mr. Kim called the Tuesday launch a "meaningful prelude" to missile fire near Guam.

Mr. Kim has now launched more missiles than the combined total fired under the command of his father and grandfather.

China's Foreign Ministry, which has long called for calm regarding North Korea, issued a bleak warning. Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the situation is "now at a tipping point approaching a crisis."

The Canadian government condemned the missile launch.

"We take North Korea's actions very seriously," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the most recent ballistic and nuclear test."

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland urged the country to "resume dialogue toward a political solution" and abandon its missile program.

"North Korea's reckless violation of its neighbours' territorial sovereignty and its direct threat to Japan's citizens have threatened both regional and international peace and security," Ms. Freeland said in a statement.

Tuesday's missile launch allowed North Korea to call a bluff from Japan, a key U.S. ally in the region.

"It may be about showing how ineffective Japan is," said Scott LaFoy, an independent imagery analyst who studies ballistic-missile technology. "Japan promised to shoot down anything coming to hit the mainland, but in reality, that capability is very limited."

Within hours of the test, Mr. Trump and Mr. Abe spoke on the phone and agreed to increase pressure on North Korea, Mr. Abe said.

The United States and South Korea also agreed to "sternly" respond at the UN Security Council, the foreign ministry in Seoul said. South Korea carried out a live-fire bombing drill on Tuesday meant to simulate an attack on North Korean leadership.

The North Korean launch "has thrown cold water" on the prospect of talks to resolve the country's nuclear issue, South Korea's foreign minister told her Japanese counterpart.

"The North Koreans do things like this precisely because they think it strengthens deterrence and they will get a better deal when they do decide to talk," Mr. Lewis said.

The international community, however, will have little choice but to react with harsh measures that could include new economic sanctions, said Lu Chao, director of the Border Study Institute at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences in Shenyang, China.

Firing a missile over Japan demonstrates the rising maturity of North Korea's missile technology, which is "gradually becoming a threat to the U.S., South Korea and Japan," he said.

"A distance calculation on this missile makes it obvious that it is close to attaining the distance needed to reach Guam," he said.

With reports from Yu Mei and Robert Fife