Let Them Name You… and They will Come?

Down and out Yubari, the bankrupt Hokkaido city immortalized by NYT elegist Normitsu Onishi, is selling naming rights left and right. First came the municipal civic center (most likely a lightly used composite of a concert hall and smaller meeting rooms) and…public toilets? Whatever.* According to this Asahi piece, Yubari is extending the idea to the local baseball field and other athletic facilities**. But why stop there? Why not SELL THE NAMING RIGHTS TO YUBARI?

Seriously. It’s not as if precedent is lacking. The city of Toyota was named in 1959 for Toyota Motors, not the other way around. And Toyota (the Motors, not the city) didn’t pay a yen. Likewise, the city of Tenri got its name in 1954 as the stronghold of Tenri-kyo, a pseudo-Shinto religion that has its origins during the late Edo era—over the less demonstrative Yamabe, the Tenri-ko’s choice. And, of course, Boston gets its name from the Boston Celtics.

Look, Hyundai, if you have the wherewithal to drop billions of US dollars worth on North Korea with little to show in return, you surely have the billions of Japanese yen—you really need just a fraction of that—to spare so that you can call a Japanese city, I don’t know, Chosun’s My Daddy? I’m Your Bitch, Korea? The possibilities are limitless.

Think about it, Hyundai.

* Dave Barry does have a sewage-lifting station named after him. A far as I can gather, he did not pay for this honor either.

** Between the public toilets and the baseball field, the Yubari authorities obviously have a sequencing problem.

Kan Statement on Japan’s Recent Past on the Korean Peninsula

The Kan Statement on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Imperial Japan’s annexation of the Korean peninsula has passed the Yomiuri test—which means that it will go down with the populist-nationalist wing of the Japanese political center. Sankei is coming out fiercely against it, but its smaller print circulation gurantees that active opposition will represent no more than a small minority of the national vote.

That said, it will only be success diplomacy if the Japanese authorities are able to put an end to apologies once and for all and south Korea to accept the latest one for what it’s worth. An apology repeated is an apology not accepted. That should be obvious to anyone.

A Quarter of South Korean Households with TVs Watch Late-Night Japan-Cameroon Match

According to this Kyodo report courtesy of the Japanese tabloid Sponichi, the South Korean equivalent of the Nielsen TV ratings reached 24.1%* for the 14 June Japan-Cameroon game in the World Cup in South Africa—a match that began at 11PM Seoul (and Tokyo) Time. Two questions came to mind: First, what was the percentage of the Japanese TV audience that watched South Korea thrash Greece? Second, what was the percentage of the South Korean audience that rooted for the Japanese side?

That is about as good a snapshot of the asymmetry in the cross-straits relationship as there is.

* It peaked in Tokyo at 49.1%, just before the match eneded.

Hatoyama’s Seoul Train Proof “I” in “Winning” Doesn’t Count

Sixty or so members out of the ninety-five on the losing side of the DPJ leadership election, including Katsuya Okada himself, held a party on the day after. This sparked media hopes for a friends-of-Okada alliance in the making. Maybe, maybe not; the new party leader Yukio Hatoyama’s call on South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says not.

The key members of Hatoyama’s South Korea entourage are Seiji Maehara and Akihisa Nagashima. Ex-party leader Maehara, you may recall, is a pro-U.S. member of the bipartisan defense tribe, and Nagashima is even further to the right where national security is concerned. Thus, Hatoyama would have had a hard time picking better companions in paying respects to President Lee, the conservative Kim Jong Il nemesis who has done much to repair strained relations with South Korea’s Western allies. More significant from a domestic perspective, Maehara was one of the principals of the anti-Ozawa movement that supported Okada in the DPJ election, and Nagashima one of his closer allies.

Teamwork may be essential to winning, but the Hatoyama-Maehara(-Nagashima) package tour shows that it works the other way around too.

The Japanese Government Threat to North Korea

The Japanese government prepares to shoot down the North Korean ballistic projectile if it looks like it will fall on Japanese territory, and that’s a “threat to shoot down N. Korean satellite”? Since when has the C in CNN stood for “commie”? Who do they think they are, BBC?

Kidding. In fact, the article itself is pretty tame—again, reminding us of BBC.

The quest for online eyeballs can be pretty pathetic, though. For example, yesterday’s CNN segment on its reporter stalking AIG employees in London (after a NYT op-ed had already effectively eviscerated the mainstream media, CEO Edward Liddy and everybody in Washington including Obama) was Samantha Bee on The Daily Show without the laughs. If I am seeing the future of the media, it looks a lot like Geraldo.

Ozawa Wants Jejudo…Not. But Who Wants to Know?

“Mr. Ozawa asks, ‘What do think about Tsushima?’, so I’m like, ‘I’m very worried about Tsushima now. It’s likely to be bought up by the won economy,’ and Mr. Ozawa replies, ‘That’s true. But more than that, if that’s what you’re going to worry about, there’s a great opportunity now.” So I ask him, “Why”, and he’s going, “The yen is appreciated now, so buy Jejudo.” The reason I’m telling [this story] is because such incredible things come out of that seemingly serious and upright mouth of his”.

