PYONGYANG, North Korea—China just put on a big military parade, a few months after Russia did the same. But there’s no country more adept at putting on elaborate, massive displays of state power than North Korea, the undisputed goose-stepping capital of the world, and next month, Pyongyang will stage what is likely to be its biggest celebration in years.
Question is: Will it come with a rocket launch? A nuclear test? Or both?
North Korea is already in high gear as it prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of its ruling party. Students and workers are being mobilized by the thousands to practice their parts in the grand show—some carrying wooden torches, others bouquets of red plastic flowers. Shock brigades of soldier-builders are toiling around the clock to paint bridges, build stages and finish high-rise apartments. To pretty up the capital, Pyongyang now even has bicycle lanes.
What exactly is in store for the Oct. 10 anniversary remains a mystery. The government has been typically mum on its plans, though a military parade and appearance by leader Kim Jong Un would seem to be pretty safe bets.
Adding to the buzz, senior officials speaking in interviews with the North’s state-run media over the past few days have dropped hints that the real fireworks might not happen in Pyongyang at all.
On Monday, the head of North Korea’s space agency said the country has the right to launch rockets any time it sees fit and suggested Pyongyang is preparing to put its second satellite into orbit. He didn’t explicitly state a launch was in the works, and open-source satellite imagery doesn’t show a rocket is being readied. But a new space mission would have great domestic propaganda value, and many North Korea watchers have been expecting one around the time of the anniversary.
The North claims its rockets are meant for scientific purposes. Washington, Seoul and their allies believe they are used as a pretext for testing long-range missile technology, which it is banned from doing under U.N. sanctions.
The rocket remarks were followed Tuesday by a senior nuclear official’s claim that the North has “rearranged, changed or readjusted” the plutonium and highly enriched uranium facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex. He said it has started normal operations and scientists have improved the capabilities of the country’s nuclear weapons “in quality and quantity.”
Both avenues of research are essential to North Korea’s military strategy of perfecting a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on a reliable, long-range missile that could hit targets in the United States. Every long-range rocket launch and nuclear test gets Pyongyang closer to that goal.
