EAST ASIA INSIGHTSTOWARD COMMUNITY BUILDING
Japan Center for International ExchangeVol. 1 No. 3 | June 2006

Japan’s Perspective on theKorean Peninsula
Hitoshi Tanaka, Senior Fellow, JCIEThe situation on the Korean peninsula today posesa serious danger to the delicate stability in Northeast Asia. North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program; its threatening missile program; itsserious criminal misconduct, including abductions
offoreign nationals, drug trafﬁcking, and currency
counterfeiting; and its worsening domestic humanitarian situation have created deep concern
among all in the region. [At the time this edition ofEast Asia Insights was going to press, North Korea
was threatening to test a long-range Taepodong
missile. Such an action would, of course, have dramatic implications for Japan and the region andwould alter the scenarios presented here.]
One of the countries most vitally concerned withdevelopments on the peninsula is Japan, whose own
legacy with the Koreas and the Cold War has led to apeculiar and uncomfortable relationship with North
Korea. Of the more than 600,000 ethnic Koreans living in Japan today, it is estimated that one half maintain allegiance to the North Korean government. Yet
despite the presence of this sizeable ethnic population, North Korea remains the only country in theworld with which Japan has no formal relations.
Japan has a long but failed history of negotiations with North Korea dating back to 1992. Then,in 2002, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
visited North Korea and took a signiﬁcant step
toward dialogue on normalization with the signingof the Pyongyang Declaration. Although that declaration set out commitments for normalization, it
has yet to result in the resolution of two key pending
issues: nuclear weapons development and the past
abductions of Japanese nationals. These remain themajor impediments to improving bilateral relations, and talks remain stalled today.
Multilateral engagement with North Korea
through the six-party talks is also at a standstill.
The Joint Statement that was released after thetalks’ fourth round in September 2005 deﬁned several shared objectives, but it did not detail a planfor implementing them. This, in conjunction with
North Korea’s recent refusal to return to talks until the United States unfreezes North Korean assetsin Macau—assets that American ofﬁcials suspect
were used for money laundering activities—hassignaled that the talks are a long way from achieving their objective of improving regional stability.
At this juncture, Japan and the international
community need to take a fresh look at how toproceed. Success in renewing dialogue will requirea critical examination of the perspectives and goalsof all parties involved.

Japan’s Policy on North Korea
Japan’s security policy has evolved in direct response
to developments surrounding North Korea. The
Mutual Security Assistance Pact of 1952 between

the United States and Japan and the subsequent
Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security of1960 are two such examples. Events of the recent
past have shown that North Korea continues to bea priority security issue for Japan. The North Korean nuclear crisis of 1993–1994 and the missile
crisis of 1998 were two sources of urgent concern
among Japanese policymakers.
The nuclear crisis in particular revealed thatJapan was not prepared to handle such an event,and the government later acted to create policy
to meet this need. The crisis led the international
community in 1994 to consider applying sanctionsagainst North Korea, which in response announced
that it would interpret sanctions to be an act ofwar. As the United States began to prepare for acontingency, it expected Japan to make a substantial contribution. But Japanese institutions, beginning with the Self-Defense Forces, did not possess
the legal framework to permit engagement, particularly in logistical support operations.
The Japanese government reacted to theseregional developments and contingency shortcomings in several ways. First, in 1997 it formulated the Defense Cooperation Guidelines withthe United States, clearly outlining Japan’s responsibilities in the event of a regional contingency,
and it created laws to implement the guidelines.
Second, it enacted wartime legislation. Third, it
developed a missile-defense program in coordination with the United States. This multifaceted response shows that Japan’s security policy over thepast decade has been shaped greatly by the threat
posed by North Korea.
Japan’s policy was not limited to simply increasing deterrence measures, however. The evolutionof two bilateral relationships in the region also
opened up opportunities for negotiations between
Japan and North Korea. Former South Korean
President Kim Dae-jong’s pursuit of the Sunshine
Policy created an environment where Japan could
engage in substantive dialogue with North Korea.
Perhaps more signiﬁcantly, the United States’
reversal of its policy of engagement with North
Korea opened up a new space for dialogue. President Bush’s “axis of evil” remarks during his Stateof the Union address in 2002 and his administration’s aversion to the 1994 Agreed Framework
EAST ASIA INSIGHTS

