The coming decade of change on the Korean peninsula: Implications for Northeast Asia and the United States

The next decade on the Korean peninsula will be one of dramatic change. With a nearly nonexistent economy and its people facing severe famine, the DPRK has no choice but to move away from its self-reliance policies towards another course of action—most likely leading to reunification of the peninsula. However it plays out, the changes in Korea will have important regional implications and impact U.S. military presence in Northeast Asia. Policy makers must formulate plans now for U.S. forces in the region during, and after, Korean reunification. Despite being in shambles internally, North Korea remains a hermit kingdom standing steadfastly against the tides of change and pressures from the outside world to become part of the international community. The Korean peninsula remains a potential, and very likely, international flashpoint as no formal peace treaty was signed after the Korean War—only an armistice agreement keeps the peninsula in a fragile military stalemate. With a badly broken economy, its people continuing to face famine, the threat to resume its nuclear program, and the recent missile firings over Japan, North Korea will likely be an international flashpoint sooner rather than later. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.     

The China model of Korean reunification

Like Germany's reunification, essentially the annexation of East Germany by West Germany, Korean reunification looms as most likely, ultimately and largely entailing South Korea's annexation of North Korea. The awesome cost borne by West Germany for reunification has been instructive to South Korea, particularly in recognition that the material and ideological gaps between North and South Korea are far greater than those which existed between East and West Germany. A possible solution to the negative implications of cataclysmic reunificationmay rest in gradual reunification of the Koreas, with an interim industrialization of North Korea by South Korea, based on the model of the economic development zones in southeastern China; hence, the “China Model”. In such a scenario the investors in North Korea's gradual industrialization would be (primarily) the huge conglomerate South Korean corporations chaebol which seek cheaper labor pools abroad. Investment by such corporations, in cooperation with the South Korean government, and possibly supplemented by western and Japanese capital investment, would presumably raise levels of productivity and the standard of living in the economically and agriculturally ravished North. The North-South gaps would thus be gradually reduced as would the financial and other burdens South Korea would otherwise have to bear for cataclysmic reunification.     

Korea in the post-cold War Era

As mentioned earlier, the Korean peninsula remains unfortunately one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. And it is essentially up to the 70 million Korean people in the South and the North to wash away the undesirable legacies of the old regimes, to institute a solid structure of peace and stability on their land, and to lay the foundation for unification. And this task must be achieved at the latest by the end of this century. A new order is now emerging in East Asia. The unification of Korea is essential for this new order to evolve. To this end, the Republic of Korea will exert every effort to reach modus vivendi with the North at the earliest time and to put into effect the agreements and commitments made at the conference table. The resolution of the nuclear issue is of utmost importance in creating an environment in which both sides will be able to deal with each other with reasonable mutual trust and confidence.     

China and Korea: The godfather,part three

This article challenges the conventional wisdom that the People’s Republic of China, in dealing with the situation on the Korean peninsula, rules out North Korea’s imminent collapse and continues to stabilize the Kim Chong-il regime as a buffer against U.S. and South Korean advances. It suggests that Beijing has started to view short- or medium-term reunification on Seoul’s terms as a realist scenario and has been trying to influence the accompanying shift in the Northeast Asian power equation to its advantage. If this strategy succeeds, reunification would be brought about under Chinese auspices, with anti-Japanese or anti-American sentiments in both Koreas being purposely or automatically activated so as to promote a sense of national identity.     

A sinologist’s observations on North Korea

This report provides reflections on a one-week visit to North Korea in April 1989 by a China scholar who lived in Maoist China. It draws on meetings with American and Chinese specialists on Korea, and with North Korea scholars and Party officials. It compares Kim’s North Korea with Mao’s China in terms of agriculture, policy towards education and intellectuals, and the Cult of Personality; it discusses apparent tentative stpes in the North towards openness and reform, but recognizes the dilemma of understanding complicated forces for the against reform in such a short visit. Finally, the report outlines discussions with North Korea international relations specialists and a member of the Secretariat of the Korean Worker’s Party which welcomed the end of the cold war and improved Sino-U.S., U.S.-Soviet, and Sino-Soviet relations as favorable for peace in the region and Korean reunification. He is author ofAgrarian Radicalism in China, 1968–1981 (Harvard University Press, 1989).     

