Changing Perceptions of North Korea in Japan and Japan-US-South Korea Cooperation

Japan, the United States, and South Korea joined hands in 2023 at Camp David in responding to an historical turning point elicited by geopolitical competition, a climate crisis, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.¹ Prime Minister Kishida Fumio went further in his April 2024 state visit to Washington in recognizing that in the face of today’s urgent security challenges no country can defend itself without close allies and partners. One driving force behind the remarkable shift in Japanese foreign policy in just a few years has been mounting recognition of the threat coming from North Korea. This has contributed to trilateralism with the US as well as new bilateral ties with South Korea. Focusing on Japanese perceptions of the threat from North Korea, this article explains its impact on both the US-led trilateralism and the quick turnabout toward bilateralism.

A low point in ROK-Japanese relations dated from the October 2018 Korean court ruling that Japanese firms owed compensation to workers mobilized from the Japan-China war to the Second World War under the system of total mobilization. This represented a change in the South Korean government’s position that issues related to Japan’s colonial control had been legally resolved, and it elicited a strong reaction in the Japanese government and public opinion. Bilateral relations further worsened in July 2019, when Japan’s government took what were, in effect, countermeasures, by imposing export controls on some semi-conductor components, this time arousing a wave of outrage from Korea’s government and public opinion. As a result, the expression became widely accepted that Japan-ROK relations had plummeted to the “worst they had been in the postwar era” (sengo saiaku no kankei). No matter whether a mood of diplomacy with North Korea existed or it was collapsing, Japan-ROK ties had suffered.

Japan’s sense of threat intensified sharply from 2020, coming from China (e.g., talk of a Taiwan contingency) and Russia (its brutal assault in Ukraine) but also from North Korea, due to both its provocative missile tests and increasingly belligerent rhetoric. The Biden administration urgently sought a turnabout in Japan-ROK relations. It found an extraordinary level of camaraderie with the Kishida administration, showcased in their close cooperation on Russia and China. Yet, the US-ROK gap was greater, and the Japan-ROK rift lingered as a thorn in the path of minilateralism sought by Biden. A turning point to improved Japan-ROK ties came on March 6, 2003, when the Korean government issued a statement resolving the forced labor problem through a plan to have an umbrella foundation under the Korean government pay compensation instead. Just afterwards, through President Yoon Suk-yeol’s skillful performance in visiting Japan, Japan’s government and public opinion abruptly turned more positive toward the Republic of Korea.²

Elected in May 2022, Yoon Suk-yeol had a different view of North Korea than Moon Jae-in and moved quickly to bolster relations with the United States, creating a more positive foundation for making concessions for a breakthrough with Japan. In order to strengthen ties to the United States it was necessary to improve relations with Japan, another important US ally in East Asia in which Washington was deeply concerned. For the Yoon administration, the direct objective of improving ties to Japan was less important than the value of this as a means to improve US ties, which, in turn, was driven by security concerns³. Russia had recently launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine, China was more assertive in many spots such as Taiwan, and North Korea appeared more menacing. Just after visiting Japan, in April Yoon made a state visit to the United States, and he observed that the US and ROK have an alliance united in blood. Then In May Kishida paid a visit to South Korea, where he expressed his pain over past events between Japan and South Korea.⁴ These visits were followed by the enlarged Hiroshima G7 summit, which Yoon attended and where a Japan-US-ROK summit ensued, and the August Camp David trilateral, which reached a dramatic conclusion on five points: regular high-level trilateral summits; tighter security cooperation; expanded cooperation in the Indo-Pacific; deeper cooperation on economics and high technology; and in light of the recent pandemic grassroots, global health cooperation. With much attention turned to the widening scope of trilateralism beyond the traditional focus (albeit with quite limited actual trilateral interaction), it was possible not to keep at the center of the picture the upgraded agreement on how to respond to North Korea.

In 2023 Japan-ROK relations began to turn away from issues of historical consciousness and toward broad regional as well as global security issues, but the centerpiece of trilateralism with the United States remained North Korea. Not only was it not overlooked in this transition, but it was also foremost in the concrete plans for tightening triangular ties. After feeling marginalized in the face of an intensifying threat from the North, Japan in 2023 suddenly gained a large say in the collective response to its behavior. Alarm had grown, but so too had the sense of involvement.

