I have finally found a good summary of the Japanese attitude toward the North Korean nuclear issue. Monday, the International Crisis Group released a report, “Japan and North Korea: Bones of Contention”. With Japan having an important role as participant in, and even original proponent of, the six party talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament, I highly recommend the report to anybody curious about Japan or North Korea.

From here in Japan, the North Korean nuclear issue stands out due to geographic proximity. As a potential nuclear target, Japan presents Mr. Kim with plenty of US forces, and it lacks the problem of fallout from exploding a nuke just across his border at Seoul.

Fortuitously, a trigger for conflict is difficult to theorize in the near term. By the tally of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Mr. Kim holds Seoul hostage with “thousands of artillery systems—including multiple launch rocket systems that are particularly effective for CW (chemical weapons) delivery”. Thus a preemptive strike from Washington would involve the untenable sacrifice of over 10 million American allies.

North Korea, in turn, is unlikely to start something itself, as explained by Colin Powel just two weeks ago, “I am not concerned that North Korea will threaten or use their nuclear weapon. They’re not suicidal. They’re clever. The only thing they have is their nuclear weapons program. They will use it to get more in return.”

Really, what we have here is a despot bent on survival. As put by Dr. Masao Okonogi, professor at Koizumi’s alma mater Keio University, “If we accept that the North Korean regime’s aim is to ensure its own survival, unless that survival is guaranteed, and unless the North Korean regime believes that its survival is certain, ultimately North Korea is not going to abandon its nuclear program.”

The Western press has been providing nearly daily updates on the North Korean nuclear issue. But, when I went looking for the Japanese perspective, I found coverage here virtually ignores the nuclear issue in favor of focusing on North Korean abductions of Japanese civilians in the 70’s and 80’s.

The Crisis Group’s report recognizes the preeminence of the abduction issue, and does a great job of explaining it and the difficulties involved in resolving it. Commendably, the report does so without glossing over Japan’s contributions to preventing a resolution. Amongst other points, the report cites the criticism levied by the renowned scientific journal Nature, that the Japanese government is intentionally misrepresenting the results of forensic tests (”Politics Versus Reality”, March 17, 2005).

The effect of the preeminence of the abduction issue is succinctly noted in the report’s opening:

While the nuclear issue is the paramount concern of policy-makers and security experts, the abduction issue is the primary focus of the Japanese public. Consequently, the government will not have full freedom to negotiate on the nuclear issue until it can satisfy its public that the abduction problem has been resolved or at least will be resolved in parallel.

And, on the need for some movement on the Japanese side in the abduction issue:

…it is unclear whether North Korea can make a sufficient accounting of its past crimes to appease Japanese public opinion.

and

While North Korea’s track record of failing to abide by agreements justifies Japan’s unwillingness to take Pyongyang at its word, to show conclusively that it no longer holds any Japanese citizens against their will puts North Korea in the impossible situation of trying to prove a negative.

To read the western press, it would seem that the Japanese are not concerned with the abductions so much, but instead that they might be considering building nuclear weapons themselves. Personally, Japanese development of nuclear weapons strikes me as a waste, particularly considering the continued close cooperation of the US in defense of Japan. The report investigates this possibility and concludes:

While the Japanese government is deeply concerned about North Korea’s nuclear weapons, there is an overwhelming consensus in Japan that it would not pursue its own nuclear option, at least in the short to medium term.

The report takes a very practical view of what is possible for Japan to do in facilitating the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. Japan has a huge carrot for Mr. Kim in the form of normalized economic relations, but this carrot cannot be offered separate from a resolution of both the abduction issue and the nuclear issue.

There seem to be signs that Koizumi and Bush both already understand these points. The abductions issue has been broadly reformulated as a human rights issue, and added to Washington’s public list of demands for normalized relations with Pyongyang. What appears to be still missing is a clear, concrete roadmap for North Korea to make appeasements on the abductions issue, and importantly, this roadmap must be one that is possible for North Korea to execute on.

The report is available in both pdf and word format.