Written on April 25, 2017, this essay criticizes academic opposition to joint research with Japan’s Ministry of Defense, arguing that academia failed to confront a far more serious issue: the involvement of a Japan-based nuclear researcher in North Korea’s nuclear development. It exposes a fundamental distortion of priorities within academic ethics and national security discourse.

2017-04-25

There was an article that criticized academic societies for expressing negative opinions toward joint research with the Ministry of Defense.
The final point raised in that article was, in fact, the most reasonable argument of all.
It argued that what academic societies should truly take issue with is the fact that a professor affiliated with a nuclear-related department at Kyoto University, reportedly a resident Korean, had played an important role in North Korea’s nuclear development.
This individual had visited North Korea many times, and the government only recently decided that if he were to visit North Korea again, he would never be allowed to reenter Japan.
The article asserted that this was the issue academia should be addressing.
What horrified me about this individual was learning the fact that his wife’s father was a senior official of Chongryon and a key figure involved in the abduction of Japanese citizens.
Combined with the fact that such a person openly held a professorship at Kyoto University and taught nuclear manufacturing technology to North Korea, it was truly chilling.
The article concluded by emphasizing that this fact, above all else, was what academic societies should have treated as the core issue.