Invest2 publishers2 min readPublished
Kim Yo-jong mocks Seoul and Tokyo's range estimates, says tracking was lost after missile's apex
Kim Yo-jong says Seoul and Tokyo lost track of North Korea's Oct. 3 missile, citing their range estimates of more than 700 km and about 680 km. Holders of Korean and Japanese assets have reason to price that only if the US-South Korean analysis of the flight backs her up.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff detected a single ballistic missile fired toward the East Sea from the Wonsan area at around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 3.
- Kim Yo-jong, who heads the ruling party's General Affairs Department, said leader Kim Jong-un watched the intermediate-range drill in person.
- Japan's military said the missile came down in waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone.
- South Korea's military did not immediately respond to Kim's claims that the missile can evade tracking.
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Why it matters
- contradiction Seoul's and Tokyo's estimates are about 3% apart, and until the allies explain why, Pyongyang can keep citing the difference as evidence that they lost the missile.
- exposure If the manoeuvring claim holds, South Korean and Japanese missile defences are the systems it was built to beat, and their reliability becomes part of the risk case for assets in both countries.
- decision Pricing in a premium for the evasion claim before the US-South Korean analysis comes out is a bet on Kim Yo-jong's word.
- constraint Range figures that Seoul and Tokyo published became the basis of Pyongyang's claim, so every future tracking disclosure also hands material to the other side.
Kim Yo-jong built her case from the allies' own published numbers. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff put the flight at more than 700 km and Japan's Defense Ministry put it at about 680 [3]. On those figures the gap is at least 20 km [1], just under 3% of the distance flown [2]. She called them "interesting numbers" and said "the enemies lost track of the target after the first apex (bounce) point of its flight path." [4]
Kim draws a large inference from a small gap. Both figures are rounded, one given as "more than" and the other as "about". Any explanation for the difference will come from the detailed analysis of the missile's exact specifications that South Korean and US authorities said they are conducting [8]. The rest of her statement is assertion. She pointed back to earlier North Korean announcements that the weapon can alter its flight path at low altitude and incorporates artificial intelligence [5]. "There is virtually no way to evade this strike," she said [6]. The South China Morning Post noted that South Korea's military often accuses Pyongyang of exaggerating its capabilities [12].
For anyone holding Korean or Japanese assets, the claim counts only if it changes what missile defences in those two countries can do. According to the Post, North Korea says the manoeuvring is designed to evade exactly those defences [9]. The reports on the launch do not include any market reaction, so the risk case has to be built from the military record. That record allows three outcomes. The allied analysis could find the track held through the whole flight, leaving the 20 km as the difference between two rounded estimates. It could confirm a course change at low altitude, which would be the first support for Kim's claim from outside Pyongyang. Or the findings could stay classified, and the claim would rest on her word.
I think the first outcome deserves more weight than Pyongyang gives it. The only evidence offered for evasion is two public figures about 3% apart, presented by the side that gains most from the claim. The counter-thesis is that this is a nuclear-delivery system tested under pressure. Kim called the missile strategic, which the Post took to mean it was designed to deliver nuclear weapons [10]. The launch also came amid heightened tensions between the two Koreas over border landmine blasts [13].
This view would be proved wrong if South Korean and US analysts found that the track really did break after the first apex, the point Kim named [4].
What to watch
- The findings of the detailed US-South Korean analysis of the missile's specifications, and whether any of them are released.
- Whether South Korea's military rebuts Kim's claim that tracking was lost, having not commented at first.
- Whether the border landmine-blast tensions lead to another launch of the same intermediate-range missile.