Global attention focuses on North Korea (the DPRK, or Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and the crisis that envelops its nuclear and missile programs. A little-noted aspect of the crisis has been the rise of Japan to centre stage in the Security Council proceedings and in the formation of global understanding of the problem.
Less than a year ago Japan was the outsider at the Six Party talks on North Korea, blocking any agreement, refusing to meet its obligations under the agreements that were in due course reached in Beijing, and protesting vigorously, and eventually in vain, at the US decision to remove North Korea from the list of terror-supporting countries. From outsider at Beijing and in Washington under the late George W. Bush, Japan's influence has soared under Obama. Though occupying only a temporary Security Council seat, secured by horse-trading with Mongolia, it has become in effect an honorary superpower, major architect of the Security Council presidential statement of 13 April and of Resolution 1874 of 12 June. For North Korea, nothing could be more galling than the awareness that its old nemesis and former colonial master now leads the world in denouncing and sanctioning it.
In the following essay, Wada Haruki, emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo and authority on the modern history of Korea, discusses the background to the present frozen and hostile relationship between the two countries. (GMcC)
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