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Michael H. Armacost, President of The Brookings Institution, served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the Philippines and as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. Kenneth B. Pyle is Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Washington and President of The National Bureau of Asian Research. The authors are grateful to Mike Mochizuki, Don Oberdorfer, and Mike O’Hanlon for their helpful comments on this essay.© 1999 by The National Bureau of Asian Research. Japan and the Unification of Korea: Challenges for U.S. Policy Coordination Michael H. Armacost and Kenneth B. Pyle This essay examines the dynamics of Japan’s relations with North and South Korea , the potential role of Japan in unifying the peninsula, and the consequent implications for U.S. policy. Japan has an immense stake in the outcome of unification because it will deeply influence its relations with its closest neighbor as well as with the United States, China, and Russia. Despite this stake, Japan has taken a generally reactive and adaptive stance toward the process because it is ambivalent about reunification and because it labors under constraints imposed by its long abstention from security commitments, its historically strained relations with Korea, and its complex relations with China. The bilateral alliances that the United States has with Japan and South Korea make American leadership indispensable in resolving security issues. Either of two scenarios for unification, a crisis brought on by North Korean collapse or a peaceful process of coexistence and gradual unification, would require close U.S.Japan cooperation. To prepare for such eventualities the United States needs to work with Japan to shore up the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, restrain the North Korean missile program, urge Diet passage of the Defense Cooperation Guidelines , promote trilateral cooperation with South Korea, and advance theater missile defense cooperation. In the longer run, the United States should work with Japan to encourage multilateral institutions in Northeast Asia, plan for new security arrangements , and above all ensure that a unified Korea is a nonnuclear state. 5 1 Masashi Nishihara, “Japan’s Receptivity to Conditional Engagement,” in Weaving the Net: Conditional Engagement with China, edited by James Shinn, Council on Foreign Relations, 1996, p. 187. The sudden unanticipated end of the Cold War presented Japan with a new set of foreign policy challenges, among which the prospect of Korean unification is one of the most problematic. In this essay we argue that, although it has critical interests at stake, Japan labors under constraints that make it unlikely to take the lead in resolving the complex issues involved. Rather, it is more likely to be reactive and adaptive to the unification process, accommodating to the changing circumstances of unification in a cautious and incremental fashion. In some respects, because the nature of reunification is so uncertain in its implications for Japan’s interests, Japanese policymakers may privately prefer a continuation of the status quo of a divided Korea. Nevertheless, Japan cannot afford to resist unification. Moreover, in the potential scenarios for unification that we examine, Japanese cooperation with the United States is essential. American leadership in resolving strategic issues on the peninsula remains indispensable, but successful American initiatives will require skillful policy coordination with Japan that takes account of its ally’s interests and sensibilities. The resources that Japan can bring to bear and the role it plays will go a long way toward determining an enduring settlement on the peninsula and achieving a stable new order in Northeast Asia. Japan’s Stake in Korean Unification Japan has an immense stake in the outcome of unification because it will determine the fundamental nature of its strategic relationship to its closest neighbor. As Masashi Nishihara, a leading strategic thinker at Japan’s National Defense University, sums up, “Japan seeks a united Korea that is friendly to Tokyo and Washington, that is economically viable and politically open, and that will allow token U.S. presence to remain.”1 A unified Korea that retains nuclear weapons, is tilted toward China, refuses to countenance a continued security relationship with the United States that includes some continuing American military presence, and/or is resolutely hostile toward Japan in its vision of the future would represent a major foreign policy defeat for Japan and a problem of immense concern for the nation’s future. A reunified Korea with renewed animus toward Japan would have long-term, unfavorable implications for Japanese security. 6 [3.138.200.66] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 15...

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