Historical Structure of Japan-US-South Korean Relations

The weakest link in the triangle remains Japan-ROK relations. While differences over North Korea are unlikely to flare under Yoon, historical consciousness remains a potential trouble spot. Yet, this is not the only factor that could set back cooperation. There is also the fact that the basic security policies of the two US allies differ and, for that reason, the character of their respective alliances with the US is different. The historical basis was the focus of a divided state on the frontlines of the Cold War on strengthening ties with similarly situated states linked in an international anti-communist movement and centering the US-ROK alliance against the East.⁵

In contrast, during the Cold War, Japan chose a completely different security strategy, based on a “pacifist constitution” forsaking war and military activity while permanently discarding these in resolving disputes with another country. Security policy could not exceed the limits of self-defense. The Japan-US alliance had no meaning beyond an alliance to defend Japan. It would have been impossible to have military relations with South Korea despite North Korean threats. In South Korea, Japan’s “free-rider” security policy in the Cold War drew sharp criticism.⁶

The lack of correspondence of security policies carried over to the post-Cold War period. With democratization, South Korea discarded its anti-communism and groped to respond to a new international environment, making economic relations central and narrowly confining security interest to the neighborhood of the Korean Peninsula. After not having diplomatic relations with China and developing ties quickly from the time of normalization in 1992, with China’s rapid rise in this period, South Korea allowed its economy to rapidly become increasingly dependent on it, such that in 2003 China surpassed Japan and the United States as its leading trade partner. At the same time, China’s rise as a security force was occurring, but this was taken less seriously than in Japan and the United States, while China was treated as concerned above all with a good environment for its economic rise and a force resisting destabilization from North Korea. As the US and Japan gradually grew more alarmed about China’s security posture, South Korea considered taking a similar stance toward China a big risk; thus, widening the rift with those countries in security policy.⁷ In this way, the US-ROK alliance stayed to the end a kind of limited response to North Korea, avoiding directly extending to other states, first of all China.

Whereas after the Cold War South Korea’s security interest narrowed from anti-communism on a global scale to the environs of the Korean Peninsula, Japan at the same time was broadening its security prism, seen in sending peace-keeping forces to Cambodia in 1992 and the range of the Japan-US security system from its bilateral core to military activity aimed at peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, as declared at a 2005 foreign ministers’ statement.⁸ As the alliance expanded its role in this way, containing China’s military became a primary objective, e.g., a classic case from 2015 was continuous involvement by Japan’s naval self-defense forces in freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.⁹ For South Korea growing increasingly dependent on China economically, the Japan-US alliance’s shift toward countering China added an additional difficulty. Japan-ROK relations deteriorated as Abe sought to strengthen involvement in the Western Pacific with the United States in order to deter China, while Park Geun-hye was exploring cooperation with China economically and for her policy toward North Korea. At the same time, relations worsened over historical memory issues, which can be said not to be unrelated to the opposing security outlooks in Tokyo and Seoul.

Global Pivotal Country and Japan-ROK Relations

As Japan’s horizons broadened, South Korea’s narrowed, not so much because of concern that North Korea was growing more dangerous, as due to aspirations to entice North Korea into a new round of diplomacy with transformative impact on Northeast Asian security prospects. In this way, Seoul intended to draw Beijing as well as Moscow into a regional framework along with Washington. This contradicted Tokyo and Washington’s intensifying pushback against the aggressive moves from Beijing as well as their thinking (apart from Trump’s year of diplomacy) about Pyongyang’s intentions. Amid an historical transformation, the two US allies had chosen completely different strategies in the post-Cold War period, reaching a peak in the late 2010s.

