In The News

Bush Plays Down Rift With Allies Over U.S. Stance on North Korea

David E. Sanger January 3, 2003
North Korea’s decision to re-start its nuclear program has much of Asia, the US, and others on edge. How to deal with the communist country’s ambitions is creating a degree of tension between the US and its allies. The US has been pursuing a diplomacy-centered route in handling the issue, a policy that has invited greater scrutiny of its attitude toward another “Axis of Evil” member, Iraq....

Northeast Asia in the Coming Decade

Immanuel Wallerstein January 1, 2003
Social theorist Immanuel Wallerstein argues that the situation in Northeast Asia – including the current US-North Korean conflict – must be evaluated with a long-term perspective. Each of the three main zones of northeast Asia, he says, is currently seeing only its own narrow concerns: Korea is focused almost solely on unification, Japan is paralyzed with uncertainty over how to re-establish its...

Bush turns diplomatic in handling Korean crisis

Edward Epstein December 14, 2002
In a phone conversation on December 13 with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, President Bush said he won't allow "business as usual to continue," but promised to seek a diplomatic settlement to North Korea's decision to restart a nuclear program. The question of why the US is preparing to go to war against Iraq but seeking a diplomatic solution in North Korea underlines the...

United States to North Korea: We Now Have a Pre-Condition

James A. Kelly December 12, 2002
Just a day before North Korea announced the resumption of the operation of a nuclear reactor closed since 1994, a top US official gave for the first time a personal account of his meeting with North Korean officials. He said that after reviewing the Clinton administration’s North Korea policy, the Bush administration decided in June 2001 to speak to the North Koreans "any time, any place,...

North Korea Suspends Nuclear Moratorium

Kim Min-bai December 12, 2002
Already the focus of nations worried about the proliferation of nuclear and conventional weapons, North Korea announced Thursday that it will resume development of nuclear power facilities to meet its energy needs. The communist country and the United States had agreed in 1994 that if North Korea stopped its nuclear programs, the US would supply it with enough oil to meet its needs until a safer...

Crazy in the 'Hood

Thomas L. Friedman November 20, 2002
The power of weapons of mass destruction means their possession concerns not only the immediate neighbor but the neighborhood. How to deal with a country like North Korea, which appears to have developed nuclear weapons, is thus not only a worry to South Korea. But the killing power that North Korea packs vis-à-vis its southern neighbor makes US decision-making more complicated. As Thomas...

North Korea Clarifies Statement on A-Bomb

Howard W. French November 19, 2002
A North Korean weekend radio broadcast presented by South Korean news agency Yonhap confirmed strong suspicions that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons: Or so we thought. With governmental clarification on Tuesday that depended on the translation of one Korean syllable, the North Korean government stated not that it possessed nuclear weapons, but that in light of U.S. imperialist threats, it...