Globalism Reality: Isao Iijima, adviser to Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to meet with senior officials in North Korea ~breaking united US/South Korean/Japanese front in negotiations with Pyongyang

Isao Iijima

Pyongyang

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Japan tips its hand via North Korea By Peter Lee, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-02-210513.html 

The big story in Asia affairs today is a little trip that was supposed to stay a secret: the dispatch of Isao Iijima, adviser to Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to meet with senior officials in North Korea, thereby breaking the united US/South Korean/Japanese front in negotiations with Pyongyang.

It is the first instance of an overt divergence between Japanese and US diplomatic and security strategies, something that has been implicit in Japan's sometimes-inflammatory brand of nationalism under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - and Abe's determination to move Japan beyond its traditional role of obedient US ally to independent regional force.

The United States has been quietly disapproving of Japan's China strategy - witness Kurt Campbell's statement that the US advised Japan against nationalizing the Senkaku islands - and provocative nationalist hi-jinks on issues like the Yasukuni Shrine, but excused them as politically motivated exercises in domestic base-pandering.

However, the North Korean trip has revealed the cloven hoof beneath the robe, as far as Japan's independent aspirations in Asia are concerned.

Japan Times made it clear that the US was not consulted in advance about the trip; US special representative for North Korea Glyn Davies was only briefed after the visit:

Japan briefed the United States on Thursday about the surprise visit to North Korea by an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

After meeting with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo, Glyn Davies, US. special representative for North Korea policy, said he hopes to gain more "insights" into Isao Iijima's unannounced trip in the coming days. ...

The trip, apparently an effort to resolve the issue over North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, has raised concerns that Japan could be seen as acting alone, while the United States and South Korea continue to pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear arms and missile threats.

"I have begun the process of learning a bit more about [Iijima's trip]," Davies told reporters after meeting with Shinsuke Sugiyama, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

"I think we have some days to wait for all of us before we know there are any results from this mission ... we obviously will look forward to hearing from the government of Japan more details about this in [the] coming days," he said.

While South Korea has criticized the Japanese move as "not helpful," given the importance of coordinating a united front by Washington, Seoul and Tokyo against Pyongyang, Davies said, "I'm not going to address it in that way." [1]

The Christian Science Monitor calls it from the US side: "Japan's 'secret' trip to North Korea disrupts united stance against Pyongyang." [2] South Korea was less circumspect:

Seoul criticized Tokyo Thursday for dispatching an envoy to North Korea voicing concerns that the visit could undermine efforts to forge a coordinated approach toward Pyongyang.

Without prior notice to South Korea, Isao Iijima, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, arrived in Pyongyang spawning speculation that Japan might be trying to mend broken fences with the North, while South Korea, the US, recently even China, are making efforts to punish North Korea for conducting its third nuclear test in February by imposing sanctions.

"It is important to maintain close coordination, among South Korea, the US and Japan, toward North Korea," said [South Korean] Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young in a media briefing. "In that sense, we think that the visit by Iijima to North Korea is unhelpful." [3]

According to Japanese sources, public revelation of the trip was something of a diplomatic fiasco maliciously inflicted by North Korea:

Japan speechless on PR chief's 'secret' N.K. trip ~ Blown mission reveals bid to sidestep trilateral denuclearization strategy for abduction issue.

The government is keeping mum on a secret visit to North Korea by one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's advisers after Pyongyang revealed it to the United States and South Korea.

We "can't reasonably explain" the visit because it was supposed to be kept secret, a government source said. ...

Only a handful of people, including Abe, Suga and Keiji Furuya, the minister in charge of the abduction issue, were involved in setting up the visit, they said.

A government source said there was no choice but to say: "I'm sorry, but I haven't been told about it at all," when a US official asked about Iijima's mission. [4]

It should be pointed out that secret trips to North Korea - in addition to outreach to North Korea's UN Mission in New York - are a common feature of US diplomacy.

Quite possibly, Abe believed his North Korean move would be granted equivalent secrecy by Pyongyang and Japanese diplomats could brief US diplomats with quiet pride after the fact concerning Japan's adept, confident exercise in unilateral diplomacy. If so, the media carnival unveiled by Pyongyang on the occasion of Iijima's visit revealed Abe to be rather naive, as North Korea leapt at the chance to highlight disarray in the anti-DPRK alliance.

Abe's decision to stir the North Korean pot has several elements.  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-02-210513.html