Koizumi to visit Kim on kidnapped
kin By Richard Hanson
TOKYO -
Japan's beleaguered, buoyed by good ratings - and wily -
prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, reached into his bag
of statesman-like tricks Friday to announce his second
visit to North Korea, a one-day affair scheduled for May
22.
Ostensibly, the quick flight next Saturday
from Tokyo to Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, is to
meet Korea's dynastic leader Kim Jong-il to discuss the
release of Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by North
Korean agents. Some still have close kin in Japan.
Thirteen Japanese are believed to have been abducted
over a period of 25 years, and at least five are
believed to be still alive.
Five of abductees
returned to Japan in 2002, without their families, in
the brief afterglow of Koizumi's historic trip first
trip to North Korea in September that year, an attempt
to start talks on normalizing relations between the
neighboring states. They later returned to North Korea
and their families, who were not allowed to visit Japan
with them.
They are believed to have been
kidnapped in order to help North Korean agents learn the
Japanese language, idioms and customs.
North
Korea is still largely isolated, desperately poor and
short of food. In April, a huge, deadly train explosion
in a city close to the northern border with China
revealed glimpses of just how tough life is in the
"workers' paradise".
But this time Koizumi's
trip is taking on other domestic political aspects. It
also represents a chance to jump-start negotiations on a
range of critical issues, including North Korea's
nuclear weapons programs. This week in Beijing,
working-level sessions of the "six-party"
talks(involving both Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and
the US) are under way. The aim is to prepare the ground
for high-level talks before the end of June on
persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons
programs.
Japan's newly appointed chief cabinet
secretary, Hiroyuki Hosoda, said after Koizumi's visit
was announced that the talks on the abduction issue will
been be a major topic. Tokyo refuses to move to
normalization of relations with North Korea before
resolving the abduction issue, along with North Korea's
nuclear and missile production programs. All official
bilateral talks were put on hold until earlier this year
because of the abduction issue.
Japan's ruling
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition
partner, the New Komeito, passed legislation in the
national Diet, or parliament, that authorizes sanctions
against the North for human rights violations.
In the forthcoming summit meeting in North
Korea, the two countries may be able to produce a
document that follows up on the so-called "Pyongyang
Declaration" signed by Koizumi and Kim Jong-il in
September 2002. That was an agreement to attempt to
normalize relations.
Relations froze solid after
North Korea revealed to a US government official that
Pyongyang violated a 1994 nuclear power plant accord by
continuing to work on a nuclear weapons program. That
raised tensions in the region to the highest levels in
recent memory.
That in turn stiffened Koizumi's
resolve to maintain and strengthen Japan's military and
diplomatic relations with what has long been the most
important bilateral economic and security relationship.
The Japanese public, with the onset of war in Iraq,
mostly supported Koizumi in his backing of US President
George W Bush's increasingly troubled war in the Middle
East. Late last year, Japan began sending units
amounting to several hundred troops of its Self-Defense
Forces to Iraq on what are defined as "humanitarian"
missions. Japan's war-renouncing constitution prohibits
the deployment of combat troops.
Meanwhile,
Koizumi faces a new onslaught of domestic political
problems. So far, Koizumi has remained remarkably
popular among the voting public. According to recent
polls, Koizumi draws over 50 percent support ratings.
That has been comforting. He is leading the LDP in a
crucial election for the Upper House of parliament on
July 12.
In the past week or so, however, a wave
of criticism has built up against virtually all national
politicians - of all parties - over lawmakers in the
national Diet who have failed to pay their mandatory
premiums for their national pension plans. This comes at
a time when the government is trying to push through
national legislation - deeply unpopular - to rationalize
the chaotic pension system and require citizens to pay
more for fewer benefits. Whether there is enough money
in the system is an increasing problem as the nation
ages and the workforce shrinks. Scofflaws - at least
seven in the prime minister's own cabinet and the head
of the main opposition party - don't raise the public's
perception of politicians.
One week ago,
Koizumi's influential, long-serving chief cabinet
secretary Yasuo Fukuda shocked the political world by
quitting his job for not paying the pension premiums.
A day later, Naoto Kan, the leader of the main
opposition Democratic Party of Japan found that he, too,
had not paid in and promised to step down. On Friday, a
former LDP kingmaker, Ichiro Ozawa, accepted the
appointment of the opposition party as its chief. That
was probably the easiest takeover of a political party
in Japan's postwar political history. Ozawa had been
running a small liberal gathering called the Liberal
Party since he failed in 1993 to destroy his own Liberal
Democratic Party.
Koizumi has several motives
for going to North Korea at this juncture in Japan's
messy political problems. But it will no doubt help his
own image if he can walk away from a meeting with North
Korea's leader with a entourage of young children and
other family members waiting to be reunited in Japan.
There is a high level of risk involved in this
venture. Within minutes of the Japanese press announcing
Koizumi's trip to Pyongyang, television and news
agencies were trumpeting reports that Koizumi himself -
who has a reputation for being squeaky clean - had not
paid his own obligatory pension money many years ago.
The report could not be immediately confirmed.
That is how the past comes back to haunt
politicians during an election year.
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2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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