Analyzing the Korean Peninsula's contemporary engagement with the Persian Gulf region from the 1950s to the present day, the book begins by asking the following question: What drew Koreans to the region in the first place and under what circumstances were they drawn there? While taking into account a combination of both external and internal factors shaping the dynamics of the Korean Peninsula's interactions with the Persian Gulf region, this book largely concentrates on the agency factor to analyze the nature and scope of a rather multifaceted relationship between the two areas. The Republic of Korea has, in fact, maintained diverse connections to every single country in the Persian Gulf over the past several decades, and its rather considerable activities and accomplishments in the region all justify such an overwhelming focus. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's record in the Persian Gulf, however, is mostly limited to its relationship with Iran, though Pyongyang has pursued relationships with some other states in the region. This book studies the elements of Pyongyang's actions in the region as an appendage to South Korea's various political and economic achievements. Employing a process-tracing approach, this book will be of interest to policymakers, as well as to students and scholars of International Relations, Middle East Studies and Asian Studies.

Analyzing the Korean Peninsula's contemporary engagement with the Persian Gulf region from the 1950s to the present day, the book begins by asking the following question: What drew Koreans to the region in the first place and under what circumstances were they drawn there? While taking into account a combination of both external and internal factors shaping the dynamics of the Korean Peninsula's interactions with the Persian Gulf region, this book largely concentrates on the agency factor to analyze the nature and scope of a rather multifaceted relationship between the two areas. The Republic of Korea has, in fact, maintained diverse connections to every single country in the Persian Gulf over the past several decades, and its rather considerable activities and accomplishments in the region all justify such an overwhelming focus. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's record in the Persian Gulf, however, is mostly limited to its relationship with Iran, though Pyongyang has pursued relationships with some other states in the region. This book studies the elements of Pyongyang's actions in the region as an appendage to South Korea's various political and economic achievements. Employing a process-tracing approach, this book will be of interest to policymakers, as well as to students and scholars of International Relations, Middle East Studies and Asian Studies.

This book explores how international sanctions on Iran reshaped the contours of East Asia's interactions with the Middle Eastern state. Almost all East Asian political entities, from the industrialized and developed nations of Japan and South Korea, to the communist and developing countries of China and North Korea, have become major international partners of Iran over the past several decades. In addition, East Asian states were, by and large, thought to be among leading foreign beneficiaries of Iran sanctions, and the overall impacts of sanctions in transforming both the scope and size of their rather multifaceted connections to the Middle Eastern country have been consequential. Despite its significance, academic studies about this topic have remained sparse and scattered. This book aims to partially fill that research lacuna by surveying all relevant information and data available in the archives of several languages, including Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, and Persian. While the book strives to cover the entire sanctions period, most of the analysis focuses on the past one and a half decades, when Iran came under the severest sets of international sanctions. It was during this particular time period that international quandary over the Iranian nuclear program led to a slew of far-reaching penalties and stringent restrictions levied against Iranians by the United Nations and the United States. These recent waves of international sanctions and limitations transformed many quintessential characteristics of East Asia's interactions with Iran. Such sanctions-induced critical developments and changes, moreover, are bound to play an instrumental role in the direction and volume of exchanges between East Asian states and Iran in the coming years and decades.

The modern trajectory of Middle Eastern-East Asian interactions has garnered very little scholarly attention and scrutiny. The two-way connections between both regions have witnessed a litany of activities and developments over the past several decades, but such dynamics are yet to be investigated sufficiently in tandem with their overall impacts on the world's safety and well-being. Few academic works have made an attempt to probe the nature and extent of each region's inclusive significance for the other party, while the central role of the West behind such eventuality has attracted the least attention. Aiming to fill part of this acute research gap, the present study concentrates primarily on different aspects of East Asia's modern relationship with the Middle East by turning the spotlight on strategic advantages of East Asian countries in all those critical areas in the region. Over the past several years, there has been a slew of talks and debates about the formation of strategic ties between the East Asian states and their counterparts across the Middle East region. In reality, however, East Asia's advantage of strategic nature has been there for decades, shaping the contours of an increasingly multifaceted chain of interactions involving the two sides. As a corollary, the more other stakeholders (Western powers in particular) made serious attempts to secure their precious assets in the Middle East, the larger East Asia's mileage in the region grew strategically.

Because of their historical roles and politico-economic significance in contemporary international politics, Iran and China have perpetually been in the crosshairs of both policy circles and interested observers in almost every other part of the world. Crucial interactions touching upon any aspect of Tehran-Beijing ties, from diplomatic and military links to economic and cultural connections, have especially been in the limelight of such riveting inquisitiveness which has often given rise to a flurry of rash comments, sensational claims, and impetuous conclusions. But a detached probe into critical developments involving Iran and China, however, elucidates this rather inconvenient eventuality that the relations between the two important countries are not essentially based on pivotal principles and clear-cut commitments, nor do their ties really rest on tenuous thoughts and flimsy foundations devoid of any common interests in short term or well-conceived objectives in long run. In the same way, the two political systems in Tehran and Beijing may ultimately end up each contributing to a separate pole of power regionally and internationally rather than moving faithfully and steadfastly in lockstep with what it requires them to truly materialize their more recent aspiration and design to move toward achieving a very close strategic partnership.

Because of their historical roles and politico-economic significance in contemporary international politics, Iran and China have perpetually been in the crosshairs of both policy circles and interested observers in almost every other part of the world. Crucial interactions touching upon any aspect of Tehran-Beijing ties, from diplomatic and military links to economic and cultural connections, have especially been in the limelight of such riveting inquisitiveness which has often given rise to a flurry of rash comments, sensational claims, and impetuous conclusions. But a detached probe into critical developments involving Iran and China, however, elucidates this rather inconvenient eventuality that the relations between the two important countries are not essentially based on pivotal principles and clear-cut commitments, nor do their ties really rest on tenuous thoughts and flimsy foundations devoid of any common interests in short term or well-conceived objectives in long run. In the same way, the two political systems in Tehran and Beijing may ultimately end up each contributing to a separate pole of power regionally and internationally rather than moving faithfully and steadfastly in lockstep with what it requires them to truly materialize their more recent aspiration and design to move toward achieving a very close strategic partnership.

In the mid-20th century, Korea was dubbed the last custodian of Confucianism, but it is now very hard to even call the country a truly Confucian society. Following this argument, Quo Vadis Korea? explores critically how some five decades of breakneck industrialization and unbridled modernization could ineluctably change the nation so fundamentally that their repercussions now sharply negate many basic principles of Confucianism in one way to another. This study is a critical overview of the politico-economic as well as socio-cultural characteristics of modern Korea from a rather different perspective. It discusses why many key objectives of industrialization and economic development projects were not really delivered as they were initially promised to the nation. They all had, consequently, significant ramifications for the entire Korean society, the way it functions now, and its peculiar reactions to strangers both inside and outside the peninsula. Shaped largely by academic studies, constant observation, and personal experiences, this book is tantamount to a detailed survey of lengthy and protracted fieldwork in which the author explains with rare candid clarity an appreciable chasm between the Korea he knew before landing on the peninsula and the one he studied incessantly and practically as a detached investigator in the place. By engaging this book, many unbiased and unprejudiced readers would have to acknowledge that the modern Korea is not all about certain brands or economic statistics that we often hear, but there are also many other social and cultural developments which the modernity project has imposed, somewhat arbitrarily, upon the nation.