March 3-4,
2000
Who makes Japan’s policy toward North
Korea? The decision making process may seem mysterious to U.S. policy makers,
the Congress, and scholars. If it is any comfort, many Japanese scholars also
find it difficult to explain the process rationally. Press reports of transient
developments shed little light. Researchers and journalists must join forces to
dig deep beneath the surface and get at the facts.
In this paper I shall try to
explain how political log-rolling, as well as competition for political funds
and prestige, inspires forays into foreign policy by Japanese politicians. The
unwieldy Japanese term is “Kokkai taisaku gaiko,” or intra-Diet politicking and
diplomacy. I will look at the background of this phenomenon—the major factor
governing policy toward North Korea—and how it functions.
To my knowledge, there is no
book or article in English about politicians mixing in foreign affairs (and
virtually nothing in Japanese), let alone on Diet politics and North Korea
policy. This analysis is based on journalistic articles and primary materials
gathered in the course of a reporter’s rounds. Though I endeavor to follow
academic practice, sources and references are not always given. The points
raised here are my personal views.
Little attention is paid to Diet politicking and diplomacy in Japan-U.S.
relations because politicians have rarely intervened in the decision making
process. By contrast, political intervention often comes into play in Japan’s
diplomacy toward North Korea and China. Few Japanese politicians are fluent
enough in English to maneuver in the Tokyo-Washington game, nor can they hope
to raise funds from the Japan-U.S. connection. But there are deals and
political funds to be made from North Korean policy.
It is easy to see who participates and
makes foreign policy in the United States. The actors include the State
Department, President, Congress, and the media, with Capitol Hill and the White
House central to the process and input and expertise from many sources.
In the Japanese case, the prime minister
and Diet are not the key decision makers, for historical, cultural, and
institutional reasons.
In the United States and South Korea,
foreign policy is made by the presidency and relevant government agencies. The
Congress or National Assembly pass legislation, hold hearings, and issue
reports on foreign policy. They do not sidestep the executive branch and
negotiate with foreign leaders and governments.
In Japan, however, the policy
process resembles that in the former communist bloc. The government has to get
the green light from the relevant committees of the LDP and from parliamentary
groups promoting specific interests (zoku
giin) before settling on a policy. Bureaucrats must consult extensively (nemawashi) with LDP politicians, the
briefing and persuasion so essential to building a consensus.
On North Korea policy, the
administration must explain a proposed course of action to the LDP’s
specialists on international affairs, the members of the Foreign Affairs
Division (FAD), although this requirement is not specified in the Constitution
or any law. For example, the Obuchi administration needed a go-ahead from FAD
before lifting sanctions on North Korea.
This is analogous to the
practice in socialist countries where, in principle, the Communist Party leads
the government. Of course, the Japanese system is not an LDP dictatorship. The
LDP president has no powers like such illustrious Communist Party secretary
generals as Joseph Stalin and Mikhail Gorbachev, or Kim Jong Il, whose KWP is
in command in Pyongyang.
LDP predominance has often
been misunderstood by North Korea, where the top leader makes the final
decision. Confident that a settlement with Japan could be achieved if senior
LDP members were won over, North Korea invested enormous effort in wooing party
kingpins. Although not completely wrong, the North Koreans failed to realize
that LDP chieftains could make not policy by themselves.
In 1990, North Korea tried to
win the ear of the late Shin Kanemaru, then vice-president of the LDP, to
facilitate a settlement with Japan. Currently, Pyongyang wants to strike a deal
through Hiromu Nonaka, acting secretary general of the LDP, in hopes of getting
a million tons of rice for food relief. This style of lobbying has not been
successful. LDP faction bosses are less powerful since the adoption of a small
constituency system, and FAD members have gained more say in foreign policy.
Each political party has a Diet Strategy
Committee (DSC) (Kokkai taisaku iinkai) whose function is liaison with
other parties to manage the passage of legislation. This is a prestigious
committee and the chairmen is a very important politico. There is no committee
by this name in the Diet, where the Steering Committee is the official organ
for inter-party coordination. DSCs operate largely behind the scenes, making
compromises and cutting deals to get bills passed.
In the U.S. Congress, of
course, votes are paired and advocates of a bill urge opponents to change
sides, sometimes promising rewards. In Washington these are usually back-room
deals. In Tokyo, there is a formal structure, though the accommodations may be
secret, and cash sometimes lubricates the works.
In 1989, LDP Diet members
adopted a policy statement entitled “The Outline of Political Reform” that
admitted the pernicious side of Diet politicking. It read in part:
Diet management through
negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties is indispensable in
party politics, but excesses in the practice of adjustments prior to Diet
deliberations would reduce the Diet’s work to a mere informality and be
inimical to its proper function. To allow Diet deliberations to become
substantive and accessible to the public, we must curtail the evils of this
process, return to the principles of the Diet Law, and manage the Diet in such
a way that its committees retain their independence and autonomy.
