The final quarter of 2003 saw no dramatic developments in inter-Korean ties, either positive or negative. Rather, the picture was one of steady interaction across a now established range of contacts: political, economic, transport, social, cultural, and more. The chronology that accompanies this article tells its own story. There is far more going on now between the two Koreas than when Comparative Connections began to cover this bilateral relationship less than four years ago – let alone in the preceding half-century of hostility and minimal contacts.

Yet this new pattern is itself doubly remarkable. First, it suggests that at long last North-South relations have become institutionalized and firmly rooted. The on-off pattern of the past looks to have been superseded by permanent and continuous interaction, if still somewhat shallow. Secondly, this de facto normalization has occurred during, and despite, the still unresolved nuclear crisis. In the past, one side or the other would have used this as a reason or pretext to curtail or even break off ties. But depending on its outcome, this may yet pose an obstacle to deepening inter-Korean relations beyond the level reached at this relatively early stage.

With APEC and ASEAN Plus Three holding their annual meetings in October or November, the last quarter of the year has become a period when one can expect more intensive high-level exchanges than usual across the region.  Add a boost in diplomatic business surrounding planning for six-party talks, a post-SARS bump, and a 40 percent rise in bilateral ROK-PRC trade and 2003 becomes a banner year for China-ROK high-level exchanges and trade relations. Booming economic growth in the PRC has driven and in some cases overtaken the Korean economy, benefiting South Korean exports in the short run. As a result, China has become the de facto regional hub for Northeast Asian and Korean trade despite Korea’s aspirations to play that role.

The quarter also saw the emergence of a number of areas in which individuals or groups got caught on the wrong side – or the dark side – of the burgeoning trade relationship, or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Many of these incidents raise questions about whether the bureaucrats of the two countries are capable of managing diplomatic hot potatoes and protecting the vulnerable or disadvantaged while going after cheaters and swindlers.  Even history became contested as Beijing began to rewrite history in a bid to challenge Korean historical claims.

In October, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro met with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao.  On each occasion, the leaders renewed commitments to enhance cooperation in the bilateral relationship, and, at the leadership level, cooperation – on North Korea, energy, banking and finance, and conservation – defined the relationship over the final quarter of the year.  China’s leaders, however, made clear that a proper understanding of history is central to the development of bilateral relations.

Economic and financial relations continued to expand and diversify, almost on a daily basis.  But Japan’s rapidly expanding private sector presence on the mainland had to deal with Chinese national sensitivities and the burdens of history.  In one instance, Toyota had to pull an advertisement for its SUV in response to a groundswell of Chinese protests and internet threats of a boycott.

Meanwhile, the repercussions of a Fukuoka murder committed by Chinese students; of the September Zhuhai sex orgy involving a Japanese business tour group; and of a Chinese rampage at Xian’s Northwest China University following a dance performed by Japanese students resurfaced nationalist sentiments in both countries.  At the same time, the August Qiqihar chemical weapons incident and a series of compensation cases brought in Japanese courts by Chinese survivors of wartime forced labor kept history in the forefront of the relationship.

The real action in Japan-South Korea relations this past quarter was not over North Korea but in the realm of economics and culture where a number of positive developments emerged. Meanwhile, the protracted nadir in Japan-North Korea relations has permanent, lasting effects on Japan’s future security profile in the region.

By any standard, relations between Moscow and Beijing in the last months of 2003 were uneventful and unenthusiastic. This “normalcy” was in sharp contrast to the more memorable events in the first half of the year (Moscow summit, Shanghai Cooperative Organization gathering, and St. Petersburg’s celebration). The world, too, was relatively quiet without Saddam or SARS. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing mentioned Russia only in passing in his year-end review of China’s diplomacy, while relations with India and Pakistan were given more significant space. Even the Korean nuclear crisis became less alarming, as Washington was absorbed by the bloody peace in Iraq and the beginning of the presidential race at home.

Without eye-catching events, attention was given to secondary issues in social, economic, and cultural areas. Meanwhile, top leaders from both countries tried to find ways to inject new momentum into the otherwise normal relationship between the two “strategic partners.”

The past two years have been especially full for India’s diplomacy – both toward the United States and East Asia. Toward the U.S., India, by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of troops along the international border with Pakistan following an attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, was engaged in “coercive diplomacy” aimed at getting Washington to pressure Pakistan to halt cross-border infiltration into Kashmir. For much of 2002 and half of 2003, U.S.-India relations were preoccupied with getting Pakistan to carry through on its commitments, preventing further escalation or miscalculation of the crisis, initiating a political process in Jammu and Kashmir, and nudging India-Pakistan relations toward dialogue. Simultaneously, the U.S. and India worked to implement the “big idea” of the Bush administration to transform U.S.-India relations through enhanced defense cooperation, improved trade, and wider political and security consultations. On both these counts, the U.S. and India achieved some progress – though not smoothly.