That’s more or less how the conversation went between the two, at least according to Kiyoshi Sasamori (former head of Japan Trade Union Confederation aka Rengo), who related the story on Wednesday at a party for a DPJ Lower House candidate in Nagasaki Prefecture, where Tsushima belongs*. The roots of the conversation lie in a conservative-nationalist campaign that Sankei has been pushing over the influx in recent years of South Korean tourists and investment into Tsushima, a Japanese island lying between the Kyushu mainland and the Korean Peninsula. Some South Koreans like to press territorial claims against the islands, likely in a tit-for-tat against Japanese claims on Takeshima, the uninhabited outcrop that is currently administered by the South Korean government. South Korean claims lend piquancy if not quite credibility to the national security worries of a South Korean invasion on the part of Takeo Hiranuma and his conservative, mostly LDP, Diet-member colleagues. However, given the labor union’s overall support for progressive causes, Sasamaori’s intent was unlikely to have been intended to whip up such nationalist sentiments with this story.

So, against this background, there were at least three possible ways to go with this story:

1. Ozawa is stupid enough to believe that we can/should put together Japanese money to buy up Jejudo.

2. Ozawa had said in effect, Chill out, guys, it’s not as if the South Koreans are going to chop up Tsushima and ship the pieces back to Korea. We could buy Jejudo and that wouldn’t mean jack either.

3. Ignore it.

This being an Ozawa story, the Japanese media did not take the sensible route (guess which one), nor either of the other two, and just reported Sasamori’s comments without commentary, most of them initially touching only on Ozawa’s purported words. The last point seems to have confused the South Koreans, who are up in arms over what is most likely an imaginary affront. The LDP and the Communist Party, comrade in arms, have taken this as the cue to pile on. Now I am no fan of Ozawa, but isn’t a politician allowed a little irony? However, Ozawa being Ozawa, he has done a poor job of ‘splainin. Which brings me to my next point:

Nobody is going to cut Ozawa any slack. The media don’t like him in the first place; they’re not going to give a Prime Minister Ozawa the benefit of the doubt. He has few if any friends in his own DPJ beyond the 40-strong contingency personally beholden to him, the opposition alliance is a marriage of pure convenience, and most of the other old-school politicians who might share generational sympathies are back in the LDP. (He has already alienated his erstwhile colleagues in what is now New Komeito.) Perhaps worst of all, Ozawa is ill-equipped to handle this constant public, often hostile, attention to every detail of his actions. Since the Nishimatsu scandal exploded over his head, he has been doing his best to be accessible, and smile at the camera and offer harmless non sequiturs, as his handlers have obviously telling him to. But he’s no Mitt Romney; he has a hard time playacting for a day, let alone forever—which is what the Prime Minister’s job will feel like.

* The Japanese original comes from an excerpt posted here by Sankei, who taped Sasamori’s original talk.

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For what it’s worth, Tsushima is a group of islands 708.7 km2 and a population of 41,000, while Jejudo is an island with an area of 1,845.55 km2 and a population of 560,000. Tsuyoshi Shinjo, the former New York Met and sometime underwear model, is Tsushima’s most famous export, and I once had a crush on a girl from Jejudo when the Earth was young and the gods walked among us.

Why Not Help the South Korean Navy?

I’m usually far more interested in figuring out what the Japanese authorities are up to than in trying to tell them what to do. It’s better for business; besides, the authorities don’t listen to me. But I’m making an exception here. The online Asahi carries a February 22 report headlined South Korea Sounds Maritime Self-Defense Force on Refueling in Offshore Somalia; Japan Refuses(韓国、海自に給油を打診　ソマリア沖で　日本は拒否) telling us that the Japanese government rejected refueling Munmu the Great DDH-976 (the destroyer that the ROK Navy will be dispatching to escort South Korean ship in the Somali neighborhood) under the Japanese Counterterrorism Act—these are pirates, not terrorists, so that’s understandable. However, the Aso administration reportedly is also reluctant to include the necessary provisions for this in the legislative bill to upgrade authorization for the two JMSDF that will be dispatched next month under the current, more restrictive laws on the books, fearing potential trouble in the Diet.

If true, it looks like the Aso administration will be making a big, big mistake. On the domestic side, prospective counter-piracy activities enjoy the support of a healthy majority of the Japanese public—in contrast, the majority of the Japanese public consistently opposed sending troops to Iraq, while the public has always been divided over the counterterrorism refueling activities in the Indiana Ocean. With 2000-3000 ships of immediate Japanese interest passing through the dangerous waters each year and an actual seizure in recent headlines, this is a cause that will have the public and, just as important, the media behind it. This will put the DPJ on the spot: its collective instincts probably tell it to support helping the South Koreans. But it is constrained by the need to appease the “no troops” Socialists, whose votes the DPJ needs for an Upper House majority in the case of a Lower House victory in the next election. The Socialists in turn are likely to blackmail the DPJ on this issue to appease its own ever-more-narrow constituency on the diehard left-wing of the Japanese political spectrum. In other words, this is a chance to force the DPJ to make up its mind and take a difficult stand on a publicly popular issue. It’s a chance to make the DPJ look weak and waffling, a welcome, unusual switch for the LDP.

