• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.30-48
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• 2019

China has initiated a series of "economic sanctions" against South Korea, affecting Korean pop stars visiting China and Korean investments in China. Sanctions were imposed on South Korea in response to the decision of South Korea to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in 2016. Furthermore, the Global Daily assembled local population to boycott Korean products and investments in China. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has never positively confirmed these activities as economic sanctions to South Korea related to the THAAD installation. In other words, the Chinese government singled a relatively weak message via these sanctions to South Korea. As a result, the THADD implementation continued in South Korea. In the paper, I interpret China's rationale to impost puzzling economic sanctions, which have a weak resolution, to South Korea and Taiwan. As signaling theory argues, economic sanctions with insufficient resolution, which are more likely to fail, is a more provocative foreign policy. By reviewing China's sanctions usage to South Korea and Taiwan, I propose arguments of bureaucratic competition to answer why China launched such sanctions to other countries: those are caused by domestic institutions who are seeking reward from the Communist Party of China. By comparing shifts of leadership between domestic agencies, the paper provides evidence to support the proposed argument. I also include two alternative explanations to strengthen the proposed argument, albeit connecting the paper with other two larger streams of research, which address analyses of China's aggressive foreign policies as well as the domestic politics of economic sanctions.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.23-44
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• 2016

This study attempts to scrutinize the effectiveness of the international economic sanction on North Korea by analyzing the determinants of the North Korea-China trade with Chinese Customs House data classified under general, border, processing, bonded warehouse. The result shows that after international economic sanctions, North Korea-China trade was increased across types of trade. In particular, sanction-sensitive items were increased after sanctions and China also weakened the effectiveness of sanctions. To put it concretely, North Korea's food and fuel imports from china increased in processing and border trade. In the case of luxury good, it was increased in general trade. Strategy goods (weaponry) increased only in bonded warehouse trade. For China's import from North Korea, food and fuel were increased in total, border and bonded warehouse trade. Considering the features of each type of trade, these increase are presumed to have been playing a decisive role in weakening the effect of international sanction on North Korea.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.43-78
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• 2022

The arena of strategic competition between the US and China is expandable from international politics, trade and commerce to finance. What would happen if financial sanctions against China are imposed by the US? Would US financial sanctions lead to a sudden outflow of foreign capital and a liquidity crisis in China? We try to address these questions by estimating China's capital flows-at-risk with the CDS premium on Chinese sovereign funds. We follow Gelos et al. (2019) in setting up a quantile regression model from which China's foreign capital flow-at-risks are estimated. Based on our analysis of China's monthly capital flow data, we find that a rise in the CDS premium has statistically significant negative impacts on China's foreign capital flows-at-risk, mainly in banking flows. However, the analysis also found that due to favorable global conditions, an increase in the CDS premium is unlikely to trigger a shift to a sudden outflow of foreign capital at the moment. Meanwhile, this study found no statistically significant correlation between Korea's capital flows-at-risk and the CDS premium, suggesting that the negative impact of US financial sanctions on China would not increase the probability of capital flight from Korea in a significant manner.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.102-122
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• 2022

From 2018 to 2020, the United States has repeatedly imposed sanctions on the Chinese company Huawei, which has triggered strong nationalist sentiments on the Chinese Internet. This paper is a qualitative content analysis of Zhihu netizens' views on US sanctions against Huawei to explore how anti-Western centrism influences young people's narratives. The results showed that they believe the Huawei matter is a deliberate hegemonic act by the United States because it fears the decline of its own technological status. Moreover, it is direct evidence that the United States is deliberately destroying China's economic development environment to slow down China's rise, as well as a typical manifestation of the injustice of the liberal international order. A further analysis revealed that their narrative logic is obviously influenced by the following aspects: 1) The mentality of national glory derived from comprehensive national strength leads them to believe that U.S. sanctions against Huawei are an obstacle to China's rise. 2) National humiliation leads them to view U.S. sanctions as a constant insult to China. 3) China's superiority created by China's comprehensive national strength and its scientific and technological achievements in recent years has boosted its confidence to challenge the West's absolute progress. This study examines the impact of anti-Western centrism on Chinese nationalist sentiment and offers a bottom-level perspective on the debate over the crisis of the liberal order.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.135-160
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• 2018

This study aims to predict the likely effect of economic sanctions on North Korea by examining case studies of Iran and Iraq. While UN sanctions against Iraq had immediate negative consequences for society, such as causing famine and reinforcing the authoritarian regime, sanctions against Iran had some productive consequences after they were reinforced by the U.S. and EU in significantly reduced oil exports and government expenditure, which in turn led to regime change and willingness to negotiate nuclear programs for economic recovery. Apart from these distinct differences, sanctions in both countries caused high inflation, shortage of necessary supplies, and increased unemployment. Case studies of Iran and Iraq also reveal that the sanctions disproportionately affected women and children, which implies that the recently reinforced economic sanctions of the U.S. and China against North Korea will cause more suffering of similarly socially marginalized groups in North Korea.

