The Impact Of Military Technology In War; Can Tec Essay

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF KOREAN REUNIFICATION
FOR NOTRHEAST ASIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

“North Korea threatens the peace and stability of Northeast Asia,
which holds the world’s fastest-growing economies?”

                                                                                                  William Perry
                                                                                      U.S. Secretary of Defense
                                                                                                3rd May 1994

Korea has long been at the center of Northeast Asian politics, and the strength of the South Korean economy ensures that it will only become more important in the coming years. With North Korea’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons and its ominous behaviour towards its neighbour to the south, the divided country is a serious security concern to the region. Yet, there is a strong desire in both countries for a unified Korea.[1]

      The Japanese invasion of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 ended the Chosun Dynasty, the dynasty that has ruled the Korean Peninsula since 1392. Korea thus remained under Japanese colonial rule for 35 years until the end of World War ll. On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies and withdrew from the Korean Peninsula. Since then, it has been divided into two.

      This division of Korea at the end of World War II was meant to be a temporary wartime arrangement by the United States and the former Soviet Union. However, this temporary partition of Korea has lasted through the Cold War and seems to have taken an air of permanence. Since then, South Korea emerged as an open and free society closely aligned with the West while North Korea turned into a Stalinistic state closely tied with communist nations. With China as an emerging power and Japan’s rise to the World’s second largest economy, the balance of power system among the four major powers in North East Asia has evolved...