KJCKorea
Journal Central

This article examines how the United States’ alliance transformation strategy, under intensified U.S.–China strategic competition, is reshaping the Indo-Pacific regional order, with a comparative focus on South Korea and Taiwan. It argues that the driving force behind alliance transformation lies in a structural dilemma of hegemonic stress: while the United States seeks to preserve decisive advantage over China and other challengers, it increasingly lacks the unilateral capacity to sustain regional dominance at acceptable cost. In response, Washington has pressed allies and partners to expand both cost sharing and burden sharing, and has further explored collective defense arrangements in the Indo-Pacific. Crucially, this shift reflects an emerging tendency toward the extraction of allied contributions to compensate for U.S. capability gaps. The study employs two complementary analytical lenses widely used in alliance politics: the abandonment–entrapment dilemma and the autonomy–security trade-off. It demonstrates that alliance transformation generates distinct and asymmetric dilemmas for South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea, as an institutionalized treaty ally, has experienced a relative decline in abandonment fears amid rising national capabilities and post–Cold War détente. Yet under alliance modernization—particularly pressures related to strategic flexibility and expanded roles in deterring China—Seoul faces escalating risks of entrapment and a narrowing space for strategic autonomy. Moreover, under selective engagement and transactional tendencies associated with the second Trump administration, concerns over abandonment may partially reemerge, compounding South Korea’s dual dilemma. Taiwan, by contrast, has remained embedded in a de-institutionalized quasi-alliance since 1979, in which U.S. commitments are framed through strategic ambiguity. Although signaling associated with strategic clarity has intensified under recent administrations, it has not been fully institutionalized, leaving Taiwan’s security heavily contingent on U.S. political signaling. Under renewed transactional logic, Washington has intensified demands for Taiwan’s self-help—including increased defense spending, the development of asymmetric “porcupine” capabilities, and expanded economic contributions—while preserving ambiguity as a source of leverage. As a result, Taiwan’s chronic abandonment fears persist, even as its exposure to great-power confrontation deepens. The article concludes that U.S. alliance transformation, rather than stabilizing the Indo-Pacific order, risks amplifying alliance fatigue, intra-alliance frictions, and regional polarization, thereby exacerbating instability across the region.

This study provides a historical analysis of North Korea's strategic choices, navigating the inherent contradiction between its state ideology of 'Juche' (self-reliance) and the necessity of accepting foreign aid for regime survival. From the post-war reconstruction of the 1950s, which relied on "fraternal support" from the socialist bloc, to the life-saving humanitarian assistance during the 1990s "Arduous March," and the framing of the KEDO project as "just compensation," Pyongyang's approach to aid has evolved according to the nature of each crisis. The analysis reveals that North Korea's acceptance of aid is not a passive behavior but an active, calculated state strategy with regime security and sovereignty as its highest principles. Internally, Pyongyang reinterprets aid to uphold ideological legitimacy; externally, it wields it as a diplomatic lever. It consistently resists external demands for monitoring and transparency, citing "sovereignty infringement" to maintain absolute control. This demonstrates North Korea's unique view of aid as a strategic asset for political messaging and negotiation, not merely as an economic resource. Therefore, effective future engagement policies must be based on a deep understanding of this strategic calculus.

This study analyzes the characteristics and perceptions of youth participants in Daegu’s pro-impeachment “lightstick protests” that emerged after the martial law declaration on December 3, 2024. Drawing on two on-site face-to-face surveys conducted on Dongseong-ro—December 14, 2024 (the first wave, N=72) and January 18, 2025 (the second wave, N=110)—it examines who participated, how they joined, why they participated, and what they demanded. The results show that participants were predominantly young women and included diverse occupational groups such as students, job seekers, and young workers, with relatively high proportions of lower-and middle-status respondents in subjective socioeconomic status. They generally leaned progressive and reported comparatively high political efficacy. Mobilization relied less on organized recruitment by parties or organizations and more on SNS-based diffusion and loose networks; familiar fandom repertoires—lightsticks, placards, and hashtags—were adapted to the protest setting, lowering participation barriers and facilitating collective gathering. Many participants also evaluated the “lightstick mode” as a legitimate and effective form of protest. Participation was driven by perceiving martial law as a serious threat to democratic norms and by a civic sense of responsibility to defend democracy, combined with accumulated dissatisfaction with policy failures under the Yoon Suk Yeol government. Beyond demanding impeachment, participants called for transformation of local politics, restoration of democracy, and expansion of political representation. The study empirically demonstrates how youth form political subjectivity through nonconventional participation even under constraints posed by a conservative-dominant regional context.