SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Friday held a relaunch ceremony for a destroyer that capsized during its maiden launch last month, the second in a class of blue-water assets that gives Pyongyang the kind of naval reach and capabilities the impoverished state has never before possessed.

However, Pyongyang’s new class of vessels might represent more a geopolitical than a naval threat.

Up-to-date, ocean-going ships could enable North Korea to join the high-tech navies of China and Russia in regional exercises, experts said. That would provide them with a counterbalance to the emerging trilateral team of Japan, South Korea and the United States.

The 5,000-ton destroyer Kang Kon — named after a general killed in the Korean War — was relaunched in a spiffy ceremony at the civilian-military port of Rajin, in the northeast of the country.

Photos provided by state media show North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on the vessel’s forward deck with his daughter Ju-ae, surrounded by a gaggle of naval brass.

The Kang Kon’s relaunch, itself, was a triumph.

The ship capsized last month during an unusual sideways launch at the port of Chongjin. That infuriated Mr. Kim, who ordered the immediate investigation and punishment of related officials.

Global commentators, viewing satellite footage, warned that severe damage — including possible keel shear — likely would require a major rebuild.

The repaired destroyer was unveiled in apparently fine trim, though her exact status is impossible to guess.

The new vessel “heralds a significant and dramatic change in the status and defense activities of our navy,” Mr. Kim said, per state media. “We must develop our naval power more comprehensively and rapidly.”

In the last quarter century, North Korea has earned global strategic import with its weapons of mass destruction program, comprising tested nuclear devices and multiple missile delivery platforms.

More recently, its main force — a million-strong ground army — has gained both kudos from the Kremlin and combat experience that can be passed on to the rest of his force in its fight alongside Russian troops in Kursk Oblast against Ukraine.

Investment in the navy is a new development.

The “Kang Kon” is the second in the “Choe Hyon” class of 5,000-ton guided-missile destroyers. Mr. Kim has ordered two more to be built, according to state media.

While the four-vessel size of the planned flotilla is modest, the ships massively upgrade Pyongyang’s maritime potential. The high-tech destroyers are North Korea’s largest-ever ships and appear far more formidable than the rest of its fleet, comprising largely small, low-tech, inshore vessels.

The Choe Hyon was launched on April 21 and swiftly underwent sea trials and weapons tests.

It is loaded with weapons. Expert analyses showed a 5-inch gun; 74 vertical launch missile tubes of multiple sizes, including those capable of firing cruise and ballistic missiles; an air defense system; four quad-missile launchers; and four torpedo tubes. An enclosure for what is believed to be long-range anti-ship missiles is also aboard.

There are strong suspicions that the vessels represent Russian repayment for North Korea’s help in the Ukraine War.

Their air defense systems resemble Russia’s Pantsir, while their phased-array radars look like those on Russian warships.

Yang Uk, a security expert at Seoul’s Asan Institute, speculated that the ships’ inner workings, too, include Russian technologies, offered to North Korea in exchange for the millions of tactical munitions and the thousands of soldiers Pyongyang sent to assist Moscow.

“With all these different weapons systems aboard, what they need is a combat management system and maybe they got that kind of architecture from Russia,” he said. “There is also the problem of propulsion, a really big, powerful military-grade engine: The only country that has that kind of system and dares to export it to North Korea is Russia.”

However, the country’s adversaries should not be panicking, said one expert. North Korea, a nation founded in 1948, has minimal naval expertise.

“The North Koreans have no experience of blue-water naval operations with modern forces, and any country that launches a vessel and capsizes it — well, it does not bode well,” said Garren Mulloy, a security expert at Japan’s Daito Bunka University.

Another issue is its likely competition.

“We are talking about extremely small numbers of vessels in terms of the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force,” he said.

Asan’s Mr. Yang reckons the real reason Mr. Kim wants ocean-going platforms is not to fight at sea, but to expand his geopolitical leverage with China.

“He really wants to participate in trilateral naval exercises,” he said. “North Korea might tell China that it can help in strategic competition with the U.S. That is a bargaining chip.”

China and Russia conduct frequent joint air and naval drills in the region, but North Korea has never had the modern assets needed to join in. The new destroyers change that.

Given that China lacks any presence on the coast of the Sea of Japan, which is heavily patrolled by the powerful, modern fleets of Japan and South Korea — both U.S. allies -—North Korean ports and vessels could offer Beijing some maritime value.

Trilateral naval exercises also would provide ammunition to those in Washington who warn of the threats posed by the so-called CRINK — the unofficial linkage among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

But at heart, they would offer less credible expertise to participants than the drills that democracies conduct in the region, said Mr. Mulloy.

For years, interoperability has been forged under U.S. leadership, based on synchronized equipment, communications and tactics, backed by shared political values and threat perceptions.

“China and Russia do cooperate in many ways, but not in the sense of coordinated policy or strategy,” he said. “If there was, then China’s approach to the Ukraine War would be very different. … Instead, they are trying to keep out of it, and not seen to be in it by others.”

Joint drills would make more sense for North Korea and Russia in terms of political optics than actual capabilities, he said.

“It would show a sense of solidarity and each country could say, ‘We are not isolated,’” he said. “But that is a sad indictment of each other, and what enhanced status it gives them is questionable.”

Even so, national egotism should not be underestimated.

Mr. Yang noted that a range of North Korean hardware, from tanks to drones, mirrors U.S . systems.

The new North Korean destroyer may aim at the U.S. Navy: Its hull number is “51” — the same as the U.S. Navy’s “Arleigh Burke” class of guided-missile destroyers.

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.