A study in powerlessness

With its second nuclear test in three years, North Korea continues to illustrate the limits of the power of the US, China, and the international community as a whole.

The underground test, conducted on Monday, appears to have been more successful than the October 2006 test — although it is unclear just how much of a success it was. As Geoffrey Forden wonders, this test could have been a failed test of a 20KT device or a successful test of a miniaturized 4KT device. Pyongyang will undoubtedly be glad to keep its neighbors guessing which is the case.

The response from Japan and other countries has been predictable. Prime Minister Aso Taro spoke of the gravity of this latest development for Japanese national security and stressed cooperation with the US and the international community at the UN Security Council. The House of Representatives moved swiftly to draft a resolution condemning North Korea that could pass as early as Tuesday. The LDP leadership called the test "outrageous." Okada Katsuya, the new DPJ secretary-general, echoed the government's sentiments. Japanese conservatives used the test to advance their argument for a more robust Japanese security posture. Abe Shinzo, continuing his comeback effort, demanded firmer sanctions against North Korea, especially against North Korean counterfeiting activities, called for preemptive strike capabilities, and was vaguely supportive of a debate about acquiring nuclear weapons ("A debate on matters of national security ought to be conducted freely"). Komori Yoshihisa said that the test illustrates the limits of the multilateral management of the North Korean problem and argued that Japan, doing whatever it needs to do defend itself, should reopen the debate on a nuclear deterrent. A Sankei "news" article informs readers that North Korea has the power of life and death over Japan, based strictly on the range of the missiles it possesses. In other words, much like last month's rocket launch, the responses of Japanese political actors to North Korea's second nuclear test have followed wholly predictable patterns — and show just how powerless Japan is to stop or reverse North Korea's nuclear program.

Of note is that Japan's conservatives once again have responded as if the US-Japan alliance and its nuclear umbrella does not exist. Indeed, it is remarkable how cavalier the conservatives are in their disregard for the nuclear umbrella. This is now the standard conservative argument: play up the North Korean threat, play down the US ability to meet that threat, and let a vicious cycle of fear and doubt take over. Do the vast deterrent capabilities of the US really count for nothing in the face of North Korea's piddling (and shrinking) arsenal? North Korea may be able to deter a first strike aimed at toppling the Kim regime, but is the US somehow incapable of deterring North Korea from launching a suicidal strike against Japan? Of course, back North Korea into a corner to the point where the regime has nothing to lose and then I too may question the ability of the US or anyone else to deter North Korea from doing something like firing a Rodong in Japan's direction.

Which is why the response of the conservatives is the height of folly. Threatening the very survival of the regime is a good way to make North Korea undeterrable. It's an unpleasant task, but North Korea's neighbors are responsible for talking (or buying) North Korea down from the ledge. To wit, criticism of the "talk over pressure" approach is equally foolish. If the goal of negotiations is to halt and reverse North Korea's nuclear program, then yes, it is an abject failure. But if the purpose of multilateral diplomacy is to keep talking North Korea down from the ledge and to buy time for its neighbors to plan for regime collapse and to push for gradual opening of the north (however halting), then "jaw-jaw" is essential and must continue, despite the nuclear test. I for one think there is no alternative to the latter.

Hence the distinction between capabilities and power. The US is unquestionably capable of deterring a nuclear strike against Japan, but it takes compellent power over North Korea's actions. Being unable to make a credible threat of regime change and visibly dependent on Beijing to pressure Pyongyang, Washington has little power other than its deterrent power. Japan, even with a nuclear arsenal of its own, would have even less power over North Korea. This is the unanswered question in the conservative response to every act of provocation by North Korea. If the US is unable to guarantee Japanese security through its immense nuclear arsenal — again, the unstated (or occasionally stated) basis of the argument for a Japanese arsenal — how would a Japanese deterrent be any more powerful? I understand that they could argue that the problem isn't US capabilities but US commitment, but I have yet to see a convincing demonstration that the US commitment to defend Japan from attack is flagging to the point that Japan would require its own nuclear weapons. I do not think the Japanese public is convinced either.

So given that North Korea has successfully deterred the US and others from initiating regime change, what choice do the participants in the six-party talks but to turn to the UN to condemn the test and then try once again to engage North Korea via the talks? Meanwhile, the governments of the region should continue to treat every day that Kim Jong-il lives as another day for them to plan for regime collapse.

And as for the ongoing effort by Japanese conservatives to undermine the nuclear umbrella? Mr. Roos, you have your work cut out for you.

After the launch

In the wake of North Korea's Unha-2 launch Sunday, the Japanese establishment and public have uniformly reacted with a sense of outrage and a desire for an vigorous Japanese and international response to the test.

With substantial public support — 78% of respondents in a Yomiuri poll — the government is investigating tightening sanctions and plans to secure a cabinet decision authorizing further sanctions on 10 April. The Aso government is also working with the US and South Korean governments to secure a new UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's actions over Chinese and Russian doubts. Sankei reports that in its work to assemble a coalition in support of the resolution, the foreign ministry is not looking for new sanctions to be included in the UN resolution, as a means of making the resolution more attractive to China and Russia.

Other Japanese are thinking beyond sanctions and resolutions. Nakagawa Shoichi, the disgraced former finance minister and leading conservative in the LDP, responded to the launch on Sunday by once again calling for a debate on acquiring nuclear weapons. (He most recently did so after the October 2006 nuclear test, when he was head of the LDP's policy research council — at which time Aso Taro, then foreign minister, joined him in calling for a debate on acquiring a nuclear arsenal.) To my knowledge, Jiji is the only news outlet that reported on Nakagawa's comments. The Tokyo Shimbun reports that he spoke only of a debate about how Japan can defend itself, and suggesting that it should consider acquiring the ability to strike at "enemy bases." I'm inclined to believe that Jiji's report is correct: why would Nakagawa be any more discreet now than he was when he had an official position? No longer a leader of the LDP's conservatives, his words carry less weight, but he still provides insight into how Japan's conservatives think about the region. After all, Nakagawa's remarks echo what Tamogami Toshio, former ASDF chief of staff and the new darling of the right, has said about nuclear weapons. In an interview with Sankei last November, Tamogami spoke of the deterrent effect of even publicly considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons — and suggested that ruling out the acquisition of nuclear weapons from the start weakens deterrence. More recently, in a conversation with defense affairs commentator Ushio Masato (a former ASDF airman, trustee of Sakurai Yoshiko's think tank the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, and regular in the pages of Sapio, Seiron, and Shokun!) published as the book「自衛隊はどこまで強いのか」(To what extent is the JSDF strong?), Tamogami calls for the acquisition of ballistic missiles as the best way to negotiate with North Korea and says that "the most effective way for Japan to become an independent country is to be nuclear-armed."

The conservative argument has little to do with North Korea's test, which was once again a failure, albeit less of a failure than July 2006, when its Taepodong-2 dropped into the Sea of Japan within a minute of launch. This time it managed to drop the first stage before the second and third fell into the Pacific. (Geoffrey Forden considers North Korea's progress in missile development here.) Despite no tangible change in US deterrent capabilities or the US commitment to Japan's defense — by all accounts US-Japan cooperation went smoothly in anticipation of the launch — the conservatives are agitating about Japan's vulnerabilties. For example, Sankei, in a news article that reads more like an article in a conservative opinion magazine, writes of the "possibility that data collected by the US military will not be adequately transferred" to Japan. As Tamogami's remarks above suggest, the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not about — or not only about — their deterrent value. Nor it is about the nature of the North Korean threat, which has gotten no worse as a result of the latest launch. (And, MTC suggests, the missile threat may be less worrisome than the ability of North Korean agents to cause havoc on Japanese soil.)

It is be about Japan's being able to defend itself without having to worry about the reliability of the US-Japan alliance. Conservatives like Nakagawa and Tamogami would be calling for more robust military capabilities even if the rocket launch had failed immediately after liftoff as in 2006. (We should be thankful that Tamogami is so open with his thoughts.)

All that has changed is that for the moment the eyes of the news media and the Japanese people are on North Korea.

Nevertheless, the conservative position has little public support. A new Shin-Hodo 2001 poll found 19.4% of respondents in favor of Japan's going nuclear and 72.8% opposed. (By comparison, a Hodo 2001 poll released on 15 October 2006, after the nuclear test, found 82.6% opposed to Japan's going nuclear and only 13.8% in favor: A slight shift, but for now probably not a significant shift.)

