Description
In this paper, I argue that the enduring sense of tension on the peninsula have its roots in the unique security structure that traces its origin to the Korean War. While the Cold War is long over, US-China rivalry however is heating up and has again extended to Korean Peninsula. Since the early 2010s, Beijing and Washington have been playing both strategic offense and defense against each other
even as they find common ground in rewinding North Korea’s nuclearization. Yet Pyongyang’s provocations, emanating from its fear of the US and resentment toward China, only further aggravate and compound the machinations of the two great powers, which in turn leads to a “security trilemma” scenario wherein actions by one state against or toward another have the unintended consequences of making a third feel insecure or uncertain. The 2016 THAAD dispute pitting China against South Korea is a case in point, so is the sudden thaw exemplified by Trump’s willingness to meet Kim that unleashed a flurry of summits between Kim and Xi Jinping. Moving forward, absent profound domestic changes inside North Korea, this three-way pattern of interactions will continue to be the dominant security dynamics on the Korean Peninsula.
