Seemingly isolated amid the high-stakes rapprochement between ally the United States and longtime enemy North Korea, Japan now finds itself in a precarious position as the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gropes for a new role in any grand bargain to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons.
But after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, South Korean leader Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump, could Tokyo's own detente with Pyongyang — and everything that would entail — be closer than it has been in more than 15 years? And if that is the case, what would that mean?
Possibly as much $10 billion, or more than a third of the North's estimated gross domestic product in 2013, the most recent figure available according to the CIA World Factbook.