Not surprised at all

The Japan Times reported today that when Vice President Cheney visited Japan in February, he asked Abe for clarification as to what constitutes progress on the abductions issue.

I knew there had to be more to those meetings than Cheney simply reassuring Japan of US support.

Amazing, though, that it took two months for this story to leak.

Fireworks in Hanoi?

On Wednesday, 7 March, talks in the Japan-North Korea normalization working group are set to resume in Hanoi.

I'm not entirely clear on what to expect. Since the six-party agreement last month, Japan has ratcheted up the pressure on North Korea to come clean on the abductions issue -- Abe once again urged North Korea to take concrete steps in today's session of the Upper House Budget Committee -- but I have seen no signs that Japan is any closer to having its demands satisfied.

What I find particularly interesting is that according to the Mainichi Shimbun article linked above, Abe said, "The US perfectly understands and supports the Japanese position [my emphasis]." Is this true? Do the US and Japanese governments have the same definition for what constitutes "progress" on the abductions issue? What happens if North Korea makes some initial offer on abductions, together with verifiable progress on nuclear weapons, that satisfies the US but not Japan? Will the US still be perfectly understanding and supportive?

Yomiuri on Sunday

A couple articles caught my eye in today's edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, both of which appear to be unavailable online. (Articles from Sunday's paper never seem to be posted online.)

The first was an interview with US Japan hand Michael Green, focused on the "comfort women" resolution, the title of which summarizes the interview fairly well: "Leave 'comfort women' to the historians." The points made by Green are more or less the same points I made in two previous posts on the congressional resolution. He argues, "The US Congress's involvement in this issue is a big mistake. In particular, for the Committee on Foreign Affairs there is a pileup of problems that should be dealt with, like North Korea's human rights violations and the challenge of a rising China." He also attributed Representative Honda's eagerness to push for this resolution to Koreans resident in California, as well as to the entanglement of North Korea-sponsored anti-Japanese and anti-American NGOs.

Published on the same page is an article discussing the outline of contemporary US-Japan-China strategic triangle, with reference to the new Armitage-Nye Report. I mention the article because I found an interesting phrase contained within: "Kim Jong Hill [キム・ジョン・ヒル]." The "Hill" referred to is, of course, Christopher Hill, US assistant secretary of state and representative at the six-party talks. This is the first use I've seen of such a phrase in English or Japanese, and a quick Google search revealed nothing. It certainly made me laugh, but there's a bit of truth in the quip.

In some ways, Hill -- and the agreement he helped forge in Beijing -- may be as indirectly harmful to Japan's interests as Kim is directly harmful, because the six-party agreement, essentially made between the US and China over Japan's head, forces Japan to choose between taking a stand on principle and isolating itself, or assenting to an agreement that does little to secure its interests. Of course, it's not really fair for Japan to blame Hill or the US -- the Bush administration is simply looking out for what it perceives to be US national interests.

Japan has no one to blame for its less-than-ideal decision except the Abe Cabinet, which has seemingly focused on the abductions issue to the exclusion of all else.

Abe on the Beeb

The BBC interviewed Prime Minister Abe (transcript here) on foreign policy. Nothing especially new here, but it offers an excellent picture of Japan's foreign policy approach in light of China's rise. Notice how Abe uses the language of international responsibility -- Japan is not only concerned about the direct threat posed by North Korea, it is concerned about interrelated international problems, and wishes to contribute to solving them. The hope is, of course, that Japan can contrast itself with China: "We're a responsible stakeholder in the international system, they're the unpredictable power that seeks to overturn the status quo."

Note also the strong emphasis on the abduction issue. As I've noted before, too much emphasis on the abduction issue risks isolating Japan from other regional powers, and, moreover, risks painting the Abe Cabinet into a corner in terms of its relations with the electorate. Call too much attention to an issue and the voters may actually expect you to deliver, which could lead Abe to opt for tactics that might further isolate it in the region. See below for an illustration of how the government has inflamed Japanese sentiments on the abductions issue. Ultimately, calling out North Korea on abductions is the proper step morally, but a dreadful tactical move for Tokyo. The more that Tokyo can shunt this issue to the UN and away from negotiations on the nuclear problem, the better for Japan.

The picture to the left is a government poster found in train stations calling attention to North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens. A shoe on a beach -- effective, no? (Several citizens were reportedly snatched from beaches on the Sea of Japan coast.)

The annual foreign policy survey, pt. 1

Nikkei reports today on the results of the Japanese government's annual survey of public opinion on Japan's foreign relations. The results are not particularly surprising. Nikkei leads by reporting that the ratio of respondents (57%) who thought that Japanese-South Korean relations were bad was the highest since the survey began in 1986 -- this likely reflecting the influence of the "Kenkanryu" (the hate-Korea wave).

Nikkei also notes that the survey found a big jump in the percentage of respondents who thought Japan's relations with Russia were bad (eleven percentage points, to 68.2%), attributed by Nikkei to Russia's shooting of Japanese crab fishermen earlier this year. The survey also found that the ratio of respondents who thought Japan's relations with China were good remained low, hovering around 20%.

What surprises me, however, is that when asked about North Korea, respondents said they were more concerned about the abduction of Japanese citizens (86.7%) than the nuclear problem (79.5%) or the missile problem (71.5%), this despite the survey's being conducted from 5th to 15th October, as North Korea tested a nuclear weapon and the international community weighed the best response. I find this number shocking. I knew that the Japanese people felt strongly about North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s, but to feel more concerned about that -- which is a question of righting past wrongs -- than about a very clear and very present danger is mildly unsettling.

This probably reflects efforts by Abe Shinzo during his time as chief cabinet secretary to call attention to the kidnapping issue, but perhaps Gerald Curtis was right: maybe the government needs to back down slightly on this issue and focus the public's attention on more current problems with North Korea. Naturally the survey shows that the public is concerned about North Korea's burgeoning arsenal, but that should be the foremost concern, not the abductions issue, which is a relatively minor symptom of the major problem that is the DPRK.

In any case, the government survey is quite substantial, so I will provide more analysis as I make my way through it.