Eastern Asia

The end of 2017 may be distinguished by identifiable changes in the policy of Beijing relation to the states of the Korean peninsula: if in the North Korean direction after the sixth nuclear test of 2017 there is a tightening of the screws, then in relation to the ROK there are to be some indulgences. The matter even came on the visit of Mun Zhe Ying to China.
First, let us look back the level of relations between the PRC and ROK before the thaw and how much it affected Seoul’s wallet.

Collaboration on the “New Silk Road” project has led to rapid and large-scale development in relations between China and Kazakhstan. The two countries are integrating their economies and transport systems as well as their financial infrastructure at a fast rate.

Japan’s defense spending has been increasing since 2013, after the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, returned to power. Although in Japan the increase in military spending is primarily attributable to missile tests in the DPRK, their main reason is to protect the ‘remote islands’ and, in this context, to counterbalance China.

After the United States torpedoed the results of the 2005 Joint Statement, the negotiation process rose again. Under these conditions, the North Koreans went all-in: Kim Jong Il intended to force the United States to perceive itself as a member of equal status in the nuclear club, so that America would once again move from imitating negotiations that are actually pressures to a genuine negotiation process that seeks solutions on the basis of mutual concessions.

Over the past few years, North Korea is presented by the world media’s as a source of almost mystical evil, as well as a threat to a “world society”. The paranoia is skilfully inflated by the media and essentially exposes not the DPRK’s formal violation of various international norms, but its “otherness” or difference from a “normal country”.

To resolve the nuclear crisis in 2003, six-party talks were established, on which three main groups were formed. The first camp was North Korea, the second – the United States, joined by Japan. The third, the most important and the most numerous, was made up of Russia, China and the “Roh Moo – hyun’s ROK”, a camp of pragmatists who made every effort to ensure that the talks were negotiations, not a series of mutual demarches.

The accepted American version of the story about the start of the second phase of the nuclear crisis, and which is customary for audiences of non-Korea experts, usually goes something like this: “in 2003, against the background of the success of the American army in Iraq, North Korea announced that it possessed nuclear weapons”, and then removed the seals from its nuclear reactor, withdrew from the NPT and expelled IAEA officials from the country.

Life is full of curveballs. On November 7, 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump winded up his visit to Japan, which was part of his relatively smooth tour of Asia; later, on the same day, he arrived in South Korea, the country that he was to visit next on his tour schedule, where he was treated to a official state welcome.