Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Headlines, Nuclear Energy - Nuclear Weapons, Peace

POLITICS-JAPAN: N. Korean Missiles Tense Up Neighbourhood

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jul 7 2006 (IPS) - While North Korea’s missile launches this week were not targeted at any particular country, analysts say the reactions in neighbouring countries have been such as to sow the seeds of tension that will linger on.

”The reaction in Japan against North Korea is very strong this time. With China calling for a softer response, the situation is very fractious and will depend on the upcoming reaction in the United Nations,” was the sombre analysis of Prof. Masao Okonogi, a leading expert on North Korea at Keio University.

Okonogi referred to the huge sense of crisis in Japan, this week, triggered by the news that North Korea had launched seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, early Wednesday morning.

National anger over the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korea was already high when the news of the tests became known. The government is now leading a call for a series of measures against Pyongyang, including a half-year ban on port calls by the only passenger link between Japan and North Korea and a halt to trips to that country by Japanese officials.

But the ban on entry of the ‘Man Gyong Bong-92′, a North Korean passenger-cargo ferry, is unlikely to trouble Pyongyang and has more symbolic value than anything else, observers said.

‘’The North Korean government needs to be punished by Japan and the United States,” opined Kaoru Sakata, 53, a homemaker who has been buying up extra newspaper editions on the tests, published by the Japanese media.

Buoyed by the strong public reaction, Japan is leading a call to the international community to implement sanctions against North Korea in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and has emphasised close cooperation with the U.S. in tackling Pyongyang.

‘’The members of the UNSC, especially the permanent members should not do anything that would lead North Korea to believe it has sympathy,” Shinzo Abe, chief cabinet secretary told an international audience on Thursday.

Abe, a conservative, referred to the government’s plan to submit a draft resolution at the UNSC penalising North Korea for the tests and call them ‘unacceptable’.

Okonogi told IPS that the resolution, if not passed – which has dim prospects with China and Russia already showing reluctance – will only encourage North Korea and contribute to further straining of already troubled relationships in East Asia.

Indeed, Song ll Ho, North Korea’s ambassador in charge of diplomatic normalisation with Japan, told reporters in Pyongyang, on Thursday, that although Japan has announced sanctions, ‘’I think it is in the interest of Japan to halt them.”

North Korean resident in Japan, Kim Myong Chol, who heads the one-man Centre of Korean-American Peace and is a frequent visitor to the U.S., told reporters on Friday: ‘’North Korea will not hesitate to strike again if provoked by the U.S. or Japan.”

Asked to explain, Kim talked of possible responses with nuclear weapons if the U.S. embarks on an arms build-up around North Korea. He added that Japanese sanctions were a ‘provocation’.

News reports also talk about a second Taepodong-2 missile launch being prepared by North Korea.

Bradly Martin, a U.S.-born North Korean watcher, explained that the sabre rattling by Pyongyang resembled previous moves by the Stalinist leadership to use missile testing as a means to initiate talks with the U.S.

Martin pointed out that the current tests were undertaken against a backdrop of North Korea facing a difficult situation with the U.S. that has imposed sanctions against a Macao bank suspected of money laundering for North Korea.

There are also reports that the missile tests were aimed at creating anger and fear in Japan – hence the use of ten missiles rather than a smaller number -in order to force Japan to place sanctions and thus allow Pyongyang to freeze bilateral relations and slow down the abduction issue that is a priority for the country.

‘’The aim was to only create tension and confusion and force Japan and the U.S. to the negotiating table,” Baek Seung Joo, director of a research team on North Korean affairs at the Korean Institute for Defence Analysis based in Seoul, told Japanese media.

Whether this goal will be achieved is debatable, but, as analysts point out, the missile test has definitely raised the hackles of the Japanese who insist something must be done to contain the North Korean threat quickly rather than wait any longer.

The influential Yomiuri newspaper, criticised the U.N. in an editorial, on Friday, for failing to adopt a resolution against North Korea when it test-fired a missile in August 1988 pointing out that nuclear development has continued in the country since.

‘’The problem for Japan is that other countries do not take the threat of North Korea as seriously as Japan does,” wrote the Yomiuri and lashed out at the U.S. for not taking stronger measures. It called for Japan to “prepare an effective means of defending itself”.

Defence officials, alert since the discovery in May of North Korean plans for missile launches, ordered two destroyers, equipped with missile-tracking radars, into the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile, Korean residents in Japan say Korean schools attended by students with North Korean affiliation have started receiving phone threats again and that teachers have to patrol the roads for their safety.