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101. CURRENT RUSSIA – NORTH KOREA RELATIONS: CHALLENGES AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Author:
Alexander Vorontsov
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Policy toward North Korea is an important component of Russia's general strategy toward the Asia-Pacific region, which is now regarded by Moscow as a crucially import ant area. This growing emphasis on Asia is evidenced by President Vladimir Putin's increased participation in APEC summits including the November 2005 meeting in Pusan, South Korea, and Russia's development of a dialogue partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). During the first Russia-ASEAN summit, held in Malaysia just before the East Asian Summit in December 2005, President Putin gave a speech to the participants of the nascent East Asian Community (EAC), a new multidimensional integration association in the region.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Malaysia, East Asia, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Asia-Pacific

102. Chinese Views: Breaking the Stalemate on the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Scott Snyder and Joel Wit
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The second North Korean nuclear crisis, which climaxed with the test of a nuclear device on October 9, 2006, has influenced the views of Chinese specialists. By revealing the status of North Korean nuclear development, Pyongyang's nuclear test was a poke in the eye of Chinese leaders, who had tried privately and publicly to dissuade North Korean leaders from conducting a test. As a result, China has taken stronger measures to get Pyongyang's attention, including a temporary crackdown on North Korea's illicit financial activities. These changes spotlight an ongoing debate within the Chinese academic community over whether North Korea (DPRK) could become a strategic liability rather than a strategic asset. This debate centers on whether it is necessary to set aside China's loyalty to the current North Korean regime in order to maintain good U.S.-China relations and achieve China's objectives of developing its economy and consolidating its regional and global economic and political influence. Or is maintaining North Korea as a strategic buffer still critical to preserving China's influence on the Korean peninsula? An increasingly vocal minority of Chinese specialists is urging starkly tougher measures in response to North Korea's “brazen” act, including reining in the Kim Jong Il regime or promoting alternative leadership in Pyongyang. Although their sympathy and ideological identification with North Korea has waned, many Chinese policy analysts clearly prefer North Korea's peaceful reform to a U.S.- endorsed path of confrontation or regime change. China's policymakers have sought to forestall North Korean nuclear weapons development, but they continue to blame U.S. inflexibility for contributing to heightened regional tensions over North Korea's nuclear program. Chinese analysts fret that economic and political instability inside North Korea could negatively affect China itself. They have shown more concern about the North Korean regime's stability in recent months than at any time since the food crisis in the late 1990s. Chinese policymakers ask how to encourage North Korea's leaders to embark on economic reform without increasing political instability. Discussions with Chinese experts reveal considerable uncertainty about the future of North Korean reform. The possibilities of military confrontation on the Korean peninsula, involving the United States and either a violent regime change or destabilization through North Korea's failure to maintain political control, are equally threatening to China's fundamental objective of promoting regional stability. These prospects have increased following North Korea's nuclear test and the strong reaction from the international community, as shown by UN Security Council Resolution 1718. China's economic rise has given it new financial tools for promoting stability of weak states on its periphery. Expanded financial capacity to provide aid or new investment in North Korea might help it achieve political and economic stabilization. The Chinese might prefer to use the resumption of benefits temporarily withheld as a way of enhancing their leverage by reminding the North of its dependence on Beijing's largesse. Managing the ongoing six-party talks will pose an increasingly difficult diplomatic challenge for China. Chinese diplomats take credit for mediation and shuttle diplomacy, but their accomplishments thus far have been modest. Talks have been fairly useful in stabilizing the situation, but they have also revealed the limits of China's diplomatic influence on both the United States and North Korea. U.S. intransigence is as much an object of frustration to the Chinese as North Korean stubbornness. Chinese analysts clearly have given thought to potential consequences of regime instability. For example, the Chinese military's contingency plans for preventing the spillover of chaos into China and for seizing loose nukes and fissile material imply that Chinese forces would move into North Korean territory. Without effective coordination, simultaneous interventions in the event of unforeseen crisis inside North Korea could lead to direct military conflict among U.S., Chinese, and South Korean military forces. Rather than accept South Korean intervention backed by the United States as a prelude to reunification, Chinese analysts repeatedly emphasize that “the will of the North Korean people must be considered” in the event of instability. If intervention were necessary, China clearly would prefer insertion of an international peacekeeping force under UN auspices. Such a force would establish a representative government, which would then decide whether to negotiate reunification with South Korea.
Topic:
International Relations and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

