SEOUL – Kim Jong-Un labelled North Korea’s latest missile tests “perfect”, state media said Tuesday, as he called for the isolated state to build up its nuclear arsenal.

Hours before the UN Security Council was set to meet to discuss Pyongyang’s latest military provocation, the country’s supreme leader hailed Monday’s firing of three mid-range weapons.

Kim supervised a drill by artillery units “tasked to strike the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces in the Pacific operational theatre in a contingency,” Pyongyang’s KCNA news agency said.

“The units’ capability for fighting a real battle and the combat performance of the rockets were appreciated as perfect,” it said.

“He stressed the need to continue making miraculous achievements in bolstering up the nuclear force one after another in this historic year,” it added.

South Korea’s defence ministry said the tests were of Rodong missiles with a range of 1,000 kilometres (620 miles). It said they had been fired over the Sea of Japan (East Sea) without warning.

The Rodong is a scaled-up Scud variant with a maximum range of around 1,300 kilometres, bringing most of Japan within range.

The launches came as world leaders gathered in neighbouring China for the G20 summit, sparking condemnation from Japan and the United States, which blasted them as “reckless”.

In spite of tough global sanctions, Pyongyang continues to defy the international community’s calls for a halt to its weapons programme.

Those calls were set to intensify later Tuesday when the 15-member UN Security Council convenes in New York to consider a response to the latest in a series of tests, which has also included the detonation of a nuclear bomb in January.

Despite the global chorus of disapproval, Pyongyang was unrepentant.

Kim expressed “great satisfaction over the successful successive firing drill of the ballistic rockets”, which showed his military’s capability to launch “a preemptive attack on the enemies any time and from any place”, KCNA said.

The strategic artillery unit was “full of military might” to strike the US and its forces with “annihilating nuclear fire shower”, it said.

The North’s top newspaper Rodong Sinmun carried nine photos of the test, including one of a beaming Kim standing in front of a map surrounded by smiling officials.

Melissa Hanham, an expert on North Korea’s weapons programme at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said it was difficult to determine so far if there had been any technical progress.

“The most obvious difference from the last test is the change in warhead,” Hanham said.

Last month, North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile from the northeastern port of Sinpo.

That flew 500 kilometres towards Japan, far exceeding the range of the country’s previous sub-launched missiles.

Kim described the August test as the “greatest success” and said it put the US mainland within striking range.

The launch was widely condemned by the US and other major powers, but analysts saw it as a clear step forward for North Korea’s nuclear strike ambitions.

A proven submarine-launched ballistic missile system would allow deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and a “second-strike” capability in the event of an attack on the North’s military bases.

BEIJING – China is lauding its successful hosting of the G20 summit in scenic Hangzhou, with open confrontation largely avoided and broad consensus reached over the fragile state of the global economy and the need for a wide range of policies to fix it.

There was even a joint announcement by China and United States that they would ratify the Paris climate change agreement, a significant step for the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

But scratch beneath the surface, and the gathering of the world’s most powerful leaders was not all plain sailing – from the distraction of a North Korean missile test to the failure of the United States and Russia to reach agreement over Syria, and diplomatic faux pas to double speak over protectionism.

Chinese state media, while largely basking in the glory of a summit that happened without being too overshadowed by disputes such as the South China Sea, also let slip Beijing’s frustrations at what it sees as Western efforts to stymie its economic ambitions.

“For the world’s major developed economies, they should curb rising protectionism and dismantle anti-trade measures as economic isolationism is not a solution to sluggish growth,”China’s official Xinhua news agency said late on Monday.

“In order to build an inclusive, rule-based and open world economy, protectionism must be prevented from eroding the foundation for a faster and healthier economic recovery.” In the run-up to G20, China has been particularly upset by what it sees as unwarranted suspicion of its overseas investment agenda smacking of protectionism and paranoia.

A few weeks before the summit, Australia blocked the A$10 billion (US$7.63 billion) sale of the country’s biggest energy grid to Chinese bidders, while Britain delayed a $24 billion Chinese-invested nuclear project.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Behind the scenes, Western countries have been accusing China of not sticking to its own goals.

