In a statement carried by North Korean state media, Kim Yo Jong said Pyongyang’s “leadership will set up additional military options which are obviously due to Japan’s transformation”. “Japan, a war criminal state, is accelerating its transformation into a war state,” said her statement published by the Korean Central News Agency. Japan occupied all of Korea before its 1945 surrender in the Second World War, after which the peninsula was divided into separate states along the 38th parallel. Japan has hosted US military bases ever since its surrender in World War II. China — a key ally North Korean — has also recently expressed alarm at what it sees as “new militarism” by Japan.