These practices are still
prevalent partly because, unlike the U.S. Congress, which works round the year,
the Diet is open only 150 days a year. To pass all the planned bills within
this limited term, the ruling party must break the logjam through deals with
the opposition. Ruling party members who have special channels of communication
with influential opposition members are appointed to the party’s DSC and they
work hard at cultivating good personal relations with stalwarts across the
aisle. Creating obligations is one way, and naturally, money often changes
hands.
In the past, political party
financial reports had a section on Diet Affairs expenditures. In March 1967,
Junya Yano, secretary general of the Clean Government Party (CGP) questioned
where the money trail led. Until 1964, the LDP had spent about ¥24 million in
the first six months of each reporting period. In the second half of fiscal 1965
the amount suddenly soared to ¥120 million, rising again in the next half year
to ¥150 million. That was a lot of money in the 1960s when the average starting
salary for college graduates was ¥20,000 a month. In a parliamentary
interpellation, Yano grilled Prime Minister Eisaku Sato on how the money was
spent. Sato dodged the question.
But at a closed session of
the Diet management committee the LDP and opposition Japan Socialist Party
(JSP) vilified Yano, charging that the upstart CGP was trying to overturn the
established parties. The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), also in opposition,
joined the attack on Yano, whose statements were later largely deleted from the
record of Diet proceedings. In 1975, the LDP quietly removed the DAC
expenditure section from the party’s financial report, substituting the
innocuous sounding category of “organizational expenditures.”
Japanese and North Korean diplomats met
secretly in Singapore Oct. 18-20, 1999. The Japanese side was led by the
director of the Northeast Asia (Korea) Division. The North Korean team was
headed by the chief of the Japan Desk, DPRK Foreign Ministry. An aide to KWP
Secretary General Kim Jong Il also attended. (Incidentally, a Desk Chief in
Tokyo has much greater authority than his counterpart in the Department of
State, often deciding policy and issuing instructions to ambassadors.) At
Singapore it was agreed that preliminary meetings to discuss resumption of
normalization talks would commence about December 20, 1999, that a round of two
or three “unofficial” talks would be followed by official meetings, and that
the visit of a Japanese multi-party delegation would be postponed to 2000.
Everything was set.
Nevertheless, a Diet
delegation, including not only LDP members but also representatives from the
Japan Communist Party (JCP) visited Pyongyang December 1-3. The Obuchi
administration, overruling objections from the North Korean foreign ministry,
attached a senior councilor from the Asian Affairs Bureau.
Why did the Foreign Ministry
arrange the visit at this time? It needed a scenario where the restart of
diplomatic negotiations with North Korea could be credited to the political
parties. The bureaucrats set the stage for the politicians out of deference to
intra-Diet politics.
From 1997, Hiromu Nonaka, an
LDP strongman and acting secretary general, had tried to organize a multi-party
delegation to be led by former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, using his
contacts in North Korea to gain an invitation. North Korea refused and the
scheme fell through. The Taepodong launch in August 1998 put the plan on the
back burner. But Nonaka persisted, partly because pulling off the venture would
demonstrate his political clout.
Eager to help Nonaka carry
out the plan, the Obuchi administration in the spring of 1999 even offered to
lift some sanctions, such as the ban on chartered flights between Japan and the
DPRK. North Korea spurned the carrot, demanding rice instead, but Japan was not
prepared to go that far.
Foreign Ministry officials
felt that for them to take the lead in opening talks with North Korea when
politicians were set on a delegation would humiliate Nonaka and Murayama,
inviting retaliation down the road. To spare the politicians a loss of face and
win their future cooperation, the ministry endorsed the delegation plan. This
gesture was also a good career move for the officials involved.
In addition, Japan’s
party-dominant system worked in favor of a delegation. After the secret
meetings in Singapore, foreign service officers visited FAD members and other
LDP members interested in North Korean affairs, trying to gain their support
for lifting sanctions and normalization talks. However, many LDP Diet members
were strongly opposed .
The ministry concluded that a delegation
drawn from all the parties would change the negative political climate, showing
there was a broad consensus in favor of negotiations with Pyongyang. The
ministry got behind Nonaka’s scheme, helping to make it a reality. Composed of
two to three members from each party, the delegation was supposed to symbolize
broad-based endorsement of normalization talks. In fact, all the politicians
participated in an individual capacity, not as party representatives. Still, to
all appearances, the parties had opened the door to Pyongyang. To the
politicians, great photo opportunities and acclaim; to foreign ministry
bureaucrats, results.
