North Korea: US, Japan, South Korea Military Alliance Could Trigger World War III

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) previously denounced an alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea as a “cancer tumor" that puts the international UN-based order in jeopardy, with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Im Chon-il warning that US-backed blocs are no longer hiding their “aggressive and chauvinistic nature.”

The formalization of a trilateral military alliance between Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul will serve to dangerously aggravate tensions on the Korean Peninsula, bringing the prospect of nuclear war and World War III closer, North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun warned.

The Korean Peninsula is already one of the largest hot spots on the planet. To the north and south of the border dividing Korea, “the nuclear powers of the East and West are engaged in a fierce military confrontation,” sparks from which could trigger the outbreak of a nuclear war, warned the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.

It was underscored that if further military rapprochement between the United States, Japan, and South Korea were to take the shape of a formal alliance operating “at full capacity,” the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the region would escalate to the maximum.

"Who can guarantee that the actions of the United States and its henchmen, “madly spurring on the horses driving their trilateral military alliance, will not result in the beginning of a nuclear war, which will then develop into a World War III?" queried the author of the article in the North Korean outlet.

The “military conspiracy” hatched by Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul, which has reached an extremely dangerous stage, is fraught with a storm of confrontation and war, threatening the Korean Peninsula and all of Northeast Asia, the paper pointed out.

“This criminally outrageous behavior, which undermines peace and stability throughout the world, will only drive its initiators into a corner, from which it will be even more difficult for them to maneuver,” concluded Rodong Sinmun.

This latest warning on the part of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is one of many, prompted by Washington’s maneuvering and saber rattling on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Im Chon-il slammed NATO and the Asian alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea as a “cancer tumor" that puts the international UN-based order in jeopardy. Im Chon-il underscored in October that US-backed blocs were becoming “more dangerous,” no longer bothering to hide their true “aggressive and chauvinistic nature.”

The North Korean vice foreign minister stressed in a statement that American foreign policy reflected a "hegemony-oriented way of thinking based on the Cold War-style confrontation logic."

The possibility of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula is, "no longer a question of whether it will be, but a question of who will start it and when," North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam said earlier in the year.

"The nuclear war mania by the United States and their puppets in the Republic of Korea [South Korea] is turning the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia into a new hotbed of nuclear war," the minister said during the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security.

After North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia for the first time since 2019 last month, and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited the the DPRK for high-level talks in October. At a reception in Lavrov’s honor, Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui also weighed in on the dangers of the trilateral alliance, saying:

"We see that South Korea and Japan are aligning with the United States, albeit they’ve always been client states, but now they’re coming together into a very, very clear military alliance."

Indeed, under US President Joe Biden, the DPRK has been prompted to ramp up its missile testing in response to a spate of joint US, South Korean, and Japanese military exercises near the nation’s borders. The three countries held a summit hosted by President Biden at Camp David in August. It was attended by Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The three leaders hailed a “new era of cooperation” between their countries, and the strengthening of a trilateral alliance against North Korea, including deepened defense cooperation and technology sharing.

In response, the DPRK media warned that North Korea would reserve the right to target any US strategic nuclear forces stationed in South Korea, and characterized the recent drills as an “intentional provocative maneuver for nuclear war” by Washington.