With hardline voices growing louder in Japan in the aftermath of the “wrong remains” incident, we’re now witnessing a string of Japanese politicians openly calling for the overthrow of Kim Jong-il. First up, we have LDP general secretary Takebe “send the slackers to Iraq” Tsutomu, who actually used the “L” word — liberation — in reference to North Korea:
Tsutomu Takebe, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, suggested Saturday that Japan needs to face North Korea with an eye on “emancipating” its people from the current regime.
“We are now focusing on resolving issues over North Korea, such as abductions (of Japanese citizens), its nuclear and missile programs. Boldly speaking, we should consider how to face it with an eye on its emancipation,” he said on a TV program.
Ok, so it was the “E” word — same difference. He also mentioned the distinct possibility of slapping economic sanctions on North Korea, a move that a Kyodo News opinion polls indicated would enjoy widespread backing from the Japanese public:
In the poll conducted by Kyodo news agency, 75.1 percent of respondents said the government should invoke economic sanctions, while 22.3 percent advocated talks for resolution of outstanding issues with North Korea.
On Thursday, a group of Japanese lawmakers working on the abduction issue issued, led by former Economy and Finance Minister Takeo Hiranuma, also brought up the demise of the Fat Man:
n a related move, a group of lawmakers working to rescue abduction victims urged the government to swiftly decide to impose economic sanctions on North Korea with an eye to breaking off talks with the country.
“There is no other way but to push through sanctions with a view to cutting off Japan-North Korean talks,” the group said in a statement it adopted in an impromptu meeting Thursday afternoon and then handed to Hosoda.
“Rather, we have no choice at this moment but to seek toppling the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il,” it said.
Abe Shinzo, another DLP bigwig, also took pains to remind Pyongyang that regime change is possible:
Japanese sanctions on North Korea would have a severe impact on the reclusive communist regime, and could ultimately topple dictator Kim Jong Il if China joined in pressuring Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program, a key ruling party official said Sunday.
Shinzo Abe said Kim could avoid being deposed by following the example of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who a year ago said his country would dismantle its programs for weapons of mass destruction and allow U.N., American and British inspectors to visit the facilities.
“If he doesn’t make that choice, then there could be regime change. He must realize this,” Abe said on a TV Asahi debate program.
Abe, the acting secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, did not elaborate on how Kim might be removed from power.
Abe was the guy who said in late November that Japan needed to run simulations predicated on regime change in North Korea.
It surprises me none that Abe and Takeo would be running their mouths off, but their comments are bound to draw more attention given the recent changes in Japanese defense policy — which have singled out China and North Korea as threats — and news today that U.S. and Japanese military planners have a joint-operational plan (drawn up in 2002) to deal with an emergency on the Korean Peninsula. And, for that matter, plans — which have been shelved for now — to develop long-range guided missiles. Now, personally, I welcome the new Japanese defense guidelines, but the point to remember here is that Beijing, North Korea and even Seoul are going to sensitive to them, and with that in the background, the recent round of comments cited above are going to draw more fire than they ordinarilly would.
By the way, Joe Jones over at Nichi Nichi offers some comments about Japan’s new defense policies that are worth reading.
20 Comments
Getting tough? It’s about time.
It’s about time, yeah. But for all the wrong reasons. Japanese could care less about “liberating” North Koreans. They are angry at North Korea, not because of what North Korea has been doing (developing nukes, repressing its citizens), but because of a dozen or so Japanese citizens getting kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970’s. It’s too bad that the Japanese government don’t show the same amount of outrage about 200,000 Korean women who were fooled/kidnapped into battle fields to serve Japanese soldiers in the front.
Japan’s New Defense Strategy
The Marmot Hole notes that the Japanese are, uh, vexed with the North Koreans.
I’ll be interested to read your reports (if any) of the reactions of ROK political leaders (both those in — and out — of office) to these possible Japanese moves to “get tough” towards NorK.
