Regional Risk and Security in Japan by Glenn D. Hook & Ra Mason & Paul O’Shea

Author:Glenn D. Hook & Ra Mason & Paul O’Shea [Glenn D. Hook]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

5 Abductions and the risks to identity

When considering the actual and potential harms posed to everyday security in response to the issue of North Korea’s state-sponsored abductions, the relevance of identity looms large. In this sense, the sourcing, construction, framing and recalibration of risk is less obvious, but salient nonetheless. This is so not least because of the abduction issue’s malleability, particularly as a practical means by which to transform Japan’s status from aggressor to victim (Tanaka 2009: 217; Hanssen 2011: 65–6). Prior to the emergence of the abduction issue, without a means by which to vindicate state-level behaviour, Japan’s policymakers continually faced the risk of being discredited as insensitive, provocative or racist if criticizing Korean actions. This stemmed in one sense from a national sense of guilt that was felt at state and, perhaps more critically, at societal levels and maintained Japan’s identity as that of aggressor, based on its colonial history on the Korean Peninsula. However, through what one leading former journalist on the issue described as a process of ‘psycho-engineering’ (Interview G, 18 July 2013), those on the right of Japan’s political spectrum were able to remove this risk to self- and state identity and replace it with a risk constructed around threats to identity and victimization, based on the unlawful actions of the DPRK’s agents. This state-level risk recalibration was then transposed to the individual level of citizens, as somehow representative of a collective national identity.

As alluded to in the introduction to this book, the articulation of this process is expressed clearly via mainstream political and media discourse. This is particularly evident with reference to an outspoken prioritization of the abduction issue by parliamentarians, which became intensified following the September 2002 Pyongyang summit and admission by Kim Jong-Il that state-sponsored abductions did indeed take place. The ensuing recalibration process was backed by a media tailwind, but was led at the state level by prominent politicians such as former and present prime ministers, chief cabinet secretaries and defence ministers, including, among others, Koizumi Junichirō, Abe Shinzō, Asō Tarō and Ishiba Shigeru. However, emotive language was used to evince the substantial emotional harm caused to Japanese abductees’ families as a result of abductions – and to defend national identity. Such language was used not only by these elite figures, but by a broad range of actors from the political upper echelons in the months that followed Koizumi’s September 2002 meeting with Kim. The thrust of this was exemplified by coalition, Kōmeitō, party representative Araki Kiyohiro, who spoke on 23 October 2002 to the main session of the Diet; he said, ‘We ourselves are torn apart when thinking of [the victims’ and their families’] indescribable pain and anguish.’ Araki, as a case in point, then immediately went on to discuss this abstracted suffering in relation to ‘the primary responsibility of the state being the defence of its citizens’ lives and property.’ Hence, he both linked the risk of potential and actual personal emotional harm to national sentiment and material loss.7

The

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