This book is a research result of the major project Political and Economic Trends of the Korean Peninsula and China's Peninsula Strategy Research undertaken by Professor Zhang Huizhi, Deputy Director of the Northeast Asian Research Center, and is also a phased result of the author's long-term research on the Korean Peninsula.
Looking at the tumultuous Korean peninsula over the past 70 years, there are certainly historical and practical entanglements between the two countries involved, making the situation on the peninsula uncertain, but more importantly, the geostrategic status of the Korean peninsula has always entangled China, the United States, Japan, Russia and other major powers, and all countries are trying to take various policy measures to expand their influence on the Korean peninsula, making the situation on the peninsula confusing and full of variables. The prolongation of the Korean nuclear issue has not only aggravated the tension and instability on the Korean Peninsula, but also made the relationship between the Korean Peninsula and neighboring countries increasingly complicated. Against the backdrop of the U.S. return to the Asia-Pacific region and the implementation of the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy to contain the rise of China, the Korean Peninsula, as a crossroads of major powers' interests, is once again the scene of intense games and battles between major powers. Today, whether and how the Korean Peninsula issue can be resolved is not only a national issue for North and South Korea, but also an international issue involving the strategic interests of neighboring powers, thus making the Korean Peninsula issue an important variable in the development of major power relations and the evolution of the Northeast Asian order.
This book consists of eight chapters, which are broadly divided into three parts. The first part mainly explains the national strategic adjustments of North Korea and South Korea and the changes in North-South relations on the Korean Peninsula, in order to clarify the basic development lineage of the two countries on the Korean Peninsula and the origin of the evolution of bilateral relations.The second part focuses on the Asia-Pacific strategies of the U.S., Japan, Russia, and other major powers and their policies toward the Korean Peninsula in order to clarify the status and role of the Korean Peninsula in the national strategies of the major powers.The third part examines the interaction between the Korean Peninsula and the relations between China, the United States, Japan, and Russia during the evolution of the international landscape, as well as the prospect of transforming the armistice mechanism on the peninsula into a peace mechanism, in order to explore the methods and paths for a peaceful resolution of the Korean Peninsula issue.