Prospects From Korean Reunification

Throughout the 1990s, predictions of Korean reunification were rife. Since then, enthusiasm for such predictions have faded, and although the underlying assumption of reunification remains, forecasts of when and how this will occur have been more subdued. Reunification poses two distinct yet interdependent conundrums: reunification itself, which is the immediate challenge; and the strategic landscape that emerges from reunification, which has the potential to fundamentally transform strategic relationships in Northeast Asia. Within this context, this paper examines the prospects from Korean reunification. Initially, it will establish the framework from which such prospects will emerge: the nature of the North Korean regime, the cost of reunification, and likely reunification scenarios. From this framework, a raft of challenges and opportunities present themselves to the stakeholders in the region; and South Korea, China, the United States and, to a lesser extent, Japan and Russia will be examined...

A distinguished panel of scholars from around the world convened at the Hoover Institution in June 1993 to assess prospects for a reunited Korea. North Korea's highly publicized stance of nuclear noncompliance, initiated only months earlier, gave the conference historical immediacy. It also underscored the potentially catastrophic consequences of continued ideological friction on the Korean peninsula. Scenarios for reunification identified at that conference are presented in this volume.

For a number of reasons, many of which are self-induced, the United States is in danger of losing, or may have already lost, the strategic initiative in Korea to the People's Republic of China. Given time, the ramifications of ceding the initiative to China may result in a unified Korea tilted toward Beijing.