[Cankor] Report #211

[cankor at cankor.ca]

Dear subscriber,

Welcome to issue #211 of the CanKor Report.

For articles not original to CanKor, direct links are available in the
Contents section, should you wish to consult the originals on the internet.
If the links no longer function, you may refer to the full text articles
appended to the issue.

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The CanKor team

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CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 211

Monday, 27 June 2005

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The first class at a Canadian NGO-sponsored Canada-Korea Computer Graphics 
Design Institute (CKCGDI) in Pyongyang graduated after a three-year course 
taught by Canadian teachers. A capacity-building development project of the 
Canadian NGO Global Aid Network (GAiN), the school was inaugurated in the 
fall of 2002.



A recent survey shows that 42% of South Koreans believe that war is possible 
on the Korean peninsula, although 41% have no intention of going into battle 
if a war broke out. Younger respondents were found to be less sensitive to 
war, while older Koreans put their confidence in economic development.



A British documentary on two North Korean female gymnasts whose purpose in 
life is to glorify their country's leader Kim Jong Il will open in 12 US 
cities in August. The film "A State of Mind" treats its subjects with a 
striking balance of Western and North Korean perspectives. Critics call it 
part of Pyongyang's "charm offensive" that also includes unprecedented 
access by top American and other Western media to DPRK venues.



Three papers are featured in this week's OPINION section: CanKor Editor 
Erich Weingartner writes about the need to "re-frame" the Korean conflict in 
order to create movement in negotiations on the nuclear issue. Donald Gregg 
and Don Oberdorfer believe that there is currently a rare opportunity for 
the USA to regain momentum by sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to 
Pyongyang. The International Crisis Group encourages Japan to normalize 
relations with the DPRK as an incentive to end its nuclear programmes.

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Contents:

1.        GRADUATION AT CANADIAN GRAPHICS DESIGN SCHOOL

Direct from the DPRK Permanent Mission to the United Nations

2.        42% OF KOREANS SAY ANOTHER WAR IS POSSIBLE

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200506/24/200506242326421109900090409041.html

3.        FILM STRIKES RARE BALANCE ON DPRK

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/10/AR2005061002095.html



OPINION

4.        REFRAMING THE US-DPRK CONFLICT

http://www.peaceforum.or.kr/eng/PReport/boardview.asp?bid=eng_enkv&bidx=1325&bpg=1

5.        A MOMENT TO SEIZE WITH NORTH KOREA

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200506/kt2005062316133954300.htm

6.        JAPAN AND NORTH KOREA: BONES OF CONTENTION

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=3533&m=1

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1.        GRADUATION AT CANADIAN GRAPHICS DESIGN SCHOOL

DPRK UN Mission Press Release, 23 June 2005



The first-term graduation ceremony of the DPRK-Canada Computer Design 
Training Centre was held at the Korean Computer Centre today. Present there 
were Han U Chol, director general of the Korean Computer Centre, officials 
concerned, trainees and employees there.

Also on hand were members of the delegation of the Global Aid Network of 
Canada (GAiN) led by William Blaney, chief executive officer, and Canadian 
teachers staying here.

Congratulatory speeches and addresses of graduates were made at the 
ceremony. Then diplomas were awarded to the graduates. Participants went 
round files presented by the first-term graduates.

Established in 2002 with the aid of the GAiN, the centre trains experts on 
the computer designing in close cooperation with the Korean Computer Centre.

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2.        42% OF KOREANS SAY ANOTHER WAR IS POSSIBLE

by Shin Chang-un, Bae Young-dae, Joong Ang Ilbo, 25 June 2005



According to a poll by the Joong-Ang Ilbo, 42% of South Koreans say they 
believe another war could take place on the Korean Peninsula, with many 
believing North Korea and the United States would be responsible for it. 
Marking the 55th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, the 
newspaper conducted a random telephone survey of 767 men and women over 18 
years old. The respondents include 189 persons in their 20s, 179 in their 
30s, 169 in their 40s and 230 older than 50. With a confidence level of 95%, 
the poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Among those who said another war is possible, 49% said the North will likely 
be responsible for a second Korean War, while 37% picked the United States. 
The survey asked respondents if they knew what year the Korean War started. 
Two thirds gave the correct answer: 1950. Among those in their 20s, only 46% 
knew the year.

