Day: January 14, 2022

Opening 2022 with back-to-back hypersonic missile tests, North Korea followed China and Russia in successful launches of the low-flying, highly maneuverable weapons that fly faster than five times the speed of sound. China surprised observers with the advanced technology displayed in an August 2021 test launch, while Russia tested its Zircon hypersonic weapon in November.

The Philippines has agreed to buy a U.S. $375-million package of BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missiles from India, tapping China’s main strategic rival in Asia to shore up its defenses in the disputed South China Sea.

The acquisition of the BrahMos, said to be the world’s fastest cruise missile, marks a breakthrough in efforts to upgrade the Philippines’ defense arsenal, according to an analyst.

On Friday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana released a document via social media showing that Manila had approved the acquisition of the land-based missile system for the Philippine Navy from India’s BrahMos Aerospace Private Ltd.

“As head of procuring entity (HOPE), I recently signed the Notice of Award for the Philippine Navy Shore-Based Anti-Ship Missile Acquisition Project,” Lorenzana said on Facebook.

“Negotiated with the government of India, it includes the delivery of three batteries, training for operators and maintainers as well as the necessary Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) package.”

Earlier this week, India said it had successfully test-fired a naval variant of the BrahMos missile from an Indian Navy ship.

“Advanced sea to sea variant of BrahMos Supersonic Cruise missile was tested from INS Visakhapatnam today,” India’s Defense Research and Development Organization said in a tweet

“Missile hit the designated target ship precisely.”

The Coastal Defense Regiment of the Philippine Marines is the unit that will use the land-based variant of the BrahMos PJ-10 missile, produced through a joint venture between India and Russia. The name BrahMos comes from fusing the names of the Brahmaputra and Moscow rivers in India and Russia, respectively.

For India, which has a serious border dispute in its northeast with China, this is the first export order for BrahMos.

As Southeast analyst Derek Grossman said via Twitter: “China won’t be pleased!”

“It’s official, the Philippines is getting India’s BrahMos,” said the senior defense analyst at the RAND Corp., a U.S. think-tank.

A soldier salutes from a truck transporting a BrahMos missile system during India’s Republic Day parade in New Delhi, Jan. 26, 2021. [AFP]

India is only the second new entrant into the Southeast Asia supersonic anti-ship missile game after Russia, said another regional analyst, Collin Koh.

As for the Philippines, it becomes only the third Southeast Asian country after Indonesia and Vietnam to boast an anti-ship supersonic cruise-missile capability, he added.

For Manila “I’ll say it’s more than a breakthrough – it’s practically a leapfrog,” Koh said via Twitter.

Experts see the BrahMos acquisition as a value-for-money option for a developing country with limited cash for defense spending.

“It’s a cost-effective solution for the navy to have a sea-denial capability,” retired navy admiral Rommel Jude Ong, now with the Ateneo School of Government in Manila, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, in March 2021, when the Philippines and India signed an initial agreement for the supply deal.

“The BrahMos, with a 290-km [180-mile] range, will provide a defensive buffer across a certain extent of the EEZ. It gives the navy a ‘mission-kill’ option in case of conflict,” he said at the time, referring to Manila’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.

Back then, tensions were running high between Manila and Beijing over the presence within the EEZ of some 200 fishing boats believed to be manned by Chinese militias.

The diplomatic standoff went on for months, and although the situation has deescalated, Philippine officials say that unauthorized Chinese vessels remain a constant presence in Philippine-claimed waters of the South China Sea.

Manila, meanwhile, has been in a race to upgrade and modernize its navy, which until recently has had to make do with a fleet of legacy vessels, many of which date back to World War II.

Over the last three years, Manila has acquired its first missile-capable warships: a repurposed corvette from the South Korean navy, and two brand new South Korean-made frigates.

Last month, Manila signed on to acquire two new corvettes from South Korean maker Hyundai Heavy Industries for $554 million. Like the earlier corvette and frigates, these will have anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-air warfare capabilities.

‘A beginning of India’s arms sales within ASEAN’

For India, the sale of the BrahMos to South China Sea claimant Philippines is a breakthrough in Southeast Asia, where China is a dominant economic force and also claims almost all of the South China Sea.

