North Korea missile development will proceed apace

Significance

No warning was given to shipping. With rare speed, owing to Chinese fury at the timing of this during the G20 summit in Hangzhou, the next day the UN Security Council (UNSC) condemned Pyongyang's "flagrant disregard" of past UNSC resolutions. With no sign that Kim Jong-un will heed this latest UN rebuke any more than previous ones, the current Western and global hard line towards North Korea is having no visible impact.

Impacts

• North-South relations will probably remain abysmal till then, though opportunistic U-turns by either Korea cannot be entirely ruled out.
• Chinese enforcement of sanctions will remain patchy, especially given Beijing's hostility to US missile deployment in South Korea.
• Regular deployment of SLBMs by Pyongyang would be a game-changer for the region.
• South Korean predictions of regime collapse are premature.