In the suburbs north of here, the thaw between the Koreas has led South Korea to dismantle highway barricades meant to slow down an invasion of North Korean tanks. Japan, meanwhile, has begun investing billions of dollars in erecting a high-tech shield against North Korean missiles. Protesters in Seoul, South Korea, today. Many South Koreans want to keep engaging the North but also demand more concessions.

Still, despite the gravity of an reported nuclear test, the calculations and interests that have led each country on its respective path have changed little. What s more, random interviews with South Koreans and Japanese on Tuesday suggested that the test, rather than changing public opinion, has merely reinforced it.

South Koreans interviewed, while expressing anger and disappointment, said they did not support the economic sanctions and other punitive measures sought by the United States and Japan, but called for continuing to engage the North, though with more sticks. Japanese were decisively hawkish. “The North Koreans are so greedy,” said Moon Won-tae, 69, who like most South Koreans of his generation was once fiercely anti-Communist. “They want more and more from us. They keep transferring the aid we give them into weapons.”

Mr. Moon was chatting on a street corner with Jung Soon-ni, 74, who blurted out, “Why does our government keep supporting North Korea?” But when pressed, both men said they still backed the engagement policy, though with a firmer hand than Mr. Roh’s and more concessions from North Korea. “Putting a stop to engagement also creates problems,” Mr. Moon said, adding that he considered South and North Koreans to be one people.

A 28-year-old mother, Bae Soo-jung, walking in downtown Seoul with her daughter and mother-in-law, said word of the test had made her feel “nervous.” But she was even more nervous about isolating the North even further. “If we impose economic sanctions,” she said, “that will push North Korea to the edge. We need to keep engaging it.” In Japan, people interviewed agreed that the country should take a firmer stance, both in punishing North Korea and in strengthening its own military. While all said that Japan should maintain its defense alliance with the United States, their comments showed that many here now accept a level of rearming that would have been considered radical just a decade ago.

“Of course there should be economic sanctions,” said Shoko Fukuzawa, a 61-year-old hairdresser shopping in downtown Tokyo. “Whatever Japan can do, it should do.” And that includes rearming, she added. “Every country is building its defenses. But we don’t need nuclear weapons.” Mr. Abe affirmed to a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Tokyo had “no intention” of possessing nuclear weapons.

Public opinion toward North Korea has been crafted, in great part, by the governments in Seoul and Tokyo. In South Korea, decades of cold war confrontation gave way in the late 1990’s to the “sunshine policy” of former President Kim Dae-jung, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on a rapprochement with the North. Lim Doo-hyuk, 24, a college student at Kwangwun University here, said that in elementary school, he once won a prize for writing the best anti-North propaganda: “Be careful of North Korea all the time — while awake and asleep.”

But by high school, with the sunshine policy, North Koreans were no longer regarded as enemies. “My teachers began teaching me that they were our brothers and we should live with them,” Mr. Lim said. “So people of my generation, including myself, have a positive image of North Korea.

“Roh Moo-hyun has been too weak — he keeps giving to the North but receives nothing. Engagement shouldn’t be unilateral. But we should have an effective engagement policy.” Until about 1997, most Japanese had little interest in North Korea, which at the time appeared to be a quirky but harmless neighbor. Japan s North Korea policy was largely controlled by pro-North Korea Japanese of Korean descent, who were originally brought to Japan as forced laborers and maintained strong ties of identity with their homeland.

In the late 1990 s, public attitudes started to harden, as major news media and politicians began to take more seriously claims that dozens of Japanese missing since the late 1970’s had actually been abducted by North Korean spies. The image of North Korea as an unpredictable threat was reinforced in 1998 when it test-launched a Taepodong missile over Japan.

But the big turning point came in 2002, when North Korea admitted to abducting citizens and returned five survivors. The image of agents snatching people from Japanese shores turned public opinion decisively against North Korea, analysts said, even more so than missiles or Monday s reported nuclear test.

“The abduction issue is much bigger in Japan than the nuclear issue,” said Masao Okonogi, the dean of the law faculty and a specialist on Korean politics at Keio University in Tokyo. “It forms the basis of Japan s current view of North Korea.”

The issue was also seized by Liberal Democrat hard-liners, led by Mr. Abe, who rose to political stardom by advocating a tough line on North Korea. They brandished the perceived North Korean threat to argue for long-cherished conservative goals, including revising the American-imposed peace Constitution and remaking Japan s defense forces into a full-fledged military.

“At this point, I think Abe is good,” said Eiji Noguchi, 33, an office worker in Tokyo. “The firm stance toward North Korea is good.” Mr. Okonogi said Japan and South Korea’s perceptions of the North would keep heading in opposite directions, adding, “And the gap will just keep growing after this nuclear test.”
(Por Norimitsu Onishi e Martin Fackler, The N.Y.Times, 11/10/2006)