{"id":69446,"date":"2026-08-05T13:31:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T13:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/69446\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T13:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T13:31:05","slug":"kim-yo-jong-warns-japan-over-first-tomahawk-missile-test-the-diplomat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/69446\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Yo Jong Warns Japan Over First Tomahawk Missile Test \u2013 The Diplomat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned<\/a> on August 5 that Pyongyang would set up additional military options against Japan. The statement followed the first live-fire test of a Tomahawk cruise missile by the Japanese navy. The missile was launched from the Aegis destroyer Chokai in the Pacific Ocean, also on August 5.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJapan, a war criminal state, is accelerating its transformation into a war state, taking advantage of the acute and variable trend of the present international situation in which global geopolitical conflicts and inter-camp confrontation are getting fiercer,\u201d Kim said in her statement, which was published by the North\u2019s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).\u00a0<\/p>\n

She cited the test-firing of the U.S.-supplied Tomahawk missile by Japan, along with Tokyo\u2019s participation in a U.S.-led joint military drill in the Philippines in May. Those moves prove that Japan\u2019s push for preemptive strike capability has entered \u201cthe stage of the actual act,\u201d according to Kim.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s pursuit of long-range strike weapons dates to December 2022 when Tokyo revised<\/a> three key security documents to adopt what it calls \u201ccounterstrike capability,\u201d a shift away from its decades-old policy of maintaining a strictly defensive military. The revision, described at the time as Japan\u2019s biggest military buildup since World War II, opened the way for its purchase of 400 Tomahawk missiles from the United States, deliveries of which began this year.<\/p>\n

Kim said that \u201cJapan\u2019s moves to formulate the possession of the capability for preemptive attack\u201d were \u201ccontrary to international law and its constitution, which disallowed the possession of war potentials, the right to participate in a war and the right to belligerency.\u201d She added: \u201cThe mass possession of different kinds of long-range strike means with an unexpectedness of preemptive attack and a drastic increase in the radius of their operation and their deployment of multi-demesne forward spaces for actual war, including sea, underwater and air, make Japan reorganize its overall armed forces as a formation of preemptive attack and overseas aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Japan has said its military buildup is necessitated by what Tokyo calls the \u201cmost severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II.\u201d Ironically, Japan claims its new capabilities are motivated in part by North Korea\u2019s own actions. In its latest defense white paper<\/a>, Japan\u2019s Defense Ministry warned that \u201cNorth Korea\u2019s military activities pose an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan\u2019s national security than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

For North Korea\u2019s part, Kim said Tokyo has long postured as a \u201cpeace-loving state\u201d while branding neighboring countries\u2019 own defense measures as \u201cthreat\u201d and \u201cprovocation.\u201d She called that posture \u201ca camouflaged tactic to cover up its ambition for a military giant.\u201d While accusing Tokyo of building up its military capabilities to threaten her country, Kim also blamed Washington for enabling the test.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a secret that the U.S. has handed over Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to Japan, remodeled a warship to be used in its operation, and provided all conditions and environment for its test-fire including the place of launch,\u201d Kim said.\u00a0 \u201cWe will never remain a passive onlooker to the military evolution of Japan which may pose a grave threat to the security of the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea\u201d (the formal name of North Korea, often abbreviated as DPRK).<\/p>\n

\u201cI make it clear upon authorization that the armed forces of the DPRK and the military leadership will set up additional military options which are obviously due to Japan\u2019s transformation of these days,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n

Kim did not disclose further details about the \u201cadditional military options\u201d Pyongyang is planning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned on August 5 that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[374,8,14334,44924,44925,21422,17,30128,1922,5892],"class_list":["post-69446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-east-asia","tag-japan","tag-japan-military-buildup","tag-japan-strike-capability","tag-japan-tomahawk-missiles","tag-japan-north-korea-relations","tag-japanese","tag-kim-yo-jong","tag-north-korea","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}