But will the legal and economic measures favored by the government and the public make any difference? What can Japan and the other participants in the six-party talks realistically do in response to North Korea's launch, other than protest?

As Mainichi reports, further sanctions will have little effect due to earlier sanctions on trade between Japan and North Korea. Economic sanctions on North Korea strikes me as the economic equivalent of "making the rubble bounce." The same holds true, even more so, for further US sanctions or even a reversion to a hardline on North Korea. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, has insisted that if the UN does nothing in response to a clear violation of UNSC Resolution 1718 it will weaken the six-party talks, which may or may not be true but shows that the Obama administration will likely press on with talks, although Yomiuri claims to see evidence of a US shift to a harder line.

Joshua Stanton suggests that there are a number of tools at the Obama administration's disposal, including a number of financial measures that could choke off the regime's access to hard currency from abroad. Maybe so, but at what cost? As Fred Kaplan argues at Slate, the US has no good options for dealing with the DPRK. The six-party talks will not result in denuclearization, not any time soon at least. Ignoring North Korea raises the prospect that North Korea will up the ante in its bid for attention. Boxing in the regime, as recommended by Stanton, presumably raises the risk of the regime lashing out in desperation — or, worse yet, that the regime will collapse for the US and its neighbors are prepared to deal with the consequences of regime collapse (a contingency that the US and North Korea's neighbors, China especially, should be devoting considerable energy to preparing for). There is no good option available to the US, Japan, and South Korea in the absence of more Chinese pressure, which may not be as viable an option as Kaplan suggests it is.

The only course of action may be getting a token resolution out of the Security Council and delaying a bit before resuming the six-party talks, and preparing for the possibility of regime collapse, in the meantime doing whatever possible to coax North Korea open in the hope of making collapse marginally less dangerous for North Korea's neighbors and less jarring for the downtrodden people of the DPRK.

And as for Japan, it ought to be less worried about its deterrent capabilities than about fixing the defense ministry, which over the weekend once again revealed its problems with handling information.

Japan's security kabuki

The Taepodong-2 rocket — because, as Jun Okumura rightly notes, it is not a missile unless it is used a weapon — North Korea claims will deliver a satellite into orbit is on the launch site, awaiting a launch that will reportedly occur between 6 and 8 April. Japan is in a state of alarm.

The Aso government and the LDP have used the prospective launch to show its decisiveness. In anticipation of the launch, a joint session of the LDP Policy Research Council's defense division, national security investigative committee, and base countermeasures ad hoc committee recommended on 24 March that Japan prepare to intercept debris from the rocket falling on Japan with either seaborne SM-3 interceptors or, failing that, land-based PAC-3 interceptors. That same day the LDP-Komeito North Korean missile problem countermeasures headquarters reviewed the government's options in responding to the launch, stressing cooperation at the UN Security Council and commitment to the Six-Party talks as well as the possibility of more sanctions on North Korea, while preparing Japan's missile defenses and opening lines of communication with localities in advance of the missile launch.

On 25 March, the chief cabinet secretary and the foreign and defense ministers discussed and agreed upon Japan's response and on 27 March, the cabinet discussed Japan's response and Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu issued an order deploying Japan's missile defenses in preparation for destroying any debris that might fall on Japan, at the same time that Prime Minister Aso sought to reassure the public that the government is doing everything in its power to minimize the danger from the launch.

Since issuing the order, the JSDF has sprung into action. On the morning of 28 March, the Kongo and the Chokai, Aegis-equipped destroyers armed with SM-3s, departed from Sasebo to take up positions in the Sea of Japan. A third Aegis-equipped destroyer, the Kirishima, deployed from Yokosuka to Japan's Pacific coast from where it will track the flight of the rocket. Meanwhile, PAC3 interceptors arrived in Akita and Iwate prefectures on Monday evening, although not without incident. (Akita and Iwate have been designated as risk zones for falling debris.) The government has also made plans for recovering debris should it fall offshore.

All of this may be for naught. As one senior government official had the courage to suggest in the midst of the government's ostentatious preparations, despite missile defense system trials, there is no guarantee that Japan's missile defenses will work under real conditions. The MSDF is one for two in SM-3 trials, while the US Navy is thirteen for sixteen, but not only were the tests conducted in controlled settings, but Japan's missile defense system is intended for North Korea's medium-range missiles, not errant pieces of a long-range rocket. Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi acknowledged the difficulty on 24 March, but that was before the government decided to order preparations for a most unlikely interception and he has since backtracked on his skepticism, stating in Diet proceedings that "it is natural for Japan" to intercept the debris given the fears of damage to lives and property. And even if the JSDF manages to intercept the debris, the defense minister admitted that there is still the risk of damage should the remaining fragments fall on Japanese territory.

The Japanese government's very public preparations are akin to the post-9/11 rituals of airport security (derisively referred to as "security theater"), the repetitive, cosmetic measures implemented by the federal government that many have argued provide the illusion of aviation security rather than actual security. Even as senior officials, including a cabinet minister, questioned Japan's ability to shoot down ballistic missiles, let alone unguided missile debris, the Aso government has made a public show of acting as if it is only natural that Japan's relatively untested missile defenses will be up to the task, all the while assuring the public that they have nothing to fear. Arguably the government's response has only heightened the sense of alarm, especially among residents of the prefectures now hosting JSDF PAC3s. More importantly, the Aso government's security kabuki — to coin a phrase — may undermine Japan's security over the long term. What will the public response be should debris fall on Japan and the JSDF spectacularly fail to intercept it, especially if the falling debris is the source of casualties or property damage? Japanese might — unfairly given that the system isn't designed to shoot down debris — come to question the government's substantial outlays on missile defense.

The comparison with the US response is revealing. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated plainly in a television appearance that the US will not attempt to shoot down the missile, even as the US Navy has deployed its own Aegis-equipped warships to the Sea of Japan. The US has, of course, agreed with Japan and South Korea to refer the missile launch to the UN Security Council as a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1718, but the US has refrained from a premature overreaction to the pending launch, wisely I think. Gates's remarks are indicative of a certain degree of powerlessness on the part of the US, Japan, and the other participants in the Six-Party talks, with the partial exception of China. It appears that all are in a holding pattern, following North Korea's failure to deliver on last year's commitments, waiting for something — most likely a leadership change in Pyongyang — to break the stalemate. I just hope that the five parties are planning for that eventuality.

I recognize that the Japanese government is unable to treat the rocket launch as nonchalantly as the US, by virtue of geography (the US, after all, doesn't have to worry about debris falling on its territory), public opinion (overwhelmly supportive of the government's response, according to a Sankei poll — even JCP supporters tended to be more supportive than not), path dependency (having pursued a hard line up until now, the government could hardly do otherwise), a desire to somehow rectify Japan's unpreparedness when North Korea launched a Taepodong-1 over Japan in 1998, and Prime Minister Aso's ideological tendencies. But the government better hope that should North Korea go through with the launch, no debris falls on Japan, because the damage it could cause in the likely event that an attempted intercept fails would be enough to destroy the Aso government, which has enjoyed a slight recovery in its support of late.

The US finally goes through with delisting North Korea

The thinkable is finally the actual.

After more than a year since it became plausible for the US to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as a reward for cooperation in negotiations over the North Korean nuclear program, the US State Department has announced that it will remove North Korea from the list. With the global financial system melting down, this move appears to have been timed in the hope that it would receive less scrutiny than it would otherwise. The US move may also been in response to signs that North Korea may be preparing another nuclear test.

Whatever the Bush administration's reasoning, the usual suspects in Japan once again reacted with shock at the US decision. Finance Minister Nakagawa Shoichi, in Washington for talks related to the financial crisis, reverted to his role as conservative hatchet man to criticize the US government for failing to consult with Japan, for abandoning the abductees, and for being played for a fool by North Korea. The media is reporting this as a demonstration of Japan's being "left out," observing that Prime Minister Aso received notice from Washington a mere half hour before it announced its decision. (Asahi described this as "a nightmare for the Japanese government.") Mainichi suggested that the decision illustrates the need for a rethink by the Japanese government. The abductee families characterized the decision as "an act of betrayal."

