Introduction: This week

Welcome to “Korea in a Global Context”. In the previous week, we talked about Japan, in particular Japan’s foreign policy.

More specifically, we tried to understand the following important questions: - First, what does Japan want in global politics, especially under the leadership of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo? - How does Japan achieve its foreign and security policy goals? - What does a rising China imply for Japan’s foreign policy? - How is Japan likely to behave in the future in the Asia-Pacific region? - How likely is a conflict between Japan and China to occur? And here, we also thought about factors and conditions that might increase or decrease the possibility of military, economic, or political conflicts and disputes. In this way, we try to have a better understanding of how to prevent or resolve those possible or existing conflicts and disputes.

Also we have thought about how South Korea-Japan relations have evolved since World War II? - What do you think, what do you make of the current relationship between these two countries? Based on our previous discussions, we can say that Japan will play a very significant role in regional stability as well as economy. Of course, besides Japan, there are many other state and non-state actors that can have impact on the regional politics of East Asia. This is especially the case with North Korea, from the perspective of international security. That is why we would like to talk about North Korea today.