Seemingly isolated amid the high-stakes rapprochement between ally the United States and longtime enemy North Korea, Japan now finds itself in a precarious
Seemingly isolated amid the high-stakes rapprochement between ally the United States and longtime enemy North Korea, Japan now finds itself in a precarious position as the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gropes for a new role in any grand bargain to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons.
But after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, South Korean leader Moon Jae-in and U. S. President Donald Trump, could Tokyo’s own detente with Pyongyang — and everything that would entail — be closer than it has been in more than 15 years? And if that is the case, what would that mean?
Possibly as much $10 billion, or more than a third of the North’s estimated gross domestic product in 2013, the most recent figure available according to the CIA World Factbook.
For North Korea, some experts say Japan represents a potential cash cow and could play a key role in a claimed shift by Kim from a focus on nuclear weapons to his country’s tattered economy.
For Tokyo, with its long historical links to the Korean Peninsula, its nuclear-armed neighbor represents more than a mere security concern — despite its arsenal of shorter-range missiles capable of striking much of Japan. Rather, the normalization of ties with the North is seen as one of the final pieces in a puzzle Japan is still trying to solve more than 70 years after its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula ended with its defeat in World War II.
“Japan’s prime motivation for normalization is a genuine desire to settle this last great unresolved issue,” said Christopher Hughes, a Japanese studies professor at the University of Warwick in England. “Despite… past suspicions of Japan’s engagement of the North as some sort of divide and rule on the Korean Peninsula, Japan is serious about trying to deal with its colonial past and do what it can do to moderate North Korean behavior.”
Now, in the wake of the June 12 historic summit between Kim and Trump, the process of Japan beginning to solve that long-festering quandary could be moving forward.
While the U. S. has pledged to guarantee the security of the Kim regime, Trump has touted Tokyo as an important player in the nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang, noting pointedly during a June 1 meeting at the White House with Kim’s right-hand man that he envisioned a large role for Japan in providing economic aid to help build up the North’s stagnant economy. The U. S. ambassador to Japan, William Hagerty, has also played up Tokyo’s position, saying just after the Kim-Trump summit that its role in aiding the North’s economic development would be “significant.”
Abe has in recent weeks worked to craft Japan’s own path ahead and reconcile his outspoken support for Trump’s hard-line “maximum pressure” policy as the U. S. president softens his tone in hopes of reaching a deal.
The Japanese leader has repeatedly voiced hopes of holding direct talks with the North, though caveats abound. He has stressed that the issue of the North’s missile and nuclear programs must be resolved, but — perhaps more importantly — has also first demanded that Kim reveal the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea to train its spies decades ago.
For his part, Kim, too, appears interested in talks with Abe, telling South Korea’s Moon in late April that he is ready to hold a dialogue with Japan at “any time.”
However, Abe has said time after time that Japan will hold back any economic incentives until all of its concerns — the nuclear, missile and abduction issues — are resolved.
“In the end, I myself need to meet Chairman Kim face to face and have a summit talk,” Abe told a session of the Diet’s Upper House on June 18.
One possibility for improving ties is for Abe to look to his past, specifically the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, which he himself had a hand in crafting when he was a deputy and later chief Cabinet secretary under then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
“A good starting point would be to return to and build on the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, which included a Japanese apology for colonialism and a promise of ‘economic assistance,’ but not of “reparations,’ ” said Tessa Morris-Suzuki, a professor of Japanese and Korean history at Australian National University in Canberra.