aroused grave concern in the North Korean government. Faced with a hostile U.S. administrationand having seen U.S. military capabilities play outin Iraq, North Korea sought to improve relations
with Japan to help ensure against the perceived
possibility of coercive measures. Better relations
with the United States’ closest ally could help deter military action.
Japan seized this opportunity to attempt anew
to resolve outstanding issues with North Korea, andit did so for several reasons. First, while extensive
contingency preparations are necessary for national
defense, they cannot solve various security issues;normalizing relations and building conﬁdence aremuch more desirable outcomes. Second, normalization with North Korea remains an international
obligation for Japan, as deﬁned in the San Francisco
Peace Treaty. Third, rapprochement between theUnited States and North Korea during the Clinton
administration years had meant that the latter had
no strategic motivation to engage with Japan. As
U.S. policy changed and North Korea became receptive to Japan, Japan saw a valuable opportunity
to resolve outstanding bilateral issues.
The results of the negotiations were reﬂected in
the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration, which was signed
during Koizumi’s visit. The declaration afﬁrmed
the ultimate goal of normalized relations, set out
a roadmap outlining the need to resolve various
security issues, and recognized that after normalization both parties will “mutually waive all theirproperty and claims and those of their nationals
that had arisen from causes which occurred before
August 15, 1945.” Signiﬁcantly, during Koizumi’svisit, Kim Jong-il apologized for past abductions
that North Korea had not acknowledged for decades, and he promised an investigation and thereturn of survivors. Although several survivors
subsequently returned to Japan, talks since thedeclaration have yet to produce any further progress on outstanding issues.
Ironically, Kim Jong-il’s admission of the existence of abductees, coupled with growing domestic nationalism, sparked intense anti–North
Korean sentiment in Japan. Public opinion became
even more critical in 2005, when supposed forensic evidence of allegedly deceased Japanese abductees provided by North Korean authorities turned
2Vol. 1 No. 3 | June 2006

out to be fabricated. Yet, despite this extremely
negative public reaction and calls for a tougher
approach, Koizumi has maintained his policy of
a comprehensive resolution of outstanding issues
through engagement with North Korea.

For South Korea, nationalism is understandably
the key element driving its policy on North Korea;
South Koreans overwhelmingly view those in thenorth as their own and understand reuniﬁcation asa long-term goal. The high expense and difﬁcultyof the German experience, however, has mademany Koreans doubtful of early reuniﬁcation.
In the United States, two major ﬁssures exist overpolicy on North Korea. The ﬁrst is between fundamentalists and realists. The former contend that
North Korea is a rogue state with which no deals
should be made, and that the best options are either
containment until the regime collapses or preemptive force. The latter contend that the use of force
is too costly both in terms of physical resources
and the impact it would have on the geopoliticalsituation in the region, and that the best option issettlement through negotiation. The second ﬁssure
is between those who cast North Korea as part ofa group of states that wish to proliferate weaponsof mass destruction and those who see the North’snuclear ambitions as part of a geopolitical securityissue. Competition between these various factions
has gradually hindered progress in the talks.
Russia’s interest in the six-party talks is more
muted than that of the other ﬁve parties, although
it too has a strong interest in promoting a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue. Nevertheless, itspresence as a major power in the region remains
an important part of the six-party framework.

Stakeholders in the Six-Party Talks
Like Japan’s bilateral efforts, the six-party talks
have yet to produce substantive results. The talks
have failed to date in part because North Korean
negotiators are bound by a centralized, “militaryﬁrst” decision-making structure that depends on
the approval of Kim Jong-il and the military forevery foreign relations decision. Currently, North
Korea is feeling particularly vulnerable and waryof foreign motives, and it will continue to wait forassurances before making concessions or agreeing
to return to the talks.
North Korean intentions in the six-party talks
are clear: to ensure survival of the current regime.
Under its military-ﬁrst policy, North Korea behaves more tactically than strategically. For example, the leadership will make a threatening
statement about nuclear capabilities and then baseits subsequent actions on the responses it receives
from others. It appears that only when the militaryleadership has a sufﬁcient guarantee for survival
does it act strategically. Past strategic decisions include addressing the abduction issue with Japanand participating in the six-party process. It would
be reasonable to assume, then, that North Korea
is quite capable of making strategic decisions—including decisions on abductions and the nuclear
issue—if the military leadership judges that suchdecisions ensure the regime’s survival.
China’s main priority is to avert an intensiﬁcation of regional tensions, as that would hurt its
domestic economic growth. The effect that destabilization could have on China’s large ethnic
Korean border population is also of concern toBeijing. It does not want to see reuniﬁcation, asa united peninsula could mean a larger, more advanced, democratic presence in the region. China
is against North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear
weapons because of the destabilization that wouldensue; it is especially concerned that a nuclearized North Korea could prompt Japan to pursue aweapons program in response.
EAST ASIA INSIGHTS