In North Korea, the
delegation worked out a joint statement with the KWP that urged both
governments to start preliminary talks as soon as possible, a superfluous
mandate since Japanese and North Korean foreign ministry officials had already
set the date for December 20. Nonetheless, the multi-party agreement enabled
the Foreign Ministry to start unofficial talks immediately and provided for
humanitarian issues—abductions and rice aid—to be handled separately by
national Red Cross societies. Subsequently, the ministry decided to lift
partially the sanctions against North Korea—suspension of rice aid and freezing
of normalization talks—and obtained conditional approval from FAD. Sanctions
could be lifted but no food aid provided immediately, the LDP politicians said.
Assistance could be resumed, if at all, only after they conducted another
review.
Two phrases frequently seen in the
Japanese press—”party diplomacy” and “parliamentary diplomacy”—must sound
strange in the United States where, in principle, foreign policy is the
exclusive purview of the administrative branch. Japanese politicians and political
parties often involve themselves in Tokyo’s relations with the two Koreas and
China. Longing to be diplomatic brokers, Diet members make promises to and
forge agreements with Korean and Chinese leaders.
A typical case was the visit
to North Korea in 1990 of a joint LDP-JSP delegation headed by LDP vice
president Shin Kanemaru. JSP secretary Makoto Tanabe and Kanemaru, both
chairmen of their party’s DSCs, had worked together over the years and become
friends. Tanabe urged Kanemaru to visit Pyongyang. Indebted to his Diet ally,
Kanemaru said yes.
The Kanemaru trip coincided
with heightened concern in Washington over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.
In a joint statement, the Japanese agreed with KWP representatives that
normalization talks would be resumed and Japan would pay compensation,
including for the post-1945 period. The U.S. and South Korean governments were
furious.
Despite strong objections in
Washington and Seoul, the prime minister and his staff not only failed to
prevent Kanemaru from going to North Korea but even endorsed the resumption of
diplomatic talks. Similarly, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi did not try to stop
Nonaka and Murayama from going to Pyongyang last December. In recent decades,
only Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto asked the political parties not to engage
in diplomatic activities.
As far as the Korean Peninsula is
concerned, Japan has no foreign policy of its own and simply follows
Washington’s lead, a subservience perhaps not confined to dealing with
Pyongyang. In any case, it should be remembered that even during the Cold War,
Japan had trade relations with the DPRK, permitted pro-Pyongyang residents to
visit their homeland, and allowed North Korean delegations to come to Japan.
Japan opened its doors to the DPRK long before the United States.
However, Japan’s policy
toward North Korea did not overstep the bounds drawn in Washington. The one
exception was Kanemaru and his agreement, in a meeting with Chairman Kim Il
Sung, on resuming diplomatic talks. Kanemaru did this without the knowledge,
let alone prior consent, of the Bush administration, and he came under heavy
fire. U.S. officials warned the Foreign Ministry that resolution of the North
Korean nuclear weapons issue would be difficult if Japan ignored the
implications for nuclear proliferation and normalized relations with the DPRK.
Japanese politicians who
venture into diplomatic waters are primarily motivated by self-interest and
political advantage; they do not grasp the stakes and subtleties of
international politics. Kanemaru could not understand why the United States was
so concerned about the DPRK’s nuclear program or appreciate why South Korea
opposed Japan’s demarche with North Korea before progress was made in the
North-South dialogue. Consequently, Japan tried to settle the nuclear issue in
the normalization negotiations. At first, Kanemaru and Foreign Ministry
officials said the DPRK’ nuclear program was an issue between Pyongyang and
Washington, a position they later had to abandon.
The talks between the United States and
North Korea that started in 1993 led to the Agreed Framework in 1994, and a
high-level dialogue has continued since. With the State Department in charge,
the channels and negotiator’s authority are clearly defined. In the Japanese
case, normalization negotiations began in 1991, were suspended in November 1992
after the eighth round, and remained frozen until 1999. Japan failed because
there were multiple channels and actors. The Foreign Ministry and politicians
held parallel talks, for example. The foreign ministries in Tokyo and Pyongyang
were in contact, but Japanese politicians also negotiated with the KWP. The
KWP’s United Front Section (UFS) is an intelligence agency whose mission is to
collect information and conduct covert operations against South Korea. To
complicate matters further, the UFS and the DPRK Foreign Ministry compete over
foreign policy initiatives. Japanese politicians visiting North Korea are
hosted by a front organization, the Asian-Pacific Peace Committee (APPC) whose
chairman, KWP secretary Kim Yong Jun, also heads UFS.
During the Cold War, the DPRK
Foreign Ministry dealt with Socialist countries that Pyongyang had formal ties
with, while the KWP’s international department was responsible for Japan and
other countries. The UFS was also involved because Japan and the United States
were considered hostile countries that supported South Korea. Party Secretary
Kim Yong Jun has been in charge of contacts with Japanese politicians since he
directed the party’s international business department. When he took over the
UFS, Kim placed the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan under his
wing.