In these circumstances, Japan-US-ROK trilateralism was stymied. To achieve this the goals of the two US alliances would have to be synchronized. When Yoon Suk-yeol took office proclaiming that South Korea would be a “global pivotal state” that prospect finally came into view.¹⁰ This was not a result of a “conservative administration,” which prioritized relations with the United States. After all, Lee Myung-bak¹¹ and Park Geun-hye¹² had narrowly limited their foreign policy scope to the neighborhood of the Korean Peninsula. However, the Yoon administration came to understand that Sino-US competition had intensified, geopolitics were now unstable, and the risk had grown for economic security, putting Sino-US competition in the Indo-Pacific region at the center of the world situation. When Yoon made his first trip to the United States in March 2023, he succeeded through the summit joint declaration on a “comprehensive global alliance” in conveying the new outlook. In the background was growing confidence in South Korea’s own national power. As Park Cheol-Hee, chancellor of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy under Yoon, asserted, the Korean Peninsula is not closed off; it must return to a position of having a central role in international society. Korea’s economic power, cultural power, and technological power furnishes it with the strength to be a leader in the world. However, politics in its current state does not permit flexing that force in international society. South Korea is a country that more than we think has developed internationally. It is time to turn to thinking and carrying out action suitable for a scale that is enlarged. Doing so will be able to win the respect and trust of international society. This analysis extends to undertaking diplomacy prioritizing the national interest as a regional country of the Indo-Pacific.¹³

Was this shift in South Korean policy due to loss of hope in diplomacy with North Korea, rising awareness of the threat from North Korea, or broader awakening to the security environment already recognized in Japan and the United States? Whatever the explanation, the reality was self-awakening to the need for a shift in diplomatic strategy, requiring a broader panorama. For the first time, as a result of the advancing US-ROK “global, comprehensive alliance,” the aims of the Japan-US and US-ROK alliances were the same. Anxious about China’s aggressive actions, Washington clearly could welcome cooperation with the South Korea, which boasted of being the world’s tenth largest economic power and its sizable military budget, apart from the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula. Similarly, Japan could react the same. In case it was threatened from China and North Korea, military and intelligence cooperation with South Korea was indispensable. The trajectory of the March 2023 declaration that the forced labor issue was resolved and August Camp David trilateral meant a reset in ROK foreign policy. Considered in the context of post WWII regional security, this could be said to have had historical significance.

The Japan-ROK Difference as Seen in the Media

The above should not be taken to mean that the two alliances with the United States have become fully aligned. For example, when running for election in 2022 Yoon raised controversy by posting on Facebook that “the main enemy is North Korea.” At the end of 2022 the National Defense White Paper said that the North Korean regime and military are our country’s enemy, responding to the assertion in the North that South Korea is the clear enemy.¹⁴ What matters is even after the “global pivotal state” pathway unfolded following the start of the Yoon regime, South Korea, as before, attached the label of “main enemy” to North Korea. The narrative in the country was similar, e.g., Figure 1 shows the tendency of the greatest number of articles posted in Chosun Ilbo, a conservative newspaper.

Clearly, amid shouting about the intensification of the Sino-US confrontation, the danger in the Taiwan Strait, etc., what is spurring lively discussion in South Korea are the dangers of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons in North Korea. Despite the extent to which the Yoon administration is calling out a broader threat, Chosun Ilbo, which is a conservative newspaper, is not thinking to report earnestly on that danger. This rhetoric is very different from Japan’s. For example, over the same period, the following figure shows the rhetoric of Asahi Shimbun.

It is clear that in Japan from 2020 to 2021, when the COVID-19 raged, there was a big change in the regional threat narrative. Mention of other countries in the media diminished, as could be seen in many countries, but what became apparent afterwards in Japan is that the level of commentary on North Korea from 2022 continued to fall well short of the level visible to 2019. In order to make this point clearer, Figures 3 and 4 compare the percentage of articles from 2017 to 2019 with those beginning in 2020 for both Chosun Ilbo and Asahi Shimbun. The drop in coverage of North Korea was greater in Japan, and even the coverage of abductees, which comprised a much larger share of articles in Japan, saw a huge decrease.

Important too is the difference in danger consciousness over China and Taiwan. In contrast to the drop in South Korean consciousness of danger from China after the pandemic, in Japan, the opposite occurred with a big jump in coverage. This sort of bump had occurred in South Korea in connection with the THAAD deployment toward the end of Park Geun-hye’s presidency and was influenced by China’s meaningful economic sanctions against the South. The Taiwan Straits issue and others were discussed as if they were distant matters. Whereas danger consciousness toward North Korea dropped greatly compared to South Korea, in Japan it climbed dramatically toward China and Taiwan. In particular, the number of reports concerning a Taiwan “danger” was more than double the previous pandemic coverage. It can be seen that the attention of Japanese was shifting sharply from North Korea to Taiwan.

