The trilateral meeting provides insight on underlying issues within current policy approaches towards North Korea and Pyongyang’s potential response to pressures arising from the international community.
The international community approaches North Korea with a poor tasting carrot and a broken stick. This gives Pyongyang a great deal of leverage in regional diplomacy.
Amid all the debate over whether to attack Iran, the most important question to ask is whether this policy will keep Iran non-nuclear indefinitely?
The North Korean ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-il unexpectedly passed away on 17th December. Now, Kim Jong-un comes under the political spotlight. The new North Korean leader is in his late 20s and has been so unknown to the outside world that a torrent of predictions on the future of North Korea is being suggested.
Any serious blunder of inexperience by the new leader in connection with redirecting the country’s economic and diplomatic affairs could lead to irreversible challenges by the competing elite groups in North Korea, divided largely into the military brass and the technocrats.
North Korea is of perennial security concern to both its neighbors and the United States. North Korea is the only state that has ever withdrawn from the Nonproliferation Treaty and reneged on every denuclearization agreement it had ever signed. In late 2010, satellite data indicated that North Korea possessed a uranium enrichment facility, and now a potential third nuclear test is underway.
After a stalemate of slightly over three years, diplomats are resuscitating the Six Party Talks, negotiations started in 2008 between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China in an effort to denuclearize North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and mitigate the brinkmanship of the Kim Jong Il regime.
The United States is short of good ideas on dealing with Pyongyang. One policy that is sometimes advocated is a ‘wait and see’ approach. But those holding their breath waiting for North Korea’s government to collapse should try not to suffocate. Even the 1994 famine that killed an estimated 500,000 to 3 million people did not trigger regime collapse.
Although this book appeared before the November 2010 bombing of Yeonpyeong island by North Korean forces, its insights and are no less relevant to the question of reversing a dangerous trend of military provocations, brinkmanship and near-war collisions between the Koreas. As Dr. Clemens forcefully argues, a long-lasting, peaceful solution to the inter-Korean division is neither impossible, nor idealistic.
China’s mild response to the March 2010 sinking of South Korean navy warship Cheonan has frustrated many people. It has not joined the United States, Japan, and South Korea in openly condemning Pyongyang and threatening punitive measures. What explains China’s fence-sitting on this issue? What is China interest on the Korean peninsula?
Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to support open access publishing.
E-IR is an independent non-profit publisher run by an all volunteer team. Your donations allow us to invest in new open access titles and pay our bandwidth bills to ensure we keep our existing titles free to view. Any amount, in any currency, is appreciated. Many thanks!
Donations are voluntary and not required to download the e-book - your link to download is below.
