Paul, the Japanese government, saying the missile appears to have splashed down in waters east of Japan. Let's bring in Bloomberg, Sophie Jackman, who is our Tokyo Bureau chief. Sophie, what do we know at this point? I know it's kind of still unfolding, and I'm being told that Japan's National Security Council is a meeting at this hour, right, That's right, they are meeting. A typical response following a missile like this,
but this was pretty unusual this morning. We had seen a major ramping up of North Korean missile launches in recent months, and particularly in the last week or two, coinciding with Vice President Harris's visit to this region and even to the demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea. But today's missile crossing over the Japanese mainland and into
the ocean was the first time in five years. As you said, the Japanese government here issued the Jai Alert, which is a civil defense warning system that tells people to hunker down in heavy concrete buildings are underground, and that warning only applied to the north of the country, where sirens were also heard going off, but here in Tokyo to all our TVs went black and displayed this warning.
Pretty scary. There are United Nations Security Council resolutions banning North Korea from launching any of these ballistic missiles, but whether there will be any kind of penalty for this escalation is a bit hard to say. Earlier this year, China and Russia did veto a new SECTIONS resolution against North Korea for its escalating missile launches, and the world is very much looking to Ukraine rather than this part
of the world. So it will be interesting to see whether the Japanese government, of course not a Security Council member, pushes for any more severe treatment after this scare today. Well, you mentioned the visitor by US Vice President Kamala Harris to the region. North Korea typically has a habit of timing these weapons test to political events. No reason to suspect that this is not one of those cases, correct,
That's right. In addition to that visit by the Vice President, we also had the arrival of the U S. S. Ronald Reagan, the aircraft carrier and it's group to South Korea for joint trills there, and this is something North Korea is not a fan of US South Korean military exercises, but this is certainly a bit of an escalation. We had seen a bit of buzz warning that the next escalation might even be a nuclear test, be that underground or or even in the atmosphere, which would be huge.
That would be the first time in many years, and you'd think that that would possibly prompt a bigger reaction from the international community as well. This year, in two Kim Jong Ian has launched more ballistic missiles than in any other year in his in his decade long stint and power there in North Korea, so it is definitely
ramping up. We feel that very acutely here. Sophia. Thank you so much for being with us in sharing your perspective, and we'll keep tracking the Bloomberg terminal to see whether or not there is any any statement made after the meeting of the Japanese National Security Council, which is underway at this hour.