The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has test fired yet another missile. What appears to be a short-range ballistic missile traveled about 450 kilometers in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea. Newly elected ROK President Moon Jae-in has responded with an emergency National Security Council meeting.

CGTN’s Jack Barton reports.

South Koreans headed to work on Monday to the news that Pyongyang had carried out its ninth ballistic missile test of the year, defying international pressure and the threat of tougher sanctions.

In Seoul, the launch was seen as another rebuff to President Moon Jae-in’s attempts to halt missile tests through dialogue.

“The unidentified ballistic missile firing this time seems to reveal the DPRK’s willingness to build capacity in nuclear and missiles through its own roadmap in the face of sanctions and pressure from the international community, and as aiming to oppress the ROK’s strategic shift towards the DPRK,” ROK Defense Ministry spokesman Roh Jae Cheon said.

Monday’s test marked the third launch since South Korea’s liberal President Moon Jae-in took office this month pledging to try to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula through talks, arguing that sanctions alone had failed.

But some analysts remain skeptical about South Korea’s new sunshine policy.

“They want to keep their system and political regime so they don’t want to give up their nuclear program. Not because of the ROK’s aid towards the DRPK,” Cho Han-bum, director of the Council of Unification Policy said.

The latest test also drew fire from Japan.

“We will never tolerate DPRK’s continued provocations that ignore repeated warnings by the international community,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

The latest missile test is just one of many since Kim Jong-un came to power.

Since the start of last year, he has overseen more missile tests than his father and grandfather put together.

Monday’s test followed just days after what the DPRK called the launch of a surface to air missile and a little more than a week after a medium range missile was successfully tested.