A hidden friend of a ‘1,000-year enemy’

North Korea continues criticizing Japan, but it helped Japan economically and militarily.

Chae Byung-gun

The author is the international, diplomatic and security news director of the JoongAng Ilbo. The UN Security Council meeting on August 25 offered a chance to reflect on what really is a “heinous crime.” In the gathering to discuss North Korea’s launch of a spy satellite in violation of the Security Council resolutions, a North Korean representative vehemently criticized Japan for discharging the treated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. “That constitutes a heinous crime against humanity and the environment,” he said. Despite the criticism of Japan, however, North Korea released weapons-grade nuclear wastes below the surface of the Korean Peninsula by conducting six nuclear tests to develop nukes. It is ratcheting up the level of missile technology to attack South Korea and its neighbors. On September 2, North Korea even test-fired a cruise missile that can detonate a nuclear warhead 150 meters (492 feet) above the ground.

Out of its deep-rooted animosity against Japan, North Korea described Japan as the “1,000-year arch-enemy.” But the hostility does not reconcile with the results.

Today, the Japanese prime minister can brightly smile with the U.S. president at Camp David, but 80 years ago, he couldn’t. The United States devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with two atomic bombs and turned Tokyo into a heap of ashes with countless bombings. It was North Korea that gave Japan a precious opportunity to rebuild from the destruction of the Pacific War. After the 1950-53 Korean War broke out with the North’s invasion of the South, the Japanese economy enjoyed a boom by supplying military equipment for the U.S. forces. Toyota teetering on the brink of collapse could rebound thanks to the Korean War. The U.S. Army ordered 5,000 military trucks from the carmaker. Other Japanese companies also enjoyed the boom. Robert Murphy, then U.S. ambassador to Japan, said the war turned the Japanese archipelago into a huge warehouse for military supplies.

At the time, Japan served as a rear base for American troops. Japan’s role as the rear base for UN forces and other logistics at times of contingency on the Korean Peninsula is still the same. The fact that the UN Command has a rear base in Japan itself helps consolidate deterrence.

The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, reported in March that its leader Kim Jong-un inspected a nuclear weapons facility. Kim talks with military officers before a miniaturized warhead that can be loaded onto missiles. [NEWS1]

It was also North Korea that provoked Japan to take a path toward becoming a war-capable “normal state.” After its defeat in World War II, Japan adhered to its postwar pacifist Constitution which allowed the country to use armed forces only when it is attacked from outside. To augment its Self-Defense Forces and engage in military activities overseas, Tokyo needed an approval from the international community and a turnaround in domestic public opinion. At that time, North Korea appeared with nuclear weapons and missiles on its hands. After its uninterrupted test-firings of long-range missiles starting with the Daepodong-1 in 1998 and its first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has finally made a small nuclear warhead.

In the past, security experts brushed off the North’s nuclear and missile development as a means for negotiation with Uncle Sam. But not anymore. For Pyongyang, possessing nuclear weapons is not a means but a goal.

North Korea made it clear that the country will never abandon nuclear weapons or trade them. Kurt Campbell, U.S. deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific affairs, attributed the North’s unceasing tests and exercises to the need to develop its military and nuclear capabilities, not for its diplomatic goals. The more Pyongyang sticks with nuclear arsenals, the stronger Tokyo’s effort to become a “normal state” becomes.

The most immediate factor to shake the Miracle on the Han is certainly North Korean nuclear bombs. If you cannot feel it as being real, you just need to go back to the alarms on its missile launch on May 31. What if South Korea and the United States dilly-dallies in the face of the North’s regional provocation in fear of its follow-up actions?

Koreans must live in this land, but foreign capital doesn’t have to. To avoid capital flight and a catastrophic situation, the country reinforces alliance with the United States, conducts joint military drills, strikes the General Status of Military Information Agreement (Gsomia) with Japan and a currency swap deal with the country.

South Korea and Japan got closer because of North Korea. Those who denounce the Gsomia for being “pro-Japanese diplomacy” can see they are wrong if they just look into the cause-and-effect relationship. In other words, if North Korea scraps its nuclear and missile program once and for all, South Korea can terminate the agreement. However, even if South Korea pulls the plug on Gsomia, North Korea would not stop nuclear missile development.

The North provided a priceless opportunity for Japan to rebound from a devastation from World War II by starting the Korean War five years later. Pyongyang also allowed Japan to become a “normal state” by persistently developing nuclear bombs and missiles. North Korea continues criticizing Japan, but it helped Japan economically and militarily. North Korea is indeed a hidden friend of Japan, a country it has called a “1,000-year enemy.”