Korea at the Center

The common images of Korea view the peninsula as a long-standing battleground for outside powers and the Cold War's last divided state. But, Korea's location at the very center of Northeast Asia gives it a pivotal role in the economic integration of the region and the dynamic development of its more powerful neighbors. A great wave of economic expansion, driven first by the Japanese miracle and then by the ascent of China, has made South Korea - an economic powerhouse in its own right - the hub of the region once again, a natural corridor for railroads and energy pipelines linking Asiatic Russia to China and Japan. And, over the horizon, an opening of North Korea, with multilateral support, would add another major push toward regional integration. Illuminating the role of the Korean peninsula in three modern historical periods, the eminent international contributors to this volume offer a fresh and stimulating appraisal of Korea as the key to the coalescence of a broad, open Northeast Asian regionalism in the twenty-fifth century.

Charles K. Armstrong, Gilbert Rozman, Samuel S. Kim, Stephen Kotkin

Preface and Acknowledgments, Stephen Kotkin; Introduction, Gilbert Rozman; Part I. Competing Visions of Regional Order: Late Nineteenth/Early Twentieth Centuries; 1. Korea in Japanese Visions of Regional Order, Takashi Inoguchi; 2. Russian Views of Korea, China, and the Regional Order in Northeast Asia, Alexander Lukin; 3. Civilization, Race, or Nation? Korean Visions of Regional Order in the Late Nineteenth Century, Hahm Chaibong; 4. Trade, Dependency, and Colonialism: Foreign Trade and Korea's Regional Integration, 1876-1910, Kirk W. Larsen; Part II. Competing Regional Orders: Colonialism, the Cold War, and Their Legacies; 5. From Japanese Imperium to American Hegemony: Korean-Centrism and the Transformation of the International System, Bruce Cumings; 6. Japanese Colonial Infrastructure in Northeast Asia: Realities, Fantasies, Legacies, Daqing Yang; 7. A Socialist Regional Order in Northeast Asia After World War II, Stephen Kotkin and Charles K. Armstrong; 8. Japan's Asian Regionalism and South Korea, Chung-in Moon and Seung-won Suh; Part III. Toward a Broad Regionalism?; 9. Regionalism Northeast Asia: Korea's Return to Center Stage, Gilbert Rozman; 10. Inter-Korean Relations in Northeast Asian Geopolitics, Samuel S. Kim; 11. Japan's Multilevel Approach Toward the Korean Peninsula After the Cold War, Tsuneo Akaha; 12. Korea and China in Northeast Asia: From Stable Bifurcation to Complicated Interdependence, Jae Ho Chung; 13. Korea in Russia's Post-Cold War Regional Political Context, Evgeny P. Bazhanov; 14. Environmental Regime-Building in Northeast Asia: Korea's Pursuit of Leadership, Shin-wha Lee; 15. The Korean Wave: Transnational Cultural Flows in Northeast Asia, Jung-Sun Park; Epilogue: Korea, Northeast Asia, and the Long Twentieth Century, Charles K. Armstrong; Notes; * About the Editors and Contributors; * Index.