Author Wada notes that following the collapse of the Japanese empire in 1945, relations between Japan and all parts of the old empire but one have been normalized, mostly long ago. Only with its neighbour, North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK) has there been no normalization. In this essay, which is drawn from his extensive writing in Japanese on the subject and follows two earlier related essays in APJJF (2005 and 2022), Wada asks why negotiations, that began in 1991, have been stonewalled for so long. Examining the forces that have shaped Japanese policy, he argues that the issue of abduction by North Korea of Japanese citizens in the 1970s was manipulated by fiercely anti-North Korean elements leading to the adoption as national policy of what he calls the “Three Abe Principles” in the time of the Abe Shinzo (2006-7, 2012-2020) government. Periodic offers of negotiation towards normalization without preconditions since then have not been intended seriously and constitute a thin blanket covering hostility. Those principles are an obstacle to normalization and must be changed, Wada insists.