Threat Consciousness of Politicians

Are the differences noted above found in actual politics? Reviewing speeches in parliament in Figures 5 and 6 demonstrates the similarities with Figures 3 and 4. Despite the Yoon administration’s warnings of the threat from North Korea, there is not much enthusiasm in the National Assembly of South Korea for discussing missile and nuclear weapons development in North Korea and even more the danger emanating from there. It is the same for the China threat, which clearly has not risen to a level worth discussing. Even less than in the media, the National Assembly is not interested in the question of the danger tied to Taiwan.

Due to the length of the paper, it is not possible to present a detailed analysis, but the reason is clear. Past discussion in Japan of the threat from North Korea was about actions, i.e., the threat of ballistic missile and nuclear development, as well as the abductees from the Cold War period. Thus, in ongoing discussions, consciousness of the danger from North Korea remains linked to these matters. However, now, that danger is dwarfed by the greater wave of warnings about a contingency in the Taiwan Straits and the Russia-Ukraine war. Typical of this understanding is the following statement:

Now there is deep awareness that international society has plunged into a new dangerous period, facing a time of the greatest postwar test with a deep challenge to the existing order. The security questions Japan is facing are deepening, e.g., the advance of North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, China’s extensive and rapid military strengthening and continued tests of one-sided changing of the status quo through applying more force against us in the East China Sea or the surrounding seas, and Russia shaking the foundation of the international order through the invasion of Ukraine and continued military activity around Japan’s borders.¹⁵

As shown in Figure 6, in Japan there is extremely high interest in a Taiwan contingency, from the fact of its geographical situation close to Okinawa. If a Taiwan contingency arises, in the United States many wonder if North Korea would open a “second front” on the Korean Peninsula, and in Japan too the same considerations are being aroused.

Conclusion

In reality, Japan and South Korea still remain well removed from a “triangular alliance” with the United States. One reason is the historical memory issue, stemming from deep distrust in the South over Japan’s past colonial control, but one other reason interfering with a three-way alliance is the big difference in foreign policy and security policy between Tokyo and Seoul. In the Cold War era, the two US alliances had different objectives: one completely centered on the defense of Japan, the other had special significance for defending the border line between the East and West camps. In contrast, after the Cold War, Japan, which was adding to its national power, used the Japan-US alliance as an opportunity to be more active in international society, while the scope of South Korean diplomacy and security narrowed to the neighborhood of the Korean Peninsula. Then, the transition to the Yoon administration’s “global pivotal state” strategy accompanied a positive posture toward resolving the historical memory question. Not only did Japan-ROK relations and accelerated trilateral linkages result from widening Korea’s vision of the world, also the character of the Japan-US and US-ROK alliances became more similar. As a result, it became possible to make linkages between the two.

Even so, the discrepancy between the foreign policy and security policies of Japan and South Korea could not be said to have completely been overcome. As before, for South Korea the main threat is North Korea. Even a change in administration and recent North Korean “abandonment” of North-South unification did not lead to a fundamental shift. In contrast Japan’s interest in North Korea rapidly declined. Even in discussion of the threat, more than talk of North Korea itself, it became common to ask how this was connected to China and other threats.

If this is the case, how should efforts proceed toward further deepening Japan-ROK cooperation? There mainly exist two directions. One is to make efforts to unify completely the threat consciousness of the two countries. Yet, even at a time of globalization, awareness of each country’s security threats has to be, to some degree, limited by geographical factors. A classical manifestation of that is the difference in threat consciousness toward North Korea and Japan in the two countries. Comparatively, in South Korean thinking, the Taiwan Straits are only secondary to the North Korean question, while in Japan, by contrast, the North Korean threat is no more than secondary to the Taiwan Straits, where Japan faces powerful China.

A second pathway could be followed by the two countries. In conditions revolving around both North Korea and Taiwan amid a major international incident, both could recognize the importance of their difference, appreciating the overlap in their shared threat, and in a division of labor, each doing its part. In this way, they would each contribute to the other’s security and their common objective of maintaining a global, peaceful order. This is the same setup with the international order centered on the United States dividing responsibility with the European states facing Russia, and Japan, South Korea, and Australia facing China. Not only calling for support of the “Indo-Pacific” order, this would be no different than forging a fine division of labor to boost each other’s geopolitical position. The Japan-US-ROK trilateral has the character of an experimental platform for the framework of a new, international order.