Acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear program

North Korean and U.S. officials met in Beijing in late February 2012 for talks that resulted in a pledge from North Korea to cease nuclear and missile testing and the enrichment of uranium at the Yŏngbyŏn nuclear facility in exchange for food aid from the United States. In mid-April, however, North Korea test-fired a rocket. Although the rocket broke up shortly after launch, the test garnered international disapproval and led to cancellation of the February agreement. Then in mid-December 2012 the country successfully launched southward over Japanese airspace a long-range rocket that placed a satellite in Earth orbit; debris from the launch fell into the sea east of the Philippines. The UN Security Council condemned the launch and called it a threat to regional security.

In February 2013 North Korea conducted its third successful underground nuclear test. The action was greeted with strong condemnation by the UN and governments around the world, and the country’s major ally, China, lodged a formal diplomatic protest. The expansion of North Korea’s nuclear program cast into relief the growing distance between Beijing and P’yŏngyang. Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping had expressly warned against the December 2012 missile launch, and the rejection of that advice precipitated a sharp curtailment of high-level contacts between the countries. The execution of Jang Song-Thaek, the most prominent pro-China voice in the upper echelons of North Korean politics, signaled an additional chilling of the relationship. Henceforth, any North Korean official who counseled rapprochement with Beijing risked association with the purged Jang.

While ties with China showed signs of strain, relations with South Korea remained typically uneven. Family reunions between relatives who had been separated since the Korean War took place in February 2014 in the Mount Kumgang resort area. South Korean Pres. Park Geun-Hye had suggested making the reunions a regularly scheduled event, but North Korea rejected the proposal. The following month the two countries traded artillery barrages in the Yellow Sea.

In November 2014 North Korea emerged as the prime suspect in a malicious cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. Prior to the release of The Interview, a comedic farce about a CIA plot to assassinate Kim, hackers released tens of thousands of Sony’s internal e-mails and issued threats against theatres that showed the film. The North Korean government denied responsibility for the hack.

In January 2016 North Korea claimed to have conducted its first hydrogen bomb test, and the UN Security Council responded by unanimously approving a dramatic expansion of the decade-old sanctions against the regime. The first Korean Workers’ Party congress in 36 years convened on May 6, 2016, and bestowed the title of party chairman on Kim. The congress of the Supreme People’s Assembly revised the constitution the following month, broadening and solidifying Kim’s already expansive powers. In September 2016 North Korea detonated its fifth and most powerful nuclear weapon to date, and it conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests throughout the year. Additional UN sanctions were promptly enacted, restricting trade in coal, North Korea’s most significant export.

As world leaders exhorted China to use its influence to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the two traditional allies seemed to be increasingly acting at cross-purposes. Kim Jong-Nam, Kim Jong Il’s eldest son and Kim Jong-Un’s half-brother, had lived for years under Chinese protection in Beijing and Macau. On February 13, 2017, he was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur when two women pressed a cloth doused in VX nerve agent to his face. The high-profile murder of China’s most valuable North Korean political asset, presumably on orders from P’yŏngyang, could not have come at a more sensitive time. Within days, China announced that it was suspending North Korean coal imports for the remainder of the year.

In July 2017 North Korea successfully launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); the estimated range of these missiles was in excess of 5,000 miles (8,000 km). With the mainland United States now theoretically within striking distance of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, U.S. Pres. Donald Trump vowed to respond to threats from P’yŏngyang with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” The UN—acting with Chinese support—leveled new sanctions that effectively banned all of North Korea’s most significant exports. Seemingly unmoved by these developments, the North Korean military issued a statement saying that it was considering a strike in the waters off Guam, a U.S. territory and the site of a major U.S. military installation.