My sentiments are little different than they were in June 2008, when the Bush administration indicated that it was prepared to move forward with the delisting (before North Korea failed to follow through). Whatever the wisdom of the decision — there appear to be considerable holes regarding verification in the agreement, among other problems, as outlined by Victor Cha, former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council — the rift between the US and Japan is the product of fundamental misunderstandings going back several years that have gone unaddressed by successive Japanese prime ministers and the Bush administration.

First, the Japanese government has mistakenly placed too much emphasis on the abductees and too little emphasis on the nuclear question. In emphasizing the abductee problem, Japan also came to really excessively on US pressure on North Korea. The alarm expressed above is symptomatic of this dependence: without US pressure, Tokyo has little hope of using sticks to force North Korea to be more cooperation on the abductions issue. Japan can keep extending its sanctions, but absent simultaneous US sanctions, they have little chance of working (not that joint US-Japan sanctions have had much effect).

Second, in connection to Japan's emphasis on the abductions issue, the Japanese government has also placed far too much emphasis on the US state sponsors of terrorism list, a designation which Secretary Rice called "a formality," thus making this step "completely meaningless" in practical terms. The Japanese government attached great importance to the designation because it took it literally. North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism thanks to its abductions of foreign nationals. Until it makes amends for the abductions, it is still a state sponsor of terrorism and therefore still belongs on the list. For the US, the designation was just another bargaining chip in the pursuit of a denuclearized North Korea. It appears that the US did little to disabuse Japan of its impression.

Discussion of the strengths and weaknesses (mostly the weaknesses) of the agreement will undoubtedly rage in the coming days. But the significance of this agreement is simple: the Bush administration has made it resolutely clear that US North Korea policy is not "action for action" as suggested by President Bush in June. Rather, the US has decided that it will buy North Korea's participation in the six-party talks and non-escalation of its nuclear activities through gradual concessions. Bowing to the reality of the situation in which the US has few alternatives to committing to negotiations, bilateral and multilateral, the Bush administration has made clear that bribery is now the essence of US North Korea policy. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Given that North Korea's price isn't particularly onerous and given that the alternatives (a war on the Korean Peninsula, unchecked nuclear proliferation, collapse of the DPRK before the US and North Korea's neighbors are prepared to respond) are all worse than bribery, this may be the best possible approach.

Naturally Japan won't see it that way. Instead there will be talk of betrayal, abandonment, and potentially the need for greater Japanese independence from the US (recall Mr. Aso's role in the debate over a debate on nuclear weapons that raged in the early days of the Abe cabinet). But I don't see how this turn of events helps Mr. Aso. Having been blindsided by the US decision, Mr. Aso looks little different from his predecessors, despite his foreign policy experience and his purported Washington connections. Despite his commitment to resolving the abductions issue, the US finally decided to proceed with delisting under his watch. I still maintain that foreign policy will have little impact on the next general election, but at the very least it's possible that voters will wonder whether there is something to Ozawa Ichiro's critique of the LDP's foreign policy as subordinating Japan to the US without getting anything in return. The US has furnished Mr. Ozawa with a resonant example with which to make his case.

Meanwhile Japan has little reason to hope that the US will shift again on North Korea in the future. Should Barack Obama win the presidency next month, it is conceivable that he will embrace the "bribery" approach. Indeed, his approach — at least in the statement his campaign released in response to the delisting — is a succinct summary of the Bush administration's approach: bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, a commitment to complete, verifiable denuclearization, and addressing the abductees issue at some point in the future. If John McCain wins, he will likely tack back to the Cheney line, reversing concessions to North Korea and restoring the US-Japan partnership on North Korea that prevailed 2002-2007. Senator McCain's response emphasized the failure to consult with "our closest partners in Northeast Asia," which presumably means Japan followed by South Korea. (The candidates' statements can be found here.)

Little wonder that Japanese conservatives are cheering for Senator McCain. (And little wonder that Komori Yasuhisa is repeating Republican talking points verbatim on Senator Obama at his blog.) (For more on the likely differences between an Obama and a McCain administration on Asia, see my article in the current Japan Inc.)

Bush tries to reassure Japan

US President George W. Bush spoke with Japanese journalists before heading to Japan for the Toyako summit, and while he spoke about the summit, it seems that his interlocutors were more interested in last week's announcement that the US will proceed in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

In what Mainichi describes as an effort to still Japanese fears of "abandonment," the president insisted that he remembers his meeting with the Yokotas and that the abductees will not be forgotten.

In his attempt to reassure Japan, Mr. Bush stated that the abductions issue should be resolved within the framework of the six-party talks (presumably as opposed to the framework of Japan-North Korea bilateral talks).

Will Japanese leaders and the Japanese public be reassured by the president's words? It seems that the time of relying on the president's words has passed, and even conservatives — who, if Abe Shinzo's reliance on Mr. Bush's promises on the abductees, once put considerable stock in the president's words — are no longer content to rely on the promise of President Bush. And why should they? How does the president propose to resolve the abductions issue in a multilateral setting? Are China and South Korea prepared to pressure North Korea on the abductees. If not, the president's desire to see the abductions issue solved multilaterally is meaningless. All it means is that Japan will continue to look to others for the answer to the problem instead of looking at its own policy and asking, "What constitutes 'progress' on the abductions? What will constitute 'resolution' on the abductions?" What if the proof Japan wants doesn't exist?

There are few signs that Japan is prepared to reckon with the consequences of putting its North Korea policy in the hands of the families of the victims — and fixing that mistake. As tragic as the abductions are, Japan has squandered its influence and outsourced its North Korea policy to the US as a result of this issue. Now that the US has changed course as a result of its — or the State Department's — assessment of US national interests, Japan's leaders are left with nothing, no plan B, no new ideas, nothing but railing at the US for its abandonment of Japan.

Is there a leader in Japan — aside from this man — with the courage to challenge the abductions-centered consensus, to tell the families that as sad as it is to say, they might not get the truth until after the collapse of the DPRK, and in the meantime Japan has other goals to pursue in the region that mean shelving the abductees for now, like North Korea's nuclear program? The prevailing deal is far from perfect, and only a first step, but why shouldn't Japan be engaged in seeing the deal through in the hope that this agreement will stick? Does Japan have nothing to gain from a stabilized Korean peninsula? As Sam Roggeveen noted, even if the agreement doesn't disarm North Korea — an unlikely goal — it might result in a less belligerent North Korea, which will in turn buy China, South Korea, the US, Japan, and Russia time to plan for what to do when Kim dies, a process in which Japan ought to be deeply engaged.

Yamasaki's lonely fight

What a difference fifteen years make.

In his memoir, Abe Shinzo wrote of his lonely fight — alongside Nakagawa Shoichi and a handful of other LDP conservatives — to oppose normalization with North Korea and place the abductions issue at the center of Japan's North Korea policy. They battled against the LDP, the media, academia, and the foreign ministry to force them to consider the plight of the abductees before providing North Korea with aid and clearing the way to diplomatic recognition.

Here we are in 2008 and Mr. Abe got his wish. Resolving the abductees issue has become a primary goal of Japan's North Korea policy, a goal that enjoys substantial support in the public, the media, and the LDP. The US is pilloried for giving (symbolic) ground to North Korea without resolution of the issue — and the Fukuda government is pilloried for letting the US shift happen. Mr. Abe, Hiranuma Takeo, and other conservatives set the tone on North Korea.

And Yamasaki Taku, an advocate of normalization with North Korea, is left to fight a lonely battle against a public largely opposed to his proposal.

His fight has become a personal one, as Mr. Abe has decided to make a mission of demolishing Mr. Yamasaki's argument.

Mr. Yamasaki appears happy to reciprocate. Appearing on a Western Japan TV program Saturday, he called Mr. Abe "the howling dog" of North Korea policy, whose baying has accomplished nothing. He further insisted that it was a mistake for Japan's North Korea policy to depend largely on US pressure; Japan, he said, had to take more proactive action itself in negotiations with North Korea.

Mainichi provides a longer quote from this appearance, that makes his argument even clearer: "America's greatest national interest is stopping North Korea's nuclear development, and compromise on the nuclear issue is possible. The Japanese abductee problem is a problem in Japan-North Korea relations, and it is not an appropriate attitude to depend on another country for the solution."

What a sensible — and rare — argument for a Japanese politician to make in the midst of the moaning about the "shocking" US shift. How ironic that conservatives, interested in an independent, assertive foreign policy, cannot tolerate the US government's taking a different position. Does Japan really need the US in order to solve the abductions issue, as implied by conservative dismay over last week's announcement (Japan has lost its "America card," Mr. Hiranuma said)?