India in 2003 was also pursuing an improvement in relations with its rapidly growing neighbor, China, while building on the past few years of steady improvement with Southeast Asia, and to a lesser extent Japan. While no dramatic events or breakthroughs have occurred, an incremental but steady focus by India on East Asia has been maintained despite severe India-Pakistan tension during all of 2002 and the first half of 2003.

This article, building on earlier reviews of U.S.-India (see “U.S.-India Relations: Visible to the Naked Eye,” Comparative Connections, Vol. 3, No. 4) and India-East Asia Relations (see “India-East Asia Relations: The Weakest Link, but not Goodbye,” Comparative Connections, Vol. 3, No.1, January 2003), examines U.S.-India and India-East Asia relations in 2002-2003 and 2003 respectively.

The United States turned multilateralist this quarter, sitting down in a six-party setting to discuss North Korea’s nuclear weapons threats even as a U.S.-instigated 11-nation group was practicing how to prevent Pyongyang (among others) from exporting weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elsewhere.   More quietly, Australia’s “coalition of the willing” seems to be restoring some semblance of order in the Solomon Islands, even as another island’s leader – Taiwan’s Chen Shui-bian – unilaterally stirred up cross-Strait tensions with talk about referendums, constitutional changes, and the irrelevance of “one country, two systems” following the Hong Kong Anti-subversion Bill controversy.  U.S. military restructuring plans in South Korea moved ahead slowly as did any progress in obtaining Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from “protective custody” in Burma.

Meanwhile, a failed military mutiny in the Philippines indicated that serving as a “second front” in the U.S.-led war on terrorism is not the only challenge facing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s beleaguered government.  Speaking of beleaguered, President Bush went back to the United Nations this quarter, not to apologize for bypassing the hamstrung UN Security Council in invading Iraq but to seek greater international help in securing the peace, while still offering the UN only limited involvement in the management of postwar Iraqi affairs.  And, trade negotiators are hoping that next quarter’s premier regional multilateral economic event – the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting – avoids being the disaster that this quarter’s World Trade Organization (WTO) gathering in Cancun proved to be.

It has been a quiet quarter for the U.S.-Japan relationship. The dispatch of troops to Iraq notwithstanding, there have been no serious, specific bilateral problems for the two governments to address. While they have diverged on some multilateral questions, the goodwill accumulated over the last two years has bridged those differences.

In both countries, domestic politics dominated decision making. Japan Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro focused on re-election as Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president; having won that campaign he now turns to the general election expected in early November. U.S. President George W. Bush has begun to concentrate on the 2004 campaign with U.S. voters increasingly concerned about their economic prospects. Fortunately for Japan, in this context, China looms larger in the American mind. Attention will now turn to the Oct. 17 summit between the two men. Both governments will do their best to ensure the meeting goes well. It should: U.S.-Japan relations are one of the few unquestioned successes for both administrations.

Continued cooperation on security matters, especially the challenge posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, bolstered U.S.-China relations this quarter.  Washington lauded China’s vigorous diplomatic efforts that culminated in the holding of six-party talks in Beijing at the end of August. China formally joined the Container Security Initiative (CSI), agreeing to permit U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to work side-by-side with their Chinese counterparts to target and pre-screen cargo containers shipped from Shanghai and Shenzhen destined for the United States. U.S. officials publicly rebuked Beijing for not living up to its promises made last December to make progress on specific human rights issues. Treasury Secretary John Snow visited Beijing and tried, but failed, to persuade Chinese officials to appreciate the renminbi (RMB). The Department of Defense released its annual report on July 30 on Chinese military power.

If you must pick one event in the least several months that is truly indicative of the tenor of the U.S.-Russia relationship, you need not look to the wooded hills of Camp David, or the gilded halls of the palaces around St. Petersburg, which were the sites of the last two presidential summits. Instead, you should look to the gasoline station on the corner of 10^th Avenue and 24^th Street in Chelsea on Manhattan. It was there on the morning of Sept. 26 that Russian President Vladimir Putin dropped in for a cup of coffee – with skim milk of course – and a Krispy Kreme doughnut. The station in question was the first Lukoil station to be opened in the United States, and Putin was there for the ribbon cutting ceremony. The U.S.-Russian effort to push energy ties is taking precedence over most other aspects of the relationship.  The two sides continue to agree to disagree about Chechnya, Iran, and Iraq. NATO and Central Asia are still sore points. Trade issues and human rights to this day raise tensions in certain areas.  But the energy relationship is global and strategic and it continues to grease the squeaky spots of this post-Cold War “partnership.” To truly understand why business and political leaders in Moscow and Washington still drown out the noises of discontent, look no further than the gas station on 10^th Avenue and 24^th Street.