It’s hard enough for ROK politicians to “triangulate” between the US and NorK — now they have to do it between Japan and NorK too? I hope their heads don’t explode.
Kimbob: You really think the primary consideration for thoughtful Japanese is not the NorK nuclear threat? In spite of their refusal to acknowldedge the past, I don’t think the Japanese are going to be coming back for more “comfort women”; the current threat to Korean women seems to be an internal one (see next M’s next post, immediately above).
Paul, I never said Japanese are coming back for more comfort women. My point was that Japan’s official position was to make peace with North Korea (not too different from South Korea’s sunshine policy). That was before Koizumi went to North Korea and Kim Jong Il admitted kidnapping the Japanese. Before Koizumi went to North Korea, Japan was ready to sign a peace treaty with North Korea. Of course, the Japanese public turned 180 degrees when North Korea sent false remains of a kidnapped Japanese woman who was abducted in the 70’s. Japan has never played hardball with North Korea until now, why? For decades during the Cold War, North Koreans used Japan as a carrier to launch spy missions into South Korea. Japan did little to stop that, as North Korean organizations thrived in Japan. I have a hard time believing that Japan really cares about “liberating” North Koreans. Yes they care about liberating couple of dozen Japanese citizen hostages, but North Koreans? You got to be joking me. If you really believe that that’s Japan’s noble goal, then my name is Santa Clause.
“For decades during the Cold War, North Koreans used Japan as a carrier to launch spy missions into South Korea. Japan did little to stop that, as North Korean organizations thrived in Japan. I have a hard time believing that Japan really cares about ?€œliberating?€? North Koreans.”
Where to start? Different times, different people in charge. The Cold War. A much weaker, less confident Japan. A North Korea without missiles that it launches over the country. Exasperation with the run-around. A new-found resolve in some countries to deal with rogue states. Koizumi as PM, who is on the hawkish side, following decades of weak individuals as PM (as a result of the nature of post-war Japanese politics).
BTW, Abe is not “running his mouth”. He had a high position in the Koizumi administration until recently, and was the administration’s man in charge with dealing with NK. He still occupies an influential behind-the-scenes role.
It’s about time someone showed some sac in this neighborhood. Let’s face it, the 1998 missile fired over Japan focused their attention nicely (not “1988″ in James Brook’s IHT/NYT article of Saturday - good journalism there). Now if we can get Noh “How Can I Appease Today?” Moo Hyun on the same page we might see some progress. Don’t hold your breath.
Retarded. Simply retarded. When NK threatens to build nukes we bendover backwards to give them aid. When KJI, for the first time in his life, tells the truth about Japanese kidnap victims, we cut aid. We have a reverse stick and carrot strategy: When Jong Il says “f&*k YOU Yankee Slime!” we give him a big hug and a bottle of Hennessy XO. When he says, “I screwed up!” We talk about regime change.
We might as well give him one of our Minutemen missiles. Take it out of the silo, polish it, paint a bright red star and put a shiny red bow for Christmas.
It seems to me that we have learned the NK newspeak so well that we are beginning to behave like them.
“When KJI, for the first time in his life, tells the truth about Japanese kidnap victims, we cut aid.”
Excuse me, but I think you might not be paying attention. The governments of NK and Japan made a deal for Japanese aid on the condition of greater honesty in the abduction issue (despite admitting to the abductions and releasing three families, the lies outweighted the truths. Such as bogus death certificates, etc.)
The case that has most captured the imagination of the Japanese public is that of a 13-year-old girl who was kidnapped and the North said committed suicide. As part of the last deal, the North handed over her cremated bones. Japan gave the first part of the aid, and made the second part of the aid conditional on NK cooperation.
It turns out that the bones had been burned twice, which makes DNA verification more difficult. But the Japanese still managed to verify that the bones turned over were not those of the woman in question. It is not hard to see that NK thought they could put one over on the Japanese again–after all, they got away with fake bones two years ago.
