As scholars and security specialists continue to call for a regional multilateral security framework for Northeast Asia, advocates of such a framework must contemplate the participation of the region’s most incorrigible actor, North Korea. However, one crucial question remains unanswered in the discourse: How does North Korea perceive multilateralism? To glean a better understanding I examine North Korean materials, statements, and behavior relevant to select cases of multilateralism, alongside secondary sources. North Korea’s realist interpretation suggests that Pyongyang largely equates multilateralism in the capitalist international system as ‘imperialism’. While some of North Korea’s statements and cooperative tendencies suggest it values rules and principles ― one dimension of multilateralism ― North Korea nevertheless does not subscribe to the western IR conception of the term, but rather equates multilateralism to that of a purely functional and strategic tool to pursue its own interests in an anarchical world.
<통일·북한 정보 아카이브>
HOME
카카오톡
페이스북
블로그