As Japan’s Kishida eyes ties with North Korea, will abduction issue be ‘stumbling block’?

Talks will be ‘unlikely nor productive’ if they exclude North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals and nuclear threats from Pyongyang, analysts say
‘Tangible’ takeaways from a potential Japan-North Korea summit are required if Kishida hopes to use foreign relation wins to boost his domestic approval

Japan

Maria Siow

Published: 12:00pm, 22 Feb 2024

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A potential summit by Japan and North Korea would be pointless if Pyongyang refuses to address the issue of the abduction of Japanese nationals, analysts say, especially with Japanese leader Fumio Kishida hoping to boost his faltering premiership at home.

Kishida said in parliament this month it was “extremely important” for him to take the initiative “to build top-level ties” with North Korea, especially in meeting the country’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-un.

In response, Kim’s sister Yo-jong last Thursday said Pyongyang and Tokyo “can open up a new future together”, according to North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency.

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She also said, however, that a meeting would be possible only if Japan “does not lay such a stumbling block as the already settled abduction issue”.

The last talks between a Japanese prime minister and North Korean ruler was in 2004, when Junichiro Koizumi met Kim Jong-il, father of the hermit kingdom’s current leader, in Pyongyang for the second time.

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo, said the summit will be “unlikely nor productive” if it avoided critical issues such as North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals and the nuclear and missile threats posed by Pyongyang.

“For any administration in Japan, the summit will only help if there is progress on these issues,” he added.

From 1977 to 1983, Japanese citizens were reportedly abducted from Japan by Pyongyang’s agents, mainly to teach Japanese language and culture at North Korean spy schools.

Fukie Hamamoto, abducted by North Korea 25 years ago, hugs her brother upon her return to Japan in 2002. Photo: Reuters

For a long time Pyongyang denied the abductions, but during the 2002 meeting between Koizumi and Kim Jong-il, it admitted to the abduction of at least 13 Japanese citizens, issued an oral apology and freed five abductees.

Earlier this month, North Korea extended a provocative series of weapons tests by firing cruise missiles into the sea, said to be the country’s fourth round of missile tests this year.

“Obviously, North Korea is testing Japan’s reaction, but also trying to drive a wedge between the United States, Japan, and [South Korea] that have showed greater cooperation and coordination over the last year,” Hinata-Yamaguchi said.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have stepped up cooperation in a wide range of areas in recent months, including strengthening defence and security cooperation and conducting their first-ever trilateral aerial exercise last October.

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In December, the three nations established a trilateral real-time system for sharing data on tracking North Korea, while their national security advisers called for a stronger international push to suppress Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles, cybertheft activities and arms transfers to Russia.

Yuko Nakano, fellow with the office of the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, said North Korea might be gauging how far Tokyo was prepared to go for the meeting to take place, adding that it was highly unlikely that Japan would play along if the abduction issue was off the table.

“It is possible that the Japanese government works out some sort of agreement on the issue with North Korea for them to move forward, but any potential agreement would need to address the concerns of the victims’ families and provide closure to them,” Nakano said.

Citing the approval ratings of Koizumi that rose by 10 points after meeting the elder Kim, Nakano said for a meeting “to give any buoy” to Kishida’s political domestic standing at home, “there needs to be tangible deliverables, particularly concerning the abductees issue”.

Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi (right) shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il after their 2004 summit meeting in Pyongyang. Photo: AFP

Ra Mason, associate professor of international relations and Japanese foreign policy at the University of East Anglia in England, said given Kishida’s experience as foreign minister, “using statesmanship abroad to boost popularity at home is a natural strategy for him to fall back on”.

Mason noted that the late Kim’s “unexpected admission” that Pyongyang kidnapped Japanese citizens had “completely scuppered” Japan-North Korea relations for a generation.

The current Japanese government might seek to showcase its ability by “successfully initiating a process of reconciliation through international summitry”, Mason said.

“[However], the sheer scale and scope of scandals hitting Japan’s current political establishment mean that anything short of extracting major concessions or policy shifts from the North Korean side are unlikely to dramatically offset [Kishida’s] lack of leadership, popularity and charisma.

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“The political capital that can be gained from engaging with North Korea’s, relatively youthful, leadership is highly limited,” Mason said.

A survey on Monday by the Mainichi newspaper noted that 82 per cent of those polled said they disapproved of Kishida’s cabinet, the worst for any premier since the paper started conducting such polls in 1947.

In recent months, the country has been hit with allegations over money from fundraising events being pocketed by politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, leading to a series of arrests and indictments.

Mason said North Korea is seeking to maintain a credible military threat for deterrence, while at the same time forging closer economic cooperation to expand trade and commerce.

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“Japanese policymakers need to remain mindful that the DPRK’s primary goal is regime survival,” Rason said, referring to North Korea’s formal name the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last July, amid a series of ballistic missile launches by North Korea, Japan extended its sanctions on North Korea, including a ban on all trade, by two years.

Pointing out that Kim Yo-jong’s comments “did not promise better relations”, University of Tokyo’s Hinata-Yamaguchi added that while diplomacy with North Korea is critical, it is a means and not an end in solving the many problems concerning Pyongyang.

“Dialogues with North Korea must only be pursued with the right strategies and visions,” Hinata-Yamaguchi said.