Asked who was responsible for the war, 66% said North Korea started the war 
while 14% said North Korea and the Soviet Union were jointly responsible. 
Another 11% said the United States and the Soviet Union started the war 
together. None said South Korea, or the United States and South Korea 
together, were responsible for starting the war.

The younger the respondents the less they expressed the view that North 
Korea had started the war. Among those in their 20s, 45% said the North was 
solely responsible, while 61% of those in their 30s blamed the North along 
with 74% of those in their 40s and 82% of those older than 50.

Asked if another Korean War could break out on the peninsula, 56% said no, 
despite the current nuclear crisis. Among those older than 50, 63% said 
another Korean War is unlikely compared with 51% of those in their 20s. 
Among those polled, 58% said they would fight if another Korean War broke 
out, but 41% said they have no intention of going into battle.

Among those surveyed who were in their 20s, 58% said they are willing to 
fight in a war. The polls said 54% of those in their 30s, 66% in their 40s 
and 54% older than 50 said they will fight for their country if a second 
Korean War breaks out.

Asked what the Korean War reminds them of, those in their 20s and 30s said 
the Korean War reminded them of a fight between Koreans. Those in their 40s 
said the war reminded them of tragedy, and those over 50 said the war 
reminded them of refugees.

"The poll shows that those in their 20s, 30s and 40s are less sensitive to 
war, while those older than 50 are expressing confidence about economic 
development," said Kim Il-young, a professor of politics at Sungkyunkwan 
University in Seoul.

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3.        FILM STRIKES RARE BALANCE ON DPRK

by Anthony Faiola (with Joohee Cho), Washington Post, 11 June 2005



When a crowd gathered one evening in April at the grand New York store of 
the Italian fashion house Prada, the main event had nothing to do with 
catwalks or new collections. Instead, the guests sat down and watched the US 
debut of a very unusual film, a British documentary on two North Korean 
gymnasts whose purpose in life is to glorify their country's leader, Kim 
Jong Il. "A State of Mind," screened at the store during the 2005 Tribeca 
Film Festival, will open in theatres in 12 American cities in August. The 
film will begin a showing in Washington in the fall.

As part of a major counteroffensive by secretive North Korea against its 
portrayal abroad as a fiendish nuclear state, officials in the capital, 
Pyongyang, offered rare cooperation to the film's director, Daniel Gordon. 
They let his cameras track the two girls from day to day for a 93-minute 
work that treats its subjects with a striking balance of Western and North 
Korean perspectives.

The normally bombastic North, which has long threatened to turn Seoul, the 
South Korean capital, into a "sea of fire" and to "crush the American dogs," 
is launching what may be its most difficult global mission yet -- a charm 
offensive.

"They have been called part of the axis of evil, they have been called drug 
traffickers and counterfeiters -- clearly, North Korea has an image 
problem," said Jeong Dae Yeon, a board member of the Seoul-based citizens' 
group Korean People's Solidarity, which advocates engagement with the North. 
"Now, they are actively trying to do something to counter that impression."

This week, North Korea granted rare access to an ABC News crew headed by Bob 
Woodruff for the first extended visit by a US news organization since 
then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright's visit in October 2000. ABC's 
reports have so far included a human interest piece about North Korean views 
on America and an interview with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye 
Gwan, who issued assurances that his nation, while nuclear-armed, had "no 
intention at all of attacking the US."

An organization with close ties to the Pyongyang government has opened a 
restaurant in Cambodia to promote North Korean culture through singing 
waitresses and traditional meals, including a popular soup of cold vinegar 
noodles. The North Koreans have also launched a Web site 
(http://www.dprkorea.com), which offers Internet users the chance to 
download North Korean cartoons as well as helpful tips on taekwondo, the 
popular Korean martial art.