Unfortunately there are few signs that Mr. Yamasaki's view will win out. The government is proceeding gingerly, emphasizing that nothing has changed yet and declaring that the Fukuda government will continue to make a priority of the abductions issue. (See statements by Machimura Nobutaka on Fuji TV's Hodo 2001 program.) But according to Mainichi, ambiguity surrounding the details of the recent agreement with North Korea to re-investigate the abductions has made the prime minister a target of public dissatisfaction.

Of course, the Fukuda government isn't alone in taking the blame. Plenty of blame is being directed towards the US. Over the weekend, Mr. Abe called on President Bush to honor his promise to the abductees. Ibuki Bunmei, the LDP's secretary-general, added his opinion, suggesting that the US has been "deceived" by North Korea. He suggested that the Bush administration may betray Japan further by repeating the Clinton administration's decision to send a senior official to Pyongyang.

Is there no other significant LDP official willing to support the Yamasaki line?

Another illustration of how the LDP has changed since the cold war ended. The party belongs to the revisionists now. Pragmatists like Mr. Yamasaki are tolerated but marginalized.

An Ozawa indiscretion?

Ozawa Ichiro's comments on the US decision to proceed with removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism — mentioned here in passing — have apparently caused a tempest in Washington, as US Asia watchers have taken issue with his claim that the US "never" takes Japan's wishes into account when making decisions.

Wrote Chris Nelson, eponymous author of the Nelson Report, the indispensable newsletter on US Asia policy:

Japan's political leadership has never successfully restored adult supervision in balancing the DPRK's nuclear weapons and offensive missile threat vs the heartbreaking humanitarian issue of the "abductees."

As a consequence, Japan has played itself out of a central role in dealing with its most obvious strategic threat, and has compounded the failure by blaming it all on the US.

Opposition leader Ozawa today distinguished himself by saying that Bush's decision to start the de-listing process, in order to proceed with the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, shows that "...Japanese people now realize that the United States never takes into consideration Japan's wishes when making a decision."

Never?

I have a hard time taking issue with this interpretation of the split on North Korea; I made the same argument earlier this week in this post.

I will attempt, however, to defend Mr. Ozawa from detractors in Washington who have jumped on this latest remark as more evidence of a pronounced anti-American streak in Mr. Ozawa's thinking that will taint the foreign policy of an Ozawa-led DPJ government.

What is Mr. Ozawa's purpose in making this statement?

In all likelihood, Mr. Ozawa made this statement with domestic considerations in mind. Indeed, everything that Mr. Ozawa says and does should be considered in light of its consequences for the DPJ's position in the next general election. Will the position outlined help or hurt the DPJ in its campaign to unseat the LDP? Mr. Ozawa today is the consummate political animal. That may not have been the case at one time, when he was the great hope for reformers domestically and alliance managers in Washington who thought that under his leadership Japan might become a normal nation.

As Shiota Ushio wrote of the DPJ's embrace of Mr. Ozawa in Minshuto no kenkyu:

Ozawa has been called an 'ideas and policy politician.' More than this, the hidden side of the 'political situation and political game politician' is Ozawa's true self.

On the other hand, the 'ideas and policy DPJ' has structural flaws as a party, being conspicuously weak and fragile in its ability to respond to the political situation, its governance and management abilities, its election strategy, and its organization. Does 'political situation and political game Ozawa' plan to remake the DPJ's longstanding image as a 'ideas and policy party,' and with that, does he aim to fix the DPJ's structural flaws and strengthen the party?" (269-270)

Mr. Ozawa's behavior in the two years since taking control of the DPJ — and Mr. Shiota's own analysis — suggest that the answer to both questions is yes. For Mr. Ozawa, political calculations take priority over policy considerations, a trait that has frustrated certain DPJ members and American Japan hands to no end.

Accordingly, his statement on the US government's never taking into account the wishes of the Japanese people is less a criticism of the US government than of the LDP for its handling of the US-Japan alliance. A report at the DPJ website of the press conference where Mr. Ozawa made this statement provides context for the remark, context that is lacking from the Mainichi article from which Mr. Nelson quoted.

At the press conference — which, it is important to note, was held in Okinawa — Mr. Ozawa spoke on the alliance at length, not just on the Korean question. He addressed problems with the realignment of US forces in Japan, and in Okinawa in particular. His speaking in Okinawa should immediately set off a red flag. As noted previously, the DPJ has struggled in Okinawa in the past (Okinawa's lower house delegation currently has no DPJ members) and has tailored its policies on the realignment of US forces in Okinawa accordingly. Therefore, it is no surprise that in his remarks he embedded his criticism of the US shift on North Korea in a discussion of the problems with US bases in Okinawa and the status of forces agreement.

"To have a true alliance relationship, it is absolutely necessary that it be equal," he said. He then proceeded to criticize the LDP for failing to create a more equal alliance: "Under the current LDP administration, the US-Japan alliance cannot be called an alliance. This SOFA makes that perfectly clear."

It is this thread — that the LDP has failed in its management of the alliance — that runs throughout Mr. Ozawa's remarks in this press conference. Mr. Ozawa was primarily concerned with criticizing the LDP and making the case for a DPJ government to an Okinawan audience; he was not necessarily criticizing the US, at least not on North Korea.

Indeed, Mr. Ozawa recognizes that the US will make policy decisions based on its own assessment of its interests. He reserves his criticism instead for the LDP and its allies in the bureaucracy, both of whom he claims failed to recognize how the US makes its decisions.

"The decision by our largest ally America to lift [the terror sponsor designation] is a decision based on its own national interests and global strategy," he said.

"It is a tragedy for the Japanese people and a tragedy of LDP-Komeito politics that the government, that the bureaucracy has no recognition of this."

In short, Mr. Ozawa was making an election pitch to the people of Okinawa in this press conference. He was arguing that LDP governments over the past seven years have failed to stand up for Japan and have failed to articulate and defend Japan's national interests, preferring instead to hope that the US will defend Japan's national interests. Again, his position is less critical of the US for "abandoning" Japan than critical of LDP-led governments for leaving Japan in a position to feel abandoned in the first place.

In light of my own argument about the inequities in the US-Japan alliance, I am extremely sympathetic to Mr. Ozawa's argument here. The alliance is unequal. LDP governments have been overly solicitious of the US. The alliance will be stronger if Japan learns to say no when it disagrees with the US. Japan should not expect the alliance to function like a Japanese interpersonal relationship, a complex set of obligations accumulated over time that will enmesh the two countries indefinitely. What Japan's policymakers may come to realize from the North Korea shift is that past support for the US (in Iraq, for example) is no guarantee of reciprocal support for Japan in areas deemed vital to Japanese national interests (the abductions issue, for example). Future Japanese governments — LDP or DPJ — will likely take this lesson to heart and will likely be less forthcoming with support for the US unless (1) Japanese interests are clearly at stake or (2) there is an explicit quid-pro-quo.

Moreover, I should mention that Mr. Ozawa's position is likely a popular one. Insofar as the Japanese people are interested in foreign policy — and that's not particularly far — they are dismayed with the government's failure to stand up for Japan in its relations with other countries, whether China, North Korea, South Korea, or the United States. "Standing up for Japan" is a matter of style, not policy; Japanese citizens seem to desire a government that speaks out in defense of its interests and forcefully challenges insults to Japan's honor.

So would foreign policy be much different under a Prime Minister Ozawa? Probably not. In his remarks, Mr. Ozawa promised to listen to the people of Okinawa and solve the problem of US bases in Okinawa. He offers no hint of what this would entail (apparently not the 2006 realignment agreement?). He calls for an equal alliance with the US, but offers little hint for how to get there. Presumably in the event of a US-led war, Japanese involvement would depend on a UN security council resolution, as Mr. Ozawa has said on a number of occasions. An Ozawa government would undoubtedly look for closer ties with other regional powers, not least China.

But like the Fukuda government, a DPJ-led government would be overwhelmingly focused on "livelihood" issues — to borrow from the DPJ's 2007 election campaign, a DPJ government would be a seikatsu daiichi government. Foreign policy issues would take a back seat to fixing the welfare and healthcare systems and reforming the political system through redistricting to enhance the DPJ's long-term electoral prospects. An Ozawa government would not expend significant amounts of political capital on foreign policy, meaning that for better or worse the core of the US-Japan alliance would remain unchanged. It would probably be less global in its activities, but otherwise the US would remain Japan's leading ally in the region, and vice versa.

