By Keita Nakamura,
While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has expressed readiness to engage in high-level communication with North Korea, Japan must perform a careful balancing act to ensure its outreach to Pyongyang does not undermine its alliance with the United States and South Korea.
Pyongyang has apparently not immediately declined Kishida's offer. However, some experts do not believe the two countries are making any significant progress behind the scenes, even warning that North Korea may try to leverage dialogue with Japan to create fissures in the trilateral alliance.
North Korea made a rare appearance on the diplomatic stage on Friday, with its envoy taking part in a ministerial meeting of an Asia-Pacific security forum in Jakarta, also attended by Japan. But as was widely predicted, no obvious contact was made between the two countries.
Kishida expects direct communication with North Korea, including a summit with leader Kim Jong Un, could lead to a resolution of the long-standing issue of Japanese nationals abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s.
For North Korea, however, engaging in diplomacy is taking a back seat at this time to efforts to develop its missile and nuclear capabilities, especially with the conservative government of President Yoon Suk Yeol in power in Seoul, Korea specialists say.
Trying to rush talks with Pyongyang might endanger the ability of the trilateral alliance of Tokyo, Washington and Seoul to pressure the North to stop missile and nuclear activities, they added.
At the gathering of the ASEAN Regional Forum, Asia's largest political and security conference and one of the few multilateral events involving North Korea, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi condemned the North's latest international ballistic missile test Wednesday.
At the same time, Hayashi underscored Kishida's resolve to meet Kim "without conditions," and pushed North Korea to resume "substantial dialogue" with the countries concerned.
But the reclusive country's foreign minister was absent for the fifth straight year, partly due to the North's border closure since 2020 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
North Korea's ambassador to Indonesia An Kwang Il attended the talks -- which involved regional powers such as the United States, China and Russia along with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- in place of Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui.
An only reiterated the country's "unique claim" that is incompatible with Japan's view, and had no contact with Hayashi, a Japanese government official said without giving further details.
Less than two months ago, Kishida unexpectedly voiced readiness to set up a high-level consultation with North Korea to pave the way for a meeting with Kim.
It prompted Pyongyang's Vice Foreign Minister Pak Sang Gil to release a comment saying there is "no reason" for the two countries "not to meet."
Tomohiko Kawaguchi, an associate professor at Nihon University, said Pak's comment was taken positively by Japanese media as a sign dialogue may be possible in the near future, but in reality he believes it was effectively a refusal.
"In the comment, North Korea has set preconditions for dialogue, which are totally unacceptable for Japan, such as that the abduction issue has been already resolved," Kawaguchi said.
The development also fueled speculation that a backdoor bilateral negotiation toward the resumption of communication is progressing.
But Shunji Hiraiwa, a Nanzan University professor, is reluctant to accept such a view. He said that in 2002, "only a few officials" of the Foreign Ministry were informed in advance when then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made a surprise visit to Pyongyang.
"I do not think (the government) would announce it in advance" if the situation is really serious, he said.
Koizumi held a summit with Kim's father and former leader Kim Jong Il during the visit. After he returned to Pyongyang in 2004, North Korea handed over five abductees to Japan.
In South Korea, Yoon assumed office in May last year with a pledge to take a future-oriented approach toward Japan. Replacing left-leaning Moon Jae In, Yoon has adopted a hard-line stance on North Korea.
In addition to its COVID-19 entry ban, North Korea has apparently become less open to dialogue since Yoon's inauguration, while repeatedly firing ballistic missiles since the start of 2022.
In a show of unity in the face of North Korean provocations, U.S. forces have been conducting joint drills with South Korea and Japan near the Korean Peninsula.
Tadashi Kimiya, a professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, said Yoon prioritizes enhancing the credibility of Washington's extended deterrence involving nuclear capabilities against North Korea to neutralize its military threats.
"To counter that move, North Korea has been promoting missile and nuclear development and taking more provocative military actions, instead of responding to calls for dialogue," he said.
Under such conditions, Kimiya pointed out that the North is possibly considering Tokyo as a favorable target to "drive a wedge" between it, Washington and Seoul, as Japan cares deeply about solving the abduction issue.
Kishida's attempt to hold a summit with Kim at this time may "irritate" Yoon's administration, Kimiya also said, given the significant efforts the South Korean president has made to improve Tokyo-Seoul relations that had sunk to the lowest point in decades.
In March, Yoon's government proposed a solution to a long-running and controversial dispute between the countries over the issue of compensation for laborers allegedly forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II.
Experts are also skeptical as to whether holding a leaders' meeting between Japan and North Korea could bring favorable results, unless Pyongyang changes its stance on the abduction issue.
Still, Kimiya said Tokyo should make efforts to engage Pyongyang in denuclearization through dialogue over the long term.
"Japan should not leave everything up to the United States and South Korea forever," he said, adding that Japan has a "just cause" to talk with North Korea.
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