Engaging China: Seoul-Beijing détente and Korean security

Most discussions of East Asian security focus on three issues: the threat of nuclear proliferation in North Korea; the region's US-based security architecture; and coping with China's rising power in the region. A fourth issue, often overlooked, skirts the other three categories but has implications for each: the new China-South Korea détente. The dramatic transformation of this relationship in the 1990s is the most successful case of 'engaging China' in East Asia. This case sheds light on the likely effectiveness of American and South Korean efforts to engage North Korea. As the Agreed Framework threatens to unravel and another potential crisis looms over the Peninsula, the China-South Korea axis constitutes - on balance - a stabilising factor.