Continuity and Discontinuity of Japanese Foreign Policy toward North Korea: Freezing the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) in 1998

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the case of Japan’s foreign aid policy on the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) project. Japan suspended disbursment of the aid in retaliation to the test firing of a Taepodong–1 missile by North Korea in August 1998, and later resumed it in the face of U.S. (and, to a lesser extent, South Korean) pressure. This series of events provided a rare case, in which Japan showed an aggressively opposite stance from that of the United States over a security issue. Whereas Japan was insisting on postponing the KEDO project, the United States advocated proceeding with the KEDO as originally scheduled. The different responses of Japan and the United States caused by the Taepondong–1 missile incident provide an interesting case with which to examine the making of Japanese foreign policy and the role of U.S. pressure in that process.