Statement on peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula

Abstract

We who have been praying and working for peace and the reunification of Korea would like to express our deep concerns about the rising tensions surrounding the north Korean nuclear controversy and the potentially imminent war on the Korean peninsula. We still remember vividly the nightmare of the Korean War beginning 25 June 1950, and we have endured tremendously painful experiences for the last half century because of the division of our country. We would like to express our positions to the governments of the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, and to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as we firmly believe that the shortest route to reunification is through the reconciliation and solidarity of the Korean people:     

习近平主席访韩成果、意义、局限及韩中关系中的战略课题——为促进韩中外交可持续发展的几点建议

中国国家主席习近平主席2014年7月3日对韩国进行国事访问,并与韩国总统朴槿惠举行了会谈,确认了韩中两国为"成熟的战略合作伙伴"关系。通过习主席访问韩国,韩中双方在政治、军事、经济、社会、文化领域的交流与合作等方面都取得了很大成果,尤其双方为共同应对日本歪曲历史问题而进行合作达成了协议,具有重要的意义。但是,为了韩中关系更长远的发展,也得考虑朝鲜、美国、日本等国家的因素。为了韩中两国关系的持久发展,重要的是为朝鲜半岛构建和平与统一的新的蓝图。两国共同领导才是推动南北关系改善、朝鲜半岛统一和东亚地区和平与稳定的核心轴。为了实现这个目标,应该尽快推进两国政府、两国学者之间的战略合作渠道和有创意性的战略性项目;还必须进行关于韩中历史问题的交流和对话,对一些历史问题进行共同研究。     

Future dynamics in Sino-Korea relations

This article argues that the basic interests of the major actors involved in the Korean problem converge on the cross-recognition and “two Koreas” formula. Seoul’s diplomatic normalization with Moscow, and North Korea’s ongoing negotiations with Tokyo, testify to this trend. Because of its sensitivity to North Korea’s dilemma and carefully measured policy, China has succeeded in sustaining North Korea’s trust while improving its ties with South Korea. Shaken by the changes in the international system and threatened by the rapidly growing economic capability of the South, North Korea’s overall foreign policy objective is shifting from unifocation to accepting the existing status quo, a movement toward a direction that China has been advising. A mostly likely breakthrough to the stalemate in Korea will come from the Pyongyang-Tokyo bilateral relations. Ironically, when the South feels more confident than ever before about the possibility of unification under its terms, the rest of world is moving toward the cross recognition it has advocated. Whether the two Koreas with over-lapping diplomatic relations with all four major powers surrounding the peninsula will be able to achieve the unification that all Korean people desire will largely depend on how the regimes manage inter-Korean relations in coming years.     

China,US and the North Korean issue

This article explores the strategic interests of China and the US in the North Korean issue. It examines their different perceptions of North Korea. For China, North Korea is needed as a friendly buffer state as well as a political ally. As the lone superpower and lynchpin of international security, the US wants to stop unpredictable North Korea from further developing its nuclear capabilities. The article then explores the shared goal of both great powers in promoting stability on the Korean peninsula and in preventing nuclear proliferation. It is argued that the interplay of Sino–US security interests has a huge impact on the evolution of the North Korean issue.     

The transition in the political economy of South Korean development

This article analyzes the current transition in the political economy of South Korea in the context of political democratization and economic development. Because South Korea can be regarded as a case in which successful economic growth preceded political democratization, the article reviews the advantage and the disadvantage of late industrialization and its limitations. It discusses rising conflicts of interest among economic agents, labor disputes, and the erosion of international competitiveness. The article also reviews the sociopolitical reform program advanced by the new administration and its ramifications for the economic prospects. The article concludes that the Korean economy will continue to grow but not as fast as it had grown in the past and that the new political environment will play a critical role in determining the characteristics of capitalism in South Korea. The success of future economic development will depend on the stability of the political system and the national capacity to resolve conflict of interests.     

