Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may be relieved to jet away from the uncomfortable hothouse that Tokyo has become after his party's humbling defeat to Gov. Yuriko Koike's upstarts. In Germany, he will be welcomed as one of the Group of 20 leaders entrusted with dealing with unprecedented world problems, in which North Korea looms dangerously large again with yet another missile launch on Tuesday, American Independence Day, with the provocative — false for the moment — boast that Pyongyang can now hit anywhere in the world.
To Japan, North Korea is a real and imminently dangerous issue. Germany and other European countries are more concerned about the over-spill of nasty wars in the Middle East, and other countries have myriad concerns of survival and worry what to do about the typhoon called U.S. President Donald Trump.
Even North Korea's threatened neighbors cannot agree on how to deal with Pyongyang. New South Korean President Moon Jae-in echoes Beijing in calling for talks, but 60 years of history are littered with talks that have failed to reach a peace treaty. China aspires to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But Kim Jong Un's missile launches show what he thinks of talks and getting rid of nuclear weapons.