Peter Tasker
“The four islands of the archipelago should be sunk into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche…. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us.”
This was the message recently delivered by North Korea’s bizarrely-titled “Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee.” Even by the standards of the regime’s bellicose rhetoric, threats of outright genocide are extreme.
The next day, millions of citizens of northern Japan awoke to the sound of sirens and loudspeaker announcements advising them to shelter underground or in a sturdy building. North Korea had launched another ballistic missile over Japan and the “J-Alert” warning system had kicked into gear for the second time in three weeks.
The shock to the usually phlegmatic Japanese public was palpable. Given North Korea’s recent successful test of a nuclear bomb—the explosion was the world’s largest in 25 years—the missile launch last September 15 summoned up memories of the devastation of 1945.
Within Japan, the short-term effect will be to increase support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an instinctive hawk who made his name as a politician by campaigning on behalf of the families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents. The long-term effect will be higher military spending, reform of Japan’s pacifist Constitution, and total commitment to the alliance with the United States.
The North Koreans understand these consequences. Much more significantly, so does China, North Korea’s key ally and enabler. Neither are fools or madmen. Rather, they are calculated risk-takers and their judgement is this is a risk worth taking.
The North Korean perspective is simple. The regime has learned from long experience that outrageous behaviour has many benefits and few drawbacks. The greater the sense of crisis among its enemies, the more likely they are to offer inducements to reduce tensions. Hence, the seemingly endless series of provocations.
Abductions, bank frauds, currency forgery, drug smuggling, “ransom-ware” attacks, assassination by chemical weapon in an international airport, fatal injuries inflicted on young American imprisoned for a triviality—these all attract attention and increase leverage. As long as China remains committed to the survival of the regime, penalties imposed by America and its allies – such as the sanctions recently approved by the United Nations are meaningless.
What of China, though? Why would it endorse actions which will lead to a more security-conscious and militarily capable Japan joined at the hip to the United States? On the surface that would seem a counterproductive strategy.
Writer Richard McGregor ponders a similar question in his new book Asia’s Reckoning: China, the US, Japan and the Struggle for Global Power in relation to China’s attitude towards the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan (now known as the Democratic Party).
In 2009, the DPJ was swept to power in a landslide victory that seemed to presage the end of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party’s long monopoly of power. One of the DPJ’s distinguishing characteristics was a negative attitude towards the US alliance and a desire to “pivot” towards Asia and China, in particular. Soon after the election, Ichiro Ozawa, the political puppeteer who masterminded the DPJ’s victory, took a delegation of 150 politicians and 300 businessmen to Beijing to meet Communist Party boss Hu Jintao and usher in a new era in Sino-Japanese relations.
The new era never happened. China offered no carrots to the new DPJ government. Indeed, it was during the DPJ’s stint in power that China seized on what seemed to be a minor change in the status of the disputed Senkaku Islands—from ownership by a Japanese individual to state ownership—as justification for an orchestrated campaign of anti-Japanese rioting and arson.
The outcome was predictable. A few months later the DPJ was gone, crushed electorally by Shinzo Abe’s resurgent LDP. There would be no more talk of snuggling up to China.
McGregor comments that in both countries “many officials and scholars were bewildered that Beijing had not reached out more enthusiastically to an overtly China-friendly government in Tokyo.” He quotes retired diplomat Kazuhiko Togo as saying, “I’ve never understood why China did not use a more effective wedge between Japan and the US.”
There are two related answers to this conundrum. As McGregor shows in his book, Jiang Zemin kicked off the “patriotic education” drive in 1991 in response to the existential threat to Communist Party legitimacy posed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square massacre. Demonization of Japan is absolutely central to this project. The volume can be dialled up or down to match political requirements, but the switch can never go to off.
The second point is more basic, though beyond the world view of most diplomats and scholars. As Niccolo Machiavelli stated, “It is far safer to be feared than loved.”
If North Korea, with its tiny population and barely functional economy, can face down the United States and Japan, then the post-1945 world order is truly dead. Images of Japanese citizens running for cover reinforce the impression of weakness. China has its ally’s back, no matter what. Despite sanctions, Chinese exports to North Korea appear to be growing at some 30% year on year.
Meanwhile, the most important ally of the US is preparing to live under the threat of nuclear bombardment for the foreseeable future. Other countries in the region, particularly those confronted with Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea, will duly take note.
In the popular mind, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 ended when, in the words of President John F. Kennedy, “the other guy blinked.” In the case of the Asian Missile Crisis, the United States and its allies avoided eye contact for decades and are now reaping the consequences.
Related articles:
War on the Horizon—Is the US Ready to Meet its Commitments?
When North Korea’s Foreign Income Runs Dry, the State Will Crumble
Japan Must Be Prepared to Intercept and Return Missile Attacks
North Korea Has To Be Stopped, and Here’s How Japan Can Help Do That
Hiroshima, Nagasaki Call for End to Nuclear Weapons, But Won’t Denounce North Korea?
Radio Program That Broadcasts to Japanese Abductees in North Korea Needs Financial Help
Why the US Should Not Depend on China to Sanction North Korea
