By Ankit Panda
Is Japan leaving Seoul and Washington in the cold as it pursues diplomacy with North Korea?
As Clint Richards reported over at the Tokyo Report, Japan has made real diplomatic progress with North Korea on the long-outstanding issue of abducted Japanese citizens. The issue was originally thought to have been resolved following the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration between then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi and Kim Jong-il. With this recent breakthrough on the abductees issue, it is appears increasingly likely that Japan will press on with North Korea, attempting to build on the diplomatic momentum achieved recently in Sweden and China. Tokyo’s achievement with North Korea was not without cost, however. Japan has moved to ease some sanctions on North Korea, including allowing greater port access to North Korean vessels, lifting some travel restrictions, and easing financial transaction sanctions. While Japan reaps the benefits of its engagement with North Korea, South Korea and the United States might find Tokyo’s unilateral diplomacy counterproductive to the trilateral deterrence that has been in place in Northeast Asia since the Six Party Talks crumbled.
Despite its diplomatic compliance with Japan on the abductees issue, North Korea continues to remain Northeast Asia’s basket case nation, continuously threatening South Korea and the United States as it pushes on with its nuclear program. As such, it is only reasonable that anxieties are growing in Seoul and Washington over Japan’s unilateral diplomatic pursuits with North Korea. As J. Berkshire Miller notes in The National Interest, “Seoul especially worries that Abe risks undermining trilateral efforts aimed at thwarting the North’s plans to continue developing its missile and WMD technologies.” This risk only becomes a real issue for the U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral if Japan either rewards North Korea disproportionately for complying with it on the abductees issue or rewards it preemptively. In both cases, North Korea might find itself emboldened and continue to provoke Seoul.
Read the full story at The Diplomat