The New Face of Northeast Asia

Abstract

Northeast Asia, specialists have long argued, is among the most dangerous places on earth. Only there are the world's three principal nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, and China) and the two largest economic powers (the United States and Japan) still politically and geographically engaged?their interests entwined in a volatile arc surrounding Japan. It was in that region that three years of bitter Korean conflict half a century ago shaped the Cold War for two generations. As other global hot spots moved fitfully toward peace, Korea remained locked in conflict. To this day, Northeast Asia lacks a regional security framework analogous to nato or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce), and there is still no peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula, where more than a million troops from opposing sides remain deployed within miles of each other. Yet when Kim Dae Jung of South Korea and Kim Jong II of the North met on the tarmac at Pyongyang last June 13, the region's past and present tensions seemed to be giving way to the promise of future cooperation. The remarkably positive chemistry of the initial meetings produced tangible results. Within little more than two months, North and South Korea had agreed to rebuild roads and railways across the demilitarized zone (dmz), resolved to re-establish a liaison office in Panmunjom (a village in the dmz used as a neutral setting