Diplomacy
Dual Perspective: Reading Thae Yong-ho
Thae Yong-ho’s memoir marks a bold attempt to push back the tide of South Korean public ambivalence toward North Korea, a sprawling 500-page narrative of his experiences in the DPRK diplomatic corps over twenty years and ending with his 2016 defection. Robert Lauler takes a look at this essential, if flawed, text.
On Contradiction: The PRC Foreign Ministry and “China Responsibility Theory”
When a spokesman pushed back against the Trump administration assertions that China is in the driver’s seat with North Korea, Washington had no response. What was between the lines of this statement from Beijing?
A Roundtable Review of Van Jackson’s Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in U.S.-North Korea Relations
Adam Mount (Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress), Daniel Pinkston (Troy University), and Martin Weiser (graduate of Korea University) provide different evaluations of Van Jackson’s analysis of the history of the US-North Korea relationship in his newly published book, Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in U.S.-North Korea Relations.
The Sino-DPRK Split and Origins of US-DPRK Bilateralism
Using archival material from the Woodrow Wilson Center, Eungseo Kim dissects the politics of Sino-US détente in 1972. He concludes that Pyongyang’s grievance against Beijing for its refusal to push preconditions for Sino-US diplomatic normalization was why Pyongyang decided it needed to deal directly with the United States.
THAAD and the Great Power Context II: Missile Defense and China-Russia Defense Cooperation
In the second part of his series on Great Power politics in Northeast Asia, Anthony Rinna looks at the question of whether successful China-Russia defense relations in the region are possible beyond mere rhetoric.
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