Do crises bring allies together or drive them apart?  The nuclear weapons “crisis” with North Korea put this question to the test this past quarter.  Trilateral coordination among Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo operated in overdrive as the three allies reacted to the revelations of North Korean nuclear intransigence, producing mixed results.  On the bilateral fronts, Japan-DPRK relations soured this quarter about as much as they had sweetened with the Koizumi summit in Pyongyang in September, over the very same issue: abductions.  Meanwhile, the Japanese wait nervously for the incoming Roh Moo-hyun government, virtually ignorant of the South Korean president-elect’s views on Seoul-Tokyo relations.

Japan-DPRK relations: the Saga of the Abductees

Contrary to what one might expect, there were other notable events in Japan-Korea relations outside of the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.  Following Kim Jong-il’s bombshell admission during his summit with Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro in September of North Korean responsibility for the kidnapping of 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, the two governments supposedly worked out an arrangement in which five abductees were finally allowed to return to Japan for a brief visit.  Their return to Japan on Oct. 15, and their stories were the obsession of the Japanese media and people following their arrival and the tearful reunions with long-lost relatives and friends.

These well-publicized homecomings rapidly turned into a bittersweet experience for both people and governments involved, however. Things looked like they were moving along smoothly until some of the abductees formally requested permission to resettle in Japan.  Chimura Yasushi, who was abducted along with Hamamoto Fukie by DPRK spies 24 years ago, expressed their intention in a letter to Koizumi.  Moreover in a symbolic act, the abductees added insult to injury by removing their DPRK lapel pins.  DPRK authorities responded by filing strong protests claiming that the abductees were being detained in Japan against their will.

Thus a new dispute over the abductees has emerged from earlier attempts by Pyongyang and Tokyo to put the issue to bed.  The highly emotional nature of this issue for the Japanese public is certain to present a continual obstacle to normalization talks between the two countries.  These talks ground to a halt in October and November as North Korea threatened to end its missile testing moratorium if Japan were not more flexible in its attitudes toward talks.

No one wins from the continuing abductee problem in bilateral relations, however.  Perhaps the biggest losers are the abductees themselves as all have left children in North Korea (as a condition for their travel to Japan).   Japan has demanded that these children be sent to accompany their parents, but Pyongyang has predictably refused this request.  Ralph Cossa best summed up this dilemma in a Nov. 22 PacNet article: “one can only hope that Tokyo and Pyongyang can put politics aside and find a compromise, such as allowing the families to reunite on neutral territory so that the Japanese abductees can, for the first time in decades, truly exercise free choice in determining their fates.”

‘TCOG ¬ plus’

The quarter saw frenetic activity as Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington responded to the revelations in October of a second covert North Korean drive to acquire nuclear weapons through uranium-enrichment technology.   In the first direct meetings between the Bush administration and North Korea, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly stated the U.S. desire to seek an improvement of relations and tension reduction on the Peninsula, but that such an agenda was very difficult to discuss given recently acquired evidence of a covert nuclear program in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework.  The North Koreans denied such accusations initially, but on the second day of meetings boldly admitted to such violations, justifying their activities as a response to President Bush’s designation of North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” (despite the fact that the program started before the Bush administration came into office).   In subsequent actions at the end of December, the North Koreans then unsealed the reactor facilities at Yongbyon frozen under the 1994 agreement, dismantled monitoring cameras, and then expelled the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who were tasked with monitoring on the ground compliance with the agreement.

Trilateral activity during the quarter largely focused on reconciling and uniting what appeared to be disparate positions on how to respond to this rash of North Korean provocations.  Despite complete consensus that a military solution to the problem was not desirable, the South Korean, U.S., and Japanese governments appeared to differ on the nature and type of dialogue that should take place in order to bring the North Koreans back into compliance.  For the Bush administration, the basic principle was the refusal to engage in any dialogue or offer of quid pro quos for the North to roll back their bad behavior.   At the start of the new year, the administration appeared to show some flexibility, noting a willingness to talk directly with the North Koreans on  the types of activities that need to be undertaken to avert  a crisis, but the basic principle of not succumbing to Pyongyang’s nuclear blackmail remained.  For the South Korean and Japanese governments, such “blackmail” was also unacceptable, but short of this extreme, there was a strong belief in Seoul and Tokyo that negotiations of some form with the North were necessary to avoid escalation of the crisis.

The specifics of these respective positions were discussed at various sets of trilateral meetings during the quarter.  On the sidelines of the APEC meetings in Mexico at the end of October, the three leaders issued a joint statement calling for the North to come back into compliance with its nuclear weapons obligations.  At the November Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) meetings in Tokyo, the key agenda item was whether to suspend heavy fuel oil shipments to North Korea as promised under the 1994 Agreed Framework.  Both Seoul and Tokyo at the time implored the U.S. to agree to continue shipments (there was a November monthly shipment of fuel oil already in transit, and the last scheduled delivery for 2002 in December).  And in the end, the three allies reached a compromise in which the November shipment was not turned back, but the suspension would be effective – as announced by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) later that week – from December.

