Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Nobuyuki Hirano North Korea said that the latest missile launch by North Korea gave Japan “a very strong alert”.
The missile flew over the northern island of Hokkaido and landed in the Pacific Ocean east of Cape Erimo. The launch was the second to fly over Japan in less than a month.
"Japanese citizens and public have been accustomed to a long-lasting peace, and they believe peace is always there, but this is not necessarily the case,” Hirano said.
He also stressed now it was time for Japan and United States as well as other countries to come together and say clearly that they would not allow North Korea’s “unlawful conduct”.
Following the latest launch of the missile towards Japan, Asian stock indices showed a brief decline. Earlier this month, a hydrogen bomb test in North Korea sparked a short-term sell-off.
The recent missile launch was “not a real escalation of what has happened so far,” Woon Tian Yong, an analyst at Informa Global Markets said. “This is not something we have not seen before. Markets are not going to take this too seriously.”
Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions against North Korea, imposing a ban on the nation’s textile exports and capping imports of crude oil.