Would it be preferable for Mr. Ozawa to avoid hyperbolic remarks? Yes, of course, but observers must be aware of the reasoning behind his remarks and not rush to conclusions about the policy implications.

A problem-oriented or a partner-oriented US Asia policy

The Asahi Shimbun has published an op-ed by Richard Danzig and Joseph Nye, who as foreign policy advisers to Senator Barack Obama outline how an Obama administration will approach relations with Japan.

Superificially, there are not too many points of divergence with the Yomiuri op-ed penned by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman last month.

Both Danzig-Nye and McCain-Lieberman argue that the alliance rests on both shared interests and shared values. Both see the alliance as central to US policy in Asia. (Danzig-Nye end their piece by saying, "Close cooperation with Japan is the starting point for US policy and interests in Asia.") Both acknowledge the need for a broader bilateral agenda, although the Danzig-Nye piece is more explicit about what that agenda might contain.

Beyond the repetition of the standard mantras about the alliance, however, there are significant differences in the role they envision for the alliance in the region. The difference can be summarized thusly. Mr. Obama's Asia policy would be problem oriented: he sees problems in the region that must be solved, and is not especially discriminatory as to how they're solved. Mr. McCain's Asia policy would be values oriented, or, more precisely, partner oriented: who the US works with matters more than what it works on. Accordingly, Mr. Obama recognizes the value of the US-Japan alliance and other standing alliances in the region, but it seems that he would proceed from problem to partner; Mr. McCain would start by consulting closely with partners, and then, in cooperation with democratic allies in the region, would proceed to address regional problems and work with other countries in the region (i.e. China).

The difference in these perspectives can be seen in how the candidates responded to the latest development in the six-party talks. Mr. Obama hailed the "progress" but suggested that the degree to which sanctions are lifted should depend on the degree to which North Korea cooperates (i.e., his concerns are problem oriented); Mr. McCain cited the fears of Japan and South Korea to question whether the time is right to lift sanctions (i.e., prioritizing relations with US allies over the problem-solving process).

One can also see this difference in the respective op-eds.

First, the "Obama" op-ed makes no mention of China as a issue area for the alliance. The McCain-Lieberman op-ed, however, argues that a stronger alliance is critical to working with a stronger China, noting, "It is precisely by strengthening our alliance and deepening our cooperation that Japan and the United States can lay the necessary groundwork for more durable, stable, and successful relations with China." Note that in regard to China, a McCain administration would work with Japan first, and then proceed to build a new framework for relations with China.

Second, a McCain administration would revive the now-dormant effort to enhance cooperation among "the great Pacific democracies," citing Japan, Australia, and India specifically (interesting how India, a country that is nowhere near the Pacific, is mentioned but South Korea, a burgeoning democracy actually on Asia's Pacific littoral, is presumably included among "others"). A bulk of the McCain-Lieberman op-ed addresses the importance of democracy (and its promotion) in East Asia, meaning that "shared values" would inform a McCain administration's Asia policy. For Mr. Obama, it seems, shared values serve as a basis for the US-Japan relationship but not necessarily as the center of the bilateral agenda.

Indeed, echoing Prime Minister Fukuda's recent argument about the alliance's role in the region, Mr. Obama sees the value of the alliance in terms of whether it promotes stability in the region, and seeks to embed the alliance in a broader regional organization that will help restore regional confidence in the US.

As Messrs. Danzig and Nye write, "It is essential that both countries cooperate closely to develop a new regional framework that will protect our essential interests and values. Mr. Obama, in a debate last autumn regarding the construction of an international framework for Asia, said, 'America ought to be regarded as a partner with a high degree of credibility.' Without reducing the US-Japan alliance's central role as the 'foundation for regional stability,' it is possible to create new frameworks and dialogues."

(Also absent from the Danzig-Nye piece is any of the protectionist rhetoric that Mr. Obama recently directed toward South Korea and Japan, an indication that it is awfully difficult to be both protectionist and a regional leader, a lesson that Japan ought to understand well.)

In short, there are differences in how an Obama administration and a McCain administration would approach Japan and Asia.

A McCain administration would have a number of points of continuity from the Bush administration in its Japan policy. While abjuring from explicit containment of China, it would emphasize shared values and seek to deepen ties among the region's democracies. It seems, however, that Mr. McCain has at least learned that the alliance is weakened if the US leads and Japan follows: "If we are to ask more of each other, we must also pay greater attention to each other's concerns and goals." He cites greater cooperation on climate change as one way in which his government would listen more to Japan.

Mr. Obama, meanwhile, seems to share the outlook of Mr. Fukuda and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, among others. Disinclined to divide the region into democracies and autocracies (or non-democracies), Mr. Obama would seek to work with any and all appropriate partners, not just formal allies, in addressing regional challenges — necessarily meaning more cooperation with China, because as the Bush administration has learned, few of the region's most intractable problems can be solved without China's involvement.

In practice, the difference between a problem-oriented and a partner-oriented Asia policy may not be all that great, provided that Mr. McCain does not go overboard in pursuing an Asian alliance of democracies and provided that Mr. Obama doesn't take up Japan passing like the last Democratic president and remembers that formal allies are important tools too.

The challenge for Japan, meanwhile, is the same regardless of which candidate wins in November. It needs to articulate its goals and interests in Asia and learn to say no to the US when it disagrees with US policy.

No surprises

When is a shock not a shock?

Sankei Shimbun's front cover this morning proclaimed, in large print, "Shock to the Japanese nation."

The headline, of course, referred to President Bush's announcement Thursday that, in keeping with the principle of "action for action," the Bush administration will (1) lift "the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea" and (2) inform Congress of its intent "to rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terror in 45 days."

Is there a set of criteria to determine when an event counts as a shock to the Japanese people?

This has been a shock more than a year in the making. As early as May of last year, there were rumors that the US government was prepared to link the "terror sponsor" designation to the nuclear issue, instead of the abductions issue (i.e., a "terrorism" issue). While the rumors last May were subsequently denied, the possibility had been broached that the US would reward North Korea for progress in nuclear negotiations with removal from the list. Japan has had a year to either dissuade the US from doing so — as recently as February, conservatives were prepared to do a victory dance over the carcass of the six-party talks — or to shift its position accordingly in preparation for a move by the US.

Is a crisis still a crisis if it is wholly predictable well in advance?

The response of each of the actors was equally predictable. The abductee families responded with anger and disbelief. Prime Minister Fukuda emphasized that US-Japan cooperation on the abductions issue and North Korea policy more generally will be unaffected by the announcement. The response in the Japanese political system was equally predictable. Yamasaki Taku's study group for normalization with North Korea welcomed the step; Hiranuma Takeo's abductee problem study group warned about cracks in the alliance; Ozawa Ichiro said the US was ignoring Japan; and unspecified young LDP Diet members warned that if the delisting proceeds without North Korea taking appropriate actions, Mr. Fukuda's popularity will suffer yet another blow.

As I argued previously, this is unquestionably a positive step, even if the report filed by North Korea left out information related to missile production, nuclear testing sites, the uranium refinement program, or possible proliferation activities. It was unreasonable to expect that the process would wrap up in one fell swoop, with North Korea handing over information about all of its dubious activities and the US responding by rushing to full diplomatic recognition. This is a complicated dance, now moving forward, now back, now standing still. Secretary Hill and the State Department more generally deserve credit for their perseverance, not just in the face of North Korean intransigence, but also sniping from Japan (the "Kim Jong Hill" moniker, for example) and from within the Bush administration.

This process is not about full disarmament, but buying time, finding a way to reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula, freeze North Korea's nuclear programs as much as possible (and prevent proliferation), and possibly get North Korea to open its door to the world ever so slightly. Yes, there is also the possibility — based on North Korea's behavior in the past — that North Korea will not keep its end of the bargain. But lacking good alternatives (sanctions are useless as long as China opts out, war is extremely unlikely both because of the US position in Iraq and because of the immorality of America's launching a war in which South Korea would bear the brunt of the costs) negotiation is the last bad option. North Korea doesn't follow through? Fine, then it doesn't receive any of the benefits of negotiating with the US. North Korea delivers something concrete? Okay, the US responds by lifting one of its many sanctions on North Korea.