If you want to call this honesty, that’s your choice, but I think most people in the world recognize slime when they see it, and no one would expect the Japanese to continue forking over aid for it.
Ther are a couple of other interesting links out there, too. Apparently the Japanese government is going to be conducting joint exercises with the Aussies, has approved (limited) arms sales to the US, among other things.
The ROK has every reason to be nervous about Japan getting involved. Japan is a peaceful democracy, but Japan is going to look out after its own interests, not those of the ROK, and not those of people in Seoul. If the ROK thought that their interests and US interests diverged sometimes, wait until they get a load of this. (Of course, some might argue that the South Korean triangulation has helped worry the Japanese into considering how to “take matters into their own hands.”)
BS, you wrote, “The governments of NK and Japan made a deal for Japanese aid on the condition of greater honesty in the abduction issue”
I can’t remember the last time NK ever admitted any truth aside from the time when they actually handed over to the Japanese authorities a handful of Japanese nationals.
Japanese people don’t really have a greater perspective when it comes to North Korea. NK has kidnapped hundreds if not thousands of SK nationals. For years and years SK had a “tough” stance on NK, and how many of them do you think gets returned? During this time period, NK has been saying that all this talk of Japanese kidnap victims were capitalist propaganda. People like Kim Myong Chul was saying, quite convincingly, that NK had NO reason to kidnap Japanese nationals to train their spies, because there were plenty of ethnic Korean Japanese zainichi sympathizers who could do that. Of course, we all know Kim Myul Chul is full of crap.
But the point is that for some unknown reason KJI finally told the truth that his government has kidnapped Japanese nationals. When I heard this news, I was shocked. Frankly, I thuoght that maybe KJI really was interested in reforming his decript regime.
If Japan ever gets Megumi back, you would make a believer out of me. But you know and I know only way KJI will ever return Megumi is after he puts a bullet in her head first.
Please read what Dr.Lankov has to say at NKzone:
http://www.nkzone.org/nkzone/e.....p#comments
For decades Japan was silent on this issue. In fact, not only was it silent, it willingly sought a equal relationship between PyongYang and Seoul. Now that the United States wants a militarized Japan, Koizumi fans the flames of fear. Well, maybe the world needs a militarized Japan, who knows?
But you tell me. Why should KJI ever tell the truth about anything, when he knows that he will be rewarded for lying and punished for telling the truth. So far, the Japanese public has been very kind and generous in aiding NK. But that was before Megumi became an issue. Now that she became an issue, Japan is militarizing. If NK said from the beginning, there was no kidnapping ever, then I wonder if Koizumi could have raised enough political capital to build his Army. ahh.. what do I care if Koizumi insists on going into Iraq? Maybe he’ll do some good.
VW - the unknown reason Kim admitted to the kidnappings was most likely a desire to mend fences with Japan in order to get into talks for War Reparations…. South Korea was already paid by the Japanese, but not North Korea. With the collapsed NK economy, Japanese Reparations would be a huge cash prize; and according to NK logic big cash prizes are need to restart the economy.
Now that the Japanese situation ended up a mess, guess where the new big cash prize is? The US paying the NK govt billions to not sell nuclear bombs.
OR selling nuclear bombs. :-\
Hi Neocon,
Absolutely you are right. I have no doubt that KJI wasn’t having some sort of a “road to Damascus” moment here. Too bad, though, we haven’t learned the lesson of the Pavlov’s dog.
The US is very happy not to defuse tensions between NK and Japan and for so long a time / doing so and making Japanese “pissed” justify the presence of US military bases in Japan and Okinawa/ the abductees story is so irrational that it looks like a typical US induced Neo-cons trap in this particular area (with a mark of Dough Feith) to make the situation even worst between both Japan and NK
is the neocon -like -trap possible or plausible? I mean that the abductees stories could have been organized or induced by the CIA from Japan or from NK or SKorea for the obvious purpose to add more tensions between NK and Japan/
wish someone to tell me if this is totally absurd,irrational ,not feasable or whatelse/
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