By Sebastian Maslow
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been taking steps to ease tensions between the two East Asian neighbors.
Shinzo Abe’s return to the post of prime minister was accompanied by growing tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea fired its long-range missile Unha-3 (for the alleged purpose of sending a satellite into orbit) in December 2012, and this was followed by a third test of a nuclear device only two months later. The renewed crisis these provocations triggered offered few prospects for progress in the stalled Japan-North Korea talks. Yet, while North Korea continued with its military tests, Abe tempered his hardline policy toward Pyongyang and moved toward resuming talks with the North Korean leadership. This has restored hope for progress in normalizing diplomatic relations between the two countries. What explains this change in Abe’s approach toward North Korea?
As an early advocate of the abduction issue, Abe’s rapid rise since the early 2000s is closely linked to the current deadlock in Japan-North Korea relations and indeed the framing of the North as Japan’s nemesis. Pyongyang’s official acknowledgment and apology for its campaign of kidnapping Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s on the occasion of the 2002 landmark summit between former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the late Kim Jong Il triggered an avalanche of public criticism in Japan. The abduction issue immediately superseded the initial objective of normalizing diplomatic relations as stated in the Pyongyang Declaration. Backed by an empowered political movement centered on the victims’ families (the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea), their key society (the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Abducted by North Korea) and parliamentary supporters (the Assembly Members Alliance for the Speedy Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea) the abduction lobby successfully hijacked Japan’s North Korea agenda and provided Abe Shinzo with a platform for establishing his profile as an advocate for a “strong Japan.”
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