North Korea can already strike anywhere in Japan with its missiles.
TOKYO — The latest ballistic missile fired by Kim Jong Un’s regime plunged into the Sea of Japan earlier this week.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has described such North Korean launches as a “grave threat to our country” and “absolutely not acceptable.”
But such warnings appear to be causing little concern on the streets of Tokyo.
“I don’t feel any threat, nor has it affected my daily life, ” said Ryoji Nakajima, a 36-year-old office worker. It was a sentiment shared by several others approached by NBC News in the city’s Ginza district.
While Kim’s stated aim is to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the U. S. mainland, Japan is also home to some 54,000 U. S. military personnel. And North Korea has said it has military units positioned to strike.
North Korea can already strike anywhere in Japan with its missiles.
In March, Japan held its first civilian evacuation drill for a missile attack amid wariness over the military threat potentially posed by the hermit kingdom.
But Shunji Hiraiwa, an expert in North Korean diplomacy at Nanzan University in Nagoya City, said while many people in Japan “do feel a sense of danger … I don’t think they feel that a war is imminent.”
That view was echoed by Narushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
“Fortunately, right now it’s not as if there’s a clear and present danger that is sending people into panic, ” Michishita said.
However, he added that “people have started to understand that it might be possible for North Korea to obtain these capabilities.”
Pyongyang has launched a series of missiles as well as carrying out two nuclear tests since the beginning of 2016.