103. Interview with South Korean Foreign Minister and UN Secretary General-designate Ban Ki-moon

Author:
Nermeen Shaikh
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is presently the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea. His election as new UN Secretary-General seems certain following the decision by all the other candidates to withdraw from the race. This interview with AsiaSource was conducted by Nermeen Shaikh on September 26th, while Foreign Minister Ban was in New York for the UN General Assemby session. The Foreign Minister also delivered a speech to the Asia Society the previous day, "The Quest for Peace and Prosperity in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond".
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and United Nations
Political Geography:
New York, Asia, and South Korea

104. South Korea's Experience with International Capital Flows

Author:
Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
South Korea's experience is unparalleled in its combination of sustained prosperity, capital controls, and financial crisis. Over several decades South Korea experienced rapid sustained growth in the presence of capital controls. These controls and the delinking of domestic and international financial markets were an essential component of the country's state-led development strategy. As the country developed, opportunities for easy technological catch-up eroded, requiring more sophisticated corporate and financial sector decision making. But decades of financial repression had bequeathed a bureaucratized financial system and a formidable constellation of incumbent stakeholders opposed to transition to a more market-oriented development model. Liberalization undertaken in the 1990s was less a product of textbook economic analysis than of parochial politicking. The capital account liberalization program affected the timing, magnitude, and particulars of the 1997-98 crisis. Despite considerable reforms undertaken since the crisis, concerns remain about both South Korea's lending culture and its authorities' capacity to successfully regulate the more complex financial system. The main lesson of the South Korean case appears to be that while the state-led model may deliver impressive initial gains, transitioning out of this approach presents an exceedingly complex political-economy challenge.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Emerging Markets
Political Geography:
Asia and South Korea

105. Democracy, History, and Migrant Labor in South Korea

Author:
Hyun Park
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This paper concerns the paradox of democratization in South Korea, whose progression has been entwined with neoliberal capitalism beginning in the 1990s. There have been critical moments of democratization since the military rulers gave in to popular pressure for democratization. These moments range from the recommencement of the popular electoral system in the Presidential election in 1987 to the transfer of the state power to civilian leaders, and the participation of former dissidents in the parliament and the administration. A particular form of democratization addressed in this paper is not electoral state politics but the broad-reaching initiatives to transform the relationship between the state and society. Specifically, I examine the initiative to rewrite colonial and cold-war history. This particular initiative is part of an effort to correct a longstanding tendency of previous military regimes that suppressed the resolution of colonial legacies and framed Korean national history within an ideological confrontation of capitalist South Korea and communist North Korea.
Topic:
International Relations and Globalization
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

106. President Attempts to Show that Asia Matters to the United States

Author:
John Gershman
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
President Bush is in Asia this week for a series of meetings, including bilateral meetings in Japan, South Korea, China, and Mongolia and attending the economic leaders meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. This trip comes on the heels of a disastrous trip by President Bush to Latin America, but there is little sign this trip will do much to rescue the President's sinking foreign policy reputation.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Asia, and South Korea

107. Uses of Ambiguity in North Korea Agreement

Author:
John Feffer
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
On September 19, North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program. As part of the same agreement, which followed the latest round of the Six Party Talks, the United States pledged not to attack or invade North Korea, to coexist peacefully with the country, and to work toward normalized relations. The United States and other parties to the agreement — China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea — offered to put together an energy package for North Korea.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

108. A Republic--if South Koreans Can Keep It

Author:
Nicholas Eberstadt
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
With the impeachment of President Roh Mu Hyun on dubious grounds, South Korean democracy once again seems imperiled. Roh may be forced out, but the Constitutional Court may instead keep him in place, thereby leaving the public to decide whether to support a weak president or a corrupt national assembly.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Economics
Political Geography:
South Korea and Southeast Asia