¹ David Wroe, “Australia weighs closer regional four-way ties,” Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 2017.

² See my Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, London, Verso 2007. Also “Japan's Client State (Zokkoku) problem,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 24 June 2013

³ The four met at the ASEAN summit in Manila on 12 November 2017, “as a first step towards deeper cooperation to baance Chinas strategic expansion.” (David Wroe, “Safety in numbers as forur-way security meeting hedges China,” Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 2017.

⁴ Samuel Ramani, “India's u-turn on North Korea policy,” The Diplomat, 19 July 2017. (According to Ramani, Indian motives may include the hope that “cooperation with the United States against the DPRK could cause Washington to reciprocate with a harsher stance towards Pakistan.”)

⁵ William J. Perry (Secretary of Defense, 1994-1997), “How to contain North Korea,” Politico, January 10, 2016

⁶ Perry, op. cit.

⁷ Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Quoted in Fu Ying, “The Korean nuclear issue: past, present, and future – A Chinese perspective,” John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, Strategy Paper 3, May 2017, pp. 1-24, at p. 23.

⁸ “Statement from former U.S. Presisent Jimmy Carter on current U.S.-North Korea relations,” 10 August 2017.

⁹ Wada Haruki, “Kita chosen kiki to heiwa kokka Nihon no heiwa gaiko,” Sekai, July 2017, pp. 96-104, at p. 99.

¹⁰ Perry, op. cit.

¹¹ Wada, p. 99.

¹² On Oplan 5015, the “decapitation strike,” see Choe Sang-hun,“”North Korean hackers stole US - South Korean military plans, lawmaker says,“ New York Times, 10 October 2017.

¹³ On the mixed Washington signals of the early months of 2017, see Lee Jin-man, “The Many North Korea Policies of the Trump Administration,” Atlantic Monthly, April 2017.

¹⁴ Franz-Stefan Gady, “3 US carrier groups enter Asia-Pacific ahead of Trump's visit,” The Diplomat, 25 October 2017.

¹⁵ Wada Haruki, Kin Nissei to Manshu konichi senso, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 1992.

¹⁶ See Gavan McCormack, Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books, 2004, especially chapters 3 and 4.

¹⁷ For my discussion of the Kirby report, “Human rights and humanitarian intervention: the North Korea case,” Seoul, Journal of Political Criticism, vol. 16, No 5, 2015, pp. 151-171.

¹⁸ For declassified materials documenting this, Associated Press, “US repeatedly threatened to use nukes on N. Korea: declassified documents,” 9 October 2010.

¹⁹ Peter Baker and Choe Sang-hun, “Trump threatens ‘fire and fury’ against North Korea if it threatens US,” New York Times, 8 August 2017

²⁰ “North Korean military says Trump is ‘bereft of reason’,” CBS News, 9 August 2017.

²¹ US Department of State, Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee, Washington, 17 August 2017.

²² It may have reached 250 kilotons, almost 17 times greater than the Hiroshima weapon. (Michele Ye Hee Lee, “North Korea's latest nuclear test was so powerful it reshaped the mountain above it,” Washington Post, 14 September 2017.

²³ “Shinzo Abe: Solidarity against the North Korean threat,” New York Times, 17 September 2017.

²⁴ Uri Friedman, “Lindsey Graham reveals the dark calculus of striking North Korea,” The Atlantic (online), August 2017.

²⁵ Jesse Johnson, “Trump threatens total destruction of North Korea,” Japan Times, 20 September 2017.

²⁶ International Court of Justice, “Advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons,” 6 July 1996.

²⁷ Francis Boyle (University of Illinois) quoted in “Washington's ‘game of chicken’ with North Korea could have catastrophic consequences,” Sputnik, 19 September 2017, ibid.

²⁸ International Court of Justice, op. cit.

²⁹ The International Court of Justice unanimously interpreted Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty as implying an obligation on the part of nuclear weapon states to “pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

³⁰ Broinowski suggests North Korea might even have a case under Article 51 of the UN Charter which maintains the right to self-defence when a sovereign state is under direct attack by a foreign power (Adam Broinowski, “Picking up the pieces amid the US-North Korea nuclear standoff,” Pearls and Irritations, 25 August 2017)

³¹ Wada, op. cit. Lee Jin-man, “The many North Korean policies of the Trump administration,” The Atlantic Monthly, April 2017.

³² See the entry for “Outer space,” Wikipedia, and sources cited there.

³³ Ide Hiroyuki, “‘Kyofushin surikomi’ ni hihan dai,” Shukan kinyobi, 7 July 2017, p. 5.

³⁴ Michael Penn, “North Korea's threat boosts bomb shelter sales in Japan,” Al Jazeera, 28 June 2017.

³⁵ Aso made, and then withdrew, this comment. See Kyodo, “Test-happy Pyongyang accuses Abe of ‘hysteric’ campaigning to win election,” Japan Times, 26 October 2017

³⁶ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration,” Pyongyang, 17 September 2002.

³⁷ Wada Haruki and Gavan McCormack, “The Strange Record of 15 Years of Japan-North Korea Negotiations,” Japan Focus, 28 September 2005.

³⁸ Wada, op. cit.

³⁹ Katherine Murphy, “Australia will back US in any conflict with North Korea, Turnbull says,” The Guardian (Australia), 11 August 2017.

⁴⁰ Lindsay Murdoch, “PM ramps up thetoric calling N Korea 'cunning rriminals.” Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 2017

⁴¹ David Wroe, “Bishop vows further sanction pressure against N Korea,” Sydney Morning Herald, 20 September 2017

⁴² Julie Bishop, “Failure to check North Korea could embolden ohers to pursue deadly weapons,” Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 2017.