It would also be an excellent piece of diplomacy. It not only would be great payback for the Lee Myung-bak administration, which has moved much closer to the Japanese position on North Korea, but also a great show of solidarity between the two militaries that would help put local issues into proper perspective, first and foremost the Takeshima/Dok-to so that the South Korean public doesn’t go flying off the handle every time the Japanese authorities issue a reminder that there are conflicting claims over the islets, but also history issues so that the South Korean public won’t see every dislikable comment from a Japanese politician as a national affront. If this is the only thing that the two JMSDF destroyer squadrons achieve, I’d say it will be money well spent.

So I don’t see what they’re worried about. Maybe I’ve missed something.

North Korea Mum on Hillary Clinton’s Visit to Japan

Recently, North Korea has been making noises about U.S. plans for all-out war and throwing verbal stink bombs at South Korea’s Lee Myung-bak regime, all the while going through the motions of preparing for a Taepodon launch. However, it has been relatively quiet with regard to Japan and, unless I’ve missed something, has studiously ignored Hillary Clinton’s visit to Japan and her meeting with family members of the abductees—as well as her comments regarding its nuclear program. Instead, the Korean Central News Agency has chosen to focus on more groundbreaking news such as a third secretary from the Indonesian embassy and a first secretary from the Cuban embassy “visit[ing] the venue of the 13th Kimjongilia Festival on Feb. 18 on the occasion of the February holiday.” (February 18, folks. The site does not have direct links to individual articles.)

Nothing surprising here if you conceive all of North Korea’s actions and words as tactical moves in the service of a strategy that is intended to maximize economic returns without giving up and when possible enhancing its two bargaining chips. And what are they? One, we will pee on you (conventional and nuclear military power); and two, we will throw up on you (internal meltdown). Yes, North Korea is Bizarro baby. It does need a U.S. interlocutor, though, and likely figures that, with her Billary Albright associations, the Secretary of State is better than most.

Ryang Yong Gi is a 27-Year-Old North Korean Soccer Player

Ryang Yong Gi is a 27-year-old North Korean, one of the hundreds of thousands of Koreans who have grown up in Japan as permanent residents here. Ryang is also a very good soccer player. In fact, Ryang is so good that he has earned five caps with his North Korean national team, scoring four goals. For the last four years, he has also been one of the starting forwardmidfielders for the Vegaluta Sendai, a second-division J-League team that has barely missed out on returning to the top Japanese division those same four years. His mostly Japanese teammates have just reelected him as team captain for the second straight year.

He is of course only part of the picture that is Japan, which is of course not always a pretty one. But I thought his story should be told too.

Some Implications of South Korea’s Help on Japan’s Abduction Issue

I’ll have to issue a corrective regarding my previous post on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit regarding a possible meeting with family members of abductees. I’d overlooked the change in South Korea’s policy regarding its own abductees under the Lee Myung-bak administration and more broadly the impact of an overall shift away from the ten-year-old Sunshine policy. This point was driven home for me when South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan announced that he was helping to arrange a meeting between Kim Hyun Hui, one of the North Korean agents responsible for the 1987 Korean Air Flight 858 bombing and now living in South Korea in relative seclusion, and family members of Japanese abductee Taeko Yaguchi, who had been tasked with teaching Kim the Japanese language and Japanese customs.

I can’t imagine the Lee administration following Japan’s lead in asking Clinton for a face-to-face with South Korea’s own abduction constituency—it makes South Korea look weak and reliant on the United States, always bad politics over there, and it’s not going to help right things anyway—but the South Korean gesture has raised the media’s attention. I believe that this slightly raises the stakes for both Clinton and North Korea with regard to her response to the Japanese request. Moreover, it’s one thing for the United States to indulge Japan as an act of diplomatic courtesy; it’s another for the three parties to act in consonance, if not in unison. The North Korean response will be that much harsher. The Kim Jong Il regime is playing its latest Taepodon caper for much larger stakes in its bid for face and more fungible goodies, but it may nevertheless see such a gesture as an indication of a harder line from the Obama administration than the late-Bush administration’s sliced-salami concession tactics.

