Global Asia - Fall 2017

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The situation the world now faces with North Korea has been long in coming. Its latest nuclear and missile tests, and the war of words between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, have seemingly brought the world to its most dangerous point yet in the standoff with North Korea. Or maybe not.
In the early 1990s, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions threatened to erupt in crisis. Atomic inspectors were closing in, leading Kim Il Sung in 1993 to threaten withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Eventually, he negotiated with the US and the result was the Geneva Agreed Framework in 1994, months after Kim Jong Il came to power. It was meant to halt Pyongyang’s path to nuclear weapons, and for the most part it worked. Until it didn’t. Accused by the US of cheating on the deal, North Korea formally withdrew from the NPT in 2003.
From there, the Six-Party Talks sought once again a negotiated end, while back-to-back liberal South Korean governments sought engagement through the Sunshine Policy. Nevertheless, in 2006, Pyongyang tested its first nuclear device and in 2009 pulled out of the Six-Party Talks, angered by criticism of a failed satellite launch.
Since 2011, Kim Jong Un has accelerated North Korea along a collision path with the US and its allies: four of its six nuclear tests have been under his watch, the latest and largest on Sept. 3. Its ballistic-missile program has also made unexpected progress, with its ICBMs now perhaps just a year from being able to reach the US mainland. Just as alarming, US politicians are now talking of military options and the public discussing war scenarios. Meanwhile, many in Asia, including South Koreans, do not seem to fully grasp the gravity of the situation today.

Global Asia Magazine Description:

Global Asia is a quarterly publication of the East Asia Foundation. The foundation, established in Seoul in January 2005, strives to promote peace, prosperity, security and sustainability in East Asia by creating an open and creative forum for the exchange of ideas on regional co-operation and integration, among other goals.
The mission we have set for ourselves with Global Asia is both bold and urgent: It is to provide a compelling, serious, and responsible forum for distinguished thinkers, policymakers, political leaders and business people to debate the most important issues in Asia today.
Global Asia is not a journal with a fixed point of view, or a particular agenda. Our aim is to give voice to the global dimension of what is happening in Asia. In our pages and on our web site, we aim for Asia to speak to the world, and the world to Asia. That is important at a time when this region is playing an ever greater role in world affairs.
There are other fine publications on international affairs. What sets us apart is our focus: Asia. We believe that the world is moving into “the Age of Asia,” to borrow a phrase from one of the articles in the inaugural issue of Global Asia in September 2006. This transformation is not going to occur overnight, but it has already begun.
The region’s dynamic economic growth, stable and accountable political systems, maturing democracies, and evolving sense of community are giving Asia greater weight in the world. These developments will have enormous implications for governments, businesses, societies and individuals across the globe. How that transformation is viewed, and shaped, from within Asia and how it is perceived outside Asia is an essential part of the story we have to tell.
The forces of globalization are having a profound impact throughout the world. And they are being influenced and channeled in different ways in different parts of the world. Ours is the story of Asia’s experience with globalization, and the ideas and debates influencing it. In pursuing our mission, we aim to play a part, however modest, in helping to shape the future of Asia.