ABSTRACT
The key events of the Nodong and Taepodong missile launches clearly contributed not only to an external recalibration of security risks, but also to an internalized reallocation of risk. This is tangibly evident in terms of how resident North Koreans in Japan came to be framed. As posited in the previous chapter, the negative framing of North Korean elements in Japan, including resident Koreans allied with the DPRK, and specifically Chōsensōren, has been something that developed through a transitional phase over the course of the Cold War. Not least this was in line with domestic and US foreign policy interests—adhering to the norm of bilateralism (Hook et al., 2005: 253). In order for politically motivated actors to realize such a framing of resident North Koreans, and emphasize the potential risks attached to them, appropriate sources of risk have had to be identified. One such area has been the scrutiny and governance of remittances sent from Japan to the DPRK. Indeed, as concerns about the North’s nuclear programs began to take hold during the early 1990s, statements were already being submitted to the Diet voicing alarm at the volume of funds being remitted through Japan’s “money pipeline” to Pyongyang (Eberstadt, 1996: 523). The initial response by the state to Japan’s North Korean-allied residents, in terms of them being perceived as the source of security risks, also reflects the broader proliferation of accentuated risk perceptions justified through the negative framing of all that is associated with the DPRK.