New Deal on Abduction Issue: The Japanese Version and Other Things

This is the summer holiday season, when the regular Tuesday Cabinet sessions and the subsequent press briefings customarily held by attending Cabinet ministers are canceled*, so it may be just an accident that the August 12 bilateral deal on a new North Korean survey on the abduction issue that would lead to the lifting of some Japanese sanctions passed unacknowledged (as far as I am aware; I stand ready to be corrected) by the Prime Minister, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Foreign Minister, and the newly-minted Minister of State for (among other things) the Abduction Issue Kyoko Nakayama. Indeed the only official sign of recognition of the event to date has been a perfunctory document on the MOFA website entitled Outline of the Japan-North Korea Working-level Consultations held on August 11-12.

Still, this silence on the part of the political leadership is odd given the extraordinary revelations in the MOFA document. Let me translate for you the actions to be taken by the North Korean side:

(1) The survey to be conducted by North Korea shall be an across-the-board survey regarding abduction victims whose objective is to take substantive action directed towards the resolution of the abduction issue, in other words to find survivors and have them return to Japan.

(2) The subject of the survey includes victims recognized by the government and other missing people, etc. who have been put forward; in other words, all abduction victims shall be included.

(3) The survey shall be conducted with alacrity by a North Korean survey committee, and as far as possible shall be completed in autumn.

(4) The North Korean side shall inform the Japanese side as required and consult. If survivors are found in the process of the survey, the Japanese side shall be notified and the procedures after that shall be consulted with the Japanese side and agreed.

(5) The North Korean side shall cooperate so that the Japanese side can directly confirm the results of the survey through such means as face-to-face interviews of relevant people, joint possession of relevant documents, and visits to relevant sites.

(6) Consultations shall be continued on other matters related to the survey.**

In other words, the North Korean side is going to conduct a survey “to find survivors”, whose existence it has steadfastly refused to recognize “and have them return to Japan”. Moreover, the subject of the survey includes not only the ones that the North Korean side admits to have abducted but “all abduction victims” including “victims recognized by the [Japanese, one presumes] government and other missing people, etc.”, yet another seemingly extraordinary concession.

In exchange for this, the Japanese side:

Is prepared to implement the 1) lifting of restrictions on movement of personnel and 2) lifting of restrictions on charter flights [between Japan and North Korea] at the same time that the North Korean side begins said survey.***

The “agreement” left the return of the Yodogo airliner highjackers and permission of North Korean flagships to berth at Japanese ports to load humanitarian goods—agreed to in the June Working-Level Consultations****—to future consultations.

Given the eye-opening nature of the new North Korean survey and the immediate parallel lifting of some Japanese sanctions on this most high-profile of foreign policy (and national security) issues, it is odd at first sight that the matter is being downplayed to such an extent. But first sights can be deceiving, and this one is no exception. Let me explain.

First of all, there is no signed agreement, joint statement or anything else that records a common understanding that either side can refer to in the event of a disagreement. Indeed, since North Korea has not issued any sort of public record or statement of its own, we only have MOFA’s word that there really is an agreement, let alone its contents. North Korea may decide at any time to deny any part of MOFA’s version of the “agreement” when it suits their purposes, and will do so without hesitation if past behavior is any indication.

Second, the meeting was scheduled at the behest of the North Korean side, no doubt to have it begin on the date of the “initial window opening” for taking North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Growing domestic dissatisfaction and the exigencies of John McCain’s presidential campaign with regard to the substance of the deal and subsequent foot-dragging by North Korea led the Bush administration to let August 11 pass without action on delisting. North Korea does not look likely to be satisfactorily forthcoming on the plutonium cache, the uranium enrichment program or proliferation activities any time soon.

Third, North Korea has always played Japan and the United States (and South Korea for that matter) off against each other. When one relationship sours, North Korea attempts to coax out tactical gains from the other. Remember that Prime Minister Koizumi’s November 2002 visit to North Korea (and not Shinzo Abe’s hard-line position) elicited Kim Jong Il’s extraordinary admission and the return of five abductees (and ultimately their families) during the nadir of North Korea’s relationship with the Bush administration. Note also that North Korea’s relations with South Korea, already on the rocks after conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak took office in February, has soured dramatically since its clumsy efforts to put the shooting of a South Korean tourist behind backfired.

Take these three points as a whole and North Korea’s intent and the motives thereof become clear. Seeing little prospect for improvements on the US and South Korean fronts in the near future, it decided to help the Japanese authorities release themselves from between a rock (Japanese public sentiment) and a hard place (the near-impossibility of substantive progress on the fate of the other abductees) by going easy on the August 11-12 Working-level Consultations and not disputing the Japanese MOFA version of the events that transpired. It is highly likely that the North Korean side will begin the survey and cash in on its immediate profits. As long as there are no substantial improvements on the US or South Korean fronts, it will try to extend the survey indefinitely—until such time as the situation improves sufficiently to allow it to end or (merely) suspend the survey, claiming completion or Japanese malfeasance.

Not only skeptics but also the families of the abductees well understand, if not the entire illusory background, the tenuous nature of the “agreement”, and are accordingly in no mood to embrace it wholeheartedly—all the more reason for political leaders to downplay the event and distance themselves from it*****.

* The regular Friday Cabinet sessions are held year-round.