论独岛领有权问题

本文借鉴了韩国学界与日本学界关于独岛领有权问题的主流观点,参考了与独岛相关的文献资料,结合国际法中领土主权的取得方式论述了该岛的领有权问题。笔者通过研究发现,虽然“韩国从新罗王朝时期就开始拥有独岛主权”的韩国学界主流观点存在疑问,但根据近代以来的相关史料及领土取得方式来看,独岛主权属于韩国的主张更具有说服力。站在第三者的立场上,我们应该尊重韩国政府实际控制着独岛的客观事实。     

State,bureaucracy and polity in modern Thai politics

We test the comparative foreign labor policies of Korea and Japan within a vein of international relations literature addressing the effects of international norms on changes in state policies. Building on the efforts to emphasize a state's domestic structure as a source of variations in the impact of international norms, this study enriches this debate further by demonstrating the role of the Korean state in developing international human rights norms domestically. In contrast to the previous studies that tend to dichotomize between states and human rights activists, which result in focusing their empirical studies on the question of whether states are constrained in developing immigration policies under the influence of international human rights norms, we demonstrate that state actors in coalition with human rights activists were actively involved in the process of enacting the Employment of Foreign Workers Act (EFWA) in Korea. More precisely, by offering a detailed account of how Korea finally suc ceeded in adopting the EFWA in 2003 after two failed attempts in 1997 and 2000, we attribute the success to the more extensive, organized pro-foreign workers coalition of state actors and human rights activists over the course of actions. When this observation is applied to Japan, the absence of an active role of the state accounts for Japan's relative silence on the EFWA.     

Be Careful What You Wish For: Security Challenges Facing the Korean Peninsula During a Potential Unification Process

There is a lacuna in the literature analyzing the mid-term (6-24 months) period after a DPRK contingency that results in the Pyongyang regime’s relatively sudden and unmanaged fall. This article helps fill that gap, particularly with respect to security issues that would challenge Korean unification efforts during such a period. Following an Introduction, Section I first makes the case for a DPRK contingency being the most plausible end to the Pyongyang regime. Assuming the scenarios from Section I, Section II addresses the question of what critical issues a unifying Korea will face over the mid-term, and how dealing with these challenges will condition the type of end-state that a unified Korea will embody. In particular we examine three challenges: (a) mid-term security provision related to potential weapons proliferation, cyber-security, organized criminality, and human security; (b) the foundations of institution-building through measures dealing with issues of transitional justice, disputed land title claims, and generating broad domestic stakeholder buy-in in a unifying Korea; (c) the disposition of Korea’s strategic alignment in a Northeast Asia that will have undergone a major alteration of the regional system. Section III concludes with policy recommendations concerning what efforts should be made now to prepare for the situations described in Sections I and II.     

Introduction

Abstract

“The only thing that convinces people like Kim II Sung is the threat of force and extinction,” blasted U.S. senator John McCain as the nuclear crisis in Korea neared the flashpoint in early June 1994. His words rang out as the multilateral tension surrounding North Korea's nuclear program escalated after more than a year of rapid policy vacillations and fluctuating rhetoric. The United States threatened to seek sanctions in the U.N. Security Council, and North Korea vowed to treat any international aggression as an act of war. What is remarkable about McCain's war yearnings, however, is not their aberrance in the otherwise cool-headed world of international diplomacy, but their similarity to imperial declarations toward North Korea since the battles of the Korean War. It is a sentiment routinely echoed by the mainstream Western press.     

The North Korea Problem: Perspectives on the Nuclear Debate,Economic Reforms and Beyond

ABSTRACT

Despite a plethora of research on North Korea, understanding and managing the challenges posed by the country have long been complicated with no simple solution to put an end to this decades-long security and economic predicament on the Korean Peninsula. With the potential for international conflict, attention must be given to the converging messages emerging from the scholarly works reviewed in this article: Glyn Ford, Talking to North Korea: Ending the Nuclear Standoff, Van Jackson, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War and William Overholt’s collection North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War? These works speak to the need to: take seriously the risk of nuclear war; consider the connectedness of the North’s decades-long security and economic reform dilemmas; and to acknowledge that the mistrust that is deeply rooted on all sides must be mitigated to bring peace. These books are published at a critical juncture of increased tensions following a highly publicised but remarkably short-lived effort at a breakthrough on the Korean nuclear issue, Pyongyang’s rapidly evolving security posture and its perennial domestic challenges. Each of these volumes provides valuable insights on these challenges for North Korea and internationally.     

