Abstract:
This Independent study focuses on the reaction of Abe Administration to North Korea on the abduction issue during 2018 2019. This research aims to study the reasons why the Abe government was suspicious of North Korea in the abduction issue. In 2018, North Korea was less hostile towards the United States and agreed to denuclearization. This made Japan government suspicious of North Korea since Japan believed North Koreas attempt to establish relations with the United States was not sincere. However, Japan government took this opportunity to ask the United States to coordinate with North Korea to resolve the abduction issue. Although the United States coordinated with North Korea, North Korea decided not to negotiate with Japan on this issue and make Abe administration feel even more concerned of this behavior. According to the study, the domestic factors affected the foreign policy. The first factor is Abes attitude favoring conservativism of LDP party which resulted in the support of the security strategy and pushed Abe to launch the hard-line policy towards North Korea as well as demanded the extension of Japan self-defense force (SDF)s activities. Another domestic factor is Civil Society which were the associations named Kazokukai and Sukukai. They played a role in pushing the government to solve abduction issue. The last factor was Japan media which expanded this abduction issue and has still published it up to the present. These factors were main variables that caused Abe Administration to be suspicious of North Korea.