The Collapse of the Second DPRK-U.S. Summit: Japan’s Reaction and Assessment

No. 2019-9 (March 8, 2019)

Dr. Lee Myon-woo

Vice President, the Sejong Institute

mwlee@sejong.org

Japan’s general assessment regarding the outcome of the Second DPRK-U.S. Summit in Hanoi can be summarized as a positive reaction with a small relief. Japanese politicians, including current acting secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Koichi Hagiuda, have expressed their opinions that the preservation of status quo is preferable to an agreement which does not assure complete denuclearization. Japan constantly explicated its concern for North Korea’s short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. From such perspective it took precautions against the possibility that President Donald Trump could agree with North Korea, chiefly on partial denuclearization and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that directly threatens the U.S. And thus, provided that a “big deal” which includes a whole range of issues is infeasible, Japan assesses the result to maintain the status quo as more positive than a “small deal.”

Japan’s sigh of relief to the collapse of the summit also stems from the thought that Japan has a larger role to play in the issue, saying goodbye to the previous idea of so-called “Japan passing” – Tokyo being disregarded in the North Korean nuclear issue. This is reflected in Prime Minister Abe’s recent comments that now it is his turn to deal with North Korea. The Japanese view that a window of opportunity is opening originates from Japan’s verification of North Korea’s dire economic conditions at the summit. Although contrasting views on North Korea’s economic condition exist, Japan focuses on the point that it supposedly confirmed that the slush fund suffered a blow from the economic sanctions rather than the country’s general economy related to the formation of marketplaces.

In other words, Japan speculates that North Korea would inevitably converse with Japan to overcome its economic hardships since the negotiation process between the United States and North Korea, albeit not terminated, is expected to extend over a longer period of time. Japan’s ingrained distrust in North Korea and skepticism toward the DPRK-U.S. negotiation was much well-known. However, such perspective started to alleviate around the first DPRK-U.S. Summit in Singapore, and the Japanese government proposed the possibility of ameliorating its relations with North Korea. Nevertheless, North Korea only revealed a censorious attitude in return as it concentrated on the consultation with the U.S. related to denuclearization and sanctions relief. Japan anticipates the breakdown of the Hanoi Summit would accentuate its role in the region, hence raising the possibility of talks on the issues that lie between Japan and North Korea such as abduction issues and missile problems.

Japan suggests the two following aspects as reasons for the collapse of the summit. First, President Trump was not in a political situation to be satisfied with a “small deal.” In fact, domestic political circle in the U.S. paid more attention to the public hearing of President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, than the Hanoi Summit. Although President Trump shortly rebutted Cohen’s testimony that his words are falsified, it is assumed that the U.S. deliberately withheld available “small deals” since partial agreements would not suffice to turn the tables at home.

Additionally, Japan, in general, agrees more with the U.S. than North Korea in regard to contradicting explanations for the breakdown of the summit. Washington ascribed the summit collapse to Pyongyang for demanding the removal of sanctions “in its entirety”, but North Korea refuted such claim saying that it only proposed partial removal of sanction resolutions which were adopted in 2016 and 2017. However, given the fact that those five resolutions amount to an eighty-percent of the sanctions regime, Japan considers President Trump’s statement more convincing.

Secondly, Japan indicates Chairman Kim Jong-un’s misperception and miscalculation about President Trump is also attributable to the fruitless summit. At the First DPRK-U.S. Summit in Singapore, President Trump adopted a “top-down approach” which allowed him to set the direction on the key agendas at the meeting with Chairman Kim. Such behavior differentiates from the conventional proceedings of the summit in which the leader sign a prepared agreement produced through the working-level consultation. Therefore Chairman Kim miscalculated that he could bridge the gap which opened at the working-level talks, through the summit. In other words, considering President Trump’s, Chairman Kim overlooked the numerous factors that President Trump, a self-anointed master deal maker, needed to consider ahead of the summit and simply expected his political crisis would work in North Korea’s favor.