The Korean experience in FDI and Sino-Korean relations

The possibility of regional cooperation in the Yellow Sea Rim (YSR) area has been discussed since the early 1980s. In recent years, Korean outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased rapidly and it will be growing much further. In the new phase of the global economy and the post-cold war political environment, Korean firms consider the socialist countries, especially China, to be attractive new partners for trade and investment projects. Foreign investment contributed to economic growth in developing countries. In the early stage of industrialization in the 1970s, the share of foreign firms amounted to about one-tenth of the total manufacturing employment in Korea. Similarly, outbound Korean FDI could also play an important role in the industrialization of the LDCs in Southeast Asia and China. A case study of a Korean multinational corporation reveals that the direct employment effect of Korea’s FDI is extensive in terms of money invested. In spite of the complementarity in economic structure and the phase of development between Korea and China, the prospect of Korea’s outbound FDI is not all clear. However, one can safely assume that the unit scale of FDI projects will increase. Unlike in the past, the large Korean corporations are now preparing more than a few fair-sized projects in China. The positive impact of those FDI will be significant. The YSR cooperation, if successful, could create efficient economic cooperation based on complementarity between Korea and China. The Korean outbound FDI would pave a road to such regional cooperation. This article is the revised version of a paper prepared for the International Conference on Regional Development in the Yellow Sea Rimlands, held February 18–21, 1991. The conference was cosponsored by the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, the State Science and Technology Commission of China, and the East-West Center of Honolulu, Hawaii.     

Berlin's Republic: Parliamentary government in a German land

Berlin is the only German Land that has had to manage its own reunification and originally many hoped that it would turn into a model for east–west reconciliation. Yet 15 years later there is widespread consensus that Berlin failed to live up to the challenges of the time and adequately deal with the consequences of reunification. Instead of embarking on structural reforms Berlin produced its own version of a Reformstau. The article describes and examines some basic features of the party system in Berlin and the Berlin polity. It will thus give an answer to the question as to how unification affected the institutional setting in this Land. Overall it will be shown that the Reformstau in Berlin cannot be explained by a fragmented political system or powerful veto players. Political stagnation in Berlin rather was due to the combined effects of party system change, institutional stagnation, and constitutionally inhibited political leadership.     

越南武力统一的“复合权力结构”探析——兼论其对中国和平统一的启示

1976年越南武力统一的实现不单是因为美国从越南的撤军,也是复合权力结构综合作用的结果。本文通过对越南统一问题中全球硬权力结构、全球软权力结构、地区硬权力结构、地区软权力结构、国家硬权力结构以及国家软权力结构六个因素的比较分析,离析出了武力统一模式的重要因素"同质性复合权力结构",以及武力统一模式的关键因素"异质性复合权力结构",从而论证复合权力结构影响越南武力统一进程的研究假设。该结论对中国和平统一进程的推进具有重要的参考价值。     

试论韩国朴槿惠政府的外交政策趋向与朝鲜半岛局势

韩国朴槿惠政府将在李明博政府实用主义外交的基础上,进一步调整韩国的外交政策,以韩关战略同盟关系为核心、进一步加强和充实中韩战略合作伙伴关系的内涵,并在推动朝鲜半岛和平进程方面,努力构建朝鲜半岛的南北信任程序,以改善朝鲜半岛南北关系。为解决朝鲜核问题等,朴槿惠政府还将强化韩美中三国在朝鲜半岛的战略合作,以进一步发挥韩国在中关两国和东北亚外交安保领域中的战略协调作用。朴槿惠政府时代,朝鲜半岛局势的发展,将取决于三大变量的博弈,即关朝关系、朝鲜半岛南北关系和中朝关系的变化。随着中关韩朝等半岛周边国家外交安保政策的调整,朝鲜半岛最终将走上和解与和平、合作的战略轨道。     

Soviet-South Korea economic cooperation following rapprochement

The establishment of diplomatic ties between the Soviet Union and the Republic of Korea appears to be not only a cornerstone for peace-keeping in the Korean peninsula but also a catalyst toward improving economic cooperation between the two countries. Unlike other advanced countries, Korea has been actively investing in the Soviet Union since Soviet-Korean rapprochement. But events have overtaken the pace of reform in the Soviet Union. Multiple Soviet problems such as the restructuring of the Union and Republic governments, reorganization of the New Economic Community, and severe discord within the political leadership regarding the approach to reform are entangled with power struggles between the center and the republics. The outcomes of democratization and marketization in the Soviet Union are not certain. Korea is deeply concerned about the success or failure of the Soviet economy because this will influence the extent to which the Korean economy will benefit or suffer.