The Pyongyang government has been especially assiduous about trying to charm 
South Koreans, who are in the midst of a major detente with the North. Cho 
Myung Ae, a celebrated North Korean dancer, has been permitted to appear in 
ads for the South Korean electronics giant Samsung. And last week, North 
Korea agreed to make a joint bid with the South to co-host the 2014 Asian 
Games.

These moves have been accompanied by major diplomatic initiatives. Late last 
year, North Korea reopened its closed embassy in Mongolia and is now engaged 
in talks on resuming the practice of sending North Koreans to work there, 
according to a Mongolian official in Ulan Bator. Last month alone, 
dignitaries from Russia, Mongolia, Guinea, the Czech Republic, Egypt, 
Nigeria, Libya and Laos visited North Korea, according to the country's 
official KCNA news service.

The outreach remains a far cry from North Korea's propaganda glory days in 
the 1970s and 1980s. Financially backed by the Soviet Union, Pyongyang 
opened information centres in Latin America and Africa, most of which have 
since closed because of the North's dire economic problems.

So far, the new moves have done little to change North Korea's reliance 
primarily on two countries -- China and South Korea -- for survival. But 
strengthened diplomatic ties with other Asian countries have led to a 
crackdown on North Korean refugees attempting to use those countries as way 
stations to reach South Korea, according to refugee aid groups.

"The refugees have become like mice being ushered into a corner," said a 
South Korean-based refugee activist who asked not to be named because his 
efforts are considered illegal in some of the countries he works in. 
"Chinese authorities are clamping down on them. The routes to freedom via 
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are being blocked after North Korea complained to 
its old-time allies. So now, many of them are fleeing to Mongolia, but that, 
too, may close up soon."

Few of the charm attempts, however, have been as fascinating as the film "A 
State of Mind." Gordon, formerly a British television sports journalist, won 
backing from the BBC and New York City's PBS affiliate, WNET, to make the 
$600,000 documentary. It was his second about North Korea - in 2002, he made 
"The Game of Their Lives," a film about North Korea's surprisingly strong 
1966 World Cup soccer team. The film never had a theatrical release in the 
United States.

Gordon, 32, won the North Koreans' trust with the help of his associate 
producer, Nicholas Bonner, who since 1993 has run a Beijing-based company 
that takes tourists into North Korea. Rather than propaganda, Gordon said in 
a telephone interview from London, the new film "is a neutral take on North 
Korea."

The movie indeed offers a rare glimpse into an opaque world, letting North 
Koreans have their say while illustrating the hardships of their lives in a 
manner almost never permitted by the Pyongyang government. The families of 
the two young gymnasts -- one 11, the other 13 -- are shown eating meals by 
candlelight because of electricity shortages. Not surprisingly, the United 
States bears the brunt of North Korean displeasure in the film. One North 
Korean mother coping with blackouts is quick to blame the nation's adversity 
on "the bloody Americans."

The film documents North Koreans' extraordinary devotion to Kim, who is 
viewed in the country as a semi-religious figure. He is kept at the centre 
of national life through everything from propaganda cartoons for children to 
state radio broadcasts in every home. The film shows how the volume on 
radios in North Korea homes can be lowered but not turned off.

Gordon said that the North Koreans feel misunderstood and that their 
permission to make the film was, in part, a way for them to show their 
"human side, to get beyond the goose-stepping soldiers." They "never tried 
to control or censor" the film crew during the six-month shoot in 2003, he 
said, although there were ground rules. Ubiquitous portraits of Kim Jong Il 
and his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, for example, could not be 
shown partly obscured.

"But those would have been the same ground rules if we were shooting in the 
Vatican," Gordon said, suggesting that deep respect would have to be shown 
there as well.

