NORTH KOREA’S DIPLOMATIC STRATEGIES IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA: FISHING IN TROUBLED WATERS

Abstract

There is a Chinese saying that weak countries have no diplomacy at all. Realists in the West, particularly neo-realists, also believe that international environment is largely shaped by major powers. Minor and middle powers have no choice but to follow the rules of game as constructed by major powers. Most of the time this is true, but not without exception. North Korea’s diplomacy in the post-Cold War era is the best example of a minor power making a difference in world politics. What makes a minor power like North Korea dare challenge a superpower like the U.S.? Why has North Korea’s crisis diplomacy succeeded the majority of the time? What are North Korea’s goals? What are North Korea’s available means and tactics to achieve these goals? How effectively are means? These are the central questions that this paper attempts to answer. In conclusion, taking advantage of its geostrategic location, strategic advantage vis-a-vis South Korea and Japan, as well as Kim Jong Il’s adroit diplomatic skills, North Korea, dissimilar to other minor powers, has been able to make a remarkable achievement in foreign relations. Nevertheless, North Korea has only succeeded in achieving its immediate foreign policy goal, economic gains but fails to reach its midand long-term goals, to establish diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Japan and to reshape a triangular relationship favorable to Pyongyang to extract steady benefit from two competing major powers. What is more, the success of its diplomacy inevitably depends on big countries’ positive response.