DPRK fires ballistic missiles ahead of President Xi’s visit to South

DPRK on Sunday fired two short-range ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast, triggering speculation about what signal the nation is trying to send a few days ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to South Korea.

DPRK fired two missiles around 5 am from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province, which landed in international waters in the Sea of Japan, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told the Xinhua News Agency. The missiles are presumed to be Scuds with a range of about 500 kilometers, the JCS added.

According to a JCS official, DPRK fired the missiles without designating no-sail zones, which the South Korean military views as a clear provocation.

The launch came three days after DPRK fired what were believed to be three short-range projectiles off its east coast on Thursday.

The latest missile launches were aimed at increasing pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye ahead of their talks, Shin In-Kyun, head of Korea Defense Network, a Seoul-based think tank, told the AFP.

South Korea said Friday that the talks between Xi and Park will include how to deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

"DPRK is sending a message of warning in advance, to prevent the leaders from criticizing Pyongyang too harshly," Shin said.

Cai Jian, an associate professor of Korean studies at Shanghai's Fudan University, saidChina has made it clear that it would like to see a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. The North, however, is sending a strong message through recent missile launches that it will continue developing nuclear weapons while ignoring international pressure.

Based on DPRK's recent moves, the Six-Party Talks that China has been pushing for are unlikely to be resumed anytime soon, Cai said.

However, other observers are downplaying the meaning behind DPRK's missile launches.

"The missile launches have nothing to do with Xi's visit to the South," said Cui Zhiying, director of the Korean Peninsula Research Center at Tongji University. "Xi's visit is a return favor after Park's visit to China last year, which was set long ago. DPRK has known about it for a long time."

He said the launches are part of the DPRK's normal military drills, which will not affect China-DPRK relations.

A DPRK diplomat told Japanese media that the launch was just a routine drill.

Xinhua quoted Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the private Sejong Institute in Seoul, as saying that DPRK's recent missile launches should be viewed as a protest against the latest US-South Korea military exercise, which DPRK denounced Saturday as a rehearsal for a war of aggression.