The condemnation was unequivocal: “This is inadmissible and unacceptable. This is a clear provocation on the part of the North Korean authorities.” Pyongyang’s firing of seven missiles, including the long-range Taepodong 2, was “a challenge to the world community” and “an inappropriate and excessive attempt to demonstrate military force”. The outspoken comment came not from Washington but from Moscow, once a close supporter of the isolated Stalinist regime. Russia, like other partners in the protracted six-power talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, was angry and alarmed by the test firings. Like Washington and Beijing, Moscow had repeatedly given warning against such a move. Their words carried no weight with a regime as paranoid as it is petulant and attention-seeking.

The most significant of the condemnations came from Beijing. China said that it was “seriously concerned” by the events, but called for calm from all sides. Given China’s longstanding links with North Korea, this diplomatic understatement conceals a far more explosive reaction. China has every right to be furious. Only last week, Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister, warned Kim Jong Il not to go ahead with the long-threatened launch. A Chinese vice-premier is due in Pyongyang on Monday to celebrate the 45th anniversary of a bilateral friendship treaty. The openly provocative timing, on America’s Independence Day, is a deliberate snub by the North Koreans to China’s call for patient diplomacy within the six- power talks that it hosts.

Those talks have gone nowhere since November, largely because the US has rightly threatened financial sanctions on the North Koreans for their laundering of drug money and involvement in counterfeiting US currency. Caught red-handed and stung by these accusations, the North Koreans have reacted with their usual overblown belligerence, but may have launched the missiles in an attempt to extract concessions from the US — a tactic that has unfortunately proved all too successful in the past.

The effect however, has been to destabilise the entire region, nowhere more so than in Japan, which has been upset by missiles landing close to its shores. The Japanese have reacted swiftly, freezing money transfers and stopping charter flights. Far more significant, however, will be the military reaction. The missiles are likely to force a decisive change in Japan’s defence policy, which will move from the long postwar posture of “shield” to the proactive “sword and shield”, which will inevitably change the military balance in the entire region.

That change will seriously alarm China. For years it has deliberately exaggerated talk of Japanese militarism for domestic purposes. Now, because of its own failure to take more forceful steps against North Korea, China may be faced with a real Japanese arms build-up that could indeed be worrying. China therefore has a choice: whether to continue protecting Kim Jong Il by bailing out his bankrupt regime or, for the first time, to put real pressure on him, cutting off oil supplies. China is the only country able to bring real pressure to bear. Its own forbearance has already cost it and the region dear. Beijing must understand that, for its own national interests as well as for global stability, it must get tough with this immoral and intransigent regime.