It’s no secret that relations between Japan and North Korean have been awful for decades. The conduct of Japanese forces and the Japanese government from the 1890s on (Japan made Korea a Protectorate in 1910) left bitter feelings towards the nation in both countries after the war. Relations became even more fraught when, in the 1970s, North Korean agents began kidnapping Japanese citizens from their homes and forcefully repatriating them to North Korea. The majority of these incidents remain unresolved to this day, with the kidnap victims continuing to live out their lives in the DPRK. Recently, as reported by the Japan Times, North Korea began ratcheting up its anti-Japan rhetoric, doubling the number of venomous dispatches it puts out about the country in just a single month.
The increased hostile rhetoric took a more frightening turn earlier this month when the DPRK announced it had arrested a Japanese man named Sugimoto Tomoyuki (杉本倫孝) on unspecified charges. However, just as suddenly, the government seemed to reverse itself, announcing that Sugimoto would be “deported” from the country in short order. No date for his release was mentioned, nor was any indication given where the release would happen. The government claimed it was released Sugimoto out of “humanitarian concerns” and “goodwill”. (Color me skeptical.)
Sugimoto’s presence in the country, while both rare and highly discouraged by the Japanese government, isn’t illegal. As discussed by Matome Naver, it’s possible to visit North Korea if you file for permission with a North Korean consulate, choose a pre-determined tour, and are accompanied at all times by a guide.
So why arrest this man? It took me a while to dig and find the above article by Kou Jongi, a second-generation Korean zainichi journalist writing for the Daily NK Japan, which contains some speculation about what might have happened to Sugimoto:
当時、男性は欧州の旅行会社が企画したツアーで北朝鮮に入国。西海岸の港湾都市・南浦（ナムポ）で軍事施設を撮影したとの情報も伝えられた。真偽は不明だが、事実なら男性はスパイ容疑をかけられている可能性があり、拘束が長期化する恐れもあった。
Sugimoto planned a trip with a European travel agency and entered the country. It has been relayed that he photographed a military installation in the Western port city of Nampo. It’s not clear if this is true, but if it is, it’s possible he was arrested on suspicion of spying, which would have carried the possibility of a long detention.
Kou expressed worry for the state of Sugimoto, whose current condition was not revealed by the DPRK thugs. The case does, as he note, bring up thoughts of Otto Warmbier, the American who visited North Korea on a tour, and was released comatose to his family. Warmbier later died, but it’s unclear if he was tortured; the family claimed they saw signs of torture on his body, but the US physicians who examined him denied this.
I’m hoping, of course, that Sugimoto will be released unharmed, and that the whole thing is just a DPRK publicity stunt. Kou Jongi speculates, however, that this might only be the beginning of a new round of hostilities:
今回の発表記事でも、男性を「人道主義の原則に従って寛大に許してやる」などと言っているが、北朝鮮がこれをテコに、日本に何か言ってくる可能性は十分にある。ただ、北朝鮮の最近の対日論調を見る限り、日朝対話の新たな始まりは、日本にとってそれほど気分の良いものにはならないかもしれない。
In its recent announcement, North Korea said it would “generously forgive [Sugimoto] as a matter of human rights”, but there’s enough possibility that North Korea had something to say to Japan with this trick. But just by looking at the recent tone of North Korea’s anti-Japanese rhetoric, this new start to Japan-NK relations is likely not to create all that good of a feeling for Japan.
UPDATE 8/28/2018: Sugimoto has been released, and is on his way back to Japan. He received a medical exam in China from the Japanese Consulate, and is in fine health. Whew.
