Abe’s nuclear disaster: why has Japan been shut out of North Korea talks?

As the only country to have been attacked with nuclear bombs, Japan playing a key role in convincing one of its neighbours to drop its weapons programme would seem obvious. But the out-of-the-blue announcement from US President Donald Trump that he had accepted an invitation to talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to have given Tokyo’s input a new status: irrelevant.

While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted to the news positively, his government has scrambled to save face. South Korean officials standing in front of the White House briefed the media on the breakthrough and before the fallout had even settled, the Japanese government had offered to donate hundreds of millions of yen towards a UN nuclear watchdog mission to the North. Abe followed that up by saying he would travel to Washington to speak to Trump before his meeting with Kim, so he could emphasise Japan’s position on issues likely to surface during the discussions.

In spite of Abe’s apparent enthusiasm, it was clear that his role in the region had been eclipsed by Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president and the prime minister’s ideological polar opposite. That Moon has assumed centre-stage in a geopolitical drama being watched around the world has compounded Abe’s loss of face.