Comprehensive Threats and Directions in Northeast Asia
Authors:   J-INSTITUTE, Jo Sunggu 
Published: September 2023

Purpose: In Northeast Asia, not only Japan, which dominated East Asia in World War II, China, the world's second largest economy, and North Korea, a communist country that has become a religious dictatorship due to the discontinuation of the rationing system, but also Russia's military power, which was confident of taking over Kyiv, Ukraine, in three days, shows the limitations of the impact of hard power. Therefore, this study presents six threats and discussion points of Northeast Asia through case studies and suggests the direction of Northeast Asia in the future.
Method: This study was conducted as a case study according to the purpose of the study. We selected 6 specific cases and targeted individual cases, and tried to derive phenomenological results through data collection and analysis of the collected data on social phenomena.
Results: First, the role of governments in pandemics such as Covid-19; second, drug trafficking to finance the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un; third, internal agitation and Subversion of regimes in North Korea; fourth, the Korean Wave in Northeast Asia and the expansion of Chinese espionage; fifth, China's distortion of history, repression of the Xinjiang Uyghur region, and consolidation of Islamic culture; and sixth, election interference in neighboring countries, In Northeast Asia, in addition to the governments of North Korea, China, and Russia, liberal governments such as South Korea, Japan, and the United States are strengthening their intelligence capabilities to control uncertainty, but the personal information contained in the threat information is causing controversy in their countries, and the “social value” of the value conflict between threat information and personal information collection is presented as a discussion point.
Conclusion: Soft power, not hard power, will play an important role in the establishment of liberalism in Northeast Asia, the Internet and travel will play an important role in cultural transmission and experience, and North Korea, like China and Russia, will gradually move towards reform and opening up. And in Northeast Asia, through Japan and Korea, now China's educated population has increased rapidly, and economic polarization is increasing relative poverty. It is expected that the violent act, which started from extreme social anger, will further disturb the Chinese people and government. The Chinese government will try to protect these problems by expanding the social surveillance network through the public security force, but we must not overlook the historical case that the expansion of the social audit network, which did not harmonize freedom and control, has led to more serious situations such as regime change. The international community has already recognized that the problems of Northeast Asia cannot be solved by hard power, and it is now necessary to pursue peace and prosperity through political and economic union systems such as the EU. In this process, China and North Korea should have the courage to move towards liberalism, and the establishment of the EU model in Northeast Asia will mean a shift from a perception of an adversarial situation to a perception of cooperative problem solving, with win-win effects on population, energy, and environmental issues.