The film does not let Kim Jong Il off lightly. After countless days of hard 
training by the two girls for the Mass Games -- a North Korean spectacle of 
gymnastics and theatrics to honour Kim -- the film shows that Kim did not 
even turn up to watch the performance. Perhaps for this reason, the film was 
screened for the Communist Party elite in Pyongyang, but Gordon is still 
trying to win approval from North Korean officials to broadcast it on the 
nation's single network, which is run by the government.

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OPINION



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4.        REFRAMING THE US-DPRK CONFLICT

by Erich Weingartner, Editor, CanKor, 27 June 2005

[Weingartner is Editor-in-Chief of the CanKor Virtual ThinkNet on Korean 
Peace and Security. He lived and worked in the DPRK from 1997 to 1999 as 
founding head of the WFP Food Aid Liaison Unit (FALU).]



On the fifth anniversary of the North-South Korean Summit-or what DPR 
Koreans like to refer to as the "June 15th Joint Declaration"-many entertain 
doubts about the wisdom of ROK ex-President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine 
policy." The sun is once again covered in clouds of conflict, more dangerous 
than at any time in the past 60 years.

The finger of blame is most often pointed at North Korea -with good reason. 
It is not easy to form a relationship with the DPRK, even when your 
objectives are purely humanitarian. Over the past few years much more has 
been learned about human rights violations, the existence of labour camps, 
and the continuing flow of defectors, refugees and migrants fleeing into 
China and South Korea for economic and political reasons. The DPRK quit the 
nuclear non-proliferation regime, restarted its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, 
reprocessed its spent fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium, and recently 
declared itself a nuclear power.

But does the DPRK deserve all the blame? There is surely enough blame to 
share on all sides, not least the way the current Washington administration 
has handled what five years ago seemed an increasingly hopeful scenario. The 
six-party process that was intended to eliminate North Korea 's nuclear 
weapons programmes has come to a standstill, with the USA demanding 
compliance to complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement before any 
real negotiations are to begin. Is anyone surprised that the DPRK has 
rejected this premise, demanding instead security guarantees and a 
step-by-step negotiated approach?

Security and peace cannot be achieved by playing the blame game. Even an 
introductory course in conflict resolution will identify this as a 
power-based, adversarial contest -- one in which resources are used to 
coerce or intimidate the other side in order to get them to comply with your 
demands. This is a win-or-lose proposition. In game theory it is called a 
"tit-for-tat" challenge. There is no peaceful end to such a contest, unless 
one side capitulates. And that, as even President Bush must now realize, is 
not going to happen in Korea, even if you add bargaining with carrots and 
sticks.

Another approach is to turn the power-based challenge into a rights-based 
challenge. This is done by appealing to an external source of authority, 
like the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, or in worst cases, the 
UN Security Council. But a rights-based contest is still a win-lose-contest, 
and in the end, someone has to apply force to make one of the parties 
comply.

Simply vanquishing the other side doesn't necessarily solve the problem, 
especially if you have to continue to live with the enemy. As we have 
learned from the war in Iraq, sometimes winners need happy losers. Peoples 
and nations that lose have a tendency to retaliate. Furthermore, the greater 
the intensity of interdependence, the greater is the need for mutually 
consensual solutions. Is anybody really surprised that South Koreans prefer 
a negotiated solution?

Negotiation is a tool to arrive at a solution that satisfies each 
disputant's interest. Each has to feel that their own needs are met. 
Negotiation is an interest-based, non-adversarial approach that seeks to 
appeal to each side's enlightened self-interest. It seeks a reconciliation 
of those interests. This approach is often wrongly labelled "condoning, 
appeasing, or capitulating," or in George Bush's vocabulary, "rewarding bad 
behaviour".

It is nothing of the sort. If anything, the current power-based approach 
used by the USA has rewarded the DPRK with a fully functioning, unverifiable 
nuclear weapons programme -- the exact opposite of what it was supposed to 
achieve.

What is necessary at this point is to re-frame the Korean conflict. A frame 
is the perception of a conflict situation that causes the perceiver to make 
assumptions and interpretations about what is true in the conflict and about 
what solutions are possible. Since so little information is available about 
North Korean facts, figures, actions and intentions, our frame becomes more 
important than reality.

