ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Japan’s attempt to reduce North Korea’s threat to its security as well as to the security of Northeast Asia as whole. It analyzes Japan’s military and diplomatic responses, both unilateral as well as collaborative, to the rise of North Korea’s military threat since the end of the Cold War. The chapter provides the characteristics and problems of Japan’s response to North Korean threat. It focuses on the extent of Japan’s contribution to the improvement of regional stability and peace of Northeast Asia. The Allied Forces’ occupation of Japan, led by the United States, ended in 1952 with the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and the Japan-US. Security Treaty in 1951. The Korean War had a major economic impact on Japan as well. The US policy to procure needed materials from Japan during the war generated a major economic boom and laid the groundwork for its rapid economic development that ensued.
