Nuclear Disarmament for Sustainable and Dynamic Economic Development in the Korean Peninsula
Prospects for a Peaceful Settlement
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Titel
- Copyright
- About the editors
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Introduction
- A Strategic Plan for the Success of Market-Oriented Reform and Opening of North Korea’s Economy (Chan Young Bang)
- Comment: The need, challenges and conditions for a new policy agenda (Sun Song Park)
- Would a sufficient economic package persuade the DPRK to abandon its nuclear programs? (John Everard)
- The way out for the Korean peninsula’s dilemma (Qun Liu)
- The root cause and a way out of the DPRK nuclear issue (Zhibo Zou)
- Evaluation and prospects of the international situation in East Asia after the fifth nuclear test of the DPRK (Sung-wook Nam)
- Nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula: Prospects for a settlement. A Russian view (Petr Yakhmenev)
- In Search of a compromise in Korea: A Russian perspective (Alexander Zhebin)
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors
Introduction
In fall 2016, scholars from the US, South Korea, China and Russia, and the former UK ambassador to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), John Everard, met in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to discuss the formula of a “grand bargain” as a way of promoting denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Their contributions have been organized in this volume. The idea of a grand bargain is laid out in a paper by Chan Young Bang, former economic advisor to the president of Kazakhstan. The paper is based on an invited lecture that was intended for delivery in Pyongyang before the event was cancelled at a late moment. The proposal is to put security guarantees and substantial financial support on the table and to demand that in return North Korea undertake verifiable steps towards denuclearization and the opening of its economy. The stick, in case North Korea fails to denuclearize, would be a tightening of the sanctions.
The idea of a grand bargain has been put out and discussed before, most notably by O’Hanlon and Mochizuki (2003). Some in the foreign policy establishment, on the other hand, have suggested that nuclear armament is a non-reducible part of the North Korean regime’s survival strategy and that any diplomatic initiative aimed at denuclearizing Korea is bound to fail. This line of reasoning has recently been enunciated by Revere (2017). John Everard, in his contribution to this volume, shares this skepticism about a grand bargain.
Since the publication of O’Hanlon and Mochizuki’s book, the situation has fundamentally changed with the nuclear armament plans of the DPRK increasingly turning into fact. The following brief time line represents a history of policy initiatives, agreements and failure:
1985: The DPRK becomes a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty
1994: The Agreed Framework
1998: The Sunshine Policy begins
2003: The DPRK withdraws from the Non Proliferation Treaty
2003–2007: Six Party Talks
2010: The Sunshine Policy is declared a failure
2012: The Leap Day Deal
←11 | 12→Yet recent political developments may bring new life to the idea of a comprehensive solution to the crisis in the Korean peninsula. At the time that the contributions to this volume were completed, in fall 2016, conservative Park Geun-hye was president of the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States was in the midst of a presidential election campaign. The editors of this book are writing at a point when it seems that a new chapter has been opened, but the uncertainty surrounding the situation in the Korean peninsula has, if anything, increased. The new president of the ROK, Moon Jae-in, is in favor of de-nuclearizing the Korean peninsula and supports the resumption of economic co-operation with the North. He also has moved towards China’s position by delaying the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense platform, the contentious anti-missile system to be deployed in South Korea. The new American president, Donald Trump, has jettisoned much of the US foreign policy orthodoxy since coming to power and has declared his interest in talking to the leader of the DPRK. He also appeared to be leaning on China to exercise its influence on North Korea while at the same time threatening military force if other attempts prove unsuccessful (Rachman, 2017). So while a military escalation can no longer be excluded, a move towards new diplomatic efforts at finding a negotiated settlement has become a distinct possibility.
The discussion in this volume reviews issues of timing, recent historical developments and the political objectives and constraints of the DPRK regime. It also looks into the geopolitical situation on the Korean peninsula from the perspective of China, Russia and South Korea.
Details
- Pages
- 124
- Year
- 2017
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631735503
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631735510
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9783631735527
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783631735534
- DOI
- 10.3726/b12084
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2021 (June)
- Keywords
- six-party talks non-proliferation treaty Northeast Asia US-China Relations economic transition
- Published
- Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2017. 124 pp., 1 b/w ill.
