Japanese citizens in areas of Hokkaido woke up to an alert early on Tuesday morning as a North Korean rocket flew over Japan for the third time since 1998. Donald Trump was quick to affirm in a call to Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, that America stands behind the country “100 per cent” — an echo of the US president’s words spoken six months earlier at Mar-a-Lago in response to an earlier missile launch.
Undoubtedly, Japanese fears over their national security have heightened this week. In the US, however, the missile launch could be seen as a warm-up for Pyongyang’s threatened attack on Guam. And the unified front of Mr Trump and Mr Abe masks signs of a gap opening up between the US and Japan in how they perceive the threat from North Korea. Pyongyang insulted Japan, and looked to drive a wedge into US-Japanese solidarity by reminding Tokyo that Mr Trump’s declaration that “all options are on the table” only applies to a direct attack on the US.
Mr Trump’s strategy is to step up the pressure by pinning responsibility on China. Reinforced sanctions were seen as a possible game changer for China’s business-as-usual approach. Voices in the Abe administration are not wholly negative about Mr Trump’s pressure tactics, making a complimentary comparison with his predecessor — “if this was President Obama, this would never have happened”.