On Wednesday, 7 March, talks in the Japan-North Korea normalization working group are set to resume in Hanoi.I'm not entirely clear on what to expect. Since the six-party agreement last month, Japan has ratcheted up the pressure on North Korea to come clean on the abductions issue -- Abe once again urged North Korea to …
Tag: Six-party talks
Yomiuri on Sunday
A couple articles caught my eye in today's edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, both of which appear to be unavailable online. (Articles from Sunday's paper never seem to be posted online.)The first was an interview with US Japan hand Michael Green, focused on the "comfort women" resolution, the title of which summarizes the interview fairly …
Step back, Mr. Prime Minister
I want to call attention to Prime Minister Abe's email magazine from last week, in which he discusses seeing a performance by Noel Paul Stookey, onetime member of Peter, Paul, and Mary, of his new song "Song for Megumi," about Yokota Megumi, poster child of the abductions issue.Simply put, Abe's note shows just how far …
Cheney comes and goes
The vice president has swooped in, addressed US navy personnel in Yokosuka, talked and dined with Prime Minister Abe and Foreign Minister Aso (I wonder if Aso had anything to say about the "comfort women" resolution currently being debated in Congress), met with the parents of abductee Yokota Megumi, and is now en route to …
Reading on the six-party agreement
With Vice President Cheney in Tokyo to reassure the Abe Cabinet that the US "understands" Japan's need for progress on abductions, it is worthwhile to look at a couple essays that look into the conditions surrounding the preliminary six-party agreement reached in Beijing.First, in the Washington Post, Philip Zelikow, onetime Condoleeza Rice co-author and until …
Feeling the chill
The chill to which I'm referring, of course, is the chill that has set in between Tokyo and Washington.Without looking particularly hard, I found two very clear signs of a growing appreciation among Japanese opinion makers that the US-Japan alliance is experiencing a bit of turbulence.On the front page of today's Yomiuri, in an article …
What a difference a year makes
A year ago I was throwing myself into work on my M.Phil dissertation, which analyzed change in the US-Japan alliance since the end of the cold war. Those changes continued right up through the moment of submission (North Korea's missile test was the week before the deadline).The alliance seemed like it was bounding from strength …
Now, the waiting game
So the six-party talks have produced a tentative agreement -- although it seems that there's no sign of a timeline, and at this point all North Korea has agreed to do is close the Yongbyon reactor that has apparently fuelled its nuclear weapons program, with no mention of what happens to North Korea's existing arsenal.Japan …
Japan’s multilateral blues
Yesterday I wrote about rising concerns that Japan will be criticized regarding the cheap yen at the G7 meeting this weekend in Germany; Japan, however, may also be running into trouble at the six-party talks due to restart this week in Beijing.This article in the FT hints at growing signs that Washington is increasingly open …
Japan’s (predictable) response
As I discussed here, Japan has little reason to celebrate North Korea's returning to the six-party talks.As this article in the Japan Times shows (link in English), senior cabinet and party officials have been cool to the news out of Beijing. The Japanese government, of course, was not in position to insist on the importance …
Tobias S. Harris 