There’s something really odd about the latest reports from South Korea about a test of three missiles the South has corrected to describe as “projectiles”.  The odd part is there’s zero mention in North Korea state media about it.  Fox News picked up on that aspect in a brief sentence inside their report:

[…]  South Korean officials were monitoring the situation and were sharing information with their American counterparts. North Korea did not report on Saturday’s firings. Seoul’s intelligence agency said it thinks the projectiles were not missiles given their short travel distances and low altitude.

Amid a tremendous amount of recent geopolitical background moves; and given the history of China using the DPRK as a geopolitical proxy province; there’s a possibility Beijing ordered the action.

Out of caution, please note our CTH perspective is entirely outside the mainstream view on the dynamic within the DPRK and the network around Kim Jong-un.  Quite simply all of the moves, counter-moves, and specifically the timing of them, align with the U.S. and China confrontation far more than most mainstream observers seem to notice.

Through the years of our research, and specifically as it relates to overlaying timing of events as they unfold, it still seems as though China controls the influence agents in/around North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un.   I have gone so far as to say there appears to be more of a captive scenario surrounding Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping and his authoritarian alignment with Chairman Kim.

In the past two-and-a-half years every time North Korea presents a hostile action it has been simultaneous to a background event where the U.S. and China are confronting each-other.  The coincidences; and there have been dozens of unique examples; are far too common not to be connected.

My hunch is that Chairman Kim has little to no control over the activity within the top-tier of his military.  I highly suspect China directly controls the upper-tier of DPRK military leadership.  If that very strong suspicion is correct; the launch of these ‘projectiles’ would be aligned with a series of three background events:

♦One: A very serious stage in the U.S-China trade negotiations where Secretary Mnuchin and USTR Robert Lighthizer just left Beijing.  Remember, this recent meeting was going to be the key meeting for Mnuchin and Lighthizer’s recommendations to President Trump as to whether an actual trade agreement with communist China was possible.

♦Event Two:  Chairman Kim Jong-un just returned from meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time.  Kim doesn’t travel much at all.  Chairman Xi (China) and Vladimir Putin (Russia) are strategically very close partners. [Emphasize “very”]

♦Event Three:  President Trump has an hour long phone call with President Putin; literally in the same 24-hr period where Pyongyang decides to test their missilesprojectiles again.

As with events in 2017 and 2018, these events seem more connected; especially against the completely opposite nature of words to deeds in the Trump/Kim Hanoi summit.  Again, something happened in the hour inside that summit after Kim stunningly said he was at the summit to discuss denuclearization – and an hour later reversed course.

Again, the sequencing is key.  President Trump and Chairman Kim set up Hanoi summitdate. President Trump and Chairman Xi meet in Argentina (G20); and the outcome was an agreement to delay round-2 tariffs on China.  Trump and Kim then meet in Hanoi and Chairman Kim has a 180° reversal in position.  Trump walks away.

Individually Xi and Putin have been losing to Trump’s strategy.  Their mutual interests in Iran, Pakistan and Central America (Venezuela) have been blunted by Trump.  Economically Trump has used energy as a policy to weaken Russia; and Trump has constructed an alliance of trade interests to weaken China.

At the 30k ft level it looks like Chairman Xi and President Putin are working in concert now to leverage a fall-back defensive position around Chairman Kim.  With Xi controlling the majority elements of the DPRK as a proxy province, renewed missile tests are once again focused on weakening President Trump.

So far China and Russia have been defeated by Trump’s use of economics as a geopolitical weapon.  To retain their interests China and Russia are bleeding out cash to their strategic allies; but Trump keeps moving quickly and cutting them off (see Iran).  Their economies  can only bleed out cash for so long…. So it would stand to reason they would shift tactics and try to get more confrontational militarily… yet, they don’t want the visibility of military confrontation.  That’s where North Korea comes in.

Last point, if you look at President Trump’s tweets from the perspective that Chairman Kim is somewhat a of a captive to his circumstances, they seem to make more sense: