The UNSC statement is more a testimony to Sino-US compromise arrived at after nearly a month and half of negotiations rather than being a “diplomatic victory” as has been hailed by North Korea.
While the effect of regionalism has begun to wane, the propensity of youth to vote against specific issues that they deem not beneficial is likely to be the dominant cleavage in South Korean politics.
The one country that has not condemned North Korea’s role in the sinking of the Cheonan is China, which has its own strategic and economic compulsions to back North Korea.
The emerging changes in the security calculus within the Korean Peninsula are forcing Japan to revisit its existing position on the nuclear issue. The changing security environment has triggered several debates within Japan on the nuclearisation of the island nation. Although, at present, domestic opinion within Japan is opposed to exercising the nuclear option, there has been a break in the hitherto established taboo to have an open debate on the country's nuclear policy.
The delicately maintained peace in the Korean peninsula once again looks fragile in the wake of the war of words and exchange of artillery fire along the disputed western sea border in January 2010.
To gain the trust of Seoul and Beijing, the DPJ government plans to present a bill in the Diet for granting the right of franchise to foreign nationals registered as permanent residents, a majority of whom are South Korean and Chinese.
The appropriate option for the Hatoyama government would be to take incremental steps aimed at building greater confidence and trust amongst Asian nations across a number of policy fronts rather than indulge in advancing grand ideas which appear at the moment unachievable.
