Which Way DPRK? Which Way Japan?

Kim Jong-il died, and Kim Jong-un has succeeded, if not in all the titles that his father used to monopolize, but very substantially.
Kim Jong-il has failed miserably, especially in the economic field. His people were starving. The disparity between DPRK(North Korea) and the South is expanding. The aerial photo taken at night showed that the southeren part of the Korean Peninsula was all bright and glittering, while the north was almost completely in darkness. It was so many years ago already.
Kim Jong-il tried to develop nuclear weapons and missiles to get economic dividend in the form of capital goods and energy in exchange for them, mainly from the US. But the strategy was too transparent to succeed. Why then did they not approach Japan instead?
Japan, as has been discussed in these columns, has been so tightly bound up with the US. Knowing this fully well, the US were not willing to offer too soon what the DPRK wanted.
In Japan's case, there is one peculiar problem. Some of her nationals have been kidnapped by the State organ of the DPRK, and have not returned yet. Kim Jong-il admitted this and apologized to Japan's Prime Minister when he visited Pyongyang in 2002. And he returned some of them. But the others were all proclaimed to be dead, and nothing has been heard of them though they promised reinvestigation. It is doubtful whether the new leader will admit that there is such an outstanding problem.
In the six-party talks consisting of China as Chairman, the US, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas, Japan has tended to insist on the solution of this problem. The six-party talks were set up primarily to discuss the DPRK's nuclear problem, and as such were not an ideal arena to discuss other issues. There should have been a different place. Was there any?
The Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration, concluded at the 2002 summit, says that the two countries will recommence talks for the normalization of relations. Having diplomatic relations has been therefore agreed upon between the two a long time ago. It has been reconfirmed, together with the normalization of the US-DPRK relations, at the six-party talks in September 2005. No matter what may have happened, it is unthinkable not to recognize a country which the UN General Assembly unanimously welcomed in 1991.
If the two countries had been keen on having relations, there would have been Embassies in each other's capital by now. Even if it would have been short of full diplomatic relations, they could have had missions in each other as the first step, as Japan and the Philippines did before they had formal relations.
In order for the above process to be realized, it is necessary for DPRK to explain each and every case of the Japanese nationals missing. But once it is done the road to the normalization will be much smoother. The 2002 Declaration says that after the normalization Japan will provide economic cooperation to the DPRK. It will certainly help them not to continue the present nuclear approach. It will enormously ease military tensions in the whole of East Asia. A wiser policy on the part of Japan would have made them unnecessary to go nuclear in a double way, economic and military.
Out of the six parties, only Japan is in a position to do something to break the deadlock in East Asia, if she has got that courage. What she is doing is largely in the reverse, like deciding to buy F35 fighters from the US, as many as 42 in all, as if it will assure China, DPRK, or others.