THE RISING EAST
Japan may be forced from pacifist cocoon
By Richard Halloran
TOKYO — When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan meets with President Bush at the president's Texas ranch this week, he will be speaking for a Japan that feels more threatened, at this time by North Korea, than at any time since World War II.
Not even the danger from the Soviet Union during the four decades of the Cold War so troubled the Japanese as the perceived menace from North Korea.
Today, that peril is causing the Japanese to shed the passive, pacifist cocoon in which they wrapped themselves following the devastation of World War II that included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Japan," said a writer, "is emerging from its slumber."
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The lower house of the Diet, or parliament, passed legislation last week that authorizes Japan's armed forces to respond to an attack from abroad. Until now, Japan's constitution, which prohibits using military force to settle disputes, appears to have precluded what would have been normal for any other nation. Moreover, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering legislation to permit Japan to impose economic sanctions on North Korea, which Pyongyang has said would be "an act of war." Collective defense, building a missile defense, and even acquiring nuclear weapons are topics of vigorous debate here. The evidence of Japanese fear of North Korea is everywhere. The press covers each tiny development in the issue, as does television news. Bookstores are packed with volumes about North Korea and its "dear leader" Kim Jong Il.
In a rally held in Busan earlier this year, South Korean Christians called on the North to resume participation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The rally also opposed any prospect of a U.S. withdrawal.
Serious conversations turn quickly to the latest wrinkle. Japanese who appear to tolerate North Korea are harassed by e-mail and telephone.
"It is pervasive," said a Western diplomat. A Japanese political analyst asserted that feelings are so deep that the public is ahead of the politicians in assessing the danger from North Korea. The anxiety comes from North Korea's arsenal of missiles that can reach any place in Japan, from its nuclear weapons, from Japanese clashes with North Korean ships in the Sea of Japan, from spies infiltrated from North Korea or from Koreans living in Japan, from North Korean drug runners, and from a barrage of invective through the government-controlled Korean Central News Agency.
Underlying this is a historic Japanese belief that Koreans are capable of doing something irrational. The deputy chief Cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, says in the current edition of the leading monthly magazine Bungei Shunju that Kim Jong Il does not behave "within our framework of common sense."
Abe, who met Kim when Koizumi visited Pyongyang last September, said Kim could make rational judgments but defined that as being logical in building up North Korea's commandos when Kim knew North Korea would lose a conventional war with the United States and South Korea.
During the Koizumi visit, Kim admitted that North Korean agents had abducted Japanese many years ago, a revelation that angered most Japanese. Five of those kidnapped were returned to Japan in October. Two tried to send letters to children in North Korea last week, but the North Korean Embassy in China rejected them, saying it was not a post office. Many Japanese here expressed concern that the United States is not nearly so concerned as they are about North Korea, mainly because Washington has been preoccupied with the war in Iraq and the campaign against terrorism. Koizumi can be expected to tell this to Bush.
The stalemate negotiations with North Korea are sure to be closely examined. The North Koreans have told the United States that they have nuclear weapons and are processing materials to build more. That program is not negotiable, they said, nor will inspectors be allowed into North Korea. What is open for bargaining are nuclear and conventional weapons to be made in the future and their export, they said. In contrast, the United States, Japan, and South Korea have said North Korea must eliminate all nuclear weapons and accept inspections to verify that they are not making more.
The Japanese want to be included in further negotiations, if any. That has been the U.S. position all along, and American officials say they have told the North Koreans there will be no more negotiations unless the Japanese and South Koreans take part.
The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported last week that the North Koreans, who had insisted on negotiating only with the Americans, have agreed that Japanese and South Koreans can take part — if the United States guarantees that Japan and South Korea will provide economic assistance to North Korea.
In other words, concessions first, then negotiations. Alice, in Wonderland, would have understood.
Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia and Washington. Reach him at oranhall@hawaii.rr.com.