• Strategy21
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• s.46
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• pp.239-276
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• 2020

The failure of early economic sanctions aimed at hurting the overall economies of targeted states called for a more sophisticated design of economic sanctions. This paved way for the advent of 'smart sanctions,' which target the supporters of the regime instead of the public mass. Despite controversies over the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a coercive tool to change the behavior of a targeted state, the transformation from 'comprehensive sanctions' to 'smart sanctions' is gaining the status of a legitimate method to impose punishment on states that do not conform to international norms, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in this particular context of the paper. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council proved that it can come to an accord on imposing economic sanctions over adopting resolutions on waging military war with targeted states. The North Korean nuclear issue has been the biggest security threat to countries in the region, even for China out of fear that further developments of nuclear weapons in North Korea might lead to a 'domino-effect,' leading to nuclear proliferation in the Northeast Asia region. Economic sanctions had been adopted by the UNSC as early as 2006 after the first North Korean nuclear test and has continually strengthened sanctions measures at each stage of North Korean weapons development. While dubious of the effectiveness of early sanctions on North Korea, recent sanctions that limit North Korea's exports of coal and imports of oil seem to have an impact on the regime, inducing Kim Jong-un to commit to peaceful talks since 2018. The purpose of this paper is to add a variable to the factors determining the success of economic sanctions on North Korea: preventing North Korea's evasion efforts by conducting illegal transshipments at sea. I first analyze the cause of recent success in the economic sanctions that led Kim Jong-un to engage in talks and add the maritime element to the argument. There are three conditions for the success of the sanctions regime, and they are: (1) smart sanctions, targeting commodities and support groups (elites) vital to regime survival., (2) China's faithful participation in the sanctions regime, and finally, (3) preventing North Korea's maritime evasion efforts.

• Strategy21
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• s.39
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• pp.82-113
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• 2016

This paper analyzes the contents and the effects of the UNSC 2270, and its implications to South Korea's defense strategy and navy. The UN Security Council passed strong sanctions against North Korea which punish North Korea's 4^th nuclear test. The sanctions compared to the previous ones require international society to take practical actions such as comprehensive trade bans as well as diplomatic isolation which will put significant pains on North Korea. Especially, these measures would greatly hamper economic development policy of Kim Joung-un regime. Because Kim Jung-un regime has inherent legitimacy problems which stems from the third family succession of the power, economic difficulties may play an important cause on the regime instability in the long term. In fact, the United States sees this possibility as an option to coerce North Korea in which North Korea choose denuclearization for its regime survival. Nevertheless, the prospects of the UN sanctions are not so optimistic. Considering North Korea's willingness for nuclear development and its level of nuclear technology, North Korea will try to play a gambit with the US and South Korea by exploiting its strategic advantages. North Korea's response will have three following strategies. First, it would actively pursue political and economic survival strategy by using China's support for the regime, strengthening its power grip in the name of countering US hostile policy, and enhancing peace propaganda. Second, North Korea will accelerate efforts to position its status as a nuclear de facto state. For this purpose, it could create nuclear crisis on the peninsula. Third, it would exploit local provocations as an exit strategy to get over the current situation. In order to counter North Korea's actions and punish North Korea's behavior strongly, South Korea needs following strategies and efforts. It should first make all the efforts to implement the UN sanctions. Strong and practical nuclear deterrence strategy and capability with the U.S. should be developed. Effective strategy and capabilities for the prevention and deterrence of North Korea's provocation should be prepared. For this purpose, North Korea's provocation strategy should be thoroughly reviewed. Active international cooperation is needed to punish and coerce North Korea's behavior. Finally, South Korea should prepare for the possible occurrence of North Korea's contingency and make use of the situation as an opportunity to achieve unification. All these strategies and efforts demand the more active roles and missions of South Korea's navy and thus, nullify North Korea's intention militarily.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.1
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• pp.87-123
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• 1989