As President Bush said Thursday, "North Korea will remain one of the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world. The sanctions that North Korea faces for its human rights violations, its nuclear test in 2006, and its weapons proliferation will all stay in effect. And all United Nations Security Council sanctions will stay in effect as well."

In short, North Korea is only slight less of a pariah today than it was yesterday. But the process will move forward.

So I second Steve Clemons's congratulations to Christopher Hill, John Negroponte, Condoleezza Rice, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns and his successor William Burns. They have made the best of a bad situation, even if their opponents in Japan and the US will not pay them the slightest compliment for their deft work.

UPDATE: In this post, Sam Roggeveen at The Interpreter asks a question I meant to ask.

"...What I'm not seeing from the critics is a plausible alternative plan. Nobody is suggesting military action to disarm North Korea, because given the geography, Pyongyang effectively holds the city of Seoul hostage. Isolating the regime also seems to have done very little good.

"And what harm can be done by this approach? Yes, North Korea gains economic aid and a sense of legitimacy from being brought out of its pariah status, but those are favours that can easily be stopped or revoked.

"To paint these negotiations as if the US is being held over a barrel by the crafty Stalinists in Pyongyang is at best a partial reading. The US and its negotiating partners have a lot of what North Korea wants — wealth. That remains an important point of leverage."

UPDATE TWO: It seems that Machimura Nobutaka, in a phone conversation with Stephen Hadley, US national security adviser, informed Mr. Hadley that the Japanese people were "shocked" by the US decision.

Again, assuming that it's true that the Japanese people are shocked — and having seen no evidence showing how they're shocked, I'm not accepting this claim at face value — why didn't the Japanese government do more to prepare them for the US decision, given that the US has advertised its willingness to remove North Korea from the list for nearly a year now? The Fukuda government will try to shift as much blame to the US as possible, but will anyone buy it? The conservatives certainly won't: they'll be happy to blame both the US and the Fukuda government.

The consequences of the US-Japan rift on North Korea

With North Korea expected to deliver its account of its nuclear program Thursday — excluding its existing nuclear weapons, which Chris Hill has said will be addressed in the next round — the US is prepared to move forward in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The long-awaited blow to the US-Japan alliance has been landed, even as the Fukuda government has agreed to go along with the US move.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Fukuda said that he hoped this would contribute to progress on the nuclear front, even as he said that he looks forward to further cooperation with the US in resolving the abductions issue. At the same time, Machimura Nobutaka, in a press conference Tuesday morning, cautioned the US to examine the North Korean report carefully before proceeding, a lame statement of the sheer helplessness of the Fukuda government's position.

The US will go forward, and the Japanese government will follow along meekly behind — ignoring the wishes of the conservatives (and a bulk of the Japanese public) that North Korea should stay on the list until it follows through on the latest agreement on the abductees. They want North Korea's position on the terrorism list to remain linked to acts of terrorism (however long ago they occurred); the US, perhaps acknowledging that North Korea is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism (at least against other countries), is prepared to link removal to another, arguably more important issue. As argued in an article in this week's AERA, this latest move may trigger a spasm of protest from the public. It will be the latest and perhaps greatest charge in the conservative case against Mr. Fukuda: giving in to both the US and North Korea and abandoning the abductees, while getting nothing but an oral promise from the US that it will continue to pressure North Korea on the abductees. This probably destroys whatever chance Mr. Fukuda had of staying in power long enough to lead the LDP into the next general election.

That said, it is worth asking how Abe Shinzo would have handled this had it happened under his watch as prime minister.

His admirers seem to think that he would have been able to say no to the US. The bloggers at Pride of Japan ended a post on this issue with the statement, "I think that the time demands the appearance of a politician with backbone, like former Prime Minister Abe."

But would Mr. Abe have stood up to the US in this case and said no, his government will not support removing North Korea from the list? What would he do instead? What could he do instead? Would he respond by tightening Japanese sanctions even more? A US move to lift sanctions on North Korea makes Japan's sanctions, no matter how astringent, that much less effective. What would rejecting the US position at this point do but isolate Japan further and make it even less likely that North Korea would cooperate in resolving the abductions issue? Mr. Abe might have spoken in harsh terms, he might have appealed directly to President Bush for a promise that the US will continue to help on the abductions, but ultimately I suspect that Mr. Abe too would fall into line.

I am fine with the turn that the six-party talks are taking. I think that the gain of neutralizing North Korea's nuclear program is a worthy goal, and that it should take priority to issues like the abductions issue. If lifting sanctions bit by bit — effectively a series of small bribes — moderates North Korea's behavior and buys the region's powers some time to plan for the tsunami of instability that will likely follow Kim Jong-il's death by keeping the Korean Peninsula stable, then the talks will have been successful. The US has had little choice but to talk (and to talk with China's assistance) because it had no other option short of doing nothing. Mr. Hill has made the most of a poor situation. All of which is why I opposed the Abe government's pulling Japan out of this process. Japan, like the US, had no real way to compel North Korea to change its behavior. As the country that may be most threatened by a nuclear North Korea, it should have been in the lead, alongside the US and China, in finding a way to defuse the situation, if not disarm North Korea. Instead it opted out of the process, on the grounds of North Korea intransgience on the abductees.

I have little sympathy with the argument that the abductees are a primary "national interest," on the grounds that the Japanese government must secure the lives of every Japanese citizen. (Mr. Abe makes a variation of this argument at length in Utsukushi kuni e.) Does it rank somewhere on the list of Japanese national interests? Probably. Is it a top interest that should take priority over other interests like, say, stability on the Korean Peninsula, good relations with Japan's neighbors, and a diminished threat from North Korea? I would argue no. The deal may yet fall apart due to another shift by North Korea or domestic opposition in the US (Steve Clemons has the details on the situation in Washington) — but given the lack of other options, it has been a useful effort, one in which Japan should have played more than a begrudging role.

The failure of the US to explain its reasoning more fully — and the failure of Japan to be more flexible in its defense of its national interests — have resulted in a blow to the alliance, in that both Japanese elites and the Japanese public have lost confidence in the US as an ally. That blow may have been unavoidable: I suspect that part of the reason for the loss of confidence, especially among elites, is that after Japan gave its full-throated support to the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would receive equally full-throated support in dealing with North Korea. The US wasted opportunities to disabuse Japan of that idea and left Mr. Hill to bear the brunt of Japanese anger; the president should have made it explicitly clear why the US shifted on North Korea. But even then it is likely that there would still be a feeling of betrayal among Japanese.

Where will the US-Japan relationship go from here? The alliance will survive, but I expect that future Japanese governments will be less trusting of the US. I would not go so far as journalist Aoki Naoto (author of a book entitled A State That Could Become An Enemy: USA), who argues that this is the beginning of an antagonistic relationship between the US and Japan and the start of a US-China security relationship. In fact, the US shift on North Korea might prove to be a good thing for the alliance. As a result of having been "abandoned" in the six-party talks, Japan may finally learn to say no to the US, which could result in a stronger, more effective partnership in which Japan feels less obligated to do whatever the US asks. Much like Japan's 1990 failure in responding to the Gulf crisis led to a decade of soul-searching for Japan's foreign policy establishment, so too might this incident prompt soul-searching that leads to a Japan better able to articulate its interests to the US, even if it means disagreement between Washington and Tokyo.

As in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis, Ozawa Ichiro may show the way. Asked to comment on the developments in the six-party talks, Mr. Ozawa stated that Japan has little ability to influence US strategy, and added on the abductees, "The US has until now said good things to the abductee families, but it did not take our national strategy and our interests into account at all." I expect that should the DPJ form a government in the near future, it will be much less inclined to follow the US in the way that LDP governments have (especially LDP governments under Messrs. Koizumi and Abe).

As a result of the six-party talks, future LDP governments may share Mr. Ozawa's assessment.

Japan ends its isolation?

After effectively opting out of the six-party talks under Abe Shinzo, Japan is set to return to participation in the process to neutralize (if not dismantle) North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Machimura Nobutaka, chief cabinet secretary, announced Friday that in talks in Beijing, North Korea agreed to "reinvestigate" the case of Japanese abductees in North Korea and promised to transfer the remaining Yodo hijackers and their families to Japanese custody.

