Diplomacy for Profit in Japan
KRISHER, BERNARD
BUNGLING BUREAUCRATS Diplomacy for Profit in Japan By Bernard Krisher Tokyo For over a quarter of a century, while I was a correspondent for Newsweek, I covered the political career of...
...Until recently Japan stood alone—as its rice surplus grew by leaps and bounds—in not sending emergency food supplies to the famine-stricken country...
...Normally a laworiented and law-abiding country, Japan did not find this principle palatable...
...Neither political orientation nor human rights violations have been permitted to stand in the way of maintaining or expanding business activities...
...Instead, Japan's relations with other nations have consistently added up to a policy of expediency, motivated primarily by economic considerations...
...The Korean press has expressed the hope that groups in both countries will now pressure the Japanese government to make amends, and even to punish those who failed to fight for Kim Dae Jung's civil and human rights...
...The crime committed on Japan's shores—a kidnapping and an illegal exit by sea—was an outrageous violation of its sovereignty...
...Kim came to Japan hoping to rally support for his democracy movement...
...It was a torturous story...
...In the tradition of South Africa's Nelson Mandela and Poland's Lech Walesa, his ascension demonstrated the natural desire of peoples everywhere to live under a liberal democracy...
...It also showed once again the short-sightedness of the Gaimusho's failure to nuture that basic instinct...
...He was told he would be dropped into the ocean...
...An excellent illustration, certainly, is the Gaimusho's handling of Kim Dae Jung's still reverberating abduction...
...A particular low point was his being kidnapped in broad daylight right here in Tokyo by the long arm of those who wanted him eliminated—without even an expression of concern, let alone protest, from the bureaucrats who run the Gaimusho, Japan's Foreign Ministry...
...Neither was there any response by the Japanese to Kim Dae Jung's pleas...
...On the afternoon of August 8, he met in his Grand Palace Hotel room with two supposedly sympathetic Korean legislators who were also visiting...
...He is believed to be living in the U.S...
...Previously an ambassador here himself, Lee became chief of the dreaded KCIA and is credited with masterminding the kidnapping...
...But the bureaucrats treated it as a conflict between a foreigner and his government that was of no concern to them...
...Thus it avoided angering a ruling criminal regime, and protected the economic interests of strong political lobbies on two shores...
...A night in a villa near the seashore was followed by Kim's being stuffed into a sack, loaded onto a motorboat and delivered to a ship on the high seas...
...Japan was the first democratic country to recognize Communist Vietnam and to begin trading with it...
...Conditions in Indonesia and China similarly do not seem to trouble Japan— which, it should further be noted, retains warm ties with Libya, Iraq and Iran despite the sanctions against, and open displays of distaste for, their rulers by Western countries...
...Meanwhile, in Myanmar (Burma) it has unflaggingly supported the repressive junta that has kept Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi mostly locked behind the gates of her house since her National League for Democracy won over 80 per cent of the vote in the 1990 elections there...
...It was later reported that he had been assigned to the Foreign Ministry and promoted, then had disappeared...
...Japan, she has observed, is a case-by-case culture because "we have no principles...
...In contrast, North Korea, with little to offer economically, has been given the diplomatic cold shoulder...
...Yung was actually the KCIA station chief in Tokyo, working under the direction of Lee Hu Rak...
...Kim, momentarily coming to the surface, pleaded in Japanese: "tasukete, tasukete" ("help me, help me...
...Back in Japan, the fingerprints of a Korean diplomat, Kim Dong Un, were found in Kim Dae Jung's hotel room, but the man fled before police could question him...
...One of the country's leading sociologists, Chie Nakane, views the situation somewhat differently...
...So for me Kim Dae Jung's impressive victory in South Korea's presidential election last December, and his moving into the Blue House in Seoul this past February were signal events...
...BUNGLING BUREAUCRATS Diplomacy for Profit in Japan By Bernard Krisher Tokyo For over a quarter of a century, while I was a correspondent for Newsweek, I covered the political career of South Korean dissident Kim Dae Jung...
...The Gaimusho, sticking to its "case by case" strategy, opted once more for expediency, rather than a reliance on regulations and precedents...
...Today, among the industrialized democracies, Japan is the biggest backer of human rights violators...
...There he was drugged before being taken by elevator to the basement garage...
...He spent long periods imprisoned, under house arrest, or in exile...
...When they left, two Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) thugs entered his room, gagged him and moved him to a room they had reserved next door...
...Last year it rushed to embrace Cambodian People's Party leader Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, after he deposed the legitimate First Prime Minister, Norodom Ranarridh, who could not even get a hearing here...
...This elite is forged at Tokyo University in a competitive examination hell that appears to neglect such subjects as humanity, common sense and honesty...
...On numerous occasions after he was rearrested by the Park Chung Hee regime, Kim asked Tokyo to help "restore" his civil rights: He wanted it to demand that South Korea return him to his pre-abduction status of visitor to Japan...
...Increasingly of late, citizens are discovering that their public servants in various ministries have feet of clay...
...Some attribute the unenviable distinction to its system of government: In every ministry it is the bureaucrats, not the elected officials, who both set policy and run the day-today operations...
...no protest was lodged...
...He, too, fled abruptly in '73 and is said to have ultimately found a haven in the U.S...
...As it happened, the elevator had a honeymoon couple in it...
...The incident occurred in the summer of 1973...
...He currently lives in the Korean countryside, where he makes pottery and paints himself as an innocent...
...But the couple, perhaps fearing that they were witnessing a yakuza (organized crime) scene, did not report the cry for help to the hotel staff when they got off on the lobby floor...
...Another suspect was Yung Kyoo Kang, nominally the second-ranking person at the embassy, who frequently entertained politicians and media people at a Korean kiseng house in the Ginza district...
...Bernard Krisher, a former Newsweek bureau chief in Tokyo, where he has lived for over 30 years, is the founder of the nonprofit groups American Assistance to Cambodia and Japan Relief for Cambodia...
...No word has been heard yet from the Gaimusho...
...In several respects, however, the most abject aspect of the whole episode was and remains the Gaimusho's performance...
...No attempt was made to launch a proper investigation...
...But the American CIA received a report of the incident and warned South Korea to spare Kim...
...In the garage the thugs shoved Kim into a waiting car, and they sat on him as the vehicle drove toward the port city of Osaka...
...How this approach plays out can be seen vividly in East Asia...
...Several attempts on his life were made by dictators Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan...
...As a result, he was taken to Seoul, dumped on the street near his home—and immediately arrested...
Vol. 81 • March 1998 • No. 4
