We are playing on two chessboards on the Korean Peninsula at the same time: one with North Korea over nuclear proliferation and one with China over the future geopolitics of who will dominate Asia.
—The Korean Peninsula has long been the “cockpit” of Asia where China, Russia, Japan and the United States have all fought wars to determine the larger balance of power in the region.—For China, both Koreas should logically return to an historic Sino-centric sphere of influence; for the United States, the Republic of Korea is a key pillar in the alliance network that has allowed for a free and open Asia Pacific for over six decades. Unification will bring out these divergent visions but they are already playing out in the negotiations with Pyongyang.
—North Korean intransigence on nuclear weapons is exacerbating these larger geopolitical tensions and Donald Trump’s embrace of Kim Jong-un and criticism of alliances is raising questions in Seoul and Tokyo about whether the United States is preparing to accept a nuclear North Korea and write off the Korean Peninsula...and with it the rest of Asia.
Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia. Before joining the NSC staff, he was a senior fellow for East Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center and the Foreign Policy Institute and assistant professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and senior adviser on Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also worked in Japan on the staff of a member of the National Diet.
