Rogue Neighbor
	Standing Firm Against Pyongyang
	By Jim Frederick

Posted Monday, June 26, 2006; 20:00 HKT
It says a lot about the strange state of Northeast Asian politics that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi hasn't been to Beijing for a summit with Chinese leaders since 2001. But he's met Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang. Twice.

Don't think that makes Japanese relations with North Korea good. In fact, they are at their lowest point in decades, and that's saying something. When Koizumi first flew to Pyongyang in September 2002, hopes ran high that the two countries were on the road to normalization of relations. But talks broke down when Kim surprisingly confessed that North Korea had abducted Japanese citizens throughout the 1970s and 1980s to teach Japanese language and customs in its spy schools. Kim said that North Korea had kidnapped 13 Japanese, and only five of them were still alive. Although the surviving abductees and their families eventually returned to Japan, the Japanese government officially suspects North Korea stole 16 of its citizens (non-governmental claims can be as high as 460), and it wants, it says, a fuller picture of the eight who supposedly died there. With the abductee issue making headlines nearly every day in Japan, the government says relations can't move forward until it gets more answers. North Korea defiantly insists that there are no more abductees, that it has provided all the information it has and that, as far as it is concerned, the matter is closed.

Responding to public outrage, Japan's parliament has, over the past few years, passed several laws that would make sanctions against North Korea easier to implement, including restricting monetary transfers and ferry travel between the two countries. But those economic threats have proven more useful recently as countermeasures against North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. According to news reports last week, North Korea has apparently fueled rockets capable of launching a long-range Taepodong-2 missile believed capable of hitting Alaska; a test of the rocket was thought imminent.

Japan became one of the first and loudest voices in the international chorus warning North Korea not to test. Foreign Minister Taro Aso appeared on TV to declare that a test would prompt a "vehement" reaction from Japan, which would consider imposing economic sanctions immediately and recommend that the U.N. Security Council (on which Japan is currently a rotating member) take action. "For Japan," says Peter Beck at the International Crisis Group in Seoul, "that is pretty tough talk. And that would be a serious retaliation, because those sanctions would hurt and North Korea knows it."

In 1998, North Korea tested a shorter-range Taepodong-1 missile, part of which fell in Japanese waters. That test shocked Japan, and was a powerful impetus for the government to increase its intelligence efforts, missile defenses and military cooperation with the U.S. Japan doesn't want to be surprised again. Losing patience with North Korea and gaining confidence in its own abilities, Japan in the Koizumi era has shown it is increasingly prepared to exert its will in international affairs.

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