Author: Ken Jimbo, Keio University

The sinking of the Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010 raised concerns for both the South Korean and US governments that North Korea may no longer be conventionally deterred.

The two governments have been reviewing how their basic and extended deterrence policies should be reorganised to adapt to this new dimension in North Korea’s behaviour. Read more…

Author: Jae Cheol Kim, Catholic University of Korea

Kim Jong-il’s visit to China in late May — his third in just over a year — was full of surprises for many observers.

It is difficult to find a precedent in any bilateral relationship for this diplomatic episode, which suggests that ties between China and North Korea have been elevated to the point where the two countries are conducting high-level visits without being restricted by the conventional diplomatic protocol of mutual exchanges. Read more…

Author: Alexander Vorontsov, Russian Academy of Sciences

During 2010, the nuclear problem on the Korean Peninsula played itself out in an intense, unchecked manner in the midst of worsening inter-Korean relations.

At the same time, the mechanisms for resolving, freezing and eventually eliminating its nuclear program were virtually inactive. This applies to both the bilateral formats and the main international tool designed to meet those goals, the six-party talks. Read more…

Author: Ryo Sahashi, Kanagawa University

From territorial disputes to non-traditional security concerns, 2010 will be remembered as the pivotal year for East Asian security.

The sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeongdo reminded us of the deeply-rooted risks lying in the Peninsula. But, additionally, it has created momentum for bilateral and trilateral cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the US. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, ANU

The tension on the Korean Peninsula after the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in March and the shelling of Yeonpyeong in November escalated to dangerous levels as joint American-South Korean naval exercises at the end of 2010 challenged Pyongyang to strike a third time at its peril.

By end year, the opportunity for a limited South Korean tit-for-tat response to either the Cheonan or the Yeonpyeong provocations had long passed, President Lee Myung-bak had called in the US alliance relationship and the US was standing firmly behind him. The conflict internationalised very quickly and added another confrontational element to relations between Washington and Beijing. The tension heightened when China took an unusually strong public stand against the joint naval exercises between the South Korea and the US in the West Sea. The chance of serious military conflict that could have gotten rapidly out of hand was extremely high. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

‘We are ready to meet anyone, anytime, and anywhere … We propose discontinuing to heap slanders and calumnies on each other and refraining from any act of provoking each other.’

This is not the kind of language we are used to hearing from Pyongyang lately. Yet that was the offer apparently made on 5 January — but by whom, exactly? The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) referred to a joint meeting of the ‘government, political parties and organisations.’ None of the latter were named. That seems a bit vague. Read more…

Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University and ANU

Last year was a dangerous year in Korea. Alas, 2011 might become even worse.

At first glance, this statement might appear excessively pessimistic. After all, in the last few weeks tensions on the Korean Peninsula were decreasing, North Korea suggested negotiations and South Korea also said that talks might be a good idea.

However, the appearances are misleading. Read more…

Author: Yoon Young-kwan, Seoul National University

The year 2010 was the most turbulent year in inter-Korean relations in the recent decade.

Though the relationship between the South and the North has begun to deteriorate since the start of the Lee Myung-bak administration in 2008, there was a hope for improvement until around March 2010. Read more…

Author: John Hemmings, RUSI

North Korea’s artillery attack on its Southern neighbour was not – as it claimed- a justified reaction to a South Korean military exercise. Rather, it was only the latest in a series of pin-prick attacks designed to pressure and bully its southern neighbour.

This uniquely North Korean approach to diplomacy is a form of bullying that walks the Clausewitzean tightrope between politics and war. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

On November 22 a leading US nuclear scientist reported seeing facilities which suggest that Pyongyang has got much further in enriching uranium than had been thought. As if that were not bombshell enough, next day North Korean artillery without warning shelled military and civilian targets on Yeonpyeong: one of five South Korean islands in the Yellow Sea, close to North Korea. Two marines and two civilians were killed, 18 persons were injured. The won fell and stock markets in Seoul remained volatile for the rest of the week, but did not plummet.

Anger and disarray in Seoul

The political fallout went deeper. There was fury that the South yet again seemed impotent against Northern aggression. This also had an air of déjà vu, six months after Seoul accused Pyongyang of culpability for sinking the Cheonan. Then as now the South threatened to strike back – next time. Read more…

Author: Peter Hayes, RMIT

One thing is clear about past attempts to denuclearise North Korea: They have been an abysmal failure. They have not afforded Pyongyang the sense of security it needs to take real steps to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions. The idea of a South Korea-Japan nuclear weapon-free zone provides a fresh approach that might just work.

A South Korea-Japan Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone is an attractive regional security concept compared with either the status quo or a future for Northeast Asia without such a zone. It should be in force by 2012. Read more…

Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum, CFR

As its profile in East Asia rises, India would do well to heed America’s recent experience in a changing Asia.  Economics, not security, still defines the essential strategic reality of Asia today:  China is fast becoming the central player in a new economic regionalism. The United States and India are each enhancing their political and security profiles—albeit for different reasons and in different ways.  Yet both risk being left out as Asian economic integration tightens.

The United States has endured decades of loose talk about American ‘decline’ in Asia.  But in the months since North Korea torpedoed a South Korean naval corvette in March, America’s security role has been strongly reinforced.  Read more…

Author: Fenna Egberink, Clingendael Institute

The United States’ recent Asian diplomacy has been most interesting. The US has drawn ASEAN countries into the guarded enmity between the US and China. Is this to Southeast Asia’s benefit?

Earlier this year China took a noticeably more proactive stance vis-à-vis its regional partners. After first asserting the South China Sea to be a ‘core interest’ during bilateral discussions with the US, a term generally reserved for its claims to Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang, China defied US diplomatic efforts by using its veto-powers in the UN Security Council to block actions against North Korea in the aftermath of the Cheonan incident.    Read more…

Author: John Hemmings, RUSI

The sinking of the Cheonan, recent actions by the United States and South Korea, and reaction by China will provide some difficult questions for states of the Asia Pacific region, and the international community to resolve.

Senior security and defence officials in the US were left mulling over a recent decision to deploy the aircraft carrier USS George Washington for joint exercises with South Korean naval and air forces, intended to sooth Seoul and caution Pyongyang, after the sinking of South Korean frigate Cheonan in March this year.  Initially, the carrier was to deploy to the Yellow Sea, but under Chinese pressure, the US decided to hold the exercises in the Sea of Japan (known in Korea as the East Sea). Read more…

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…