Policy Briefs on Peace and Security in Northeast Asia

This policy brief is a response to the report on Toda’s workshop, “A Peace Research Agenda for the 21st Century,” in which the author identifies four closely interrelated failings in the current peace research agenda and their far-reaching implications. The intention here is not to belittle the importance or usefulness of a good deal of current peace research, but to suggest the need for a more ambitious and insightful agenda than is presently the case, one which recognises the profound transformation that is gathering pace as the Modern epoch reaches its limits.

What is the future agenda for peace research in the 2020s? Does peace research still have a distinct identity? What are the norms and values that peace research institutes espouse and can they influence practice in the face of the global challenges we face? This policy brief presents the summary from a meeting of the world’s major peace research institutes, convened by the Toda Peace Institute in December 2019, at which these questions were addressed. The meeting mapped out a new agenda for peace research, based on the main challenges which face the field. Potential for collaborative partnerships between the peace research institutes in these areas and new research directions were identified, and strategies for better integrating research and practice were explored. The meeting also outlined elements of a Code of Conduct for Peace Research institutes.

The September 19 Military Agreement adopted by the two Koreas in 2018 is a modest but remarkable success in arms control history. Nevertheless, heated debates are taking place, both inside South Korea and abroad, over the legitimacy and rationality of the agreement. This policy brief analyses the true meaning of the September 19 Military Agreement between the two Koreas, to identify its problems and policy implications in order to draw up supplementary measures to implement it successfully. Furthermore, the paper draws some implications for the relationship between progress on North Korea's denuclearisation issue and further conventional arms control on the Korean Peninsula.

China and India are the two most populous countries in the world and relations between them oscillate between conflict, competition and cooperation. Both countries have dynamic economies. They have fought a war with each other, continue to tussle over territory at their shared border and both invest heavily in their military posture. Their trade relations have greatly improved and cordial cooperation in various global and regional forums brought them closer to each other in selected political and economic areas. Is there hope for better conflict management, for fruitful competition, and for improving collaboration?

After missile launches and threats of ‘fire and fury’ in 2017, international relations on the Korean peninsula have improved in 2018. The inter-Korean peace process pursued by President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong-un and the summit meetings of 2018 suggest there may be an opportunity for consolidating this improvement. This raises three central questions. How can the Korean peninsula be denuclearised? What are the prospects of a formal declaration of the end of the Korean war? How can the armistice be turned into a permanent peace agreement?