Our assumptions lead us to use emotive trigger words such as "Stalinist, 
authoritarian, totalitarian, despotic, and tyrannical." These adjectives 
focus on negative perceptions of reality. A frame based on these perceptions 
inevitably leads to pessimism about the prospects of finding a solution. The 
shared interests that are so essential to negotiation become invisible. An 
adversarial frame tends to divert attention from one's own real interests by 
creating another interest, namely surviving or winning.

Isn't that what we have now in the six-party framework? The DPRK wants to 
survive, and the USA wants to win. The question that needs to be asked is, 
"What do we really want to happen on the Korean peninsula? What are our 
interests?" Questions like this require a "re-framing" of the conflict.

Re-framing means changing one's perception of a conflict situation so as to 
see new possibilities about what may be true and about how it may be 
resolved.

We cannot choose the facts. They are what they are. It is the facts that 
make us feel helpless. But we can change our frame. However we choose to 
evaluate the "sunshine policy" five years later, it was a successful 
re-framing exercise that opened possibilities that were unthinkable before.

Civil society can play a vital role in re-framing the current conflict, 
especially now that the sun no longer shines. Re-framing is not an escape 
from reality. It is a conscious effort to return to reality. It requires 
communication, dialogue, learning and teaching, refusing to walk away when 
the going gets tough, engaging without illusion for the purpose of 
influencing outcomes. These may be viewed as very small steps, but this is a 
very long-term problem. And as we have learned from the six-party process, 
any step is better than no step at all.

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5.        A MOMENT TO SEIZE WITH NORTH KOREA

by Donald Gregg and Don Oberdorfer, Washington Post, 22 June 2005

[Gregg, a former US ambassador to South Korea, is president of the Korea 
Society. Oberdorfer, a former diplomatic correspondent for the Washington 
Post, is journalist-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze 
School of Advanced International Studies.]



North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's remarkable statements to a South Korean 
envoy last Friday present a rare opportunity to move promptly toward ending 
the dangerous nuclear proliferation crisis in Northeast Asia. The Bush 
administration should seize the moment.

The reclusive leader told South Korea's minister of unification, Chung Dong 
Young, that he is willing to return to the six-nation talks on his nuclear 
weapons program if the United States "recognizes and respects" his country. 
More than that, according to Chung, he raised the prospect of reversing his 
burgeoning nuclear program, rejoining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 
which he abandoned two years ago, and welcoming back UN nuclear inspectors 
in return for a credible security guarantee.

The US national interest as well as the interests of our Asian partners in 
the talks -- all of whom favour much greater US engagement with North 
Korea -- call for a positive response from Washington. This would be 
particularly welcome in Seoul, which both of us visited last week.

For starters, we suggest that President Bush, after touching base with our 
Asian partners -- South Korea, China, Japan and Russia -- communicate 
directly with Kim Jong Il to follow up on his remarks. He might consider 
offering to send Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill and Ambassador 
Joseph DeTrani to Pyongyang to prepare for a visit to Kim by Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice. The purpose would be to explore the policies behind 
Kim's words to determine whether practical arrangements can be made, subject 
to approval by our partners in the six-nation talks, to end the dangerous 
North Korean nuclear program.

In efforts to reassure North Korea, the United States has repeatedly 
declared that it recognizes North Korean sovereignty, has no hostile intent 
and is willing to arrange security guarantees and move toward normal 
relations with Pyongyang once the nuclear issue is resolved. Kim's remarks 
present a golden opportunity to take the US offers to the one and only 
person in North Korea who has the power of decision.

According to those who have met him personally in the past -- including 
former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former South Korean president 
Kim Dae Jung and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi -- Kim is more 
flexible than anyone else in his government. That is not surprising, since 
he sets the line and others must follow.

