ABSTRACT
It will be argued below that it was the August 1998 Taepodong 1 test missile launch, rather than its Nodong predecessor in 1993, which probably acted more than any other single event or action as the most significant catalyst in the processes driving Japan’s post-Cold War recalibration of risk vis-à-vis North Korea. Reaction to the Nodong launch by key actors, however, forms a logical starting point from which to examine how the process of risk recalibration became embedded in discourse attached to Pyongyang in Japan. Such an examination needs to be undertaken with respect to central structural transformations occurring in the post-Cold War security environment of East Asia, and has to be contextual-ized in relation to a number of prevailing norms which influence how risks are mediated between the state, market, and society in Japan. In addition, it should be made clear that these launches were not isolated incidents, and have to be placed in the context of precursory events and ongoing political discourse, particularly that which surrounded the breakdown of Japan–DPRK normalization talks in the early 1990s, Pyongyang’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which sparked the so-called nuclear crisis of 1993–4, and increasing public and political attention to the abduction issue. This chapter highlights the extent of the gap between the two launches; demonstrating, in light of the case studies which follow, just how far the process of framing North Korea has extended in the past two decades in Japan.
