Can Japan Prevent Being Marginalized?

Since the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un was announced in March, diplomacy among the countries in Northeast Asia has picked up the pace. Following the Trump-Kim Summit on June 12, this trend will only accelerate as the stakeholders in the region maneuver to ensure that their respective national interests are addressed as the promised denuclearization process unfolds. 

Of course, North Korea sits in the middle of this flurry of activity, often with Kim Jong Un himself being involved. Prior to the June 12 Summit with Trump in Singapore, Kim met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April (at the end of which the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula was announced), visited China twice to meet with President Xi Jinping, and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.  Following the Singapore summit, Kim visited China again.

South Korea has been intensifying its diplomatic engagement with North Korea for more robust inter-Korea interactions, consistent with what the Panmunjom Declaration has laid out. Kim and Moon met for a surprise second summit on May 26, two weeks prior to the Trump-Kim summit as well.  Following the Trump-Kim Summit, most recently, the two governments agreed to resume the reunion of the families who were separated because of the Korean War at the end of August. Such family reunions have been suspended since 2015. 

The Trump-Kim summit also triggered the revitalization of North Korea’s ties with its allies, China and Russia. On the part of China, it has significantly elevated its diplomatic engagement with North Korea in recent months.  Not only did Xi meet with Kim both before and after the Singapore summit, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Pyongyang in early May. Through these high-level engagements, Beijing has sought to remind Pyongyang of the  important role China can play in support of North Korea in its denuclearization negotiations with the United States. Beijing’s efforts so far have been considered largely successful enough to have some argue that China has emerged as the biggest winner of the Trump-Kim summit. Russia has also seemed determined to stay engaged. Not only did Lavrov visit North Korea to meet face-to-face with Kim prior to the Singapore summit, but Russian President Vladimir Putin recently hosted his South Korean counterpart for a state visit, a first since 1999.

Despite the increasing diplomatic activities around North Korea, Japan has been conspicuously absent from the picture so far.  Prior to the Singapore summit, Japan’s only visible effort to stay engaged was Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the United States on June 7 to remind Trump not to overlook Japan’s interests in his meeting with Kim. Whether or not Abe succeeded in convincing Trump is questionable, however.  Despite Abe’s almost exclusive focus on issues related to North Korea in his meeting with Trump on June 7, the U.S. president kept mentioning the country’s trade imbalance with Japan in the joint press conference after his meeting with Abe. Even though Trump spoke to Abe immediately before his summit meeting with Kim, the Joint Statement released following the Trump-Kim Summit did not refer to the issues that Japan is concerned about — neither the necessity of eliminating North Korea’s ballistic missile capabilities nor human rights issues in North Korea (including the abduction of Japanese nationals) was mentioned in the Joint Statement.

Can Japan prevent itself from being completely marginalized in the North Korea denuclearization process? It is clear that Tokyo now realizes that it needs to engage to ensure that its national interests will be taken into account as the effort toward North Korea’s denuclearization unfolds. The challenge for Japan is how to re-enter regional diplomacy when its extremely firm stance on North Korea — essentially no engagement until the abduction issue is resolved — gives very little incentive not only for North Korea but also for China, South Korea, and Russia to engage Japan in consultations on North Korea.

That said, the situation is not entirely hopeless for Japan. For one, as been pointed out by some observers, Japan can play a critical role, particularly in the implementation of a denuclearization agreement with North Korea. As the country that has capacity to offer not only financial but also technical assistance in North Korea’s denuclearization process, Japan is entitled to insist that its critical national security interests are taken into account in the denuclearization agreement that might emerge. 

Furthermore, rapid developments on North Korea offer an opportunity for Japan to stabilize its relationship with South Korea and China. Indeed, in the face of a Trump administration that is not hesitant to pressure not only Japan but also China and South Korea on bilateral trade issues even when it needs cooperation from the same three countries in the region to make any meaningful progress on denuclearization of North Korea, the three Northeast Asian countries have a shared interest in expanding cooperation among themselves. In this context, it is noteworthy that China recently suggested to Japan and South Korea that Beijing is willing to host another China-Japan-South Korea trilateral summit later this year, only several months after the leaders of the three countries met in Tokyo in May 2018. 

Whether Japan takes advantage of this potential opportunity to re-engage in regional diplomacy, however, depends on whether it is willing to adjust its sole focus on the abduction issue in its policy toward North Korea.