Author: Hyung-A Kim, ANU

More than 100 days after the sinking in March of the South Korean navy corvette, the Cheonan, with the loss of 46 lives, the UN Security Council presidential statement of 9 July epitomises the impasse that the global response to this incident has now reached.

The statement did not directly condemn or blame North Korea but simply stated that it ‘condemns the attack which led to the sinking of the Cheonan’, and called for ‘appropriate and peaceful measures to be taken against those responsible for the incident’. Yet, while the UN Security Council took more than a month to adopt this statement, the sinking has become the catalyst for some significant developments in Northeast Asia, reminiscent of the Cold War posturing of the past. Read more…

Author: Hyung-A Kim

South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak arrived in Australia last week as part of a seven-day visit to New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia. Lee’s visit at this particular time, in the midst of the global financial meltdown and North Korea’s threat to test-launch a ballistic missile capable of reaching the west of the US mainland, gives a heightened significance to his summit meetings, especially the one with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Indeed, the South Korean economy, especially hurt by the current economic downturn spirals, is in crisis. Its currency has fallen more than 40 per cent against the US dollar. South Korea’s GDP grew only 2.5 per cent in 2008, the lowest level of growth since 1998, and it is now predicted that Asia’s fourth largest economy will actually shrink in 2009.

In terms of inter-Korean relations between the South and North, Pyongyang has openly warned the Lee Government against pushing relations to the ”brink of war”. Read more…