Before the summit, European G20-sources doubted that the Chinese agenda would mark a real new chapter to create more sustainable growth for the global economy.

China, asking in public for more openness and steps to counter protectionism, is still giving Western investors only very limited access to their market, a European official said.

A big concern for foreign investors in China is what they see as the increasing difficulty of doing business in China, driven by concern that new laws and policies are seeking to effectively shut out foreigners or make life very hard for them. “President Xi accurately raised the alarm on the need to counter the increase in protectionism around the world,” said James Zimmerman, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

“But actions speak louder than words and the ball is in China’s court to implement its own needed domestic reforms and to provide greater market access for foreign goods, services and technology.”

And calls to utilise innovation as an economic driver should reflect policies that encourage an environment promoting fair and market-driven innovation that is open to all participants, and not just a few domestic champions, Zimmerman said.

Several diplomats familiar with the summit said China had resisted the idea of putting steel on the final communique, though it did make an appearance in the end with G20 leaders pledging to work together to address excess steel capacity.

For countries like Britain, whose steel industry crisis has been directly blamed on a flood of cheap Chinese imports, the issue is key.

An official from British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said they and the United States had pushed for language in the communique on the importance of working together at G20 to tackle excess production. “We have, despite resistance from some countries, secured some language on the importance of doing that,” the official said.

Asked if China was one of those resisting, she just repeated”in the face of some resistance”.

Another shadow over the G20 has been the rise of popular opposition to free trade and globalisation, embodied by phenomenon like Britain’s summer vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump becoming the Republican presidential candidate in the United States.

“We agree with the G20’s analysis that the benefits of trade and open markets must be communicated to the wider public more effectively,” said John Danilovich, Secretary General of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. “It’s vital that business and governments work together to explain how and why trade matters for all.”

SITTWE, Myanmar – Hundreds in Myanmar rallied on Tuesday against an advisory commission led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to find solutions to the conflict between the country’s Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims, which has cast a pall over democratic reforms.

The plight of the Rohingya has raised questions about Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s commitment to human rights and represents a politically sensitive issue for her National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory last year.

Local residents and Buddhist monks joined the protest overseen by dozens of police, despite rain in the northwestern Rakhine State, challenging what they perceived as “foreigners’biased intervention” from the nine-member panel.

Jeers and chants denouncing the panel intensified upon the arrival of Annan’s plane. The crowd soon followed the convoy into town, where Annan will deliver a speech and meet with members of both the Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine communities during his two-day visit in the state capital Sittwe.

“I don’t want to see foreigners involved in this commission. I want to see a commission involving people of the Rakhine nationality,” Kyaw Zin Wai, a 52-year-old carpenter told Reuters, adding that the two ethnic Rakhine commission members were not “representative” of people in the state.

Rohingya, victims of human trafficking

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More than 100 people were killed and some neighborhoods were razed to the ground as local ethnic Rakhine Buddhists clashed with Rohingya Muslims across the state in 2012.

Some 125,000 people are still displaced, the vast majority of them Rohingya, who are prevented from moving freely, have their access to basic services restricted and are mostly denied citizenship in Myanmar. Many have fled by sea in rickety boats.

Suu Kyi, who is barred from the presidency by the junta-drafted constitution but leads the country as state counselor and foreign minister, formed the commission last month to find solutions to the issue.

She plans to visit the United States this month, where she is thought to be seeking further sanctions relief for her country but is likely to face questions over her efforts to improve conditions for the Rohingya.

The protest was called by some leaders in the state’s powerful Arakan National Party (ANP), which has criticised the commission, insisting that foreigners cannot understand the history of the area. “This country has its own sovereignty, so we will not accept foreign interference in local affairs,” said Aung Than Wai, secretary of ANP’s executive committee.

Annan told fellow commissioners and Suu Kyi at the panel’s first meeting in Yangon on Monday that he planned to approach the region’s long-running conflict with “rigorous impartiality”and would listen to all sides of the conflict. “Dialogue will be the order of the day,” Annan said.