'Roaring mouse syndrome' is dominating Northeast Asia

By Edward Neilan

Pyongyang missile shot stirs thoughts of defense measures in Tokyo, Washington, Seoul while Beijing shows its frustration.

TOKYO (JP): Once again "the mouse that roared" syndrome is dominating Northeast Asia security considerations.

North Korea, which is an international pipsqueak in every category from gross national product (GNP) to ability to feed its own people, has used the old Mao Zedong dictum "political power comes out of the barrel of a gun" to attract attention and promote its strategy.

The Pyongyang regime had the audacity to flaunt international law and Japanese sensitivities by firing a rocket over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean Aug. 31.

The familiar North Korean pattern has led to international calls for punishment on one hand but also to a difference of opinion -- at least temporarily -- on funding for two light-water nuclear reactors that the United States believes would buy suspension of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Japan's share would be U$1 billion.

Washington repeatedly insists on turning the other cheek to North Korea and getting kicked in the shins in return. It is good vaudeville but questionable foreign policy.

In Japan, the North Korean rocket launch spurred fresh calls for antimissile measures and led to the agreement in New York Sept. 20 for Japan to move forward with a long-standing U.S. proposal to jointly develop theater missile defense TMD.

The U.S. proposal had been shunned by many Japanese politicians and intellectuals who believed it would unnecessarily provoke China. Other Japanese experts questioned the effectiveness of existing TMD systems, which Japanese and U.S. officials concede would take years of research and testing to become foolproof.

The plain fact is that an operational TMD system would have intercepted and exploded the North Korean missile moments after it entered Japanese airspace. Such an occurrence would horrify Japanese pacifists but it would live up to the letter of Japan's no-aggression, no-war, "defense only" constitution.

Debate is inevitable over whether the U.S. and Japan should operate the system jointly or not. Japan has quietly announced that it will start research to the tune of $130 million on its own sea-based missile defense project, called the Naval Theater- Wide Defense system or NTWD.

The North Korean shot also obviated the argument that "there is no enemy threat in the post Cold War period." Although Japan may not regard North Korea as a potential enemy, in the way it saw the old Soviet Union, it is hard to relax when a neighbor shoots missiles over one's territory without so much as prior notification.

Other considerations include Japan's no-war constitution. A debate on TMD could be the start of a airing of potential changes in that American-written document. Previous calls for change fizzled for lack of focus on any "enemy."

A danger not given sufficient discussion is the warning by Yasumasa Togo, president of the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation, on Sept. 10, that a poorly-aimed North Korea rocket -- even a non-nuclear missile -- could hit a Japanese nuclear power installation, causing an "inadvertent nuclear attack."

There are many ramifications of the shot.

The growing consensus among officials and experts in Japan, United States and South Korea is that the possibility of a civil war or coup in North Korea triggering a military attack on other countries, is greater than the possibility of Pyongyang launching a direct, full-scale assault on Seoul.

The issue comes into focus just as the postponed visit of China's President Jiang Zemin to Japan is being rescheduled for early November.

On Sept. 21 and 22 Japan and China held working level talks in Tokyo to iron out provisions of new loan to China between fiscal 1999 and 2000, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

The talks were held following an agreement Sept. 17 between Shi Guangsheng, China's foreign trade and economic cooperation minister and Japanese Foreign Minister Moscow Komura to speed up bilateral talks on the new low-interest loans.

Japan plans to extend about US$3 billion in new loans to China in the period, compared with the approximately $5 billion earmarked for the previous three-year period. Tokyo and Beijing had been initially scheduled to sign an agreement on the latest loan package in early September when Jiang visited Japan, but his visit was delayed due to severe floods on the mainland.

Many Japanese feel that China will exert arm-twisting tactics to press Japan to follow the U.S. and accept t he "three no's " policy on Taiwan.

China wants Japan to exclude the Taiwan Strait from military cooperation with the U.S. and on Sept. 22 charged that the U.S. and Japan tended to "exaggerate" the importance of the North Korean missile incident.

But the combination of urgency in getting the vital loan package approved plus embarrassment over the North Korean rocket launch may take some steam out of Jiang's security demands.