To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
What explains the formation, formalization, and evolution of trilateral cooperation among the most militarily and economically dominant states in Northeast Asia, namely the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the People's Republic of China? As U.S.-North Korean nuclear talks have stalled and geopolitical tensions have increased, it has become more critical to understand how and why the major Asian powers construct institutions and whether such efforts contribute to regional stability and peace. At a time of heightened rivalries, will Korea, Japan, and China be able to put aside their differences and cooperate to address common challenges ranging from North Korea's nuclear program to regional nuclear safety? Drawing on extensive primary sources and interviews, Yeajin Yoon explains that while trilateral cooperation has not resulted in any breakthroughs vis-à-vis North Korea’s nuclear program, it has led to important cooperative outcomes in the field of nuclear safety in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Yeajin Yoon
Yeajin Yoon is a fellow at the Belfer Center's International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom. She is currently completing her doctorate at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government. Previously, she was a predoctoral fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. She received a B.A. in Political Science with honors from Stanford University and a Master of Public Policy from Oxford University. Her research examines the evolution of trilateral cooperation among the Republic of Korea, Japan, and China, with a focus on nuclear safety and security.