The Way Forward
Three possible scenarios for North Korea exist at
this important juncture. First, the status quo could
be maintained. This is perhaps the most dangerous scenario, for the longer the present impasse
continues, the more time North Korea will have todevelop nuclear weapons and become a de facto
nuclear state. The longer North Korea continuesto suffer economic difﬁculties arising from thestatus quo, the greater the temptation will become
for the regime to sell nuclear material to terrorist groups. Japan is vigorously seeking to avoid an
indeﬁnite extension of the status quo, particularly
since it is the country most vulnerable to a nuclear
attack from North Korea.
The second scenario is a shift from dialogue
in the six-party talks to condemnation and3Vol. 1 No. 3 | June 2006

sanctions imposed either by the United Nations
Security Council or—if sanctions are vetoed
there—by like-minded countries. This is also an
undesirable scenario for two reasons. First, sanctions, which are imposed in order to modify aberrant behavior, would do little to modify North
Korea’s policy as it has managed to survive innear-complete economic isolation for decades.
Second, without the full cooperation of all relevant countries—including China, North Korea’s
most important ally—a sanctions regime could
not possibly change North Korea’s behavior. The
only plausible situation under which the international community would have to resort tosanctions would be if North Korea were to test anuclear weapon or sell nuclear material.
The most desirable scenario is a comprehensive
solution achieved through dialogue. The scopeof a resolution emerging from dialogue would
need to go beyond the 1994 U.S.-DPRK Agreed
Framework, which lacked a precise roadmap for
implementation and veriﬁcation measures for theresolution of nuclear issues. The Six-Party Joint
Statement of September 2005, which outlines
clear, comprehensive commitments by all parties,
could serve as a starting place. A new resolution
could build upon the statement’s commitments byincluding speciﬁc measures for implementationand follow-up.
This outcome would be possible if the UnitedStates were to engage seriously with North Korea
under the umbrella of the six-party talks and if
the North Korean military leadership were tounconditionally endorse its own participationin the talks.
It is essential that the United States recognize
three key elements if negotiations are to haveany success. First, a sufﬁciently senior-level envoy operating under the direct authority of thepresident of the United States is most desirable,

as the leaders of the military-ﬁrst regime view thepresidency as the only source of authority in theUnited States. Second, given the strong suspicions
held by the North Korean regime, the UnitedStates should be prepared for intensive negotiations. Third, in terms of substance, the successof the talks clearly rests on the nature of the security guarantee that the United States provides
to North Korea. Under the military-ﬁrst regime,
North Korea tends to be deeply suspicious of any
promises made by other countries, particularly
the United States; an appropriate device needs
to be found here. Under certain circumstances,it may make sense to create a framework wheresecurity would be collectively guaranteed by thesix parties, possibly utilizing the authority of
the United Nations Security Council. In return,North Korea would permit precise, independent
veriﬁcation of the abandonment of nuclear programs and settlement of outstanding issues.
Consideration must also be given to the futurerole of the six-party talks, since any stable regionalarchitecture requires participation by all vitalstakeholders. In this sense, if the six-party process proves successful, steps must be taken to ensure that it is transformed into a semi-permanentregional entity. Under such an arrangement, thetalks’ supervisory format would be transformed
into a political format. It would build conﬁdence
and support a dialogue on lasting peace and stability in the region, a shared commitment that
already exists in the Joint Statement. The true resolution of the question of North Korea, however,may entail a longer process in which the North
Korean regime transforms its policies thoroughly.
The six-party entity could ensure that the process
takes place, and it could additionally promotestability by negotiating and facilitating economic
cooperation and institutional capacity building inNortheast Asia.

East Asia Insights
East Asia Insights is an occasional newsletter focusing on East Asia community building
from a Japanese perspective.
Published by: Tadashi Yamamoto, President, JCIE
Please direct any comments or questions to eainsights@jcie.or.jp.
Japan Center for International Exchange
www.jcie.or.jp

EAST ASIA INSIGHTS

Japan Center for International Exchange, Inc. (JCIE/USA)
www.jcie.org

4Vol. 1 No. 3 | June 2006