ABSTRACT
In May 1983, when Prime Minister Nakasone signed a statement at the Williamsburg Summit that Western security is ‘indivisible and must be approached on a global basis’, it was indicative of the change in Japanese security concerns – from regional to international or global. Tokyo has been forced to see the link between SS-20 intermediate-range nuclear missiles (IRBM) deployed in Europe and in Asia because of their transportability: a US–Soviet agreement on the reduction of IRBM in Europe could result in the transfer of these missiles to Asia. Today, military threats in North-east Asia come from either the Soviet Union or North Korea or both. North Korean fire-power and armed forces have generally been considered to be stronger than those of South Korea, but a balance has nonetheless been maintained in various ways, notably by US military support for the South, strong Japanese and US economic ties with it, precariously normalized Sino-Soviet relations and friendly US-China relations.