After months of ambiguity as to what exactly constitutes "progress" on the abductions issue, it seems that the Fukuda government is finally sharing with the world — in response to talks, the Japanese government announced that it would lift some of the sanctions imposed after North Korea's nuclear test in October 2006. North Korean ships will be allowed back in Japanese ports to pick up humanitarian relief supplies. Restrictions on charter flights will be lifted, and people will be permitted to travel between Japan and North Korea again.

This means, of course, that the Fukuda government is about to face howls of protest from the right. Members of the abductee families association greeted the announcement with "anger and dissatisfaction," dismissing the idea that this agreement might constitute a (small) sign of progress. If the families are displeased, then their LDP allies will undoubtedly share their displeasure. As this agreement sinks in, expect a wave of criticism claiming that Mr. Fukuda is "betraying" Japan (as asserted in this post at Pride of Japan, a blog maintained by conservative local elected officials).

Even would-be defenders of the move are skeptical. Yamamoto Ichita, a member of the association to promote the prudent advance of North Korean diplomacy, a Diet members' league that has called for an approach to North Korea that uses both pressure and negotiation with North Korea (as opposed to just pressure), expressed fears that the US will use the new agreement to claim that Japan and North Korea are making progress, thereby enabling the US to remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list. The group expanded upon that idea in this response to the government's announcement.

I hope the US will wait to see how North Korea (and Japan) follow through on this agreement before doing anything rash.

But it is revealing that even a natural defender of the government's use of diplomacy to extract concessions from Pyongyang has greeted Friday's announcement with skepticism for reasons having less to do with North Korea than with the US. The damage of Mr. Abe's year in office, during which the US and Japan went opposite directions on North Korea without bothering to discuss it openly and frankly. Japanese have some right to be distrustful of the US — but at the same time, it was wrong for Japanese to think that there would be no consequences from the Abe cabinet's hard line on North Korea. It is time to repair the damage; Friday's announcement is a good start. After isolating itself from the other five, Japan is at the very least rejoining the process.

UPDATE: Japan's foreign ministry announced Saturday that it would commence an investigation of lifting sanctions next week. Yomiuri reports (of course, with passive voice) that "because objections are not scarce in the government and governing parties, it is anticipated that it will be a rough passage to the decision of the time for lifting [the sanctions]."

UPDATE, two: Okumura Jun argues that the US shift made Japan's shift more or less inevitable, and suggests further that since there will be no full accounting of the abductions until after the DPRK is gone, this agreement has less to do with hope for new revelations than with the Fukuda cabinet's have little choice but to follow the US.

More trouble headed Fukuda's way?

According to the Washington Post, in exchange for North Korea's "acknowledging" US concerns about its nuclear activities, disabling Yongbyon, and provide a full accounting of its plutonium stockpile, the US will be prepared to "remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and to exempt it from the Trading With the Enemy Act."

The domestic obstacles standing the way of the US government holding up its end of the bargain are considerable, but this "agreement" could still cause trouble for Prime Minister Fukuda in the meantime.

The LDP's conservatives, now for the most part embodied in the Nakagawa Shoichi's "true" conservative study group, have spent the fourteen months since the US-DPRK Berlin agreement trying to ensure that the US does not remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list until the abductions issue is resolved. As I noted back in February, Mr. Nakagawa and comrades were quite pleased with the lack of progress in the six-party talks and open warfare in the Bush administration over North Korea policy.

Now a deal is once again on the table that envisions North Korea removed from the list despite Japan's conditions not being met — in short, US abandonment of Japan on a fundamental issue for the conservatives. While they need not panic yet (their Washington allies will naturally do all they can to derail this latest attempt by Chris Hill to resolve the crisis), they will be watching Mr. Fukuda carefully in the coming weeks and months, ready to pounce on him if he deviates from the hard line on North Korea, which the prime minister embraced early in his term after suggesting that he might chart a new, more flexible course. At the same time, Washington — or the State Department, anyway — will likely be leaning on Tokyo to play a constructive role should the latest agreement go forward

Mr. Fukuda may be able to duck this pressure for the time being by claiming that his hands are tied thanks to the recently passed six-month extension of the economic sanctions originally implemented following North Korea's October 2006 nuclear test. But if this latest agreement somehow proves a success, that may not be a satisfactory answer for the US government, at which point the prime minister would be forced to choose between alienating the US or alienating the LDP's conservatives, one of whom is already measuring curtains for the Kantei. Provided Mr. Fukuda survives long enough to face that choice, will he buck the conservatives and follow the US? Or will he continue to hew to the Abe line of doing nothing until "progress" is made on the abductions issue, ensuring that Japan remains isolated within the six-party talks?

UPDATE: Gerald Curtis, Japanese politics specialist at Columbia University, visited North Korea last week and upon his return met with a nonpartisan Diet members study group to report that there is a "high probability" of Washington's removing North Korea from the terror sponsors list within the year.

Recommended Book: The Peninsula Question, Yoichi Funabashi

In the year since Funabashi Yoichi, editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun, finished The Peninsula Question, the US and North Korea made an agreement that restarted the Six-Party talks, overcame the Banco Delta Asia obstacle, and issued a joint statement with the other parties that included a promise by North Korea to account for its nuclear program and disable related facilities, before progress stalled at New Year's. In the process, the Abe government ensured that Japan would not play a constructive role in the talks.

Dr. Funabashi's book does not suffer from leaving off at North Korea's nuclear test in October 2006. Indeed, The Peninsula Question anticipates much of what's happened over the past year.

The Peninsula Question is, according to its subtitle, "a chronicle of the second Korean nuclear crisis." This is not a polemic — Dr. Funabashi does not deviate from his measured tone except in a few spots in which he criticizes US hawks — and he provides few answers to the titular question. But as a chronicle of the Northeast Asian crisis since 2002, it is nonpareil. Dr. Funabashi interviewed dozens of policymakers in the governments of five of the six parties, providing an intimate look at how the US, Japan, China, South Korea, and Russia approached North Korea in the Six-Party talks.

The result is of interest to both general readers and international relations specialists, as Dr. Funabashi shows the constraints that impact foreign policy decision makers. Dr. Funabashi shows that neither international politics nor domestic politics is the primary constraint on policy makers: both are important, with some variance from country to country. Policy makers are also constrained by history, ideology, and geography. This is not to deny the role of human agency in policy making, but it suggests that policy makers operate exercise their agency within a narrow band. The main protagonists of Dr. Funabashi's book were further constrained because they were, for the most part, not heads of state and government. Perhaps the only figure willing and able to defy the constraints was former prime minister Koizumi Junichiro, who traveled twice to Pyongyang in pursuit of the normalization of diplomatic ties with North Korea.

As a result of his interviews, Dr. Funabashi draws special attention to the domestic constraints on each country's North Korea policy. While Washington and Tokyo were perhaps the most divided of the six parties, each government — North Korea included — had divisions that undermined the pursuit of an agreement. These domestic divisions resulted in first the rift between South Korea, and the US and Japan, and then in the rift between the US and Japan in 2007 as the Abe government took a firmer line on North Korea at the moment that the US approach softened.

Ultimately, though, it may be the international constraints that will undermine any agreement. North Korea, perhaps for good reason, believes that a nuclear weapon is the key to its security. Neither the US nor Japan is willing to live with a North Korean nuke; neither government, however, is in a position to take decisive action to end the North Korean nuclear program. China is clearly annoyed by North Korea, but appears willing to act only so far as to prevent a war on the Korean peninsula. Russia has little influence in Northeast Asia, as illustrated by Dr. Funabashi's chapter showing the failure of Russia's attempt to offer itself as an "honest broker" in the talks.

The result? North Korea will continue doing exactly what it's been doing. In the meantime, the five parties should be strengthening cooperation in preparation for the collapse of the DPRK, because post-DPRK North Korea may be the source of more trouble in the region than the DPRK itself, albeit trouble of a different sort.

The right laying low?

Since former prime minister Mori and Prime Minister Fukuda called attention to the crisis facing the LDP on consecutive days in mid-January — with Mr. Mori explicitly criticizing Nakagawa Shoichi's flirtations with Hiranuma Takeo — it seems that the ideological conservatives have backed out of the spotlight.

