Recently, some Japanese mass media approached me on the so-called research panel on Japanese abductees by DPRK. The GOJ officially announced it will hold a DG-level meeting with DRRK through diplomatic channel on July 1 and discuss this issue, even though the both sides already had got together from this week in Beijing and begun the discussion inofficially. While I was asked by reporters how I, as a member of so-called Japanese “YABUNAKA-mission” dispatched to Pyongyang in November 2004, feel now, I just recalled the then deputy DG, Akitaka SAIKI, was used to say, “Has the moment of the truth come?”. Yes, it’s true that we have to make sure whether DPRK has really decides beforehand to move forward, while we have to hold a meeting with its delegation. The point is we apparently lacks any kind of direct contacts with the decision maker’s level, so that DPRK always abuses asymmetric information vis‐à‐vis Japan.
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SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2019 TAGS: PREL, PGOV, JA, PINR, KS, KN SUBJECT: EAP ASSISTANT SECRETARY KURT CAMPBELL’S MEETING WITH MOFA DG AKITAKA SAIKI
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Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission James P. Zumwalt, Reasons 1.4 (b ) and (d)
1. (S) SUMMARY: Assistant Secretary of State (A/S) for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell met with Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) Director General (DG) of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Akitaka Saiki at the latter’s Tokyo office on September 18.
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Abductions Issue
– – – – – – – – –4. (S) Saiki lamented that the DPRK believes that 2002 was “a mistake”–referring to when North Korea admitted that it had abducted Japanese citizens. The DG said he believed that the DPRK had killed some of the missing abductees, and explained that the fate of Megumi Yokota was the biggest issue, since she was still relatively young (in her forties) and the public was most sympathetic to her case. He believed that some of the abductees were still alive. Saiki was
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concerned that the new minister in charge of abductions, Hiroshi Nakai, was a hardliner. Saiki concluded by saying the Japanese needed to sit down with the North Koreans to decide how to make progress on the abductions issue, and that the new Japanese government would be just as attentive as the Liberal Democratic Party was to the problem.
Just to anticipate results of the above mentioned DG-level meeting in Beijing, I want to write down the following things for the sake of my former colleagues in charge:
– DON’T GET CONFUSED BY BELIEVING THERE WERE AN UNOFFICIAL CHANNEL WITH KIM JONG UN WHICH DELIEVERED HIS TRUE MESSAGE TO JAPAN. The MOFA led by Mr. SAIKI is said to have assured itself of DPRK’s honest attitude, when it recognized appearance of a man on the DPRK side in the previous meeting in Stockholm who might belong to intelligence agency in charge of abduction issues. However, it’s a typical maneuver of DPRK to show “good cop and bad cop”. Besides Kim Jong Un, there isn’t any leadership in DPRK who can truly make a decision. Every single “channel” leads to him. Don’t forget it.
– IT’S THE MONEY BURIED UNDER THE BUILDING OF THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF KOREAN RESIDENTS IN JAPAN THAT MATTERS. DPRK still holds a huge amount of money under this building, which was once successfully bidded by a Japanese company called MARUNAKA HLD. Before Japanese treasure hunters, the National Tax Agency, will come to find it, DPRK urgently needs to get it back and dispatch to Pyongyang. For that, a sea route from Niigata by the legendary “Mangyongbong-92” must be reopened with official permission of the Japanese authority. As long as the transfer will continue, DPRK is willingly to talk with Japan. When it will be finished, the North Koreans will surely refuse to move forward. So, it’s only money that matters.
– DON’T FORGET A HIDDEN CONDUCTOR BEHIND THE SCENE. Although Japanese mass media just skipped to report as usual, a RUSI delegation just began to visit to Pyongyang this week. The RUSI (Royal United Service Institute) officially announced it had begun its cooperative relationship with DPRK since 2001 by accepting a research fellow in London. Just before the above mentioned bilateral talks with Japan in Beijing, DPRK is given by UK an opportunity to be quite well briefed on what really happens in the world and British intentions and strategies. The British monarchy is on the brink of fatal collapse and fears potential rising of its historical rival in the Far East: the Japanese Imperial Family. In order to evade it, the British monarchy tries to repeat its tactics to break previous the status quo in this region and involve Japan with her neighbors. Remember the Great Britain abandoned its traditional foreign policy called “Splendid isolation” by establishing its historical alliance with the Empire of Great Japan in 1902. Now, UK pursues the quite same approach to make an alliance with Japan, which is, of course, an intrigue.
– DPRK WAS ESTABLISED NOT BY THE KOREANS BUT BY A CONCERTED ACTION OF JAPAN AND THE SOVIET UNION TO MAKE A BUFFER STATE ON THE PENINSULA. One of my closest friends related to hidden networks of Japanese veterans with intelligence service once told me we must focus on what alumni of the former Imperial Military Academy in Japan did just before the end of the WWII. In order to keep US involved in Asian affairs forever, Japan needed a puppet which always troubles the American. By doing so, Japan succeeded to let US provide her with security assurance, while UK couldn’t intervene in this region in principle. This is why US always sought direct negotiation with DPRK. Its goal has been to terminate the game.
– IT’S NOT NUCLEAR BUT COAL OF GOOD QUALITY IN DPRK THAT WILL MATTER IN THE NEAR FUTURE. Even though the Japanese society still continues to discuss whether nuclear power or other conventional energy should be chosen, international experts have gradually become aware of the possible winner of current energy competition. It’s COAL, and DPRK has been very famous known as producer of bituminous coal of good quality since the Japanese colonial period.
In short, Japan has to handle this issue not from short-sighted position but comprehensively. DPRK is one of tricks done by Japanese imperial fighters for the sake of their descendants. One may not abuse this mechanism to enable his own political survival like Prime Minisiter Abe does currently. Not politicians but only the very hard core of Japanese traditional power can make a decision on whether the moment of truth in this regard comes.