Published on July 21, 2019.
Based on an essay by Yoshiko Sakurai, this article examines Japan’s stricter export controls toward South Korea, the Moon Jae-in administration’s posture toward North Korea, suspicions of sanctions violations, President Trump’s remarks on the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, asking how Japan should defend itself.

July 21, 2019.
Alongside the late Watanabe Shoichi, a true and supreme scholar produced by Japan, she has continued, almost single-handedly, to criticize the lies and evil of the Asahi Shimbun.
The People’s Honor Award should be given to people like her.
The following is from an essay by Yoshiko Sakurai published in this week’s issue of Shukan Shincho.
Alongside the late Watanabe Shoichi, a true and supreme scholar produced by Japan, she has continued, almost single-handedly, to criticize the lies and evil of the Asahi Shimbun.
All people of keen insight should surely think that the People’s Honor Award ought to be given to someone like her.
Japan Surrounded by Threats: Now Is the Time to Think About Security.
On July 1, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced its “Review of the Operation of Export Controls Toward the Republic of Korea.”
The content was the tightening of export screening for fluorinated polyimide, resists, and hydrogen fluoride bound for South Korea.
Until now, these strategic materials had been approved for three years without application on the premise that South Korea was a white-list country, that is, a trustworthy country with a properly established trade-control system.
However, as will be described later, it became clear that South Korea is no longer a trustworthy trading partner, and from July 4 onward, each export case has had to be submitted to the Japanese government for review, including the destination, quantity, and other details.
The Asahi Shimbun viewed this measure as an emotional retaliatory measure by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe against South Korea and argued in an editorial that “the retaliation should be withdrawn immediately,” but that was completely off the mark.
In the first place, this measure is not an “embargo.”
It merely changes the previous preferential treatment back to ordinary treatment.
For example, the EU has not designated South Korea as a white-list country and treats it as an ordinary country.
Japan, like the EU, is simply trading with South Korea under ordinary treatment.
Prime Minister Abe spoke as follows, taking into account the fact that Japan is also a member of the Wassenaar Arrangement, which calls for the prevention of transfers of conventional weapons and related technologies that would damage regional stability.
“This measure is an obligation under which each country carries out trade control from the standpoint of national security. If the other country does not keep its promises, preferential measures cannot be granted, and this is a natural judgment. It is not at all a violation of the WTO.”
Furukawa Katsuhisa, a former member of the Panel of Experts of the United Nations Security Council’s North Korea Sanctions Committee, pointed out the following on FNN PRIME.
“Between 2015 and March 2019, a total of 156 cases were uncovered within South Korea. Of these, fully 102 were cases related to weapons of mass destruction.”
Among the specific examples he presented were high-performance precision machine tools that could also be used to manufacture parts for nuclear warheads and centrifuges.
Many illegal export cases involving machine tools subject to regulation by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a multilateral international regime that controls items usable for the manufacture, development, and use of nuclear weapons, had also been uncovered.
Zirconium, used as cladding material for nuclear fuel rods and worth 1.466 billion yen, had also been illegally exported to China.
For North Korea.
Illegal export cases increased sharply under President Moon Jae-in, from 14 cases in 2015, to more than 40 cases each in 2017 and 2018, and then to more than 30 cases in only the first three months of 2019.
The Japanese government had been calling on the South Korean government for consultations, but as Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Nishimura Yasutoshi stated, “For more than the past three years, communication with the South Korean government has been difficult,” and the Moon administration has not responded to talks.
Here I recall the strange foreign visit by Im Jong-seok, who had been President Moon’s chief of staff.
In December 2017, he visited the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon on a four-day schedule.
At the time, South Korean troops were deployed in both countries, and it was said that Im visited the Middle East as a presidential special envoy in order to encourage the troops.
However, it is extremely unusual for a presidential chief of staff to visit foreign countries.
Im was a leading figure in Moon’s pro-North Korea policy, and there was speculation that he might have contacted an important North Korean figure in the pro-North Korea UAE or Lebanon, but in the end, it was a suspicious visit about which nothing became clear.
Not long after that, on January 1, 2018, Kim Jong-un, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea, announced in his New Year’s address that he was “prepared to send a delegation to the PyeongChang Olympics.”
That was the beginning of a drastic change in the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
By that time, one cannot help suspecting that South Korea had perhaps pledged to remove every obstacle for North Korea, including violations of sanctions imposed by the international community.
By now, the Moon Jae-in administration has stripped the South Korean military of almost all its power to confront North Korea.
The counterintelligence unit against North Korea has effectively been dismantled, and South Korea is completely defenseless against North Korean operations.
The South Korean military’s weapons and equipment system includes Aegis destroyers and submarines, but these are unnecessary as preparations against North Korea, which has almost no naval power.
South Korea’s Hyunmoo-2 ballistic missile, with a range of 300 kilometers, was the subject of an attempt to extend its range further, but the United States stopped it on the grounds that it would become a threat to Japan.
These weapons and equipment can all be understood if Japan is positioned as the hypothetical enemy.
This is why not a few experts believe that the Moon administration sees Japan as South Korea’s enemy.
If South Korea becomes even more conciliatory toward North Korea, moves toward unification in the form of a federal government or something similar, and the Republic of Korea is absorbed by North Korea, the 600,000-strong South Korean military will become a hostile force toward Japan.
If North Korea does not give up its nuclear weapons, a unified Korea will become a nuclear-armed state.
As mentioned above, they possess numerous ballistic missiles and are capable of attacking Japan.
Japan, by contrast, of course has no nuclear weapons.
It has no ballistic missiles either.
At a time when Japan is in an insecure situation, wondering how it is to defend our country, a grave statement was made by President Trump of the United States.
A situation in which we cannot rely on the United States.
On June 24, Bloompark News reported Trump’s remarks that “the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is unequal,” that “the United States has the obligation to defend Japan, but Japan has no such necessity,” and that there was also a “possibility of terminating the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.”
On the 26th, Trump himself responded to a telephone interview with Fox Business and said, “If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will defend Japan, and we will fight while sacrificing our lives and precious things. But even if we are attacked, Japan has no need to help us.”
At a press conference after the G20 summit in Osaka, when asked about the possibility of terminating the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, he also said, “None at all, but the Japan-U.S. security arrangement is unequal.”
Looking at reality, the termination of the security treaty is not conceivable in the foreseeable near future from the standpoint of the national interests of both Japan and the United States.
Even so, Trump’s series of remarks were probably his “true feelings.”
Trump is saying that what the U.S. military offers is life, whereas what Japan offers in the end is only money.
He is saying that an exchange of “life and money” is unequal.
Japan must respond to that.
Furthermore, another problem has arisen.
On June 13, when Prime Minister Abe was visiting Iran, a Japanese oil tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz.
On July 10, a British oil tanker almost had been seized by three armed vessels of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The British Navy frigate Montrose pointed its guns at the Iranian vessels and issued a warning, and the Iranian vessels withdrew.
Afterward, the British Navy newly dispatched the destroyer Duncan to the Middle East.
During this period, the Iranian side consistently denied any involvement, but on the 9th, the United States proposed the formation of a “coalition of the willing.”
The main point was that each country should protect the safety of its own tankers, while the U.S. military would coordinate the whole effort.
On the Korean Peninsula, in the Strait of Hormuz, and in the Persian Gulf, the world is moving toward a system in which each country must defend itself by its own power.
A situation is emerging in which Japan cannot rely only on its close relationship with the United States.
How should Japan defend itself?
That is what should be asked in this election.