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Curzon
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Curzon

Date

June 18th, 2006

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Ohhh, scary!

Japan to make ‘fierce’ protest to the UN if NKorea launches missile

Japan will immediately file a “fierce” protest with the U.N. Security Council if North Korea test-fires a long-range missile, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Sunday, as several news reports said a launch may be imminent.

Oh no! Not the UN! Kim Jong Il must be quaking in his boots.

“We will naturally file a stern protest and it will be fierce,” Japanese Foreign Ministry Taro Aso said.

Woof!

Aso said during the news program on TV Asahi that Japan would not immediately resort to arms if North Korea fires a missile. The minister said Tokyo will immediately seek a meeting of the United Nations Security Council following a launch, Kyodo News agency reported.

Surely nothing is more effective against a Taepodong-2 long-range missile than the all-powerful nasty letter. And if you think I’m taking this too seriously, know that this latest missile could reach the US.

Comments to this entry

IJ
June 18, 2006
10:32 am
Good to see that Japan still believes in the world's effort to stop another world war - the UN Charter. Japan is a major contributor to the UN regular budget, paying 19.5 percent. The United States pays 22 percent. And the European Union pays over 30 percent. "Budget for 2006":http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/assessmt/dues2005.pdf
germanicus
June 18, 2006
10:51 am
I], maybe something good will come of Japan's letter to the UN. When the UN ignores the letter, maybe the Japanese will reconsider their 19.5 percent contribution to the UN. If both the Japanese and the US ceased their financial support for the UN maybe it would finally go out of business--one can only hope.
IJ
June 18, 2006
12:18 pm
The US economy is said to benefit by a billion dollars a year from hosting the United Nations in New York. The benefit to the US economy from also hosting the key UN economic agency, the International Monetary Fund, is unreported.

However such advantages cannot carry on indefinitely.
Curzon
June 18, 2006
6:36 pm
IJ: How could you miss my sarcasm? The UN isn't going to be able to help Japan protect itself from North Korean hostility in the least. Germanicus may be right.

As for the economic benefits to the US, I am glad the UN is in New York. But economic benefits? Believe me, we're not breaking even when you look at how much the damn thing costs us.
IJ
June 18, 2006
7:02 pm
_The benefit to the US economy from also hosting the key UN economic agency, the International Monetary Fund, is unreported._

"Believe me, we're not breaking even when you look at how much the damn thing costs us." You are such a tease, Curzon.
Lexington Green
June 18, 2006
10:05 pm
This reminds me of Ramsay Clark telling the Serbs that if they kept smashing people skulls in with their rifle-butts, they would feel "the full weight of American diplomacy." This led to a good Jeff MacNelly cartoon of Clark in a jet dropping briefcases on the Serbs. There is no good endgame for the Nork regime. It is going to go down ugly and do a lot of damage in the process -- my prediction, all two cents' worth.
IJ
June 19, 2006
11:06 am
The unprecedented level of violence in the 20th century was a result of the demise of empire, claims a TV programme tonight. "The War of the World":http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_empire_20060619.ram.

Can the UN save the day, wherever it is based?
Sonagi
June 19, 2006
1:46 pm
The NorKs are just showing off. They would never start a war with their third largest trading partner and source of annual remittances worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Lexington Green
June 19, 2006
3:09 pm
Sonagi is probably right. The problem is, with the Norks, you have to figure into your calculation that they may actually be insane. Or, the same thing in effect, so detached from reality, facts, information, comprehension of the outside world, that their decision-making is warped and opaque to outsiders.
IJ
June 19, 2006
3:23 pm
The international community decided after WW2 that the United Nations would prevent a repeat. Incidentally, the "website for The War of the World":http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warworld.html is here.
Curzon
June 19, 2006
7:52 pm
LG: I don't think the Norks are insane -- but "it is to their strategic advantage that we think that.":http://www.cominganarchy.com/2006/01/18/neither-evil-nor-dumb/
Sonagi
June 19, 2006
8:41 pm
@Curzon: Agreed. KJI has been in power for over ten years now, yet when he first assumed the throne, it was predicted that he wouldn't last six months. The NorKs have been very skillful in dealing with South Korea and the US in particular.
The Glittering Eye » Blog Archive » What should we do about the North Korean ICBM test?
June 19, 2006
9:10 pm
[...] Coming Anarchy notes that the Japanese plan to issue a stern demarche.  That’ll teach ‘em. [...]
sun bin
June 20, 2006
5:07 am
Well, if KJI is not insane, he is definitely falling into Yasukuni fans' traps, by providing them with the scary bogeyman which is so hard to find in their neighborhood these days.
IJ
June 20, 2006
9:49 am
The Chinese press have little mention of North Korea. They give much publicity however to the new yearbook from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: "US military spending accounts for half the world's total":http://english.people.com.cn/200606/20/eng20060620_275620.html
sun bin
June 20, 2006
9:58 pm
IJ,

are you sure you made a search?
here is what i found in 0.02 seconds by entering "korea north".

â—Â? Rice calls DPRK missile threat "provocative"
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday that a missile launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will be viewed as a very serious matter and a "....
http://english.people.com.cn/200606/20/eng20060620_275444.html 2006.06.20

2 â—Â? US expects DPRK to maintain freeze on missile tests
The United States expects the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to maintain a freeze on missile tests, President George W. Bush's spokesman Tony Snow said Sunday. "W....
http://english.people.com.cn/200606/19/eng20060619_275166.html
but yes, the US spending is nothing new, and that does not include 'special budge' for iraq.
sun bin
June 20, 2006
10:06 pm
People's Daily from IJ's link
"Japan also registers a considerable amount of military spending; its budget in 2006 is estimated to be US$1.2 billion. "

$1.2bn??? :p

btw, why do you guys even bother to check up people's daily?
snow
June 21, 2006
6:02 am
If the US spends half the world total on the military, part of the reason is that many countries spend so little (because the US takes care of their security).
IJ
June 21, 2006
8:09 am
It will no doubt be necessary for the US and China to come to common views on many matters. One is the recommendation from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "US and China share their oil reserves":http://www.cominganarchy.com/2006/06/10/oil-prices-and-the-developing-world/. The question though is whether any agreement should be within a UN forum.
germanicus
June 21, 2006
8:43 pm
I], given the UN's corrupt action vis-a-vis the Iraqi Oil for Food program, why would China and the US involve the UN in any share of oil resources--presuming [unlikely in my opinion] both countries decide to share oil resources? Assume for a moment, 1.] both countries decide to share resources; and, 2.} decide to do it through the UN, why should they both have to put some of those resources in funding the middle man--UN's bureaucracy involved in the shared oil resources of China/US? Doing it in a bilateral arrangement seems more economically efficient.
IJ
June 21, 2006
10:15 pm
The many circumstances surrounding the invasion of Iraq, including financial, will no doubt be investigated further; apart from questioning the trustworthiness of players in the global system, many countries lost money as a result of the venture. 'Oil for food' seems a minor distraction.

On sharing energy resources, the complete proposal from the Senate is that the US should enter into binding agreements with China and India. This would be an expansion of the existing scheme that saw IEA countries assist the US last year following Hurricane Katrina.