The Trump-Kim Summit: Japan’s Dilemma

On March 9, the White House confirmed that U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to meet North Korea leader Kim Jong-un. A Trump-Kim summit, to be held between now and May, is expected to follow the inter-Korean summit scheduled for late April.

Following the announcement on March 9, the Japanese government announced that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to visit Washington, DC to discuss issues related to North Korea’s nuclear problem personally with Trump. Indeed, over the next few months, the biggest challenge for Abe will be how to protect Japan’s own interests vis-à-vis North Korea while remaining supportive of U.S. efforts to roll back North Korea’s nuclear problem and avoiding another war on the Korean Peninsula.

Of course, many things can go wrong between now and May. There are significant question marks over the logistical details of the meeting, for example. North Korea, while committing to suspend further nuclear and missile tests at least for now, may decide to either conduct a test or resort to other provocative behavior. The United States may begin to waver as it faces criticism within the country that such a meeting at the leaders’ level is premature (one can already see this in the Trump administration’s insistence that North Korea needs to take concrete steps toward denuclearization before the Trump-Kim summit can place). Any of these factors may result in either the postponement or cancellation of the meeting.

On the other hand, if the Trump-Kim meeting does move forward, Japan will have more things to be concerned about. Indeed, Japan has an intense interest in the outcome of a Trump-Kim summit. In the worst-case scenario, if the meeting goes badly, it immediately raises the risk of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The scope of potential damage (economic and otherwise) and the humanitarian crisis that can be expected as the result of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, the geopolitical reality that would emerge after the conflict, and the postconflict reconstruction effort that will be required – all of these will have a profound impact on Japan.

Even in the best-case scenario, if the Trump-Kim meeting succeeds in paving the way for the ultimate denuclearization of North Korea, Japan will still have a stake in what such an agreement will look like. For instance, if the agreement only focuses on rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear program and leaves out other sources of security concerns regarding North Korea (i.e., its conventional military capabilities), such an agreement would not sufficiently address Tokyo’s security concerns. In addition, if the U.S.-North Korea agreement does not include the necessity for North Korea to better address the abduction issue with Japan – a prime concern for Abe – it would be difficult for Japan to support such an agreement. Without prior close consultation with Washington and Seoul, Japan would certainly not want to have a specific role (such as providing financial support to a technical assistance program for Pyongyang’s denuclearization) imposed on it, either.

The challenge for Abe is that Japan has a wider set of concerns vis-à-vis North Korea than denuclearization alone. For Tokyo, its concerns span from abduction issues to conventional military capabilities to nuclear weapons, while the United States’ security concerns regarding North Korea are narrower in focus, with an emphasis on nuclear and long-range missile capabilities. Since Japan’s own bilateral leverage vis-à-vis North Korea is so little, it has to rely on the United States to ensure that Japan’s other concerns are taken into consideration in whatever agreement Washington reaches with Pyongyang. However, pushing too hard on Tokyo’s own concerns vis-à-vis Pyongyang can marginalize Tokyo in the negotiation process, severely limiting its ability to participate in the discussion about a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.

There is little question that the sudden turn of the events since the March 9 announcement surprised Tokyo – the Abe government had thought that it shared Washington’s position that “maximum pressure” on North Korea should be maintained in order to eventually achieve North Korea’ denuclearization. Now, as the United States moves ahead with preparing for the Trump-Kim summit, Abe needs to find a way for Japan to remain relevant in the process.

Abe will not be successful in such an effort if he only tries to convince Trump that he should keep Japan’s non-nuclear concerns in mind when the U.S. president meets Kim. In fact, Abe will be more effective if he can lay out Japan’s plan for supporting the United States in implementing any denuclearization deal with North Korea. How he can do this when Japan has not seen much progress in the abduction issue – Abe’s priority – will be a challenging test for the Japanese prime minister.