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November 6, 2009

So Far, Few Hints that Japan’s N. Korea Policy Will Shift

Sure, there’s been plenty of cross-Pacific bitching about U.S.-Japan alliance and basing issues, but there’s no sign that Prime Minister Hatoyama will shift Japan’s North Korea policy yet.  Japan is showing off its ability to shoot down North Korean missiles, and for now, Japan’s government is adhering to a hard line on North Korea and discouraging America from departing from one. The abduction issue is highly emotional in Japan, and Hatoyama probably couldn’t provide aid, loosen trade restrictions, or open...

Categories Japan & Korea
September 3, 2009

Hatoyama Denies Anti-Americanism; No Response on Whether He Eats the Sun for Breakfast

Just as I’d predicted, the new Japanese Prime Minister’s New York Times op-ed did not win him friends in the United States, although it may indeed have influenced people, and quite possibly drawn some concern from President Obama. Only not as Hatoyama might have hoped, since he’s now forced to backpedal and deny that he’s anti-American. At moments like this, you learn to appreciate Lee Myung Bak, with all his faults. Speaking as one whose emotions are easily whipsawed by...

Categories Japan
September 1, 2009

In the New Ledger Today: Japan’s Unendurable New Prime Minister

I’ve expanded some on why I believe Japan’s new Prime Minister is a noob. To be fair, I wasn’t fond of his predecessor, either. Has anyone else noticed that the “allied” leaders who are the first to decry “unilateralism” and demand that we act more cooperatively are also the first to kick Americans in the teeth gratuitously? For the life of me, I can’t see how a suckle-and-bite approach to America is either diplomatic or multilateral, and I suspect that...

Categories Japan
August 28, 2009

Great, Just What We Needed: Japan’s Own Roh Moo Hyun.

Judging by this, Kim Jong Il may have found the weak link he’s been looking for. I wouldn’t advise reading this less than two hours after a full meal. How should Japan maintain its political and economic independence and protect its national interest when caught between the United States, which is fighting to retain its position as the world’s dominant power, and China, which is seeking ways to become dominant? This is a question of concern not only to Japan...

Categories Japan
June 17, 2009

Take the Money and Run

Like I said:  the North Koreans snore though all those threats from Perry, Gingrich, and Eagleburger, but Stuart Levey scares the bejeezus out of them: North Korea is rushing to withdraw money from its overseas bank accounts after the United Nations imposed financial and other sanctions for its nuclear test, a report said. South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, quoting sources in Beijing, said the North had begun withdrawing funds from accounts in Macau and elsewhere for fear they would be...

Categories Japan/Money Laundering/Sanctions
May 4, 2009

N. Korea: Obama Just Like Bush!

Someone still isn’t feeling the hope and change: North Korea blasted U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday as no different from his predecessor in trying to “stifle” countries that are uncooperative with the U.S., referring to Washington’s move to punish Pyongyang’s rocket launch.  [….] “With nothing can the U.S. justify such illegal provocation as forcing the UNSC to table the issue of the DPRK’s (North Korea) launch of a satellite for peaceful purposes and issue ‘a presidential statement,’” the North’s...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Japan/Missiles/Proliferation/U.S. Politics
April 21, 2009

Banzai for Nuclear Japan!

Japan should consider possessing nuclear weapons as a deterrent to a neighboring threat, former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa suggested Sunday. In a speech in Obihiro, Hokkaido, in reference to North Korea’s rocket launch earlier this month that many believe was a ballistic missile test, the hawkish lawmaker said: “It is common sense worldwide that in pure military terms, nuclear counters nuclear.” In Sunday’s speech, Nakagawa said he believes North Korea has many Rodong medium-range missiles that could reach almost any...

Categories Asia/Geopolitics/Japan/Proliferation
March 4, 2009

Japan Threatens to Shoot Down North Korean Missile

I wonder how this would play on the Korean street, North and South: The Japanese government could deploy two arsenal ships equipped with the latest Aegis radar system and interceptor Standard Missile in the East Sea if North Korea continues to prepare for a missile test, the Kyodo news agency reported Tuesday citing a senior official at the Japanese Ministry of Defense…. Tokyo warned North Korea it would intercept not only missiles but also a satellite launched by the communist...

Categories Japan/Japan & Korea
February 26, 2009

Japanese Human Rights Group Launches Spam Fax Campaign Against N. Korea

The Japanese NGO ReACH, which advocates for the return of abducted Japanese citizens and for human rights in North Korea, has assembled a long list of known North Korean fax numbers, which I’ve published here for all the world to see, below the fold. REACH is calling on Japan’s massive community of netizens (and you, too!) to send spam faxes to these numbers, and offers some recommendations to maximize the subversive/disruptive effect if you decide to join the fun: –...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Japan & Korea
January 14, 2009

Lee Myung Bak’s Nightmare Scenario

Yesterday, I noted that North Korea is now demanding the full normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States as its latest demand prerequisite to nuclear disarmament … notwithstanding the fact that as recently as February 2007, it had agreed to disarm in exchange for a completely different set of demands. Having achieved its first set of demands — the lifting of U.S. sanctions, the terror-sponsor designation, and probably enough fuel oil and food to take care of its inner...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan/U.S. & Korea
September 1, 2008

Get a Load of This Aso.

The tepid and unpopular Yasuo Fukuda, who showed signs of softening Japan’s policies toward North Korea, is out, and Foreign Minister Taro Aso looks like the front-runner to replace him.  Fukuda recently installed former Foreign Minister Taro Aso as secretary-general of the ruling party. Aso has kept a low profile during nearly all of Fukuda’s term and could be seen as offering a fresh start for the party.  [AP] Is this good news or bad news?  The answer is “yes!” ...

Categories Japan/Japan & Korea
July 30, 2008

Tokdo: Now Officially the Dumbest International Crisis in History

… thus supplanting all of that Seige of Troy unpleasantness. I cannot say that South Korea would be much the worse for having dismissed Ambassador Lee Tae Shik from his post, but that is incidental to the skull-smacking stupidity of why: The government on Monday decided to call Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Lee Tae-shik to account if it is found that the embassy did not react promptly to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names listing Dokdo under “undesignated sovereignty.”...

Categories An Alliance?/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/Korean Society
July 1, 2008

Oops, We Changed the Wrong Regime

People can differ about the merits of overthrowing noxious regimes and the various ways that can be pursued, but I’m guessing this is one item Condoleezza Rice wasn’t pursuing for her legacy showcase: Rice’s sudden turnabout on de-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism may soon plunge the Japanese government into crisis. Japan must now decide whether to join the United States in providing aid to a country that kidnaps and refuses to account for unknown numbers of...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks
June 1, 2008

Two More Japanese Escape from N. Korea

The Asahi Shimbun reported on the 26th that a Japanese woman and her 40-year-old son, both of whom defected from North Korea, are being sheltered by the authorities in Jilin, China. The 73-year-old woman, from Sendai in Japan, migrated to North Korea after her husband joined the Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan) in 1967, and defected from North Korea, reportedly due to the famine, across the Tumen River this spring. According to the Japanese newspaper, while...

Categories Abductions/Japan & Korea
May 29, 2008

NK Hints More Japanese Abductees May Be Freed

The Japanese NGO ReACH, which advocates on behalf of the families of Japanese abducted by the North Korean regime, is active in Washington D.C. and sometimes sends me e-mails with interesting information.  Today, they inform me that the award-winning “Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story” will air on the PBS program Independent Lens on Tuesday, June 19th, at 10 p.m. Eastern.  (If anyone can find links for listings in their local areas, I’d appreciate it if you’d post them in the...

Categories Abductions/Japan & Korea