北朝鮮、１２カイリ線を主張 黄海の領海境で
韓国の聯合ニュースは２日、北朝鮮が先月末の南北国防相会談で、黄海上の南北の領海の境を、北朝鮮の陸地から１２カイリ（約２２キロ）南方海上とするよう新たに韓国に求めたと伝えた。韓国政府筋の話としている。
北朝鮮の主張する新たな領海線は、韓国が境界線と位置づける北方限界線（ＮＬＬ）の南側に位置する。
南北軍当局は会談で、１０月の首脳会談で設定に合意した共同漁業水域の位置などで合意できなかったが、消息筋によると、北朝鮮はＮＬＬの南側海上に漁業水域設定を求め、韓国が拒否したところ「１２カイリ線」を持ち出したという。（共同）
北朝鮮、１２カイリ線を主張 黄海の領海境で - MSN産経ニュース
China’s Thanksgiving Snub
Wall Street Journal
Monday, November 26, 2007
The military relationship between China and the U.S. isn’t always smooth sailing. But last week’s stormy waters came as a surprise. On Wednesday evening, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied permission for the USS Kitty Hawk and its carrier battle group to make a four-day port call to Hong Kong for the Thanksgiving holiday. The 8,000service –men aboard the ships-and the 290 families of crew members who had flown to Hong Kong to meet them-were left with their Thanks giving plans in tatters.
The Kitty Hawks visit had been well known for months, but Beijing didn’t officially respond to the U.S. request for permission to dock until Wednesday evening-at which point the ships had been waiting outside Chinese waters for a day. After getting the red light, the convoy began to head back to Japan. The ships were already more than 300 miles away when Beijing reversed its decision Thursday afternoon-too far to make it back in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
Beijing’s reasons for its rejection and reversal remain opaque, like most Chinese government decisions. The snub may have been retaliation for the Pentagon’s recent approval of a $940 million upgrade to Taiwan’s Patriot antimissile shield. Or for the president Bush’s meeting this month with the Dali Lama, the exiled religious leader of Tibet. The Chinese had offered no explanation.
The only message that stands out loud and clear is that China is not a reliable military partner. Beijing’s diplomacy is also not as sophisticated as it seems. Surely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has better ways to send messages to the U.S. than by stealing family dinners from American seamen.
Monday, November 26, 2007
The military relationship between China and the U.S. isn’t always smooth sailing. But last week’s stormy waters came as a surprise. On Wednesday evening, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied permission for the USS Kitty Hawk and its carrier battle group to make a four-day port call to Hong Kong for the Thanksgiving holiday. The 8,000service –men aboard the ships-and the 290 families of crew members who had flown to Hong Kong to meet them-were left with their Thanks giving plans in tatters.
The Kitty Hawks visit had been well known for months, but Beijing didn’t officially respond to the U.S. request for permission to dock until Wednesday evening-at which point the ships had been waiting outside Chinese waters for a day. After getting the red light, the convoy began to head back to Japan. The ships were already more than 300 miles away when Beijing reversed its decision Thursday afternoon-too far to make it back in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
Beijing’s reasons for its rejection and reversal remain opaque, like most Chinese government decisions. The snub may have been retaliation for the Pentagon’s recent approval of a $940 million upgrade to Taiwan’s Patriot antimissile shield. Or for the president Bush’s meeting this month with the Dali Lama, the exiled religious leader of Tibet. The Chinese had offered no explanation.
The only message that stands out loud and clear is that China is not a reliable military partner. Beijing’s diplomacy is also not as sophisticated as it seems. Surely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has better ways to send messages to the U.S. than by stealing family dinners from American seamen.
Pyongyang Fallout
Wall Street Journal
November 16, 2007
“Bush’s North Korea tilt hurts the U.S.-Japan alliance.”
One unfortunate consequence of the Bush Administration’s about face-face on North Korea is playing out in Tokyo, where the new Prime Minister is struggling to deal with a string of recent insults from Washington. The sharpest slap may come today.
When Yasuo Fukuda visits the White House, President Bush is widely expected to tell him that he plans to take North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror, despite Pyongyang’s refusal to provide any new information on the Japanese citizens it kidnapped in the 1970s and ‘80s. Information on the abductees has been Tokyo’s top priority in he six-party nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
Until recently, the administration has made progress on the abductees issue a prerequisite for taking North Korea off the terrorist list. Last year Mr. Bush met in the Oval Office with the mother of Megumi Yokota, a 13-year old girl who was kidnapped by North Korean spies in 1977 as she was walking home from school in the western city of Niigata. He called it “one of the most moving meetings since I have been the President.”
Fast forward to this month, when Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator on North Korea, took a different line in a press conference in Tokyo. When asked about the delisting, he implied that the abductees are a “legal” issue for the U.S. and a bilateral issue between Japan and North Korea. A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, elaborated this week. “In terms of the abductees issue,” he said, “the two [abductees and the delisting] are not necessarily specifically linked.”
