This paper is aimed at bringing to light North Korea's overall negotiating behavior toward Japan by analyzing a series of normalization talks held between Pyongyang and Tokyo. At the same time it also attempts to compare North Korea's negotiating atti...
This paper is aimed at bringing to light North Korea's overall negotiating behavior toward Japan by analyzing a series of normalization talks held between Pyongyang and Tokyo. At the same time it also attempts to compare North Korea's negotiating attitude toward Japan with its negotiating posture toward the United States and South Korea.
As the normalization talks between the two countries is still an ongoing process, the paper's focus is on the period between September 1990 when Japanese Liberal Democratic Deputy Chairman Ganemaru visited North Korea adopting three-party joint declaration and May 2004 when the second summit talk was held in Pyongyang.
North Korea's basic objective in its normalization talks with Tokyo is to obtain as much compensation for Japan's past crimes and economic cooperation as possible. The characteristics of the negotiating behavior that Pyongyang has shown throughout the rounds of normalization and summit talks are as follows.
First and foremost, the nature of the normalization talks were not of merely establishing diplomatic relations but of enhancing North Korea's economy through such means as obtaining compensation. Overall, North Korea has exhibited the strategy of problem-solving and yielding strategy while at the negotiating table, which means Pyongyang adopt the strategy of genuine negotiation as opposed to pseudo-negotiation.
Secondly, a showdown between political leaders was exploited. As no breakthroughs were accomplished in the talks with Japanese Foreign Ministry due in part to its competitive strategy, North Korea brought its ultimate political leader onto the scene. Kim Jong-Il made overtures to Japanese Prime minister Koizumi in a bid to realize normalization even showing a good deal of compromise.
Thirdly, North Korea made a concerted effort to secure practical interests by, for instance, asking for food aid even when it did not have the upper hand in negotiations. In return, Pyongyang permitted Japanese wives sent to North Korea as well as Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea to visit Japan while at the same time allowing some families of those abductees resided in North Korea to permanently live in Japan.
Fourthly, Pyongyang tried to promote positive public opinions among the Japanese toward North Korea in order to achieve talks on normalization.
In the final analysis North Korea's normalization talks with Japan was genuine negotiations unlike its attitude toward South Korea and the United States. North Korea, accordingly, often employed problem-solving strategy and yielding strategy throughout its dealings with Japan. It did adopted competitive strategy from time to time, but it was no more than ancillary to the problem-solving strategy.
North Korea's negotiating behavior mentioned above could provide something that we might wish to take into account in this age of inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation. For example, offering economic incentive under a certain principle would be effective and operational. Also, an inter-Korean summit talk could be utilized to promote substantive cooperation on the Korean Peninsula.