Koizumi's
perilous Pyongyang summit
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's planned revisit to North
Korea this week, his second in 18 months, is a manifestation of both countries'
mounting domestic difficulties. Most of all, if Koizumi can use the one-day
summit this Saturday to pull off a coup and secure the return of, or promise to
return, Japanese abductees' kin, then his fortunes and those of his ruling
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will soar before the crucial elections in July
to the Upper House of the Diet (parliament).
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's major motivation for the summit appears to be
to solve, or at least to ease, the country's domestic political and economic
struggles, especially inadequate food in the capital city Pyongyang. Solving
the issue of the abductees, believed to have numbered 15 at one time, would
open the way to diplomatic normalization, economic aid and food.
"We have no idea of the government's public distribution system in Pyongyang,"
Richard Ragan, country director of the World Food Program (WFP) in Pyongyang,
told Asia Times Online in a telephone interview on Monday. "But I can say there
is a serious food situation in the country side. Food is available only for 2.8
million people out of 6.5 million of North Korea's hungriest children, women
and elderly people here."
There is widespread speculation in the Japanese media that Koizumi's visit will
secure the release from North Korea of eight family members of the five
Japanese abductees who were repatriated in October 2002, one month after the
premier's first trip to Pyongyang. Although the five - the survivors and core
of a group of abductees - stayed in Japan (kidnapped and held hostage by Tokyo,
Pyongyang has claimed), the return of their relatives has become a passionate
national issue. Their return would represent a critical step, paving the way
for normalization talks between the two countries - talks were stalled by the
abduction issue.
Koizumi is expected to discuss two other important issues with Kim: first, the
10 other missing Japanese nationals, including the eight who North Korea claims
have died, and two others it claims never entered the country. Second, North
Korea's nuclear and long-range-missile programs, which the rest of the world,
particularly the United States, South Korea, China and Russia - the other four
countries in the six-party talks - is also following closely.
Japanese media reported that Tokyo would offer provide temporary food aid to
Pyongyang and restart normalization talks, possibly within June, if Kim were at
least to allow those eight family members to return to Japan. The normalization
talks were suspended in October 2002, on the heels of the Japanese public's
shock and anger over the kidnapping issue. That was when Kim acknowledged to
Koizumi that Japanese citizens had been abducted. They are believed to have
been kidnapped by North Korean agents in an effort to improve agents' language
skills and knowledge of Japanese customs. The exact numbers are not known; some
claim hundreds, some claim dozens; Pyongyang says 13 were abducted and eight
died, leaving five - now in Japan, though their families remain in North Korea.
Opponents of the summit claim it is very rare and, indeed, violates diplomatic
protocol for the leader of any country to visit another state unilaterally
twice, without a reciprocal visit by his counterpart. But Kim hates air travel
and always travels by train, fearing assassination in an airline explosion. As
an island nation, Japan lacks railways to foreign countries, in effect ruling
out a Kim visit to Tokyo.
Why now? Domestic reasons drive the summit
What led Koizumi and Kim to the second summit at this time? In a whirlwind of
international politics, domestic politics matters a lot. The Koizumi
administration has been facing mounting political difficulties over a number of
domestic issues in the past month. First, growing anti-war feelings have put
Koizumi at bay, especially after the Japanese hostage crisis erupted in Iraq
early last month (it was resolved peacefully with the safe release of the
abductees). Continuing political instability in Samawah, a southern Iraq city
where some 1,000 Japanese troops and support personnel have been deployed on a
strictly humanitarian mission, is also fueling almost daily opposition to the
Iraq war and Japan's involvement in it.
Second, a barrage of criticism from supporters of Japanese held in North Korea
also appears to be driving Koizumi to the summit. They had accused the
government of failing to make progress in talks with North Korea over the
future of those they left behind - until Koizumi's announcement last Friday of
the May 22 summit. Third, the recent pension scandal has tarnished the LDP's
reputation and makes a foreign trip desirable as a way of burnishing
credentials and diverting attention from a nasty pension-non-payment scandal.
