Missile factory presumed to be in Chagang Province, bordering China

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has set the stage for his multilateral diplomatic debut before departing for Beijing, by showcasing new missile assembly lines where nuclear-capable missiles were displayed in regimented rows.

The move deliberately came just days before Kim is to attend China’s Sept. 3 Victory Day celebrations, marking the end of World War II. Kim is expected to attend the massive military parade on Wednesday, standing alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Tiananmen rostrum.

North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Monday that Kim “ratified three long-term plans for missile production capacity and the corresponding national defense expenditure plan.”

Kim’s approval came during his visit Sunday to an unspecified “major munitions enterprise” equipped with “the newly designed automated assembly-line missile production system.”

Kim also “stressed that the missile production sector should be fully prepared to unconditionally accept and fully implement the new long-term production goals set forth by the Ninth Congress of the Party,” the KCNA added in its Korean-language dispatch.

Kim proposed a five-year national defense development plan at the Eighth Party Congress in January 2021, making this the final year of its implementation.

“It appears that Chairman Kim Jong-un, ahead of his visit to China, has the intention of showing missile production capability while inspecting the achievements of the five-year plan for national defense capabilities development,” Koo Byoung-sam, spokesperson for South Korea's Unification Ministry, told Monday's press briefing.

Kim stages nuclear status bid

Observers noted the deliberate timing of Kim’s visit to the unnamed missile factory ahead of his trip to China to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, seeing it as an effort to underscore the image he wants to project alongside Beijing and Moscow.

Through Kim's public activity at home, observers pointed out that Pyongyang seeks to underscore its bid to be seen not as a fledgling nuclear aspirant, but as a state claiming a comparable strategic status on par with China and Russia.

Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification, pointed out that “releasing such a report prior to Kim’s visit to China to attend Victory Day celebrations seems to be a carefully orchestrated message.”

Through the message, Hong said North Korea aims to “deliberately display its status as a nuclear-weapon state ahead of China’s Victory Day.”

North Korea is not officially recognized as a nuclear-weapon state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while China and Russia hold official status along with the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

Hong further explained that the state media report was intended to “frame China, Russia and North Korea together as states possessing nuclear weapons.”

“North Korea ultimately seeks to show itself as a country of high strategic status that can share strategic interests with China and Russia, rather than a country merely attending the Victory Day celebrations as China’s ally,” Hong added.

Missile plant linked to Russia

However, Rep. Yu Yong-weon of the main opposition People Power Party said the factory that Kim visited is presumed to be located in Chagang Province, bordering China, in a region where many of North Korea’s munitions factories are concentrated, including the Feb. 8 General Machine Factory.

State media released photos of the Hwasong-11 series of short-range missiles, including versions of the Iskander-type KN-23 and the Hwasong-11Na, also known as Hwasong-11B, which look analogous to the US ATACMS.

All Hwasong-11 missiles are capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads, and some models are believed to have been sent to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.

“North Korea’s newly established missile factory is believed to be a production facility for the KN-23, the North Korean version of the Iskander ballistic missiles,” Yu said.

“The facility is also thought to be intended to replenish stockpiles following North Korea’s large-scale supply of KN-23 and other ballistic missiles for the war in Ukraine.”

Against that backdrop, Yu pointed out that “It is presumed that the factory was built in Chagang Province, near the border, to facilitate support for Russia.”

North Korean state media had not reported Kim’s departure as of 6 p.m. on Monday. However, his most recent public activity, as reported by state media, was closer to the North Korea–China border than his previously reported location Saturday in Ragwon County, South Hamgyong Province.

The South Korean government has said it was highly likely he was traveling to Beijing aboard his heavily fortified train for security reasons.

Kim is widely expected to spend roughly 20 hours on the train — officially named Taeyang-ho, invoking the Korean word for"sun" in a symbolic reference to North Korea’s late founder Kim Il-sung — from Pyongyang to Beijing rather than take a one-hour flight.