Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- Partnership within hierarchy : an analytic frame -- Repatriation of Korean residents from Japan to North Korea -- Japan-ROK normalization talks and institutionalization of the security triangle -- Japan's two Koreas policy and its commitment to U.S.-Japan alliance in UN -- Japan-ROK security-based economic cooperation : U.S.-framed burden sharing -- Controversy over historicaliIssues -- North Korea factor and the persistence of the security triangle -- Conclusions

North Korea's missile firings aim at proving technological advancement before deploying the weapons in the field units, as well as demonstrating a show of force to the United States and its allies. These costly firings are financed by earnings from illegal cyberactivities and arms sales. North Korea's nuclear threat has strengthened Seoul–Washington–Tokyo cooperation and has increasingly gained public support in South Korea towards the idea of possessing their own bombs.

At the general election on 15 April 2020 held amid the COVID-19 crisis, the ruling party in South Korea won an overwhelming majority. This election was a kind of "critical election" in which swing voters in particular took a safe, risk-aversive option of supporting the ruling party which responded successfully to the pandemic.

While the nuclear negotiations between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States reached a stalemate in 2019, North Korea has advanced its missile capability and strengthened its alignment with China. In 2020 and beyond, the security of the Korean peninsula will depend on China's influence on the DPRK–US game amid the US–China rivalry; the modality of Kim Jong-un's actions, i.e. whether they are provocations or restraints; and the sanctions' effect on North Korea's foreign currency reserves.

With respect to China and its neighbors, what are the political implications when a great power advances economically into small states? This paper presents an asymmetry–coercion linkage to explain the relationship between a great power and small states by reconceptualizing Albert Hirschman's theory of trade dependency. This reconceptualization involves two tasks. First, the paper explicates vulnerability to coercion as a consequence of economic asymmetry, whereby a small state becomes susceptible to a great power's compellence or co-optation to take a certain path preferred by the latter. Second, in demonstrating and measuring vulnerability to coercion, the paper accounts for the three factors: trade concentration, non-transparency, and reliance on bilateral aid. The combined effect of these three factors is that among the six countries under investigation, Cambodia and North Korea are extremely vulnerable to China's coercion, while Vietnam is the least vulnerable state.

North Korea's hydrogen bomb test and ICBM tests in 2017 incurred a new crisis. Given that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons and a military option against it may be unworkable, deterrence becomes a realistic recourse to cope with the crisis. The most challenging issues are the North's pursuit of more missile technologies and unknown aspects of nuclear command and control in Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-un's obsession with full control of power and his single-minded pursuit of nuclear advancement, as seen in the fourth nuclear test in January 2016, have further isolated his country. North Korea apparently is taking a revisionist strategy: to change the rule of the game in Northeast Asia and in inter-Korean relations. North Korea exploits the Chinese dilemma of condemning the defiant behaviour but cannot abandon the country.

In 2014, North Korea under Kim Jong-un sought a breakthrough in ensuring economic vitality and diplomatic improvement. However, the emerging thorny human rights issue and the continued political logic of economic development have made it impossible for North Korea to make any significant progress in finding the breakthrough. In this gloomy atmosphere, the North's relations with Russia seem the most promising in 2015.

There were four critical undercurrents for the growth of Korean think tanks in the 1990s: democratization, the end of the Cold War, globalization coupled with local autonomy, and the expanded government budget accompanying Korea's rapid economic growth. In contrast to American think tanks which are private but normally serve as public policy advocates, most of the important Korean think tanks are supported by the government and they are not independent public policy advocates. The Korean public think tanks are highly susceptible to domestic political dynamics: for instance, the presidential office's power over the appointment of the directors. The susceptibility originates not only from the delayed democratic institutionalization of the Korean presidential system but also from the absence of financial independence, limits to the accessibility of information on policy, and the lack of professionalism in the bureaucracy. The Korea Institute for National Unification, an exemplary public think tank regarding the issue of inter-Korean relations, now focuses on research and analysis rather than policy advocacy. Alternatively, it acts as a producer of knowledge and vocabulary to envision an epistemic community for deliberating strategies of engaging with North Korea.