Those Damn Islets, Northwestern Edition

For every step in the right direction toward closer and deeper relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, there is the ever spiraling nuttiness over Dokdo
/Takeshima/ the Liancourt Rocks.

In a piece for The Diplomat, Rajaram Panda of the Instite for Defence Studies and Analyses chides South Korea for spending money on a deep water naval pier for the island of Ulleung, the spot of dry land nearest to the DTLR (why not coin an acronym?). What is fascinating is not the article itself, which is a level-headed plea for level-headed thinking about the ROK's actual security needs. It is the comment string afterward, which demonstrates just how insanely worked up South Korean activists can get about a set of islets which Japan will never, ever do anything about, save make pro-forma statements about how they are a part of Japan.

India, of course, has recently completed work on an agreement nailing down its disputed border areas with its least threatening neighbor and moving now on to new, less lethal means of enforcing that border, all so that the Indian government can concentrate on its border disputes with the two countries that really matter to Indian security.

Seen from New Delhi, South Korean wackiness over the DTLR must look like a tremendous waste of money and emotion.

Not so bad after all - the long road to putting Yongbyon out of commission

Ofttimes, if you don't panic and just pugnaciously stand your ground, crises can sort themselves out. The outcome may not be perfect...but experience teaches that holding out for perfection is the indulgence of adolescents and rich morons.

North Korea to Demolish Part of Yongbyon Nuclear Facility

A top South Korean official in the talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program says Pyongyang will soon demolish part of its main nuclear facility, a symbolic gesture of its commitment to nuclear disarmament.

South Korean nuclear envoy Kim Sook says North Korea plans to demolish the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear complex after it hands over a long awaited nuclear declaration.

Hopes have been rising recently that a months-long deadlock in negotiations will soon end. Earlier this month, North Korea handed over 18,000 pages of records for its Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing plant.

Last year, North Korea agreed to disable and dismantle its main nuclear complex under a deal reached with the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. In return North Korea was promised diplomatic incentives and energy aid...

So, let's see here--Japan comes out of this with:

- a strengthened Japan-U.S. security commitment

- a pair of missile defense systems, one of which actually seems to work against ballistic missiles (Hello Beijing! Howdy Taipei!)

- a regional consensus that the DPRK is an inexcusable mafioso regime and an overall pain-in-the-butt

- its living abductees back

- Article 9 still in force

and all without paying the $10 billion in in war reparations that everyone agreed Japan simply had to, had to, had to pay if the process were to go forward.

Sweet, really.

Now if the leadership in the Diet could get the Foreign Ministry's head wrapped around the idea of giving up the Liancourt Rocks (and before that, smack around the idiots in the Ministry of Education intent on messing up the Japan-ROK relationship only weeks after the inauguration of the most pro-Japanese ROK president in 30 years) then the strategic snatching of victory from the jaws of defeat would be complete.