| Summary/Abstract |
n January 2014, South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s reference to the unification of the two Koreas as a potential “economic bonanza” caused a resurgence of interest in the unification dialogue. Subsequently, in May and June of 2014, President Park brought up the topic of unification as a major agenda item for South Korea, toward which both US President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jingping expressed approval. The North Korean regime, however, evinced a strong negative reaction to these statements, and the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea, Rodong Sinmun, made its stance explicit in arguing that the international community’s confrontational maneuvers “injure [the North Korean] ideology and system.” Countries neighboring the Korean peninsula have also tended to accept unification as an elusive vision for the future rather than as an immediate possibility. To what extent, then, are the theories of peaceful unification feasible initiatives, and how can they contribute to peacebuilding in northeast Asia and the international community?
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