The purpose of this thesis is to do a research on suppression of peacetime international terrorism and penal system of terrorists by political and economic means. International terrorism means wanton killing, hostage taking, hijacking, extortion or torture committed or threatened to be comitted against the innocent civilian in peacetime for political motives or purposes provided that international element is involved therein. This research is limited to international terrorism of political purposes in peacetime, especially, hijacking of civil aircraft. Hijacking of civil aircraft include most of international terrorism element in its criminal act and is considered to be typical of international terrorism in view of multinationality of its crews, passengers and transnational borders involved in aircraft hijacking. Civil air transportation of today is a indispensable part of international substructure, as it help connect continuously social cultural and economic network of world community by dealing with massive and swift transportation of passengers and all kinds of goods. Current frequent hijacking of civil aircraft downgrade the safety and trust of air travel by mass slaughter of passengers and massdestruction of goods and endanger indispensable substructure of world community. Considering these facts, aircraft hijacking of today poses the most serious threat and impact on world community. Therefore, among other thing, legal, political, diplomatic and economic sanctions should be imposed on aircraft hijacking. To pursue an effective research on this thesis aircraft hijacking by six Chineses on 5th May, 1983, from mainland China to Seoul, Korea, is chosen as main theme and the Republic of Korea's legal, political and diplomatic dealing and settlement of this hijacking incident along with six hijackers is reviewed to find out legal, political diplomatic means of suppression and solution of international terrorism. Research is focused on Chinese aircraft hijacking, Korea-China diplomatic negotiation, Korea's legal diplomatic handling and settlement of Tak Chang In, mastermind of aircraft hijacking and responses and position of three countries, Korea, China and Taiwan to this case is thoroughly analyzed through reviewing such materials as news reportings and comments of local and international mass media, Korea-China Memorandum, statements of governments of Korea, China and Taiwan, verdicts of courts of Korea, prosecution papers and oral argument by the defendants and lawyers and three antiaircraft hijacking conventions of Hague, Tokyo and Montreal and all the other instruments of international treaties necessary for the research. By using above-mentioned first-hand meterials as yardsticks, legal and political character of Chinese aircraft hijacking is analyzed and reviewed and close cooperation among sovereign states based on spirit of solidarity and strict observance of international treaties such as Hague, Tokyo and Montreal Conventions is suggested as a solution and suppressive means of international terrorism. The most important and indispensable factor in combating terrorism is, not to speak, the decisive and constant resolution and all-out effort of every country and close cooperation among sovereign states based on "international law of cooperation."

• Korea and Global Affairs
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.71-96
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• 2017

This study speculates on responses to the nuclear threats of North Korea and mutual assistance and cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and China for the unification of the Korean Peninsula. As for the North Koreas nuclear issue and unification of the Korean Peninsula, South Korea is the subject of national division, the U.S. is a responsible country in international issues and does not have diplomatic ties with North Korea. China is a traditional socialist nation and a supporter of North Korea. As North Korea's strategic weapons including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles are international issues, to defend against Kim Jung-Eun's unexpected acts, the three countries should actively cooperate with each other and develop countermeasures. However, with respect to the road map of the North Koreas issue, there are subtle differences between the U.S. and China in recognition of and sanctions against North Korea as a resolution of the U..N. Security Council. The U.S. has continued a deterrence policy and sanctions against North Korea based on joint threats between South Korea and the U.S. while China has showed a negative position in the process of solving the North Korean nuclear issue because of the unstable security derived from the U.S. 's intervention in the Korean peninsula. North Korea should change its diplomatic policy in a more concrete way towards world peace although it has continued trade of strategic weapons with Middle Eastern countries to maintain its political system. For example, to restart the summit talks and open multilateral security channels. Although the issue of unification of the Korean peninsula should be resolved by South and North Korea themselves, it is strange that South and North Korea depend on the logic of powerful countries for the resolution of a national problem. As for North Koreas nuclear and the Unification issues, peaceful solutions presented by South Korea seem more persuasive than the solution presented by North Korea which did not secure any international support. However, South Korea, the U.S. and China need to develop uni-directional two-tract strategies for sanctions against North Korea and talks with North Korea for peace on the Korean peninsula, and should continue to support the economic independence of North Korea.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.287-306
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• 2017

Since the 1990s, political geographers have focused on the study of the process of border construction. They have shifted from the old morphological and functional approaches to boundary that have focused on the types and functions of boundaries. Recent scholarship on border studies understand boundaries and the border regions as entities with overlapping and competing relationships not as manifestation of territoriality. There has been the emphasis on the multidimensional actors and the historical and cultural legacies inherent in the border region as well. Based on these recent discussions, this study examines how the border region has been constructed by various actors and strategies in Dandong China, the border city between North Korea and China. Several sanctions including UN Security Council have been resolved and implemented in accordance with North Korea's nuclear and missile development, which is a relevant example to examine the "border as relationships" in which strategies of various actors are competing. In addition, this paper has a significance as a case study on the construction process of border and the characteristics of its materiality, which is a way to overcome the limitation of discourse-oriented critical geopolitical research.