Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Myoung-ho Park, Dongguk University
South Korean voters find themselves in the midst of a busy political year.
The parliamentary election, which took place on 11 April, saw the governing Saenuri Party retain power. But attention is now turning toward the upcoming presidential election in December. Read more…
Author: John Hemmings, CSIS, Honolulu
Some have speculated that South Korea’s electorate, unhappy with Lee Myung-bak’s handling of relations with North Korea, wants a return to Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun’s liberal policies — and with them, the Sunshine Policy, or greater engagement with Pyongyang.
With a new, young leader in power in North Korea, it would seem the right time to try something different — a new approach for a new era. Read more…
Author: Yoon Young-kwan, Seoul National University
After North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean frigate, Cheonan, and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, inter-Korean relations did not improve much in 2011.
There was limited official contact between the South and the North and between the US and the North to discuss the possible resumption of Six-Party Talks or food aid. Read more…
Authors: John Delury and Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University
Kim Jong-il’s sudden death spurred yet another round of fevered speculation over the DPRK’s imminent demise.
Some analysts gave the North Korean state only a matter of months to live, and renewed calls on Beijing to engage in ‘contingency planning’ with Washington and Seoul to pre-empt catastrophe when collapse finally comes. Read more…
Author: Suman Bery, IGC
The Indian government presented its National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) to the nation in early November.
Presumably, the announcement was timed to demonstrate that reform is alive and kicking before parliament reconvenes later this month. With the final text now available on the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion website, it is possible to take a considered view of the policy’s goals, the means proposed to achieve them and the probability of success. It is also possible to speculate on the unintended consequences and possible collateral damage.
Authors: Geoffrey K. See and Andray Abrahamian, Choson Exchange
Intra-elite competition for investments in North Korea, with multiple channels backed by different individuals at the highest levels of the North Korean government, has significantly increased in the last two years.
This competition appears to mark a shift towards increasing reliance on economic performance as a primary source of legitimacy for the North Korean government. Read more…
Author: Robert E. Kelly, PNU
President Lee Myung-bak’s October trip to the US represents an ostensible high point in the US-ROK alliance.
But there are cracks in the relationship, primarily on the American side. Read more…
Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University
After three and a half years of a hard line with nothing to show for it except worsened inter-Korea relations, Lee Myung-bak is at long last executing a U-turn. Not openly and without fanfare of course; but the signs are clear.
In a speech in New York on 20 September, Lee sounded a note both old and new. As ever he stressed denuclearisation, but in a way which suggests this may no longer be a first step and precondition for progress. Read more…
Authors: Peter Hayes, RMIT and Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University
A declassified 1978 CIA report related to nuclear proliferation during the Park Chung-hee era shows that, far from making South Korea more secure, Park’s toying with the nuclear option made him an unpredictable and even dangerous client who needed restraint in the eyes of US policy makers.
The ROK’s nuclear ambitions, especially in the post-1975 period, resulted in the US threatening to rupture the security alliance if the ROK did not stop its nuclear intransigence. Read more…
Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University
North and South Korea held talks in Beijing last week, which means the next episode of the endless diplomatic soap that is the Six-Party Talks is approaching.
The official goal of these talks is North Korean denuclearisation. Read more…
Author: Evan A Feigenbaum, CFR
Can the United States and China cooperate to forestall threats to stability?
A new CFR report, Managing Instability on China’s Periphery, asks this question in the context of fragile states and regions that share borders with China — specifically North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan and Central Asia. Read more…
Author: Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University
In much of the world the Six-Party Talks represent a futile attempt to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and deter it from a path of belligerence.
But in China the talks offer hope for a new regional security arrangement. While observers took keen interest in China’s resistance to condemn the North’s two attacks on South Korea in 2010, few paid attention to Chinese rhetoric on the Korean peninsula, apart from expressing surprise at Xi Jinping’s revival of Chinese support for the North in the ‘glorious’ Korean War. Read more…
Authors: Alexander Vorontsov and Oleg Revenko, Russian Academy of Sciences
Kim Jong-il’s recent visit to Russia and his brief meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev in Ulan-Ude continue to stir interest in political circles.
This was the North Korean leader’s first trip to Russia since 2002. Read more…
Author: Choi Kyung-soo, NKRI
The mining industry is one of the most important components of North Korea’s economy and minerals are its most important export commodity.
North Korea hosts sizeable deposits of more than 200 different minerals. Of those mineral resources identified, deposits of coal, iron ore, magnesite, gold ore, zinc ore, copper ore, limestone, molybdenite, and graphite are the largest and all have the potential for the development of large-scale mines. Read more…
Authors: Dong-Joon Park and Danielle Chubb, Pacific Forum CSIS, Honolulu
South Korea and Japan both consider the islands, known alternatively as Dokdo (Korea) and Takeshima (Japan), as part of their own respective territories.
The dispute over them has been a spoiler, on and off, over the course of their bilateral relationship. Read more…