By Mathew Maavak
Kim Jong-il's delusional calculations seem to have sputtered like his vaunted Taepodong-2 missile. If he wanted to test the reaction of the United States and Japan, he should have watched the performance of the Nikkei index that morning. After Pyongyang fired off seven of its finest, stocks all over Asia plunged except for a few notable exceptions.
Shares of defense-related industries bucked the trend, and none of them come more venerable than Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It shares rose as much as 1.62 percent later that day. There were other familiar names that had a "buy" recommendation on them. They go a long way to those days when Mitsubishi Type O fighters, Aichi dive bombers, and the Kawasaki Ki series terrorized the Pacific skies.
Kim should have also noted the intense joint naval maneuvers conducted by the United States and Japan in the East Sea/Sea of Japan during the run-up to the launches, but Pyongyang -- starved of the internet and basic staples - must have thought it had found a blind spot in the global tracking grid.
It was the Fourth of July in the United States; a season when Americans find an excuse to forget about missiles, Iraq, the war on terror and strained gasoline inventories which were giving crude oil another crack at the "record high."
NASA, the U.S. Space Command and NORAD were also having some nail-biting moments over the trajectory of the Discovery space shuttle. A good number of personnel would have been either vacationing or co-opted into the Independence Day pageantry. The rest of the world was gripped by the titanic clash between Germany and Italy at the FIFA World Cup semifinals.
Most of all, South Korea was dispatching its survey vessels -- and Korean pride -- to the disputed Dokdo/Takeshima chain, amid heated Japanese protests.
There was also the jittery crude oil market, and the July 12 deadline delivered to Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. Prior to July 5, the most market-rattling missile tests were Iranian improvements of North Korean technology. The Persians were even cocky enough to televise the precision of their latest arsenal, and the new highs with which they could elevate Nymex.
Imagine what would have happened if the Dear Leader had tried an encore of the 1998 gung-ho Tokyo cruise? This time, that piece of metal would have plopped on Japanese soil.
And that would have been the final straw for Japan's post-Nagasaki pacifism. Public restraint over a full-scale rearmaments program would dissipate. Right now, there are Aegis warships berthed at the Yokosuka base in Tokyo Bay, with more on the way. Eventually, the symbol of the Rising Sun will flutter on a good number of them.
Gone are the days when U.S. congressmen threw tantrums over a mortifying trade deficit with Tokyo. Sometimes, Japan would do the needful by purchasing a new naval vessel; often that excess money involved the construction of a bridge to nowhere.
In the meantime, Japan was not idle. Its soft diplomacy was winning over fans. The yen was poured into famine stricken areas, poverty-eradication programs, AIDS succor and student aid for Third World citizens.
What was Kim thinking when he fired those missiles? That South Korea's massive investments in China -- amounting to 60 percent of the total expended abroad -- might make it vulnerable to pressures from Beijing? Face-to-face dialogues with the United States?
Washington has coolly opted for the soft line. It's back to the six-party negotiations in Northeast Asia. Pyongyang's agitprop department is only delaying the inevitable; a fully re-armed Japan and more regime change ammunition for Washington.
Tokyo is already signing up for a U.S.-led defense shield. With Japanese expertise and funds, there is a possibility that the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative -- now too expensive and chimerical for Washington -- could leave the realm of dreams and drawing boards into reality. These are astronomical, multibillion dollar enterprises that Japan can afford. Its central bank has maintained a zero interest rate for years to boost a resurgent economy, and an imminent hike -- to be announced in the coming days -- would still be drastically lower than the global average.
If China was playing Sun-tzu 101 through proxy Kim, it would have been an old trick at "concircling" a rival. India offers the perfect example. It is surrounded by a despot in Katmandu, a military junta in Yangon, a pro-Beijing regime in Dhaka and an outright enemy in Islamabad.
That's what happens when politicians pander to the basest anti-U.S. instincts for electoral gains; when memories of the British Empire are scrambled with soupcons of fiction and faction. Time and again, U.S. military aid was rebuffed in favor of New Delhi's Third World-Third Route machismo, even when it was getting hammered during the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. India is now pandering to despots at the expense of Aung San Suu Kyi, Tibet, pro-democracy aspirants in Nepal, and virtually everything else it used to stand for.
This lesson should not be lost on politicians in Seoul. Wrestling over details of the proposed free trade agreement is all well and fine. Seoul in fact, gave in too cheaply over film quotas. But getting worked up over U.S. army bases is another thing altogether. Japan is now drawing maximum mileage from their U.S. bases, and if the Dear Leader goes ballistic with those erratic phallic symbols again, those Mitsubishi and Kawasaki plants might just roll out guns, tanks and aircrafts, sooner rather than later. Like it or not, the free world would sympathize with Japan.
Furthermore, unlike China, Japan would have the luxury of selling arms to nations with democratic credentials, exchanging a moral high ground for a handsome profit.
All Kim Jong-il achieved was to place the Korean people in a very vulnerable spot.
This is Tokyo's moment. It was the first to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution against Pyongyang. One would be hard-pressed to remember a precedent.
Published in the Korea Herald on July 11, 2006
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