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NORTH KOREA: Japan Has Little Leverage Over Volatile Neighbour
By Catherine Makino
TOKYO, May 26, 2009 (IPS) - North Korea’s nuclear tests are a grave security concern to Japan and have
significantly raised tension in the region.
Most analysts believe Japan would be a likely target if the regime were to ever
use nuclear weapons in a major conflict. Even if that scenario never develops,
Tokyo is nervous about having an unpredictable and potentially unstable
nuclear-armed state as a regional neighbour.
"It absolutely cannot be allowed," Prime Minister Taro Aso told reporters
Monday in Tokyo. "We now face an important stage in which the international
community has to act as one. It is a clear violation of the existing United
Nations Security Council resolution."
Japan called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Monday. The
15-member Security Council was united in condemning North Korea’s recent
nuclear test as a "clear violation" of council resolutions and will quickly draw
up a new resolution.
"Japan can and should be expected to take a leading role in condemning
Pyongyang through the U.N. Security Council," Weston Konishi, adjunct fellow
at the Washington-based Mansfield Foundation, told IPS.
Japan will likely work behind the scenes to try to persuade Russia and China
to take a tougher stance toward the regime, possibly including a new set of
economic sanctions against Pyongyang. However, at this point, there are few
sanctions left to use against the isolated regime, according to Konishi.
"The test this year is North Korea’s bid to get more attention and bargaining
leverage with the United States," Jeffrey Kingston of Temple University in
Japan says. "The Obama Administration has played it cool and unlike its
predecessors has not panicked, refusing to play the game by Pyongyang
rules. Secretary of State Clinton recently said a resumption of talks is
implausible and unlikely."
China still provides a key economic lifeline to North Korea, so Japan, the
United States, and other interested parties may try to convince Beijing to
apply greater pressure on Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table.
The U.N. Security Council and the entire international community - including
Japan - have condemned North Korea several times with no impact.
This is not a promising sign for resumption of the Six-Party Talks - convened
by China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. after North
Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003. It
serves as a potent reminder of opportunities Japan missed over several years
by pushing denuclearisation efforts to the side, according to Kingston. With
Six-Party Talks dead in the water and Japan hemmed in by its own rhetoric
and inflexibility, its worst fears about direct U.S.-North Korea talks may
emerge.
"In the last year of the Bush Administration Tokyo was angry that it was out
of the loop on key negotiations," Kingston said. "And it was incensed by the
U.S. decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of
terrorism, thereby, removing whatever leverage Japan might have had in the
abductees ‘negotiations.’
Japanese nationals were abducted by the reclusive communist state during
the cold war to be trained as spies.
The key for the Obama Administration is handling this situation calmly and
methodically while keeping Japan involved and informed, notes Kingston. The
prospects for getting the genie back in the bottle seem remote precisely
because North Korea has gained so much by developing the nuclear option
and now there are vested interests in the regime opposed to negotiating it
away.
"Obviously the situation is serious and undesirable and only underscores how
little leverage everyone has, including China over Pyongyang," Kingston told
IPS. "I doubt that China and Russia will change their tune in the U.N. Security
Council to the degree that Japan wants. It will once again be another dead-
end."
Kenneth Quinones, dean of research evaluation and professor of Korean
studies at Akita International University in Japan, agrees.
"In the minds of its political leadership - especially its generals - North
Korea’s brash rejection of international condemnation is neither irrational nor
unpredictable. In recent years we have seen a similar cycle repeat itself three
times," he says.
Japan’s recent prime ministers appear to be using North Korea to broaden
their popular support by accenting coercive tactics when dealing with
Pyongyang, according to Quinones. U.N. Security Council statements,
international condemnation and economic sanctions are the favoured tactics.
"Unfortunately none of them have or had any positive or constructive impact
on North Korea," Quinones says. "I would suggest that it is time for Tokyo
and Seoul to sit down with Washington, Beijing and Moscow and come up with
a strategy designed to induce North Korea back into negotiations - whether
they be bilateral with the U.S. and North Korea, or multilateral, an example
would be the Six Party Talks."
This strategy would emphasise negotiations and inducements rather than the
current preference for condemnation and coercive tactics like sanctions.
Otherwise, predicts Quinones, Japan, its neighbours and the U.S. could
experience an intensification of tensions in Northeast Asia that could
abruptly explode into a second Korean War.
"War in short would not serve anyone’s interest, and its cost to all considered
parties would be astronomical," Quinones told IPS.
In strategic terms it would mean little for Japan. North Korea has had a nuke
and missile program for a long time. The test may or may not indicate that
North Korea is making progress towards weaponising a nuke - developing a
bomb that can be carried by a missile as opposed to something that is too
big or fragile to serve as an effective warhead, said Robert Dujarric, director
of the Institute for Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University. Even
if the North Korea has an effective nuke, the U.S. nuclear umbrella and
American conventional forces are sufficient to deter North Korea, according to
Dujarric.
"I’m not thinking of an attack on Japan but some clash with South Korea," he
said. "It wouldn’t lead to full-scale war but could still ratchet up tensions at a
time when the last thing Asia needs is a political-diplomatic-military crisis."
There is little Japan can do. The key is the Chinese reaction and, to a lesser
extent, the American one. So at the end of the day Japan remains a
bystander.
(END)
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