** The Japanese originals of the six points are reproduced below. Incidentally, as official documents go, it is poorly drafted. That is what happens when an ambassador is obliged to work into the wee hours of the night, then produce a document for public consumption.

（1）北朝鮮が行う調査は、拉致問題の解決に向けた具体的行動をとるため、すなわち生存者を発見し帰国させるための、拉致被害者に関する全面的な調査となること。
（2）調査の対象には、政府が認定した被害者やその他に提起された行方不明者等が含まれ、すなわち、すべての拉致被害者が[調査の]対象となること。
（3）調査は、権限が与えられた北朝鮮の調査委員会によって迅速に行われ、可能な限り秋には終了すること。
（4）北朝鮮側は、調査の進捗過程について日本側に随時通報し、協議を行うこと。調査の過程で生存者が発見される場合には、日本側に伝達され、その後の段取りについては、日本側と協議し、合意されること。
（5）北朝鮮側は、日本側が関係者との面談、関係資料の共有、関係場所への訪問などを通じて調査結果を直接確認できるよう協力すること。
（6）調査に関連するその他の事項については、引き続き協議すること。

*** Original:

北朝鮮側が、今後、上記2．の調査を開始することと同時に、日本側も、1）人的往来の規制解除及び 2）航空チャーター便の規制解除を実施する用意がある旨表明した。なお、双方が措置をとる具体的タイミングについては、今後、日朝間で調整していくこととなった。

**** Here, the two parties are identified as “our side (我が方)” and “the other side (先方)”, thus accentuating the purely unilateral nature of the document. The August document reflects an awareness of this point, calling them the “Japanese side (日本側)” and “North Korean side (北朝鮮側)”.

***** It is telling that Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Socialist Party, is the only party leader anywhere to speak up—in favor in her case—of the understanding. Watch next week’s Japanese tabloids descend on her in a reminder of the Socialist blunder born of supreme indifference that reportedly led to the execution of one of the abductees.

Update on the Liancourt Rocks and a Note on the Asymmetry that Keeps the Peace

Q: In South Korea, the leadership there is very concerned and upset about the U.S. Agency for Geographic Names changing the designation of a small group of islands to undesignated. Has there been any thought to revisiting that? Have you all addressed that, given that the President is going to be there in a few days?
MR. WILDER: We were contacted by the South Korean government at very high levels and asked to re-look at this question. The President directed Secretary Rice to check into this and see exactly what did happen with this change of designation. It was decided after that review that the change in designation was not warranted at this time. And so that database is now being restored to where it was prior to this change in designation, I think which occurred about seven days ago on the database.
We regret that this change in designation was perceived by South Koreans as some sort of change in our policy. Let me be very clear that our policy on this territorial dispute has been firm and consistent since 1952, and that is, we do not take a position on this territorial dispute; that we believe that South Korea and Japan need to work diplomatically to resolve this issue. But it is their issue to resolve.
From July 31 press briefing by Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, Dennis Wilder, on President's Trip to Asia

The story is the same, only the name has been changed to protect President Bush’s trip. The name is the same, only the facts have been changed to protect President Bush’s trip. That and the sanity of the South Korean public. It is perversely flattering in a way to confirm time and time again that we loom so large in the minds of our neighbors, an unrequited hate. It takes an act like launching ballistic missiles over Japanese airspace or revealing the abduction of Japanese nationals for the Koreas to capture the full attention of the Japanese public. This asymmetry in mutual perception—unlike the Japan-China link—must be galling to South Koreans. Good for peace in the region though.

In the meantime, the GEOnet Names Server remains inaccessible.

Mr. Gallegos Speaks Out on the Liancourt Rocks

The following is an excerpt from the July 28 U.S. State Department press briefing by Gonzalo R. Gallegos, Acting Deputy Spokesman:

QUESTION: My question is about Liancourt Rocks. Last week, the Board on Geographic Names changed the name of the country that Liancourt Rocks belonged to - from South Korea or oceans to undesignated sovereignty. Did the State Department give any guidelines to the BGN when they made that decision, like as the State Department did in 1977 when the BGN changed the name of the island from Dokdo, the Korean name, to Liancourt Rocks?

MR. GALLEGOS: I appreciate the question. Somebody posed it at the gaggle this morning, and I have more thorough guidance for you today. And I think it's going to be best if I read through it, because it states clearly that the U.S. position for decades has been to not take a position regarding the sovereignty of the islands in question. As we've said in the past, the question of the sovereignty of these islets is for Japan and Korea to resolve peacefully between themselves. We do not take a position on Korea's claim or Japan's claim to the islands. It's a long-standing dispute, which the two sides have handled with restraint in the past, and we expect that they will continue to do so. We'd welcome any outcome agreed to by both Korea and Japan.