Part of the reason, I think, is because of the changing environment in the Six-Party talks. With North Korea recalcitrant since the start of the year, and the Bush administration seemingly in no hurry (or powerless) to restart the talks, the bilateral tension over North Korea has dissipated somewhat. With a lower risk of Washington's removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and pressuring Tokyo to follow along, the conservatives don't need to lean as hard on Mr. Fukuda to keep toeing the line on the abductions issue.

There is no doubt that Mr. Nakagawa is feeling confident regarding developments in North Korea policy. In a three-way discussion with Tahara Soichiro and Tanaka Hitoshi in the February issue of Chuo Koron (part one, part two), Mr. Nakagawa said, "Concerning the result, even Assistant Secretary Hill said last year while visiting North Korea, 'North Korea's level of verification is not good,' and as a result the agreement is delayed. I think that factors in President Bush's decision include statements of opposition to lifting the designation in both the House and the Senate in Congress, as well as the function of trends in Japanese public opinion. Lifting the designation in the face of this opposition would be too risky."

The Japanese right is probably thrilled at the fight over US North Korea policy growing after State Department criticism of a speech by congressionally mandated North Korea Human Rights envoy Jay Lefkowitz at the American Enterprise Institute — discussed in this Christopher Hitchens essay, in which he sides with Mr. Lefkowitz and dismisses the separation of human rights from denuclearization. After all, the greater the dissent in Washington, the less likely the administration will assume the risks of pushing harder for progress in talks with North Korea. The less the US pushes, the less the Fukuda government has to fret about gaps between the Japanese and US bargaining positions.

The other factor contributing to less conservative activism against Mr. Fukuda is, I think, good tactical sense on the part of Mr. Nakagawa and his comrades. After being criticized by party leaders last month and with diminishing chances of a general election being called before the autumn, I suspect that the "true" conservatives reasoned that unless they are prepared to take the ultimate step in undermining the government, joining with the opposition to pass an HR non-confidence motion, they are better off being loyal to the party and preparing for the fight for control of the party that will follow a general election. (For the record, I don't think that Mr. Nakagawa and his fellow conservatives are prepared to do anything so forthright as working with the opposition to bring down Mr. Fukuda.) The current environment on North Korea policy makes it easier to swallow their pride and support the prime minister.

Barring any radical changes in the policy environment, the stalemate will hold, with the conservatives plotting their restoration sub rosa.

He came, they talked...what next?

Prime Minister Fukuda, cold bug and all, arrived in Washington as scheduled on Thursday evening and spent Friday meeting with President Bush and then dining with the president and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The Swamp, the Chicago Tribune's politics blog, has a summary here, and takes care to note that Mr. Bush served US beef to Mr. Fukuda, just as he did for Mr. Abe at Camp David in April.

There appear to have been few surprises in the summit. Mr. Bush made a point of mentioning, yet again, his meeting with Yokota Megumi's parents and the US commitment to the resolution of the abductions issue, despite proliferating signs that the US is ready to move forward in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The agenda ran the gamut, from Iran to Burma to Afghanistan to the beef trade (of course) to climate change. Mr. Fukuda promised to exert full efforts to pass a new law that authorizes Japanese participation in operations in and around Afghanistan. Whatever differences exist in their respective positions, they were papered over in the joint press conference.

There was some talk, mostly by Mr. Fukuda, on the question of what the alliance is to become in the future. Following on his pre-summit interview in the Washington Post, in which he emphasized the alliance's Asian "vocation," Mr. Fukuda spoke at length about the role the alliance should play in Asia. "A firm US-Japan alliance," he said, "is the foundation for peace and prosperity in Asia."

Mr. Fukuda made very clear in his remarks that his vision of the alliance is of a contributor to peace and stability in the region, which means cordial and open relations with all nations in the region. This is a very far cry from Mr. Aso's amorphous arc of freedom and prosperity and Mr. Abe's address in New Delhi about an alliance of democracies (promptly ignored) — for the better. The alliance's success in the future ought to be measured by how it bridges gaps in the region, not how it exacerbates gaps in the region, as would undoubtedly result from the schemes of some American and Japanese conservatives. Mr. Fukuda unequivocally recognizes this. Does the American foreign policy establishment?

The tension over the refueling mission and the differing positions in the six-party talks remains, of course, but the crisis atmosphere will likely subside as a result of this summit. Neither government is truly prepared to begin addressing the structural problems that underlie the most recent bilateral disputes — and they have no choice but to live with one another under the current arrangement, warts and all.

But, as Jun Okumura notes in his response to the summit, the problem of North Korea remains a sword of Damocles hanging over the alliance, a problem that has been papered over for far too long in alliance discussions. I have a hunch that with Mr. Fukuda in charge in Tokyo, the allies will find a way to work through it. There are enough hints that Mr. Fukuda wants to change Japan's bargaining position in the talks, if not to improve relations with the US then to reengage Japan in addressing a challenge that is a major test of Japan's ability to be a political power in the region. It may depend on the US somehow giving Japan enough concessions as to provide political cover for Mr. Fukuda in battles with the conservatives in his own party who are both outraged over the US shift and adamantly opposed to any changes in Japan's positions on North Korea.

Whatever the policy implications of the summit, I suspect that the Washington trip will prove to be a boon for Mr. Fukuda's public support. He persevered in coming despite his illness, he stood alongside Mr. Bush without being overly sycophantic, and he avoided embarrassing gaffes that might have exacerbated tensions with the US.

He may have also boosted his popularity among that other important constituency to which Japanese prime ministers must be attentive — the community of American Japan hands. Mr. Fukuda specifically requested a meeting with Japan hands from universities and think tanks to discuss the problem of Japan's dearth of international intellectual and academic exchanges, especially with the US. Given that some of the experts invited to the session were among those who questioned the durability of his government when he took office, Mr. Fukuda may have earned some points in giving this select group the opportunity to question him in an intimate setting.

An unscripted summit?

Mere days before President Bush and Prime Minister Fukuda are scheduled to meet in Washington, a State Department spokesman has announced that the US will not give concrete consideration to the abductions issue when it comes to removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Now, I don't disagree with this policy — the US shouldn't let what it is a bilateral issue between Japan and North Korea interfere with what the US government feels is in its best interests. There seems to be little chance that progress towards delisting North Korea will stop, especially considering that the Israel-Syria-North Korea mystery seems to have vanished from the media space. Even John Bolton, of late the Bush administration's most vociferous critic from the right, admitted to a delegation of abductee advocates in Washington, "I agree with you completely, but the flow towards delisting will be extremely difficult to stop."

The problem with this announcement is the timing. Mr. Fukuda has in recent days and weeks suggested that the Japanese government might be prepared to re-engage in the six-party talks, despite its reservations (which in a sign of progress increasingly concern the problem of verifying denuclearization as well as the abductions issue). For a State Department spokesman to deliver this message prior to the prime minister's arrival in Washington strikes me as indicative of a gratuitous disregard of the difficult position that Mr. Fukuda faces in trying to shift Japan's bargaining position in the six-party talks. Style matters as much as substance; the US should be trying to coax Japan back to the table, not bludgeon it over the head until it concedes.

Of course, the gap between the US and Japanese bargaining positions may be unbridgeable, meaning that it is high time for the allies to discuss the implications of being unable to coordinate policy on the North Korea question.

In any case, that an announcement like this can be made this close to a major summit suggests that there may be a surprise or two in store this Friday. For once there might be a US-Japan summit that is more than a photo-op and a joint press conference that enables the two leaders to exchange sweet nothings about the alliance.

The quiet shift

Ever so quietly, the Fukuda government appears to be altering its position in the six-party talks. Last week, Foreign Minister Komura suggested that the return of some (but not all) of the remaining abductees would constitute progress on the abductions issue. That wasn't much of a concession, but it was the first attempt by the Japanese government to define what counts for "progress."

Now Asahi reports that Sasae Kenichiro, Japan's negotiator in the talks, said in a meeting with Chris Hill, the US negotiator in Tokyo on Friday, "The US is presently at the center of the work [of disabling North Korea's nuclear facilities], but we are also in the process of considering participation."

Once again, not a huge step, but considering that Japan has opted out of the process for most of this year, it's an important step.

Perhaps by the time Prime Minister Fukuda visits Washington later this month Japan will be ready to announce a serious and sustained commitment to the process of denuclearizing North Korea and creating a stable modus vivendi on the Korean peninsula that begins the tricky process of opening North Korea to the world.