Kan Kimura is a doyen in the fields of political science and area studies in Japan. A professor with the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies in Kobe University, Kimura is author of over a dozen scholarly books on Japanese and Korean history and Japan-Korea relations. The foremost authority on North Korea-South Korea relations, Kimura has written extensively on Asian geopolitics as well. Biswas Baral and Shambhu Kattel of APEX caught up with Kimura during his brief personal trip to Nepal to discuss the wider ramifications of the ongoing US-North Korea dialogue, BRI and Nepal, and Japan’s place in Asia.

 

What are the broader security implications to Asia of the recent rapprochement between the US and North Korea and prospect of peace in the Korean peninsula?

 

First of all, it will not be at all easy to make North Korea renounce all its nuclear weapons. Even if the North announces that it has given up all its nukes that will be technically dif­ficult to verify, much more difficult than it was in the case of say Iraq or Libya. Moreover, you have to under­stand that the reason North Korea has nuclear weapons is because of the United States.

 

Now the Korean peninsula is firm­ly under Chinese influence. I think recent US diplomacy in Korea is a part of its plan to withdraw from the peninsula, as President Donald Trump keeps hinting. Even while he was campaigning for presidency, Trump made it clear that he would withdraw US troops from East Asia and he seems intent on keeping his promise. But whatever Trump says I don’t think there will be a big change in North Korean nuclear arsenal in the near future.

 

The prospect of the US with­drawal from East Asia is the biggest nightmare for the Japanese people. Of course the Chinese don’t think that way.

 

But isn’t the presence of Amer­ican troops in the Korean pen­insula also in Chinese inter­est? Because if they withdraw without the North giving up its nuclear weapons then Japan would also be forced to acquire nukes and to enhance its military capabilities. Japanese invasion of China in early 20th century has not been forgotten.

 

What you are saying would have made perfect sense back in the 2000s. But right now the Chinese GDP has grown twice as big as Japan’s. In the next 10-15 years, the Chinese economy could be four to five times bigger than Japan’s. Now the Chinese policymakers believe that they have absolutely nothing to fear from Japan if Japan is estranged from the United States. For histor­ical reasons, Japan does not have very good relations with countries like South Korea, the Philippines and China. So without the support of the US, it will be isolated. China seems to be succeeding in its strate­gy of ‘divide and rule’ as they have successfully driven a wedge between the US and Japan, and Japan and South Korea. South Korea is now completely dependent on China, as is the rest of South East Asia.

 

To change track a bit, what does Japan make of China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

 

What I have been telling the Jap­anese government is that Japan is still the biggest military and economy power in Asia bar Chi­na. So it can still forge meaningful partnerships with other coun­tries in the region. Take the case of the Trans Pacific Partnership, from which the US recently with­drew. Everybody thought that US withdrawal would be the death of the TPP but that is not the case. Other countries in the partnership wanted to keep it alive and you see that the US is again showing some interest in rejoining. Japan should fully support this process. If Japan does not take leadership on this no other Asian power can do so. India cannot do so because it does not have much influence beyond South Asia, not even in Myanmar, its next-door neighbor. India is getting militarily and economically strong and yet it is still by and large an iso­lated power.

 

There is a fear in Nepal that the Chinese are flexing their eco­nomic muscles to get their way and the BRI is part of the same coercive strategy.

 

Nepal’s situation is a bit like Mongolia’s, trapped between two big powers. But one of the good things for Nepal is that most of the geopolitical competition between big powers in Asia seems to be happening at the sea, the South China Sea for instance, and away from landlocked coun­tries like Nepal and Mongolia. The other good news for Nepal is that India and China seem to have for now settled their border problems and a big flare-up between them looks unlikely.

 

So I say you make the best of the good relations between India and China. More than that, Nepal is now maturing as a democracy, which is a big plus, because we cannot say the same about other countries in the region like Bhutan or Bangla­desh or Pakistan. This is a bulwark against the tendency of other big powers to intervene. It also allows other democratic entities like the EU and Japan to contribute to Nepal’s development. They can also then intervene when they believe Nepal’s sovereignty is at risk.

 

But how does Japan view the BRI? In your understanding, is it a benign concept that will benefit everyone or does it have a sinis­ter ring to it?

 

Frankly, the Japanese government is not too happy to see such a coa­lition but we know that we can’t also stop it. The best option then is to give each country in the BRI or TPP the freedom to join the other organization as well. So long as the BRI is not a closed entity, we should be open to the idea. This is why although those in government in Japan were initially hostile to the BRI idea, they have come to increasingly accept it as a fact of life.

 

What do you make of the idea of ‘debt trap’? Some in Nepal say that soon the country will owe so much to China it will have no option but to accept greater Chi­nese intervention.

 

Relying too much on bilater­al negotiations with China is bad for any country. The way to go about it would be to enhance your links with other countries as well, for which you need not neces­sarily be anti-China, so that you don’t give the Chinese too much bargaining power. This is why it is vital for Nepal to maintain good relations with other members of South Asia as well as entities like the ASEAN. Otherwise, Nepal can­not say no to China or to India. So have good relations with everyone. South Korea successfully punches above its weight diplomatically because it can leverage its unique relations with the US, Japan and China to its advance. Nepal should do the same.