In terms of the name the classification, which you asked about specifically, U.S. position - our position has for decades, and I repeat, been not to take a position regarding the sovereignty, and to use the name Liancourt Rocks to refer to the islands. The placement of Liancourt Rocks under the Board of Geographic Names file designation of undesignated sovereignty has no bearing on the USG's position, which has not changed. The refiling was done to be in conformity with U.S. Government efforts to standardize the filing of all features to which we do not recognize claims of sovereignty. The change to the website does not represent a change in U.S. policy, but rather an action to ensure consistency with that policy.

QUESTION: Did the State Department - was the State Department aware that the BGN would change the classification from South Korea or oceans to undesignated sovereignty?

MR. GALLEGOS: Well, renewed interest in this issue has prompted U.S. Government entities to independently check to make sure that their internal filing and designations regarding these islets are consistent with our policy, so –

Yes.

QUESTION: Just to qualify that, was there any communication with either Japanese or South Korean Governments before the change?

MR. GALLEGOS: I couldn't tell you.

And who wants to know?


ADD: I have been informed that the reporter who popped the question at the morning gaggle (that is the official name of the event, the likely equivalent of the Japanese burasagari) was a Korean.

No comment.

Takeshima/Dokto/Liangcourt…

You win some, you lose some; how it looks depends on where you’re coming from—Tokyo, or...

Toronto? Incidentally, I can’t reach the GEOnet Names Server (GNS). Could it be under a denial-of-service attack? Let us know if you get through.

Does South Korea Support North Korea’s WMD Programs?

This post is a sequel to this Takeshima/Dokto post.

The Chosun Ilbo headline Seoul ‘Could Leave Tokyo in the Cold at Six-Party Talks’ doesn’t quite say it all. To quote from the report:

South Korea’s ambassador to Japan on Thursday warned Seoul could withdraw support for Japan in negotiations with North Korea, including over the abduction of Japanese nationals by the North in the 1970s and 80s, due to Tokyo’s renewed claim to the Dokdo islets. “Seoul has traditionally given Japan a certain degree of support at the six-party talks, especially on the nuclear, missile, and abduction issues,” Kwon Chul-hyun said. But Seoul's position could change, “if public opinion and political voices at home turn against cooperation with Tokyo.”

Let’s leave aside the absurdity of the implication that South Korea can give/withhold support to Japan or anybody else in the Six-Party on issues other than “nuclear, missile, and abductees issues”. I’m not sure exactly how they’ve supported Japanese efforts on the abductees issue, but I don’t really care. I have never expected any sympathy on that subject from a government that has for a long time taken its own more substantial abductees problem off the table to avoid antagonizing the North Korean authorities. Besides, anyone who has been following my blog knows that I am not exactly supportive of the Japanese government’s efforts, albeit for very different reasons.

But “…nuclear, missile…”? The South Koreans are so pissed off that they’ll not only let the North Korean authorities keep their nuclear and missile programs, and keep them pointed at Japan?

At least we all now can be sure that South Koreans do not consider North Korea’s WMD a threat. Thanks for the clarification.


ADD: Amidst the insanity, a voice of reason—President Lee Myung-bak. President Lee called for a long-term strategy on Dokto instead of these one-off, heated responses; while the Foreign Ministry indicated that it would conduct a survey on how Takeshima/Dokto is being treated worldwide. President Lee insisted that his administration continue to cooperate closely in the Six-Party Talks with the other participants, including Japan, on North Korea’s nuclear program. Let’s hope that this does not further erode his public support.

My Response to a South Korean Perspective on Takeshima/Dokto

The other day, I heard a South Korean academic give a talk, where he touched on the most recent flare-up over the small uninhabitable island (including a few non-submerged rocks that break the surface, I understand) is known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokto in South Korea.

For those of you who are not aware of what has been going on, the Japanese decision to include a description of Takeshima as Japanese territory in official instruction material for schoolteachers has caused South Korea to call home its ambassador to Tokyo and cancel a meeting between the respective foreign ministers. The public outcry in South Korea has been substantial, sometimes bordering on the physical, though the disturbance has not been nearly as dramatic as the mass demonstrations in Seoul against the renewal of importation of U.S. beef. This is the first such incident since 2005, when Japan’s Shimane Prefectural Assembly adopted an ordinance—subordinate to but otherwise with the same legal status as national law—designating 2 February as Takeshima Day, setting off a response from the South Korean public and the Roh Moo-hyun administration.*

The academic made two points. First, the Korean public harbors the fear that Japan will use force to seize the island if the opportunity presents itself. This mistrust has its roots in Korean history both modern and ancient, and is shared by intellectuals as well (though he did not harbor such fears himself). Second, Japan should not engage in revisionism. It should not try to change the post-WW II status quo with regard to the Northern Territories, Dokto, and Senkaku (sic**).

