Since beginning our partnership two years ago, the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation (TAEF) and Pacific Forum have provided meaningful exchanges under our organizations’ youth engagement programs, the Taiwan-Asian Young Leaders Engagement (TAYLE) and the Young Leaders Program respectively.

Abstract

Introduction

Abstract

The largest country in mainland Southeast Asia with a population of 53 million and located strategically between China and India, Myanmar plays a significant role geographically, economically and politically in the most rapidly advancing region in the world. As Myanmar opens up, investment and trade have grown significantly. Trade policies have been, and continue to be, revised in line with regional and global commitments and in accordance with liberal principles.

The issue of gray zone conflict between the US and China has attracted much attention in recent years. “Gray” indicates actions below the threshold of war, yet beyond normal diplomacy. The fundamental characteristics of gray zone activity include that they are well-planned, designed to be ambiguous amid strategic competition, and intended to leave opponents unable to launch an effective response. What demands special attention is that gray zone activity could cause unintended escalation, and that assertive responses to them may not be the best option. For instance, the United States’ gray zone retaliation to China’s activities in the South China Sea is hardly helpful to contain China’s activities, but certainly slow the pace of resolving the South China Sea dispute through negotiation and dialogue and jeopardize bilateral strategic stability.

Under extreme poverty and political repression, many North Koreans endure systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations, along with a protracted, entrenched humanitarian crisis. Many are malnourished and lack clean water, proper sanitation and basic health care. Young children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and the elderly have become the most vulnerable to such privations. These deplorable conditions are exacerbated by continued denial of human rights, including torture and other inhumane treatment, political imprisonment, public executions and suppression of speech, information, religion and movement. A former United Nations high commissioner for human rights described North Korea’s human rights situation as “incomparable . . .  anywhere in the world, past or present.” And Thomas Buergenthal, a former International Criminal Court judge and survivor of Auschwitz, described the conditions in North Korean prison camps as “terrible, or even worse, than Nazi camps.”

This paper investigates how an emerging nuclear weapon state—the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—establishes and develops its nuclear doctrine upon completion of its nuclear arsenal. Since DPRK’s first nuclear crisis in the early 1990s and its first nuclear test in 2006, the nuclear nonproliferation community has focused on how to dismantle DPRK’s nuclear weapons program. Only recently have scholars focused on managing to live with a nuclear North Korea, shifting attention from nonproliferation to defense and deterrence. However, little scholarship has been produced vis-à-vis DPRK’s nuclear doctrine due to the lack of information and concern over recognizing DPRK as a nuclear weapon state. Understanding DPRK’s nuclear doctrine offers insights to developing an appropriate deterrence and defense strategy, as well as ways to revise strategies to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Discerning DPRK’s nuclear doctrine not only contributes to the understanding of current security challenges on the Korean Peninsula, but more importantly offers an opportunity to expand scholarship on nuclear strategy.