Though TCOG remained the mainstay, there was a rash of other diplomatic discussions over the North Korean nuclear crisis initiated by Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington.  In what might be described as “TCOG-plus,” the three allies proactively sought consultations with China, Russia, and each other during the quarter.  Significant among these was Seoul’s efforts in late December (and¬ early January) to seek Beijing’s advice as the Kim Dae-jung government attempted to engineer a proposal to mediate the crisis between Washington and Pyongyang.  Japan also sought Russia’s help in conveying to the North Koreans the need to eliminate their nuclear weapons programs during meetings between Foreign Ministers Igor Ivanov and Kawaguchi Yoriko.  Also important were the U.S.-Japan bilateral meetings, the Security Consultative Committee in Washington in December – involving Foreign Minister Kawaguchi, Defense Agency Director General Ishiba Shigeru, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz – in which Japan pledged allegiance to the U.S. position that the North must come clean on its nuclear weapons activities.  Such diplomatic efforts are no doubt a function of anxieties held in all capitals in Asia about the direction of the standoff with North Korea.

On a more optimistic note, the frenetic diplomatic activity also represents an incipient multilateralism in the region that has arguably been created since the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994.  This early crisis eventually gave way to the only “minilateral” security institutions in Asia ¬ i.e., TCOG and KEDO.  These institutions were distinct because in contrast to the multilateralism often trumpeted in Southeast Asia, KEDO dealt directly with a real security issue (nuclear proliferation in North Korea); required the active participation of several key agents (including the United States, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union); and involved real investments of time and money (billions of dollars by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea).  In this sense, it constituted more than a “talk shop.”  Arguably, the spate of activity in the past quarter could constitute the beginning of something akin to “TCOG-plus” as the region responds to developments on the Peninsula.

Seoul-Tokyo Relations: Roh Who?

For Seoul-Tokyo relations, the big question raised this quarter is the future of Japan-ROK relations with the election of political maverick Roh Moo-hyun.  The South Korean president-elect, in post-election press statements, made very clear his desire to work with the allies in resolving the nuclear problem with North Korea.  The day after the election, Roh said that he envisioned under his presidency no major changes in the five decade-old alliance relationship with the United States and its security framework in East Asia.  This presumably included Japan.  But as had been made clear during the election campaign profiles of Roh, foreign policy is not his docket.  Indeed, if the concern during the campaign raised by political pundits was that Roh’s views on the alliance relationship with the United States were translucent—varying between his earlier activist streak strongly opposing the U.S., and his “re-thought,” moderated position supporting the alliance—his views on Japan were downright opaque.  Public discussion on the implications of the ROK presidential election for bilateral relations with Japan really did not advance beyond vague statements about joint efforts and with the United States to continue some aspects of engagement with North Korea and resolving the nuclear problem peacefully.

But there must clearly be some apprehension in the halls of Japan’s Foreign Ministry about where Roh will take Seoul-Tokyo relations.   In the early part of Kim Dae-jung’s administration, earnest and effective efforts were made to set bilateral relations on a new footing, and in spite of a downturn in relations over textbook issues in 2000-2001, progress had been made that culminated with the smashing success of the joint hosting of the World Cup.  Whether the new untested South Korean leader has either the capacity or will to follow this path remains to be seen.  Roh’s background, his political constituency, and his values suggest potentially a less sympathetic view toward Japan, informed by a desire to shed economic dependence on the former colonizer.  Moreover, as Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo stated upon Roh’s electoral victory, though this may have been a great day for Korean democracy, there was no getting around the fact that this man was an unknown quantity with few personal or political links to Japan.

In spite of these concerns, there are reasons not to be entirely pessimistic. Roh’s lukewarm pronouncements on Japan are not nearly as important in this regard as the fact that he will soon take the reins of power in arguably the most vibrant democracy in Asia.  And in such a democracy, the new South Korean leader must represent the views of the entire country rather than a narrow constituency.  Movement to the political center, therefore, is likely and this will benefit relations with Japan.  Recent history offers a lesson in this regard.  Kim Dae-jung arguably heralded from a similar political constituency and value system as that of Roh, and Kim’s presidency will be remembered as one that worked extremely hard to advance Japan-ROK relations, arguably rivaled only by Park Chung-hee (even Kim’s harshest critics will grudgingly grant this).  Kim’s protege would have to undergo a relatively deeper transformation (and yes, it would help if he had spent as much time in Japan as Kim did), but the geostrategics of the East Asian region in which Korea and Japan sit as the prominent two technologically advanced, liberal-democratic, market-oriented peoples offers a powerful, time-tested, and almost indisputable logic to the bilateral relationship and the trilateral framework with the United States.