At home, two powerful political figures resigned: chief cabinet secretary and
close Koizumi adviser Yasuo Fukuda and Naoto Kan, the president of the
Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party, had both admitted they
did not pay mandatory premiums into the National Pension System.
Koizumi himself also did not pay for almost seven years and was forced to
reveal this fact by an article in The Shukan Post, published Monday. News of
the publication came out last Friday, the same day he announced the
summit. Opponents criticized Koizumi's clever media strategy that diverted
public attention from his pension problem to the Pyongyang summit. The journal
reported that Koizumi did not pay into pension plans for periods
totaling six years and 11 months, in three cases from the 1960's into
the 1980's. He has said that he did not believe he had a legal obligation
to pay into pension plans at those times.
Still, all these affairs have helped drive down the prime minister's popularity
in Japan. His approval ratings have slipped to about 50 percent, far below the
84 percent in his prime, according to the latest opinion poll conducted by the
Asahi Shimbun. Thus the summit - if it yields concrete results or genuine
promises - would be a magic wand that resuscitated his ruling coalition toward
the important Upper House elections on July 12.
A body blow to Kim
Informed observers said Kim has also been driven to the last economic ditch,
making a final effort to stave off economic collapse. Lee Young-hwa, the
representative of Rescue the North Korean People! (RENK), a Japan-based
citizens' group supporting North Korean asylum seekers in China since early
1990s, told Asia Times Online that North Korea has been facing serious food
shortages and stopped food rations in Pyongyang on April 1. The government is
believed to have continued giving out food rations to people in Pyongyang, even
during the country's "great famine" of the 1990s, in which millions of people
died of starvation. Thus Kim is said to be deeply concerned by this food
shortage in the capital because he might lose unflinching allegiance of the
party's leaders in Pyongyang and fail to contain or divert their frustrations
and grievances.
As if as a warning about the looming Pyongyang food shortage, the United
Nations' WFP issued an urgent appeal on February 9 for aid for North Korea,
saying the agency's supplies have nearly run out and it is cutting off food to
almost all the 6.5 million people that it feeds in the nation of some 22
million people.
For this reason, observers say the real purpose of Kim's visit to China last
month was to get food from China; Beijing has reportedly agreed to give 200,000
tons of food. As the host and organizer of the six-way talks aimed at defusing
North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, China was also expected to have attached
some political strings to its humanitarian aid: such as a level of cooperation
from Pyongyang in the talks in exchange for economic assistance and security
guarantees. Working-level talks concluded in Beijing last Friday and full
high-level talks are expected to be held before the end of June, including both
Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Meanwhile, Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun reported in its April 13 edition
that Jang Song-thaek, the "second in command" of the North Korean regime, was
removed from his post for criticizing economic reforms in vigorous terms in the
communist nation. Jang married Kim's younger sister and had been
considered as a potential candidate as Kim's successor, until he delivered his
criticism.
Pyongyang's food shortage and political uncertainty appears to turn eyes toward
Japanese economic aid. RENK representative Lee Young-hwa said he expected that
Japan would give North Korea 500,000 tons of food if the abduction case gets
settled through Koizumi's visit. Lee is also an associate professor of
economics at Kansai University in Japan.
Historically, this is not the first time a desperate North Korea has had to
rely on Japan's food aid during acute shortages. In 1997, North Korea got
Japanese food aid through UN agencies when the country granted home visits to
Japanese women who had married Korean men and moved to North Korea from
1959-84.
Kim Jong-il's other motivation for the meeting with Koizumi appears to be to
drive a wedge between Washington and Japan during the six-party
nuclear-disarmament talks. The working-level talks were snagged last week over
the stark differences between North Korea and the US, mostly over the issue of
the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement (CVID) of North Korea's
suspected nuclear-weapons programs. North Korea reportedly said "No."