As we well know, this is not the first time that Kim has sought engagement 
rather than hostility with President Bush, whom he discussed in surprisingly 
positive terms last Friday. During a visit we made to Pyongyang in November 
2002 following a nuclear-related trip by Assistant Secretary of State James 
Kelly, we were given a written personal message from Kim to Bush declaring: 
"If the United States recognizes our sovereignty and assures non-aggression, 
it is our view that we should be able to find a way to resolve the nuclear 
issue in compliance with the demands of a new century." Further, he 
declared, "If the United States makes a bold decision, we will respond 
accordingly."

We took the message to senior officials at the White House and State 
Department and urged the administration to follow up on Kim's initiative, 
which we have not made public until now. Then deep in secret planning and a 
campaign of public persuasion for the invasion of Iraq, the administration 
spurned engagement with North Korea. Kim moved within weeks to expel the 
inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, withdraw from 
the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reopen the plutonium-producing facilities 
that had been shut down since 1994 under an agreement negotiated with the 
Clinton administration.

Now the North Koreans are believed to have produced the raw material for at 
least a half-dozen nuclear weapons and many believe their claim to have 
fabricated the weapons themselves. Early this year North Korea declared that 
it has become "a full-fledged nuclear weapons state" and that it is working 
to produce still more atomic arms, all in response to US hostility.

Kim's statements in Pyongyang Friday may be a sign that he is uncomfortable 
with persistent pressure from the United States and his Asian neighbours to 
return to the six-nation talks, which he left a year ago. He may also be 
feeling the pinch of deepening food shortages in his country. By reversing 
his nuclear program in return for the guarantees he seeks, Kim could avert 
stronger measures being discussed in Washington and other capitals to force 
the issue. These measures, in our judgment, promise only greater 
confrontation and growing danger on all sides.

By visiting Pyongyang and engaging Kim, Rice would not be condoning North 
Korea's human rights practices. The State Department has made clear that 
human rights is an issue to be resolved in negotiations on establishing full 
US relations, not in talks on the nuclear question.

If she responds to Kim's latest statements with a well-prepared visit and 
successful negotiations, Rice will have earned her spurs as America's chief 
diplomat.

*************************************************



6.        JAPAN AND NORTH KOREA: BONES OF CONTENTION

International Crisis Group, Seoul/Brussels, 27 June 2005



Since North Korea badly needs help to revive its economy, the prospect of 
normalized relations with Japan is a leading incentive that could be offered 
in a deal to end its nuclear programs.

Japan and North Korea: Bones of Contention, the latest report from the 
International Crisis Group, examines the deteriorating ties between the two 
countries and argues that normalized relations would be in the interests of 
both states provided it occurs in the context of a solution to the nuclear 
problem. For Japan, it would help preserve North East Asian security and 
represent one more step toward closure for wartime misdeeds. For North 
Korea, it would potentially produce a key economic infusion for reviving its 
moribund economy.

"The prospect of better relations and stronger economic ties with Japan is 
one of the best inducements available to encourage Pyongyang to end its 
nuclear programs", says Peter Beck, Crisis Group's North East Asia Project 
Director.

However, while the nuclear issue is more significant for Japanese and East 
Asian security, Japan's public is focused on the abductions issue. Thus, 
Tokyo will not have full freedom to negotiate on the nuclear issue until it 
can satisfy its public the abduction problem has been resolved or at least 
will be resolved in parallel.

The North Korean nuclear threat is usually cited as the primary motivation 
for the ongoing changes in Japan's military posture, but in reality these 
changes are part of the country's re-evaluation of its regional role.

Japan's long-term military strategy can best be understood as increasing its 
military responsibilities within the context of its alliance with 
Washington. As long as the US retains a forward posture in the Asia-Pacific 
region, Japan is likely to remain its closest ally there and eschew 
independent nuclear capabilities. North Korea's nuclear threat will not 
directly change this.

"Ultimately, Japan cannot move independently of developments in US-North 
Korea relations", says Robert Templer, Director of Crisis Group's Asia 
Program. "But as prospects improve for resuming the nuclear talks, Japan 
should both dangle the carrot of normalized relations and be prepared to 
wield the stick of sanctions".



