KJC Korea
Journal Central

Great power is attributed to Goliath in international politics seen in light of the relations between David and Goliath. In the era of strategic competition between great powers, ironically, guerilla warfare has changed the conventional battlefield. Ukraine as David neutralized flagships of the Black Sea Fleet two times while mobilizing suicide drones on a seemingly conventional battlefield. These cases show that guerilla warfare is gathering pace under great power politics. Ironically, the build-up of the strongest forces driven by a massive amount of military expenditure does not always lead to strengthening security. What drives this irony? Two variables have roles to play. The New Cold War is characterized by not only the reemergence of great power politics but also the spread of cutting-edge tech. The mechanism that arming more strategic weapons does not lessen security vulnerability is defined as a new security dilemma. Two cases, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s drone invasion, are examined to take a look at how new security dilemma functions. To conclude, this paper provides five policy implications: 1) overcoming bureaucratic politics 2) optimizing between high and low weapons 3) building fusion-infra 4) diagnosing North Korea’s possible provocations 5) examining the dynamic characteristics of the New Cold War.

The purpose of this study is to examine the continuation and change of Korean Peninsula policy in the midst of changes in the Chinese grand strategy during the Xi Jinping era, and to analyze the impact of China’s grand strategy on Korean Peninsula policy through US-China relations, Korea-China relations, and North Korea-China relations. In particular, this study will argue that the Chinese Korean Peninsula policy is not directly emphasized in the Chinese grand strategy during the Xi Jinping era, but this strategy is closely related to the Korean Peninsula policy. Lastly, in preparation for China's grand strategy and policy on the Korean Peninsula, we will derive the strategy for China and policy implications in terms of our unification policy toward North Korea, regional foreign policy, and security policy.

Which incumbents are likely to be re-elected in the 8th State Duma election? Existing studies on the elite circulation of parliament have mainly measured the range of circulation by the turnover ratio of incumbent or the entry ratio of freshmen. However, these studies do not explain who maintains political survival and has continuity within the structure of the parliament elite. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors affecting the re-election of the 7th State Duma incumbent. The probability of re-election varies depending on the elite type, representative type, and term of incumbent. Former professional officials, former corporate managers, district members, multi-term incumbent were more likely to be re-elected. However, when analyzed by dividing into district and proportional representation members, the effects of each variable were different. In the case of district members, personal factors such as elite types affect re-election, while in the case of proportional representation factors, term and party factor affect it. The significance of this study is that it has revealed the effect of characteristics of incumbent on re-election, beyond comparing the ratio of personnel composition in research on the elite circulation of the Russian parliament.

This study aims to investigate the economic role of North Korean local governments, drawing parallels to the local state corporatism and local entrepreneurial state in China, which facilitated rapid economic development during the early stages of reform. It examines and compares the extent and nature of institutionalized decentralization and the resulting incentive structures in China and North Korea and investigates the behavior of North Korean local governments following institutional changes. Like China, North Korea granted autonomous fiscal rights to local governments and allowed sub-national economic units to engage in market-based activities. As a result, local governments and bureaucrats became pivotal economic actors with their own vested interests. However, due to the lack of resources to develop their industrial base, North Korean local governments were compelled to collaborate with private actors, leading to an increase in marketization accompanied by organizational and individual corruption. Without endowing sufficient resources to local governments through further opening and reform, recent attempts to regulate local economic activities have limits given the existing incentive structure.

This article analyzes the factors that change North Korea's perception of China in the process of regressing from a "blood alliance" between North Korea and China to "strategic relations". Existing studies have shown that North Korea-China relations tend to be analyzed from a traditional perspective, such as a "blood alliance" and "strategic relations of interests". However, significant leadership changes in both countries have made them remain as the relations of strategic partners for their interests. China judged that stability and peace in the region were in line with its interests and maintained relations in "maintaining the status quo" that is, managing and attracting North Korea's instability factors. China also maximizes its interests by using the North Korean issue and two strategies on the Korean Peninsula as a mine for negotiations with the United States. That means that in diplomatic relations between China and the United States during the Cold War, North Korea already felt betrayed by China, and China is no longer a reliable ally underlying Sino-North Korea relations. China's joining hands with the hostile U.S. has given North Korean leaders the task of "confusion and re-evaluation" of whether they can trust China, a blood-blind country. Eventually, they have no choice but to come up with a new strategy to stand alone. In the early 1990s, diplomatic relations between South Korea and China led to the highest conflict between North Korea and China. Although relations between North Korea and China have recovered since then, distrust is still in place.

This study analyzes the impact of general trust on subjective well-being (SWB) in Korea, Japan, and China using data from the World Value Survey. To address potential issues such as reverse causality (or endogeneity/simultaneity), where SWB may be causing the trust outcome, and omitted variables, where the observed association reflects a correlation between trust, SWB, and some unmeasured characteristic, the paper employs an instrumental variable design. This design allows for the interpretation of the findings as causal. Consequently, the study concludes that trust, instrumented by the highest education level and disbelief, has a significantly positive effect in these three countries, resulting in a much higher level of SWB than the ordinary OLS results. Specifically, this effect is even stronger in Korea and Japan than in China.