While the Iraq war and Middle East conflicts command the attention of the United States and most of the rest of the developed world, fundamental changes are occurring in East Asia. North Korea has tested nuclear weapons, even as it and South Korea have effectively entered a period of tepid détente; relations among China, Japan, and South Korea are a complex mixture of conflict and cooperation; and Japan is developing more forthright security policies, even as it deepens ties with the United States. Together, these developments pose vital questions for world stability and security. In East Asian Multilateralism, prominent international foreign affairs scholars examine the range of implications of shifting alignments in East Asia. The first part delves into the intraregional dynamics, and the second assesses current economic conditions and policies within individual East Asian states. The third section examines the challenge of regional cooperation from the perspectives of local players, while the fourth analyzes the implications for foreign policy in the United States and in Asia. This thorough review and assessment charts the preconditions and prospects for deeper multilateralism, poses tough questions about America's security and national interests in the region, and carries a plea for more serious institution-building in the North Pacific, using the ongoing six-party process in talks on North Korea as a point of departure.

North Korea's testing of a nuclear bomb sent out a shock wave throughout the world and totally changed the strategic equation in the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia. This testing has far-reaching implications for Korean peace and unification, Northeast Asian security and America's global war on terrorism. This key volume provides an in-depth analysis of the inter-Korean and international dynamics of North Korea's nuclear crisis. It offers new insights into the six-party talks designed to resolve the crisis, suggests creative formulas to resolve the ongoing crisis through peaceful, diplomatic means and delves into the interests and policies of the major powers - the US, China, Japan and Russia - at the six-party negotiating table. The contributing authors are distinguished specialists and experts in the field and as such offer valuable expertise into the dynamics of this nuclear crisis for students and academics

The Northeast Asian security environment is closely linked to Korea’s growth perspectives for the future. The spectacular rise of the South Korean economy in the past half century, also known as “Miracle on the Han River,” has been duly highlighted as one of the most successful cases of economic development worldwide. However, among the factors curbing South Korea’s growth perspectives has been, from the very beginning of its rise, the coexistence of the difficult neighbour to the North, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. While in the cold war this coexistence has been taken as inevitable, after the end of the cold war there were hopes to overcome this obstacle to further growth either through collapse or enhanced cooperation with the North, neither of which became reality. North Korea’s unprecedented aggressiveness and development of long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear devices, made this threat truly an international question with multilateral talks coming into existence as ad-hoc measures to cope with the nuclear crisis. It was then that the idea of a Northeast Asian Security Community was born. The contributions in this book discuss how a peaceful solution of the security problems could not only enhance stability of Korea’s economy and reduce the defense burden considerably (the so-called peace dividend), but would facilitate regional investments safer and regional solutions for common economic problems. When discussing the possibilities of a security framework or, in an institutionalized form, security community, in Northeast Asia, the authors in this volume are realistic as to not fall into the trap of wishful thinking, which so often has characterized approaches to North Korea resulting in disappointment. The past two years again saw the rising of tensions in Northeast Asia and the masterful way in which even an impoverished and isolated country can play its cards. While it seems a new ice age between the two Koreas is possible, nevertheless and maybe even more than ever the search for a stable security framework for Northeast Asia as a precondition for peaceful economic cooperation and development will go on. The chapters in this volume contribute to the ongoing debate to secure peace and development in Northeast Asia, making this book of interest to both academics and policy-makers alike.

The sovereign power of the nation-state has been steadily eroding for decades under the pressure of multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and multiregional organizations such as the European Union. The increasing prominence of non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and Human Rights Watch in times of crisis has also contributed, since the problems such groups address often extend beyond national borders and are thus difficult for national governments to manage alone. Multiregionalism and Multilateralism investigates these forces as they factor into political and economic relations between Asia and Europe.