My reaction to the oft-heard first point is always one of initial amazement and only partial ultimate comprehension. There is one thing that South Koreans must understand though. The Japanese government is making—had always made—its claims in a peaceful and lawful manner, offering to settle the matter like civilized people at the International Court of Justice. The Japanese government is able to take into consideration the effect on the overall bilateral relationship, to act more reasonably, partly because the Japanese public invests only a small fraction of its emotions in this issue compared to its South Korean public (and partly because of a sense of responsibility towards Japan’s past actions toward Korea). But the disproportionate reaction from South Korea in itself draws Japanese attention to the issue, and the resultant rise in awareness is sure to reflect negatively on South Korea in the minds of the Japanese public. After all, South Korea does have possession, and the instructional material has far harsher words for Russia without any negative reaction whatsoever. Possession under protest may not be nine-tenths of the international law, but it sure helps in the political arena.

As for the second point, revisionism is used to cover historical interpretations that challenge the accepted view of the times. But the Japanese government is not trying to reinterpret history. It has consistently upheld its claims since South Korea drew the Syngman Rhee Line in the Japan Sea in 1951 and forcibly seized Takeshima/Dokto. Even in the adulterated sense of trying to change the status quo, with threat of force if need be—was the professor trying to call the Japanese government revanchist?—it is South Korea that destroyed the status quo, so who exactly is the revisionist then?

Both sides claim Taeshima/Dokto. South Korea has possession, Japan does not. Japan offers to settle the matter in the International Court of Justice, South Korea does not. The governments and the public on both sides of the Japan Sea (South Korea insists on calling it the East Sea, but there is little international support for this change in the—status quo) continue to state their claims. This is the way that it is going to be, forever and ever, and a day.

Can I guarantee that the two nations will not come to blows over this within my lifetime? No, no more than I can guarantee that a wayward asteroid will not strike the Earth and wipe out all humanity within my lifetime. Or that a lone monkey typing away 24-7, 365 1/4 days-a-year for… But you see my point. What I can guarantee, though, is that every time South Korea takes a Japanese reiteration of its territorial claims as a national affront and allows its collective anger to erupt, that infinitesimal chance of such a thing happening grows—albeit imperceptibly.

* The South Korean response appears to have been much stronger then. The U.S. beef incident, as well as to a much, much smaller degree the North Korean shooting of a South Korean tourist, no doubt has sapped much of the negative political energy. But Prime Minister Koizumi, whose trips to Yasukuni had cast a pall on the overall bilateral relationship, is gone.

** Japan, of course, does not intend to change the status quo on the Senkaku Islands, which is already under its possession.

I try to avoid polemics on this blog, though I am often unsuccessful at it. But that particular occasion was unsuited for a proper debate on the matter. (For one thing, the session was devoted mostly to other issues, and the academic’s points came up only in a rather short Q&A.) I’ve decided to put my response here because I think that it is relevant to people who read this blog, some of whom also attended the talk.

For Those of You Who Can’t Get Enough about the East China Sea Deal

The eponymous, multilingual Sun Bin has yet another East China Sea post, this time on the South Korea angle. Mapped, complete with coordinates, properly linked.

Bin is heavy on the facts and analysis, and low on polemics. I guess that’s why his blog receives surprisingly few comments for a China blog of its quality, which is why I’m flagging it as a separate post for visitors who don’t follow the comments on my blog.

The Fix Is in on Delisting North Korea as State Sponsor of Terrorism

Yesterday, the Chief Cabinet Secretary made the announcement, later confirmed by the Foreign Minister, that the North Korean authorities has agreed to reopen investigations regarding abductees and repatriate the remaining four of the nine Japanese radicals who highjacked a plane to North Korea in 1970 and received asylum there and two Japanese wives of theirs, who, together with the highjackers, are accused of playing key roles in the abductions. In return, the Japanese government will be lifting all sanctions on movement of personnel, and will also allow North Korean ships to enter Japanese ports to load humanitarian aid cargo. However, all sanctions on trade—including a total ban on imports from North Korea—as well as the less significant financial sanctions will remain.

To repeat: There is no reasonable scenario short of regime change in North Korea that will close the case. It is highly likely that the remaining eight of the thirteen abductees that the North Korean authorities have confessed to are dead, and just as unlikely that North Korea will be forthcoming even if any of them are alive.* There is also little chance that the North Korean authorities will fess up to the other four abductees that the Japanese government has recognized but the North Korean authorities have denied. On the other hand, it is near impossible for the North Korean authorities to prove that they are telling the truth.

Thus, I do not see the reinvestigation producing anything conclusive in any way. It is no wonder that the families of the remaining abductees show no optimism with regard to the latest turn of events. That lack of enthusiasm is likely to boil over into open displeasure as the process peters out with little to show for it. In terms of domestic politics, there is little to gain for the Fukuda administration, though the negatives down the road will be tempered by waning public interest with the passage of time since the 2002 revelations.

Then why do it? Actually, the Fukuda administration had little choice. The Bush administration is poised to cut a deal with the North Korean authorities that will freeze North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for among other things dropping it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The bus will be leaving, with or without Japan on board, so Mr. Fukuda had to take what he could get. Besides, the main target of the sanctions are programs relating to weapons of mass destruction; it was only in 2006 October, after Shinzo Abe succeeded Junichiro Koizumi as Prime Minister, that the Japanese government added the abductees issue to the justifications.