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

[The full ICG report can be found at: http://www.crisisgroup.org]



Relations between Japan and North Korea continue to deteriorate due to 
concerns over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and past abductions of 
Japanese citizens. Nearly a decade and a half of efforts at normalizing 
relations between the countries have faltered due to Pyongyang's 
unwillingness to give up that program or come clean over the abductions. For 
Japan, normalization would help preserve regional stability and represent 
one more step toward closure on its wartime history; for North Korea, it 
would potentially produce the single greatest economic infusion for reviving 
its moribund economy. Indeed, the prospect of normalization with Japan is 
one of the leading incentives that can be offered to North Korea in a deal 
to end the North's nuclear programs.

North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile development, along with its 
history of infiltrating agents into Japan, have elevated the country's 
importance in Japanese defence planning, particularly after it tested a 
missile that over-flew Japan in August 1998. The North Korean threat has 
been cited as justification for missile defence and satellite development, 
constitutional revisions, and reinvigoration of the military alliance with 
the US. In fact, Japan's military posture is moving away from homeland 
defence towards readily deployable forces, although to date they have 
assumed non-combat-related roles.

While the nuclear issue is the paramount concern of policy-makers and 
security experts, the abduction issue is the primary focus of the Japanese 
public. Consequently, the government will not have full freedom to negotiate 
on the nuclear issue until it can satisfy its public that the abduction 
problem has been resolved or at least will be resolved in parallel. 
Conciliatory gestures by the North on the abduction dispute have backfired, 
particularly when claims that cremated remains were from one of the victims 
were said to be false. The techniques used to test the remains have come 
under fire from independent experts, further complicating the issue. A 
solution remains elusive, as it is unclear whether North Korea can make a 
sufficient accounting of its past crimes to appease Japanese public opinion. 
The North must do better in providing a full accounting, but ultimately it 
will also take an act of political will by the Japanese government to 
conclude the wrangling over the issue.

Politicians and civic groups opposed to normalization have seized on the 
abduction issue to push for sanctions against Pyongyang. Policy-makers, 
however, remain reluctant. The low and declining volume of bilateral trade 
calls into question how effective such sanctions would be in inducing a 
change in North Korean behaviour, while imposing them would reduce Tokyo's 
leverage. Thus, unilateral sanctions are unlikely, though Japan would 
probably go along with any multilateral program. For now, Tokyo is content 
with "virtual" sanctions, new regulations which have the effect of 
restricting access to Japanese ports by North Korean vessels.

The pro-Pyongyang organization for Korean-Japanese, Chosen Soren, continues 
to play a role in bilateral relations, although it has been shrinking in 
both numbers and economic influence. Often pointed to as a key source of 
foreign currency for the Kim Jong-il regime, the amounts sent have been 
steadily declining, while the government has tightened regulations. 
Nonetheless, a combination of resentment at discrimination, ethnic pride and 
institutional momentum keep Chosen Soren alive. Given North Korea's failed 
economy and international pariah status, as well as the social 
discrimination which Koreans in Japan face by identifying themselves with 
North Korea, the decline of Chosen Soren is perhaps less surprising than its 
continued relevance.

While the Japanese government is deeply concerned about North Korea's 
nuclear weapons, there is an overwhelming consensus in Japan that it would 
not pursue its own nuclear option, at least in the short to medium term. As 
long as the US nuclear umbrella is credible, a nuclear capability would have 
more costs than benefits for Tokyo.

As prospects improve for resuming the nuclear talks, Japan should both 
dangle the carrot of normalized relations and be prepared to wield the stick 
of sanctions. To win public support for such an approach, it will need to 
present North Korea with clear guidelines for what must be done to solve the 
abduction issue. Showing how much normal relations with Japan could help 
North Korea if these two issues were resolved may be the best way for Japan 
to play a major role in finally bringing Pyongyang's nuclear threat to an 
end.

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End CanKor # 211



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