The fate of the abductees is not merely an emotional issue in Japan, though it certainly is that, akin to U.S. sensibilities about Vietnamese MIA and POWs prior to normalization of relations with Hanoi. “Megumi-chan,” or “little Megumi” is household name in Japan, and popular opinion supports Tokyo’s tough stance on dealing with Pyongyang on the issue. Mr. Fukuda’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, rose to the premiership on the issue.
U.S. support for Japan’s position also goes to the heart of American credibility as a security partner. Some Japanese are already beginning to wonder why the U.S. is so eager for a deal that won’t truly de-nuclearize the North, which has hundreds of missiles capable of reaching any corner of their country.
North Korea has failed to declare the components of its nuclear program-seven month after the agreed-upon deadline for doing so. And there are growing doubts that the U.S. will insist on an accounting that includes the North’s nuclear weapons, its stockpile of plutonium, and a uranium program That Pyongyang once touted but now says doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, the Yongbyon nuclear reactor that is now being “disabled” too much fanfare may already be at or near the end of its useful life. No wonder Tokyo is nervous.
J. Thomas Schieffer, the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, is widely reported to have sent Mr. Bush a private cable last month, warning that the pending nuclear deal with North Korea could damage relations with Japan. There are indications that may already be happening.
On November 1, Japan suspended its naval mission to supply fuel to U.S.-led coalition forces in the Indian Ocean. Mr. Fukuda’s government pushed through a watered down bill in the Diet’s lower house this week restarting the mission. The Prime Minister decided against using his authority to push through stronger registration in part, we are told, on the counsel of advisers who urged him to distance himself from the Americans. That kind of thinking could lead to a decision by a future Japanese government to go nuclear, rather than run the risk of relying on the unreliable Americans.
As President Bush makes decisions about whether to abandon its best Asian ally on the abduction issue, he ought to consider the consequences of shaking the Japanese people’s faith in their alliance with the U.S.
November 16, 2007
“Bush’s North Korea tilt hurts the U.S.-Japan alliance.”
One unfortunate consequence of the Bush Administration’s about face-face on North Korea is playing out in Tokyo, where the new Prime Minister is struggling to deal with a string of recent insults from Washington. The sharpest slap may come today.
When Yasuo Fukuda visits the White House, President Bush is widely expected to tell him that he plans to take North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror, despite Pyongyang’s refusal to provide any new information on the Japanese citizens it kidnapped in the 1970s and ‘80s. Information on the abductees has been Tokyo’s top priority in he six-party nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
Until recently, the administration has made progress on the abductees issue a prerequisite for taking North Korea off the terrorist list. Last year Mr. Bush met in the Oval Office with the mother of Megumi Yokota, a 13-year old girl who was kidnapped by North Korean spies in 1977 as she was walking home from school in the western city of Niigata. He called it “one of the most moving meetings since I have been the President.”
Fast forward to this month, when Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator on North Korea, took a different line in a press conference in Tokyo. When asked about the delisting, he implied that the abductees are a “legal” issue for the U.S. and a bilateral issue between Japan and North Korea. A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, elaborated this week. “In terms of the abductees issue,” he said, “the two [abductees and the delisting] are not necessarily specifically linked.”
The fate of the abductees is not merely an emotional issue in Japan, though it certainly is that, akin to U.S. sensibilities about Vietnamese MIA and POWs prior to normalization of relations with Hanoi. “Megumi-chan,” or “little Megumi” is household name in Japan, and popular opinion supports Tokyo’s tough stance on dealing with Pyongyang on the issue. Mr. Fukuda’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, rose to the premiership on the issue.
U.S. support for Japan’s position also goes to the heart of American credibility as a security partner. Some Japanese are already beginning to wonder why the U.S. is so eager for a deal that won’t truly de-nuclearize the North, which has hundreds of missiles capable of reaching any corner of their country.
North Korea has failed to declare the components of its nuclear program-seven month after the agreed-upon deadline for doing so. And there are growing doubts that the U.S. will insist on an accounting that includes the North’s nuclear weapons, its stockpile of plutonium, and a uranium program That Pyongyang once touted but now says doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, the Yongbyon nuclear reactor that is now being “disabled” too much fanfare may already be at or near the end of its useful life. No wonder Tokyo is nervous.
J. Thomas Schieffer, the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, is widely reported to have sent Mr. Bush a private cable last month, warning that the pending nuclear deal with North Korea could damage relations with Japan. There are indications that may already be happening.
On November 1, Japan suspended its naval mission to supply fuel to U.S.-led coalition forces in the Indian Ocean. Mr. Fukuda’s government pushed through a watered down bill in the Diet’s lower house this week restarting the mission. The Prime Minister decided against using his authority to push through stronger registration in part, we are told, on the counsel of advisers who urged him to distance himself from the Americans. That kind of thinking could lead to a decision by a future Japanese government to go nuclear, rather than run the risk of relying on the unreliable Americans.
As President Bush makes decisions about whether to abandon its best Asian ally on the abduction issue, he ought to consider the consequences of shaking the Japanese people’s faith in their alliance with the U.S.