The North’s ongoing torrid run of weapons tests aims to advance its nuclear arsenal and win greater concessions in eventual diplomacy and they come as China and Russia have opposed U.S. moves to toughen sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear program.

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North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese waters in its second major weapons test this month that showed a potential ability to launch nuclear strikes on all of the U.S. mainland.

The United States quickly slammed the launch and vowed to take “all necessary measures” to guarantee the safety of its mainland and allies South Korea and Japan. Vice President Kamala Harris will separately meet with leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada who are attending a regional forum in Bangkok to discuss North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launch.

“We naturally lodged a strong protest against North Korea, which has repeated its provocations with unprecedented frequency,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida

ALJAZEERA

Pyongyang sees the U.S. military presence in the region as proof of its hostility toward North Korea. It has said its recent series of weapons launches were its response to what it called provocative military drills between the United States and South Korea.

The US and international observers have been warning for months that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be the hermit nation’s first in five years.

North Korea has been under multiple rounds of United Nations sanctions over its previous nuclear and missile tests. But no fresh sanctions have been applied this year though it has conducted dozens of ballistic missile launches, which are banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

That’s possible because China and Russia, two of the U.N. council’s veto-wielding members, oppose new U.N. sanctions. Washington is locked in a strategic competition with Beijing and in a confrontation with Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

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