Some people here will trace this change in tack to the very beginning of the Fukuda administration, when Mr. Fukuda indicated that he would be taking a more conciliatory approach to the issue. Indeed, the Fukuda administration indicated through the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the Foreign Minister that it would ease sanctions commensurate with progress on the abductees issue. It is also true that Mr. Fukuda represents a less hawkish worldview than Mr. Abe, his predecessor as Prime Minister. Moreover, Mr. Fukuda has far less political capital invested in the issue than Mr. Abe, who basically rode that one-trick pony as an obscure sub-cabinet Deputy to Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda to the Prime Minister’s office in just four years’ time.

Thus, the more nationalistic/hawkish elements of the media will blast Mr. Fukuda for making the deal—Sankei has already come out strongly against easing the sanctions. But there was no viable alternative. There is no way that an LDP Prime Minister, whatever his personal inclinations may be, could hope to stand in the way of a nuclear programs deal that the U.S. government is determined to push through without losing face, or worse, just possibly throw the whole process off track by giving a somewhat implausible Congressional coalition of human rights advocates and national security hawks ammunition to cut down the main track agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program. The abductees issue has existed only between the lines in the agreement under the Six-Party Talks. There is no way that the Bush administration, or any U.S. administration for that matter, would allow it to take a front seat to the main issue.**

So the fix is in. Barring deal-breaking snags in the negotiations between the Bush administration and the North Korean authorities—and the devil is truly in the details when it comes to dealing with North Korea—the Fukuda administration will have to live with the political consequences of an unsatisfactory but unavoidable deal.

* It is notable that three of the nine highjack perpetrators reportedly died in North Korea of natural (illness and accident) when they were 35, 42, and 52 years of age respectively. This unusually high mortality rate mirrors that of the deceased abductees. The North Korean authorities claim that eight out of the thirteen that they have admitted to—five were repatriated alive, while the Japanese government recognizes four more missing people as abductees, bringing the total of officially confirmed victims to seventeen—also died of illness and accidents (and natural disasters), all in their twenties, thirties or forties.

** Note that John McCain, who is seen as deeply sympathetic to the plight of the abductees and their families, always makes a clear distinction between the nuclear weapons program and the abductees issue, which he always places in the category of “future talks”. See, for example, the following excerpt from his Foreign Affairs essay.

It is unclear today whether North Korea is truly committed to verifiable denuclearization and a full accounting of all its nuclear materials and facilities, two steps that are necessary before any lasting diplomatic agreement can be reached. Future talks must take into account North Korea's ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation.

Jim Hoagland Swings and Misses Mightily on Hu's Visit

Glocom has kindly posted my commentary on Jim Hoagland’s op-ed on President’s Hu’s visit. Ross thinks that I’ve gone overboard with the “thousand years”, but what the hell, I had fun writing it; must be my mean, pedantic streak kicking in.

Speaking of Japan-China relations, does anybody else remember George Will’s take (click through to the WaPo op-ed) on Yasukuni that he harvested from a trip to Tokyo during the Koizumi administration>? Goes to show, some pundits’ fly-bys are better than others’. I do notice that there was a little more space between his views on South Korea and China than I realized at the time.

See AP Spin the Latest Yasukuni Visit

It’s on the CNN, WaPo, and NYT (but not the BBC) websites under the headline Japanese Officials Visit War Shrine. According to the AP wire:

Eight top government officials and more than 150 lawmakers prayed at the Yasukuni Shrine, which reveres 2.5 million war dead, including executed war criminals, said organizer Yoshinobu Shimamura.

It goes on to say that:

The pilgrimage marking an annual spring festival comes at a sensitive time -- the day after the South Korean president's visit and only two weeks before a planned trip by the Chinese president. Provocative, no?

The AP report does tell you that “Prime Minister Fukuda did not attend”. What it doesn’t tell you, though, is that Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura, and Shigeru Ishiba also didn’t go. Call them the Big Four--the Chinese authorities told the Koizumi administration that if they stayed away, it would be okay with them (if not with the South Koreans). Prime Minister Koizumi wouldn’t listen, but the Abe administration did. So has the Fukuda administration, but that’s no surprise; there aren’t that many people in the LDP to Mr. Fukuda’s left, as far as foreign relations is concerned. No. The real news is that no Cabinet member joined the Yasukuni-fest, and how often do you see that happen?

The Fukuda administration is floundering, and the last thing that it needed was a distraction involving China and South Korea. Unable to do anything about the timing of the spring rites or the two heads-of-state visits aand the Japan leg of the Olympic torch run, Mr. Fukuda must have made sure that no one in his Cabinet － mostly handpicked by Mr. Abe － would step out of line. That's the real story.

And I had thought that wire services were above that sort of trick. Fooled me once.