This book offers a rare glimpse into China's Korean minority, which dominates the area bordering North Korea; even as Korea is riven into capitalist and communist societies, China's Koreans register this dilemma as one internal to the society they live in, in China's postindustrial Northeast. As this research makes clear, once driven by state investment in industry, the Northeast is now struggling to define its identity as a post-industrial region; the ethnic Koreans there even more so. This monograph provides a distinctive look at a group shaped by political turmoil, economic transformation, and cultural struggle; the study may offer an idea of what the future of the Korean peninsula itself might be, disentangling the puzzling contradictions and synergies between nationality, locality and development in China.

This book addresses how to mitigate regional tensions and enhance cooperative opportunities through well-designed regional institutions and organizations among countries in geographical proximity. We use the case of Central Asia (i.e., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) to employ our conceptual framework of ‘externally guided regionalism.’ The following questions guide the study: How and by what forces has Central Asian regionalism evolved, and what are the main characteristics and political implications of the continuously evolving regional institutions? We discuss not only the extra-regional influential actors (i.e., Russia, the United States, the European Union, and China), but also intra-regional initiatives, strategies, and struggles in securing stability and sovereignty. Extra-regional actors’ growing competition over molding their own kind of multilateralism involving this region has contributed to the current direction of Central Asia’s regionalization. Concurrently, Central Asia’s political conditions and constraints interactively contribute to ever-increasing institutional sprawl.

The share of global CO2 emissions from the core Northeast Asian (NEA) countries in 2015 was estimated to be as high as 33.63 percent. Representing 28.21, 3.67, and 1.75 percent of total global emissions, China, Japan, and South Korea were ranked the first, fifth, and seventh largest contributors, respectively. Some parts of China, the Republic of Mongolia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia have long been on serious alert due to accelerated deforestation. With their rapid population growth and economic development, the core countries of Northeast Asia are responsible both directly and indirectly for numerous environmental problems. Urgent individual and collective action is required from the region's governments. Against the backdrop of debate on how to understand Northeast Asia as a "region," Park focuses on the major regional economies of China, Japan, and South Korea, along with Russia, North Korea, and the Republic of Mongolia, due to both their geopolitical proximity and their significance to the region. The author attempts to answer the questions: "How far has regional environmental cooperation progressed in Northeast Asia?"; and "Why are Northeast Asian countries reluctant to cooperate further on urgent transboundary and regional environmental issues?"

The share of global CO2 emissions from the core Northeast Asian (NEA) countries in 2015 was estimated to be as high as 33.63 percent. Representing 28.21, 3.67, and 1.75 percent of total global emissions, China, Japan, and South Korea were ranked the first, fifth, and seventh largest contributors, respectively. Some parts of China, the Republic of Mongolia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia have long been on serious alert due to accelerated deforestation. With their rapid population growth and economic development, the core countries of Northeast Asia are responsible both directly and indirectly for numerous environmental problems. Urgent individual and collective action is required from the region's governments. Against the backdrop of debate on how to understand Northeast Asia as a "region," Park focuses on the major regional economies of China, Japan, and South Korea, along with Russia, North Korea, and the Republic of Mongolia, due to both their geopolitical proximity and their significance to the region. The author attempts to answer the questions: "How far has regional environmental cooperation progressed in Northeast Asia?"; and "Why are Northeast Asian countries reluctant to cooperate further on urgent transboundary and regional environmental issues?"

This book offers a rare glimpse into China's Korean minority, which dominates the area bordering North Korea; even as Korea is riven into capitalist and communist societies, China's Koreans register this dilemma as one internal to the society they live in, in China's postindustrial Northeast. As this research makes clear, once driven by state investment in industry, the Northeast is now struggling to define its identity as a post-industrial region; the ethnic Koreans there even more so. This monograph provides a distinctive look at a group shaped by political turmoil, economic transformation, and cultural struggle; the study may offer an idea of what the future of the Korean peninsula itself might be, disentangling the puzzling contradictions and synergies between nationality, locality and development in China.