Abe hopes for more involved role

WASHINGTON: The upcoming Japan-US summit will provide a good opportunity for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to persuade President Donald Trump that Japan can play an important part in regional diplomacy towards North Korea, according to an American expert on Japan and East Asia security.

“I see Abe’s visit as trying to show the US that Japan is an important player and that it needs to have a voice in this,” Jeffrey Hornung, a political scientist at the Rand Corporation, said in an interview ahead of a two-day summit on Tuesday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Mr Hornung said Japan has been “missing” in a flurry of recent diplomacy involving North Korea, including a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping late last month, a meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in slated for April 27, as well as the planned meeting between Kim and Trump in early June.

“Privately, I think there’s concern about Japan being left out of the loop,” he said. “Not cut out”, but I would say there’s concern about Japan’s issues not being addressed at the negotiation table, like the abductees case”.

Mr Hornung was referring to concerns in Japan that Trump may not push Kim to resolve North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, a source of contention for other regional powers because they see it as a distraction.