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Motofumi Asai, President of the Hiroshima Peace Institute
Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government wants a stronger U.S.-Japan military alliance and buildup of Japanese military power, and North Korea’s launching of a series of missiles was more than it had hoped for. You can see how the LDP does not consider the action a military threat in the way prime minister Junichiro Koizumi said he was "lucky it didn’t happen while at Elvis Presley’s house" and when foreign minister Taro Aso said "Thank you, Kim Jong-il." They are greedily taking advantage of a media that are making a big deal of "the North Korean threat" as well as public sentiment against the North, using both as material for pushing ahead with their military plans.
The excessive reaction by the part of the people and the media is based on a lack of national introspection about Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. It is also the result of distrust of North Korea, resulting from things like abductions of Japanese citizens and the belief in a a North Korean threat first created in the wake of the firing of a Taepodong missile in 1998. Then there is the fact that the Japanese have a unique "geocentric" view of the international stage (which believes that when an event takes place that is disadvantageous for Japan, Japan is "good" and the other side is "evil"). It overwhelmingly dominates Japanese thinking, so the current animosity toward North Korea is not going to stop any time soon.
This strange commotion in Japan comes in clear contrast to Korea’s cool-headed response to the situation. The reason for the difference is clear. For South Korea, a war with the North would be fatal for its peace and prosperity, and there is a widely shared understanding among both the politicians and the people that there must absolutely never be a war. Japan’s leaders, however, are simplemindedly following the will of the Americans. They share the U.S.’s confrontational approach towards the North and openly call for it to be taught a lesson. The Japanese media and public talk about the North Korean threat but fail to see the danger of that thinking.
The 1993 crisis on the Korean Peninsula was utilized in the course of the drafting of the "new guidelines" for the U.S.-Japanese relationship in 1996. The North’s 1998 firing of a Taepodong-1 missile was used by the Bush administration in its anti-terrorism campaign and in the global reorganization of the U.S. military and integration of U.S. and Japanese forces. This latest North Korean missile launch will be used as attractive material in the course of holding down resistance by local governments and communities to the reorganization of U.S. forces stationed in Japan.
Japanese leaders are getting a little too confident right now. You see it in how they have begun to talk about a preemptive strike and how they so seriously pursued the U.N. Security Council resolution. How will this Japanese reaction influence the political situation in Northeast Asia? Japan’s claim that the North’s firing of missiles is a "threat to the peace and security of Northeast Asia" was met at the security council with strong opposition from South Korea, China, and Russia, which responded with reason. This is a vivid display of how isolated Japan is in the region. You have to seriously question the judgment and analytical ability of chief cabinet secretary Shinzo Abe and foreign minister Taro Aso in their obsession with getting a U.N. resolution passed. The process surrounding the resolution shows you how Japan is destined to isolation in Northeast Asia and the international community if these men who insist on this utterly false theory of a North Korean threat take over when Koizumi steps down. In the big picture of things, it is clear the strategy of the U.S. and Japan and its goal of military dominance in Northeast Asia does not have good prospects. As forces for peace, South Korea and China will come to carry an increasing degree of political weight in the region. Being stuck in the mud as it is in Iraq, the Bush administration will not be daring a preemptive strike. One hopes to see enough political awareness and substantial political reform in Japan to hold back the strengthening of the U.S.-Japan alliance and for Japan to participate in the historic task of peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia.
