Uniting Asia

With the waning of North Korea's nuclear ambitions, northeast Asia is experiencing a period of fragile stability. As Western Europe has shown, the way to consolidate peace and security is by expanding economic integration and constructing a regional political community.

North Korea’s nuclear ambitions seem to have died down, at least for now. The Six-Party Talks have, at long last, succeeded – thanks, apparently, to China’s solid opposition to the nuclearization of northeast Asia. Under the aegis of the Six-Party umbrella, the United States and North Korea have even held the bilateral talks that North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has long coveted.

So, for now, northeast Asia is temporarily calmer and less unstable than it has been for almost two decades. Yet it remains a potential flashpoint.

During this time of tension, an increasingly self-confident South Korea began to chart a course independent of its American patron. In November 2005, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) accused the South Korean government of having enriched a tiny amount of uranium – to a level close to what could be used in an atomic weapon. The government denied this, claiming that the experiments were conducted without its knowledge by academic researchers “for scientific interest.”

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