China’s claims include waters within the EEZs of Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. While Indonesia does not regard itself as party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.

The Philippines’ BrahMos order could lead to more agreements with other Southeast Asian nations, allowing New Delhi to expand its influence in the region, Indian analysts said.

The deal is being “considered a beginning of India’s arms sales within the ASEAN member nations,” Aparaajita Pandey, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Policy at Amity University, told Indian news outlet AsiaNet.

New Delhi is also in talks with Vietnam and Indonesia for the possible sale of supersonic cruise missiles, reports said.

“[The] Philippines is potentially a geo-strategically important strategic partner in the region,” Pandey said. “The deal will lead to greater militarization of the region, which most definitely will be noticed by Beijing.”

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Though largely shut off from the global economy, North Korea last year issued eight international trademarks and three international patents, recently released data show.

Seven companies in North Korea registered the eight trademarks, one more than the previous year, according to data from the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released last week.

The three patents registered by North Korean companies in 2021 were a “slanted smoke-tube boiler,” a “healthcare instrument for sauna at room temperature and local irradiation treatment,” and a “local hemostatic composition.”

Soo Kim, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, told RFA’s Korean Service that although North Korea does on occasion register international trademarks, it is unclear how many countries it economically interacts with, given the broad sanctions it is under and a shoddy track record of dealing honestly with international partners.

“Through these trademarks, North Korea may be seeking to undermine the international community’s barriers vis-a-vis Pyongyang’s integration into the international community,” Soo Kim said.

She added that Kim Jong Un knows the way to true integration with the international community depends on its denuclearization and basic human rights protections.

To date, North Korea has registered about 100 international trademarks, WIPO data show. For comparison, South Korean companies have registered approximately 4.2 million international trademarks.

North Korea has to date registered a total of 55 patents, compared with about 200,000 registered by South Korean companies.

All these companies given trademark protections are known to have been visited by Kim Jong Un.

He most recently visited the Sangwon Cement Factory in North Hwanghae province’s Sangwon county, just south of Pyongyang. The state-run Korea Central News Agency on Feb. 14 reported that he presented a gift to the cement company to encourage an increase in production.

Kim visited the Chollima tile factory in August 2014 after it was renamed. It had been associated with Jang Song Theak, Kim’s uncle whom he had executed in 2013 in what observers believe was an effort to consolidate power.

The court that sentenced Jang said he had blocked an attempt to film video footage of the production process inside the factory as they were providing tile needed for national monuments and mosaic murals glorifying North Korea’s previous leaders.

In 2016, Kim inspected the Pyongyang Sports Equipment Factory in Taesongsan, noting that its warehouse was overflowing with basketballs, widely known to be his favorite sport. He said it was an important site to produce world class-sports equipment.

The other companies that registered international trademarks last year were the Taesongsan Ice Cream Factory, the HyangODong plastic packaging company, the RyuGyongGwan restaurant, and the Mokran Kwangmyomg film distribution company, which registered two trademarks.

North Korea joined the World Intellectual Property Organization in 1974 and signed the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 1980. North Korea is also a signatory to the Paris Convention, an 1883 agreement on the international protection of industrial property rights. Currently 140 countries including the United States and South Korea are signed members.

Patent attorneys in Washington told RFA’s Korean Service that anyone is eligible to file a patent application with WIPO. A patent application alone would not violate U.S.-imposed sanctions, they said.

“North Korea is a signatory to the Paris Convention, so it seems that North Korea can apply for and register a patent in the United States,” Yoon S. Ham, a Washington-based patent attorney told RFA Jan. 6.

“North Korea can apply for a patent in the United States, receive registration, and exercise its patent rights,” Ham said.

In fact, North Koreans applied for one patent and 10 trademarks in the U.S. between fiscal years 2016 and 2020, according to the most recent United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Performance and Accountability Report.

North Korea’s dealings with WIPO are not without controversy. In 2012, the U.S. government expressed concern that WIPO’s support package of computers and other information and communication equipment to North Korea could violate U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang.

In 2017, North Korea raised eyebrows when it filed a patent application with WIPO for a method of producing of sodium cyanide, a sanctioned compound with a primary application in gold mining.

WIPO did not respond to RFA’s requests for comment.

Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.