Kim also may be seeking to improve ties with Japan because he is provoked over
a recent US move: the US kept North Korea on its list of nations that sponsor
terrorism, officially linking the North Korean nuclear threat to the abduction
issue. For this reason, Kim needs to solve the abduction issue to get immediate
food and possible further economic aid from Japan.
Historically, this also is not the first time Pyongyang has taken this
divide-and-rule strategy in dealing with other nations that maintain good
relations. For example, North Korea started the normalization negotiations with
Japan in January 1991, soon after the establishment of diplomatic ties between
Seoul and Moscow: to counter this development, Pyongyang sought to weaken
Japanese-South Korea relations by driving a wedge between Tokyo and Seoul.
Pyongyang is doing the same thing against the US and Japan this time with
Koizumi's visit to North Korea.
In dealing with the abduction issues, Japan's carrot-and-stick tactics of
"dialogue and pressure" have appeared useful enough to let Kim make an upcoming
major compromise. In February, Japan revised the Foreign Exchange and Foreign
Trade Law that gives the Japanese government authority to impose economic
sanctions unilaterally against North Korea. More recently, on April 6, the LDP
and its coalition ally New Komeito submitted a bill that would empower the
government to ban port calls by certain ships, apparently targeting North
Korean vessels. But LDP secretary general Shinzo Abe proposed this Saturday
scrapping a bill to ban port calls in Japan by North Korean ships - if
substantial progress is made on the abduction dispute.
Still, the visit is risky for Koizumi
Koizumi still faces major challenges throughout his one-day revisit to
Pyongyang, probably affecting the future of his administration.
Opponents feared the visit might be used by North Korea in effect to close the
abduction issue, and it's still unclear whether Pyongyang will provide
information on the 10 other missing Japanese.
The status of former US Army sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, who is among
eight family members of the five Japanese abductees, is not known. Jenkins
allegedly deserted in 1965 and married Hitomi Soga, 44, one of the five
Japanese abducted in 1978. He lives with their two daughters in Pyongyang.
Reportedly, he will reach the legal statute of limitations for prosecution
within two years, so whether he wants to come to Tokyo is unclear, unless the
US decides to pardon him very soon.
Whether the second summit will actually lead to normalization talks between the
two countries remains to be seen. The Japanese media are keenly watching.
Koizumi has to extract some political concessions from Kim regarding the
nuclear standoff. Otherwise, he might be severely criticized by the Japanese
public as well as the international community, for opponents have already
accused Koizumi of being willing to exchange food and money, or some sort of
ransom money, for the "hostages", referring to the families of the abducted.
Koizumi's revisit might help Kim enhance the legitimacy and rigidity of his
regime. Historically speaking, Korean dynasties' leaders often visited old
Chinese dynasties' kings to express their honor, respect and loyalty to China,
based on Confucian doctrines of hierarchy in Asia, especially in the Korean
Peninsula. Historians call this sadae-ism, or "serving the great". Kim
appears to be trying to use this nation's sadae-ism by taking advantage
of Koizumi's revisit and making ordinary North Koreans believe that Japan is
kind of tributary state of North Korea.
"Kim Jong-il will try to exploit a visit by Koizumi to strengthen his domestic
legitimacy," Charles Armstrong, associate professor of history at Columbia
University, said in an e-mail interview with Asia Times Online. "That is the
way his father dealt with the world as well. Yes, it is the reverse of the
traditional sadae policy toward China."
Still, Armstrong expects Koizumi's revisit will improve the atmosphere of the
major six-party talks. "It's important to break through this deadlock in North
Korean relations with the US and Japan through such a symbolically important
visit. In the short term, recognizing Kim Jong-il's regime will bolster his
rule. But continuing isolation will not make the situation any better."
Armstrong further expects Koizumi's visit to lead to the improvement of North
Korea-Japan relations, help open up North Korea, and encourage its regime to
change in the long term. That's something to keep our eyes on.
Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is
currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted atkosuke_everonward@ybb.ne.jp.
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