Posted on 02/10/2003 4:21:32 PM PST by Heartlander2
Japan will consider imposing sanctions against North Korea if the secretive Stalinist state, at the center of a nuclear standoff, fires a ballistic missile, a report said Sunday.
If a North Korean missile fell on Japanese territory or waters, the Tokyo government would convene an emergency meeting and consult the United States on counter-measures, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.
The report did not specify what counter-measures could be taken.
But Japanese officials said last month Tokyo could ask US forces to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korean missile bases if Pyongyang was preparing to fire missiles at its territory.
Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said it would be "within the legal framework of self-defense" if Japan asked the US to launch a pre-emptive attack if it had "no defense alternative."
Even if a missile landed outside Japanese territory, Tokyo would still consider imposing sanctions such as freezing aid, the leading daily quoted an internal government paper as saying.
Sanctions could be justified as a missile launch breaches a declaration signed by North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-Il and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a historic summit in Pyongyang last September, the report said.
The declaration said North Korea expressed its intention to continue its moratorium on missile tests beyond 2003.
Japan has twice been alarmed by North Korean missile launches.
In 1998, Pyongyang sent shockwaves around the world by test-firing a suspected Taepodong-1 missile, part of which flew over Japan's main island of Honshu and into the Pacific.
Earlier, North Korea launched into the Sea of Japan a Rodong-1 missile with a range of 1,300 kilometers (810 miles) in 1993 after testing two types of crude Scud missiles.
The government document said Tokyo would demand Pyongyang halt a missile launch when preparations for firing had been confirmed by such signs as troop movements, according to the daily.
At the same time, the Japanese public would be warned of an imminent missile test, the document added.
On Friday, a leading Japanese defense analyst said North Korea might test-fire this year a long-range Taepodong-2 missile which could be capable of reaching parts of the continental United States.
Hideshi Takesada, a professor at the National Institute for defense Studies, said the hardline Stalinist state had conducted new missile tests every five years.
A Taepodong-2 missile has a range estimated between 3,500 and 6,000 kilometers (2,190 and 3,750 miles).
According to South Korean defense ministry data, North Korea is currently testing Taepodong-1 missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) and is also developing longer-range Taepodong-2 missiles.
North Korean ambassador to China Choe Kim-Su said last month Pyongyang might resume missile tests after Washington cut off fuel shipments late last year over North Korea's secret nuclear weapons program.
Or failing that, buy "Made in Mexico" junk, that might help keep so many Mexicans from coming here. The same applies to several other Latin American countries. Set up a "Fortress of the Americas", and tell the rest of the world to go fly a kite, preferably in a Thunderstorm.
As a result of a treaty that we were a party to in the early 1900's. They hated us for it, which lead to WWII.
The history books have been re-written re dumbdown, but the ones I read when I was going to HS and College said exactly that.
Down deep the Japs still hate us, so we need to watch what we give them.
Instead, let them arm themselves with conventional weapons, and let them pay us for them, so they can fight the North Koreans when the time comes.
You know, I really don't think the emergency meeting would be necessary. This is Japan's way of telling NK "you're dead meat the momment the missle is fired".
I don't know about that. I have bought some electronics crap that failed, opened it up and have seen the Made in Mexico branding. Really bad solder jobs and construction. The Chinese stuff is better.
The Japanese know where their bread is buttered. They benefited from our getting their heads right.
Look at them now, 50% of the cars in America are made in Japan.
You're right, most of our history books don't teach this, but I was also fortunate to have some good history teachers. The Japanese didn't bomb us for the heck of it, it was partly due to built-up resentments. I doubt they hate us, any more than they hate the Russians (who they whipped real good at the turn of the century (previous one). But they do remember that we and the Russians held them back from being all they could be, so we must be careful how we arm them.
Though I'm not positive, because of their Constitution I doubt that they legally can. A Constitution that the United States, for the most part, wrote.
Ouch! That sounds painful. Don't they have a pill for that nowadays?
I think you meant 'naval blockade'.
True enough. Teddy Roosevelt bears as much or more responsibility for WWII as does Franklin Roosevelt.
The Russians and the Japanese were disputing over the territory of Manchuria in 1905. Russia had poured troops in there, and the Japanese had planned to keep it within the Japanese Empire. After Russia promised to leave the area in 1902, and didnt leave, the region quickly escalated into war. Japan had for the most part been winning the war, and were also financially strung out, but when Roosevelt had a conference with the leaders of both nations, he conceived a peaceful solution. He declared Japan the victor, and Manchuria would be handed over to Japan. But, Russia did not have to pay reparations for the losses of Japan. This extremely angered the Japanese and threw them into a deep depression. They never forgot this and is commonly thought to be the act that set in motion the events that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I don't know where you get your misinformation, but I lived with them for 15 years. Yes, there are the arrogant kool-aid drinking types who think that Japan could've won World War II and been better for it.
But for every one of these kooks, there are 100 who praise America and McArthur for the help we gave them after the war, grumblings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki notwithstanding.
We are Japan's best customer by far and in a business and merchantilist economy which values customers that, alone, means a lot.
Now it is, but it wasn't at first. As a counter example I've been buying Aguila brand ammo for quite some time, it's made in Mexico on Remington tooling (they used to make it for Remington) and I've not had a single misfire with the stuff. In addition to "normal" ammuntion, they also make some innovative, if unorthodox, stuff, like really short shotgun shells (More rounds in a tubular magazine).
While Nations do not have friends, but only interests, I don't think the Japanese still hate us. Like an aspiring bully that gets the snot beat out of him by one of his would be victims, and becomes good friends with him later, the Japanese know they got the snot beat out of them, fair and square. Our post war reconstruction and re-work of their government didn't harm matters either. On top of all that, we're their best market. Of course many Japanese didn't hate us even before the war. Unlike Admiral Yamamoto, they mostly didn't know us. It's really a shame we had to kill him, but he was their most competant leader.
Or at least by Japanese Companies. Many of them are made in the US, for the cheap labor (and reduced shipping costs). My Mazda was built in a Ford plant in Michgan, and that line has been since 1990. Toyota just annouced they are building a new truck plant in San Antonio, and everyone here is all a twitter about it.
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