⁴³ Tom Minear,“North Korea's under-19 soccer team blocked from entering Australia,” Herald-Sun, 10 October 2017

⁴⁴ Tim Shorrock, “Diplomacy with North Korea has worked, and can work again,” The Nation, 5 September 2017.

⁴⁵ Charles L. (Jack) Pritchard, “Six Party Talks Update: False Start or a Case for Optimism,” Conference on “The Changing Korean Peninsula and the Future of East Asia,” sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Joongang Ilbo, 1 December 2005.

⁴⁶ See my Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books, 2004; also “Difficult Neighbors — Japan and North Korea,” in Gi-Wook Shin, Soon-won Park, and Daqing Yang, eds, Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia, London and New York, Routledge, 2007, pp. 154-172.

⁴⁷ C. Kenneth Quinones, “The United States and North Korea: Observations of an Intermediary,” lecture to US-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, 2 November 2006, audio link at:

⁴⁸ Chun Young-woo, “The North Korean nuclear issue,” speech to Hankyoreh Foundation conference, Busan, 25 November 2006.

⁴⁹ Jeong Se-hyun, Shin Dong-A, September 2017, pp.

⁵⁰ Peter Baker and Choe Sang-hun, “Trump threatens ‘fire and fury’ against North Korea if it threatens US,” New York Times, 8 August 2017

⁵¹ Security Council Resolutions 2371, 5 August 2017, and 2375, 11 September 2017.

⁵² The (South) Korean Bank of Korea estimates a North Korean economic growth rate in 2016 of 3.9 percent, its best outcome in 17 years and, though from a low base, far above its neighbour states. Reuters, “Kita chosen Keizai seicho, 16 nen wa 3.9%, 17 nen buri no okisa -Kankoku ginko,” 21 July 2017.

⁵³ The failure of the summer rains in 2017 had already caused the country to be “unable to properly feed its people, including soldiers…” (Justin McCurry, “Drought and now sanctions add to North Korea's hardships,” Guardian Weekly, 1 September 2017)

⁵⁴ Justin McCurry and Tom Philips, “Putin calls for dialogue to avert a catastrophe,” Guardian Weekly, 8 September 2017.

⁵⁵ Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton. Countries that have bowed to such pressure include India, Philippines, Mexico, Peru, Egypt, and Uganda (Gregory Elich, “Trump's war on the North Korean people,” Counterpunch, 19 September 2017.)

⁵⁶ Peter Hayes and David von Hippel, “Sanctions on North Korean oil imports: Impacts and efficiency,” NAPSNet Special Report, September 05, 2017,

⁵⁷ See my discussion in Stewart Lone and Gavan McCormack, Korea since 1850, New York, St Martin's Press, 1993, especially pp. 120-122. And for pages of this book on Taejeon, see here.

⁵⁸ Ibid, pp. 120-122

⁵⁹ The Commission was active between 2005 and 2010. (Gavan McCormack (with Kim Dong-choon), “Grappling with Cold War History: Korea's embattled Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Japan Focus, 21 February 2009.)

⁶⁰ Gregory Henderson, then a US embassy official, gave this figure in his 1968 work, Korea – The Politics of the Vortex, Cambridge, Mass, 1968, p. 167.

⁶¹ Choi Ha-young, “Moon sheds light on dark history,” The Korea Times, 21 August 2017.

⁶² “Joint Statement by the Russian and Chinese Foreign Ministries on the Korean peninsula's problems,” Moscow, 4 July 2017.

⁶³ For two exceptions, Pepe Escobar, “Mr Trump, Tear down this (Korean) wall,” Asia Times, 16 September 2017, and Tanaka Sakai, “Puchin ga Kita chosen mondai o kaiketsu suru,” Tanakanews online, 20 September 2017.

⁶⁴ Putin was host of the meeting, but in a sense the proposal might better be referred to as “Putin-Moon” because of the significant South Korean input.

⁶⁵ Pepe Escobar, “The Russia, China plan for North Korea: stability, connectvity, participation in East Asia Forum,” Asia Times Online, 13 September 2017.

⁶⁶ “Moon daitoryo,” op. cit; James O'Neill, “North Korea and the UN sanctions merry go round,” New Eastern Outlook, 18 September 2017.

⁶⁷ Well-known Japanese public intellectual and media figure Tahara Soichiro reports having been summoned for discussion by Abe, whereupon he outlined a regional plan along the lines suggested here, drawing an enthusiastic response from the Prime Minister. (Tahara Soichiro, in Shukan Asahi, 22 September 2017, as noted in Jinbo, op. cit., at p. 72.)

⁶⁸ According to sources noted by Jinbo Taro, “Media hihyo” (119), Sekai, November 2017, pp. 65-72.

⁶⁹ Vladimir Putin, Press Conference, 5 September 2017, quoted in “Former nuclear inspector: calling North Korea ‘nuclear capable’ is a ‘gross exaggeration’,” The Real News, 5 September 2017.

⁷⁰ “Kita Chosen – atsuryoku ippendo wa Nichibei dake,” Tokyo shimbun, 12 October 2017.

⁷¹ “UN Chief: Millions live under shadow of DPRK nuclear threat,” Voice of America, 19 September 2017,

⁷² At 43 kilometers long and up to 70 meters deep, the Soya Strait would be an expensive project but probably no more technically difficult than the existing Japanese Seikan tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and Hokkaido (53 kilometers long and 140 meters deep). Kiriyama Yuichi, “Shiberia tetsudo no Hokkaido enshin, Roshia ga keizai kyoryoku de yobo,” Shukan ekonomisuto, 15 November 2016, p. 22.