With its second nuclear test in three years, North Korea continues to illustrate the limits of the power of the US, China, and the international community as a whole.The underground test, conducted on Monday, appears to have been more successful than the October 2006 test — although it is unclear just how much of a …
Tag: Six-party talks
After the launch
In the wake of North Korea's Unha-2 launch Sunday, the Japanese establishment and public have uniformly reacted with a sense of outrage and a desire for an vigorous Japanese and international response to the test.With substantial public support — 78% of respondents in a Yomiuri poll — the government is investigating tightening sanctions and plans …
Japan’s security kabuki
The Taepodong-2 rocket — because, as Jun Okumura rightly notes, it is not a missile unless it is used a weapon — North Korea claims will deliver a satellite into orbit is on the launch site, awaiting a launch that will reportedly occur between 6 and 8 April. Japan is in a state of alarm.The …
The US finally goes through with delisting North Korea
The thinkable is finally the actual.After more than a year since it became plausible for the US to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as a reward for cooperation in negotiations over the North Korean nuclear program, the US State Department has announced that it will remove North Korea from …
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Bush tries to reassure Japan
US President George W. Bush spoke with Japanese journalists before heading to Japan for the Toyako summit, and while he spoke about the summit, it seems that his interlocutors were more interested in last week's announcement that the US will proceed in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.In what Mainichi …
Yamasaki’s lonely fight
What a difference fifteen years make.In his memoir, Abe Shinzo wrote of his lonely fight — alongside Nakagawa Shoichi and a handful of other LDP conservatives — to oppose normalization with North Korea and place the abductions issue at the center of Japan's North Korea policy. They battled against the LDP, the media, academia, and …
An Ozawa indiscretion?
Ozawa Ichiro's comments on the US decision to proceed with removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism — mentioned here in passing — have apparently caused a tempest in Washington, as US Asia watchers have taken issue with his claim that the US "never" takes Japan's wishes into account when making …
A problem-oriented or a partner-oriented US Asia policy
The Asahi Shimbun has published an op-ed by Richard Danzig and Joseph Nye, who as foreign policy advisers to Senator Barack Obama outline how an Obama administration will approach relations with Japan.Superificially, there are not too many points of divergence with the Yomiuri op-ed penned by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman last month.Both Danzig-Nye …
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No surprises
When is a shock not a shock?Sankei Shimbun's front cover this morning proclaimed, in large print, "Shock to the Japanese nation."The headline, of course, referred to President Bush's announcement Thursday that, in keeping with the principle of "action for action," the Bush administration will (1) lift "the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act …
The consequences of the US-Japan rift on North Korea
With North Korea expected to deliver its account of its nuclear program Thursday — excluding its existing nuclear weapons, which Chris Hill has said will be addressed in the next round — the US is prepared to move forward in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.The long-awaited blow to the …
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