The nuclear non-proliferation treaty in retrospect: The case of North Korea

Abstract

In June 1994 the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) tested a nuclear device, and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) announced its intention to withdraw from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a specialized agency of the United Nations. A brief look at the history of the effort to control the development and proliferation of atomic, and later nuclear, weapons provides some perspective on the actions of each country in 1994.     

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.     

Preparing for the best: involving North Korea in the new pacific community

The United States, Japan, and South Korea should be considering ways and means to involve North Korea in regional cooperation. In the economic sector, the United States and South Korea might support the Northeast Asia Economic Forum and the Tumen River Area Development Project. The United States might also encourage Japan or South Korea to lead discussions on the possibilities of an Association of Northeast Asian Provinces, a Northeast Asian Development Bank, a regional labor market, and forums on regional transportation and communication, shipping and navigation, and air traffic management. All should support North Korea’s joining the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The need to monitor or retrieve the dumped Russian nuclear submarine reactors in North Korean waters is a serendipitous opportunity for broaching multilateral environmental cooperation.     

Libertarian Traditions: F.A. Hayek and John Anderson

An examination of John Anderson's work in relation to other political theorists of his time would help to provide a more adequate assessment of one of the “greats” of Australian intellectual and cultural life. Comparisons between Anderson's libertarian strain and F.A. Hayek's have been noted but there has been no real attempt to draw out the real differences arising from their substantive theoretical positions. Anderson and Hayek rejected any notion of a single, complete ethical code; they despaired at the demoralising effects of a culture of dependence and irresponsibility; they rejected the ameliorative liberalism represented by T.H. Green and Bernard Bosanquet. But they disagreed centrally in their assessments of those practices and movements which act as sites of resistance to the levelling standards and values of commercial and consumerist institutions.     

Imperialism and Chinese nationalism: Germany in Shantung,By John F. Schrecker

Abstract

Professor Schrecker's book is basically a defense of Qing foreign policy during the 1895-1911 period. He demonstrates a concern of nationalism in late Qing with protecting the legal sovereignty of the Chinese state by showing how turn-of-the-century governors Yuan Shi-kai, Zhou Fu, and Yang Shi-xiang labored to defend the territorial integrity of Shandong [Shantung] province against German imperialism. The book's strength lies in Schrecker's conceptual analysis of Chinese foreign policy and its intellectual roots in the late nineteenth century. He argues cogently and with originality that in their concern for defending “sovereignty,” officials like Yuan Shi-kai combined the militant conservative qing-i school of the 1880s with the internationalist approach after 1895 of radical reformers like Kang You-wei. But Schrecker also argues that Qing foreign policy succeeded in stopping German imperialism in Shandong by 1911 and in terms of the empire as a whole that “in the last decade of the dynasty the Chinese government made considerably more progress in its struggle against imperialism than has generally been believed.” (p. 254) In such judgments about the success of late Qing foreign policy, he betrays the bias of what Bulletin readers have come to know as the Harvard school of apologetics for Western and Japanese imperialism. Schrecker deserves credit for drawing attention to the nationalist posture which the late Qing took after 1901 but he goes too far in his defense of the dynasty and the “progress” actually made against Western and Japanese imperialism.     

The Cheonan Incident and East Asian Community Debate: North Korea’s Place in the Region

The East Asian community debates project the region as one integral unit. Rapidly shifting landscapes explain the tension between the old order and emerging hierarchy where North Korea plays a crucial role. This paper analyzes North Korea’s place in the East Asian community debates by examining the regional governments’ reactions to the Cheonan incident. The responses and circumstances of South Korea, Japan and North Korea to the sunken ship incident demonstrate three dynamics. First, domestic political needs of the regional government supersede normative Community rhetoric. Second, manageability of the North Korean regime will determine the next regional hegemon. And third, the community debates need to include North Korea for viability.     

Flawed Mediation and a Compelling Mission: Chinese Diplomacy in the Six-Party Talks to Denuclearise North Korea

This paper examines China’s role in the Six-Party Talks, a multilateral initiative with the aim of denuclearising North Korea. As North Korea’s behaviour has become increasingly provocative, evidenced by the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Incidents and the newly unveiled uranium enrichment plant at Yeonbyon, China’s indecision in dealing with the deteriorating situation has dramatically undermined Beijing’s ability to continue successfully to play the leading mediator role. Yet if China fails to take decisive action now, the consequences could be dire. Further deterioration in North Korea’s behaviour could trigger a nuclear arms race, severely hamper regional economic development and even create a geopolitical split in East Asia, leading to a confrontation between the US, South Korea and Japan acting together on one side, and China, Russia and North Korea aligned on the other. The factors that have prevented China from making further progress in the diplomatic process are many and various and this paper will reveal the complexity of the North Korean issue for China. Foreign academics and policy makers have tended to attribute China’s indecision over North Korea to China putting its own security interests first. But this is far too simplistic a picture of the complex relationship that China has with North Korea. There are a host of factors at work that need to be taken into account to understand the present impasse in the diplomatic process. These factors include China’s emotional ties to North Korea and empathy with its position as the weakest party in the Talks, the conflicting attitudes within the Chinese government itself towards the North, and the competing interests and lack of trust between the different stakeholders. It seems that for the foreseeable future, the North Korean issue will continue to plague Chinese foreign policy until all the parties involved act as a collaborative body to reach a consensus on how to resolve the situation.