Japanese Foreign Ministry
officials also conducted negotiations with APPC, a choice that put the DPRK
Foreign Ministry in a difficult position. In fact, senior Japanese officials
frequently sounded out UFS leaders on the resumption of normalization talks.
Playing the field this way gave the impression that the Japanese government
preferred to deal with the UFS on substantive matters and leave the technical
details to the DPRK Foreign Ministry. At least the UFS could argue this way to
undermine the professional diplomats.
What is the attraction of
diplomacy for the UFS and Japanese politicians? Their common objective
apparently is to be the vital link in bilateral negotiations. By staking that
claim now, they hope to retain a strong say in the economic projects financed
by Japanese money after normalization.
Early in the talks with the
United States, North Korea replaced Ambassador Ho Jung, the deputy permanent
observer in the North Korean U.N. mission, with a UFS official. This power play
failed because the new man, unable to speak English, could not talk directly
with U.S. foreign service officers, and the State Department insisted upon
negotiating with professional diplomats.
The abduction of Japanese citizens is the
knottiest problem standing in the way of normalization and directly affects
food aid. Without making headway on this issue, normalization will be virtually
impossible. The abductions are the major reason why the public in Japan is
against giving food to North Korea. The Japanese government has made it clear
that it can prove that North Korean intelligence agencies abducted at least ten
or eleven Japanese citizens.
U.S. and South Korean
officials reportedly have expressed dissatisfaction at Japan’s adamant position
on this issue, apparently thinking it can be resolved after normalization. But
this problem is important for two reasons. First, there is widespread
skepticism about whether the Japanese government is serious about protecting
its citizens. Even if the victims cannot be rescued, the authorities must
demonstrate genuine concern. The government’s credibility is at stake.
Second, the abductions should
be seen in the context of what I call Japan’s post-Cold War syndrome, Japanese
Orientalism, and public distrust of North Korea. To many Japanese, North Korea
is a fountain of untruth, a state that routinely resorts to violence and the
Big Lie. They think that to save the abductees, an iron-clad guarantee must be
wrung from the DPRK.
During the Cold War, the JSP and some Japanese media painted a glowing picture of North Korea as a successful socialist nation far more advanced than South Korea. But as the DPRK’s economic crisis – silent factories and starving children – and development of nuclear arms and long-range missile came to light in the 1990s, North Korea was perceived very differently.
North Korea and the JSP
claimed that the terrorist bombing in Rangoon and the destruction of a Korean
Air Lines plane were carried out by Seoul to discredit the North. This was
sheer disinformation and propaganda, and now the chickens are coming home to
roost. North Korea has zero credibility. Vague promises will not suffice on the
abductees.
Japan should negotiate exclusively with
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry and not deal with intelligence units. Since
there is still room for intervention by Japanese politicians and North Korean
intelligence organs, normalization talks face rough sledding. Conflicts over
financial interests—loans, official development assistance—will also entangle
the negotiations.
North Korea practices
“pendulum diplomacy” and uses divide-and-thwart tactics against the major
powers. The DPRK never had at the same time equally friendly relations with the
former Soviet Union and China. Exploiting the Sino-Soviet conflict, Pyongyang
sought assistance from one by threatening closer ties with the other, the
blackmail of the weak. This strategy was also intended to keep its huge
neighbors from applying concerted pressure on the DPRK. North Korea has made it
a rule not undertake simultaneously negotiations with Japan and the United
States, or to engage in dialogue with Seoul while dealing with its allies. Ho
Jung revealed a hot debate in the DPRK Foreign Ministry in 1994 over whether
Japan could normalize ties with North Korea without U.S. consent. Apparently
there are two views of Japan in North Korean ruling circles. The traditional
analysis holds that Japan is a vassal of the American hegemon while the
internationalist interpretation says the world’s second largest economic power
can decide for itself.
If the former school gains
strength in Pyongyang, North Korea will concentrate on negotiations with
Washington, turning to Tokyo only if the talks stall. North Korea will also try
to set the United States and Japan against each other, a tactic Pyongyang
mastered during the Sino-Soviet conflict. North Korea will intimate to Japan
that an accommodation with the United States is near, the North-South talks are
close to a breakthrough, and Japan will soon be left behind. Japanese
politicians, unschooled in international politics, go for this bait. Fearful of
losing out, they take initiatives that can disrupt official diplomacy.
It is also true that Japanese
foreign service officers lack the skill and political savoir-faire for
high-stakes diplomatic games. Transferred from one country or position to another
every two or three years, they do not acquire true professionalism. Regarding
North Korea, there is no reliable institutional memory; personnel turnover is
too great. It is very difficult for Japan to develop and implement a long-term
strategy toward Pyongyang.
Copyright March 2000