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North Korea Challenges for the US-Japan Alliance North Korea Challenges for the US-Japan Alliance Yuki Tatsumi Editor March 2011 North Korea Challenge for the US–Japan Alliance Yuki Tatsumi Editor March 2011 Copyright © 2010 The Henry L. Stimson Center ISBN: 978-0-9845211-7-3 Cover and book design/layout by Shawn Woodley All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent from the Stimson Center. Stimson Center 1111 19th Street, NW, 12th Floor Washington, DC 20036 Telephone: 202.223.5956 Fax: 202.238.9604 www.stimson.org Contents Abbreviations and Acronyms ............................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ vi Preface ............................................................................................................................... vii Ellen Laipson, President and CEO of the Stimson Center Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Alan D. Romberg and Yoshihide Soeya Chapter 1: America’s “North Korea Problem” and US–Japan Relations ............................8 Balbina Y. Hwang Chapter 2: North Korea Problems and US–Japan Relations: A View from Japan .............26 Yasuhiro Izumikawa Chapter 3: Japan–US Cooperation on North Korea: Regional Perspectives .....................44 Katsuhisa Furukawa Chapter 4: Regional Factors: China–North Korea Relations .............................................62 John S. Park Chaper 5: North Korea: A Catalyst for Policy Coordination Between the United States and Japan ............................................................................................69 Scott A. Snyder Chapter 6: The North Korea Challenge and Resonance with Regional Security Arrangements ...............................................................................81 Ryo Sahashi Chapter 7: Different Beds, Same Nightmare: US–Japan Policy Coordination on North Korea and Implications for the US–Japan Alliance ........................................93 L. Gordon Flake Conclusion: The Way Forward ........................................................................................104 Yuki Tatsumi About the Contributors ....................................................................................................116 iv | North Korea: Challenge for the US–Japan Alliance Abbreviations and Acronyms ABM Antiballistic Missile ACSA Acquisition and Cross-Serving Agreement APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ARF ASEAN Regional Forum ASDF Air Self-Defense Force ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations BDA Banco Delta Asia BMD Ballistic Missile Defense CCP Chinese Communist Party CRS Congressional Research Service CVID Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Dismantlement DMZ Demilitarized Zone DPJ Democratic Party of Japan DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) FETA Foreign Exchange and Trade Act GSDF Ground Self-Defense Force HEU Highly Enriched Uranium IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency IAI Illegal Activities Initiative ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missile JDA Japan Defense Agency (Became Ministry of Defense of Japan in 2007) (J)SDF (Japan) Self-Defense Force KEDO Korean Peninsula Energy Development LDP Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) MCAS Marine Corps Air Station MD Missile Defense MOD Ministry of Defense of Japan Acronyms | v MOFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan MSDF Maritime Self Defense Force NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NDPG National Defense Program Guideline NDPO National Defense Program Outline NGO Non-governmental Organization NPT Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty OCHA Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OEF Operation Enduring Freedom PSI Proliferation Security Initiative ReCAAP Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships RMC Roles, Missions, and Capabilities ROK Republic of Korea (South Korea) SDPJ Social Democratic Party of Japan START Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty TCOG Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group TMD Theater Missile Defense UNISDR United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction UNSC United Nations Security Council UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction WPK Worker’s Party of Korea vi | North Korea: Challenge for the US–Japan Alliance Acknowledgments First and foremost, Alan D. Romberg, Distinguished Fellow and Director of Stimson’s East Asia Program, and I would like to thank Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership for their support in making this project possible. We would also like to thank the project’s co-director Professor Yoshihide Soeya of Keio University for his contribution. We are especially thankful for the Institute of East Asian Studies at Keio University for hosting the project workshop in Tokyo in April 2010. Out gratitude also goes to the project’s contributors—L. Gordon Flake, Balbina Y. Hwang, John S. Park, Scott A. Snyder, Katsuhisa Furukawa, Yasuhiro Izumikawa, and Ryo Sahashi—who, despite their busy schedule, committed their time and efforts to the project. We would also like to thank Ken Jimbo for his participation in the two project workshops. Weaving seven research papers into a single publication is not an easy task. As the project’s overall coordinator and the editor of this volume, I would like to thank Alison Yost and Shawn Woodley for their valuable assistance in the publication process. I am also thankful for Stimson’s communication team, headed by April Umminger, for helping me organize public outreach events to promote this publication. I would also like to thank Connor Cislo, Kent Mullen and Carolyn Posner who, as East Asia Program interns, worked tirelessly to edit the research papers and prepare them for publication. It would not have been possible to release this publication without their help. Finally, on a personal note, I would like to thank Hideaki for his support of my work, and Akiyoshi for tolerating his mother’s absence. March 2011 Yuki Tatsumi Senior Associate East Asia Program Preface | vii Preface Dear Colleagues, I am pleased to present North Korea: Challenge for the US–Japan Alliance, edited by Yuki Tatsumi, Senior Associate at the Stimson Center. This is the latest volume in a series of works on Japan and its critical security alliance with the United States. In East Asia today, security challenges posed by North Korea—its illicit nuclear program and a record as a proliferator of nuclear and missile technologies—presents an urgent challenge to global peace and security. This volume is a collection of seven essays authored by American and Japanese experts on Asian security issues, examining how North Korea’s behavior affects the US–Japan bilateral defense relationship, as well as their ability to coordinate their diplomatic efforts to address security challenges posed by Pyongyang. Collectively, the essays in the volume illustrate that North Korea has become a challenge for US–Japan diplomatic coordination, while at the same time serving as a catalyst for a deeper US–Japan bilateral defense relations. It also demonstrates the importance of the Republic of Korea, the other major American ally in the region, as the United States and Japan continue to grapple with the challenges posed by North Korea. The Stimson Center expresses special thanks to the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership for its support to this project. We hope that this volume will contribute to the debate about how the countries in East Asia can face the security challenges that North Korea presents, and what role the US–Japan alliance can play to find lasting solution to stability in this vital region for world peace. Sincerely, Ellen Laipson President and CEO Introduction | 1 Introduction Alan D. Romberg and Yoshihide Soeya or well over a decade, since the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993, the United FStates, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and others have sought to eliminate the nuclear program of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) while maintaining a robust regime in order to preserve the 1953 Armistice and prevent the renewed outbreak of hostilities on the peninsula.1 The 1994 US–DPRK Agreed Framework led to an international effort to replace Pyongyang’s proliferation-prone, plutonium-based program with facilities that were more reliably resistant to proliferation and to produce “normal” relations between North Korea and the United States, as well as between North and South Korea. That agreement was being implemented—albeit slowly—in the context of what seemed to be an overall improvement in the political atmosphere between North Korea and the United States under the Clinton administration when President George W. Bush came to office in January 2001. Bush took a far more jaundiced view of North Korea’s bona fide intentions and decided not to follow through on Clinton’s active diplomatic approach. It was perhaps the mounting sense of “insecurity” caused by the hardline policy of the Bush administration that caused the DPRK to take the astonishing move to receive Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang on September 17, 2002, and to agree to the “Pyongyang Declaration,” which outlined the basic framework and the course of action toward diplomatic normalization between Japan and North Korea. Koizumi’s visit became even more surprising
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