抄録
Northeast Asia is replete with sources of friction and conflict. The prospect of armed conflict lingers as the issues surrounding Taiwan and the Korean peninsula remain unresolved. Other territorial disputes in the region could also lead to new tensions resulting from mutual suspicions or upsurges of nationalism. In addition, the possible security implications of China's increasing influence owing to its rapidly growing economy have also come to the fore.
On the other hand, with the exception of the Sino-Soviet border conflict and the Sino-Vietnamese War, there have been no armed conflicts in Northeast Asia since the mid-1950s. One factor that cannot be ignored when considering the military aspects of this state of affairs is the presence of nuclear weapons in this region.
In Northeast Asia, nuclear weapons have assumed the role of preventing not only attempts to change the status quo in relation to overt and latent sources of conflict, including the highly tense issues surrounding the Korean peninsula and Taiwan, but also arms races between the actors involved. Although the “maintenance of the status quo under nuclear weapons” may be considered as nothing more than a method of containing contentious issues, it remains preferable to possible armed conflict and enables efforts toward resolving the issues. Nevertheless, the “maintenance of the status quo under nuclear weapons” involves a “delicate balance” and inherently entails instability, uncertainty, and even the possibility that nuclear weapons may be used.
Arms control and non-proliferation based on increased transparency and mutual understanding will likely play an important role in containing factors that could destabilize Northeast Asian security—such as distrust between actors, uncertainty over future developments, and the heightening of security dilemmas—while carefully maintaining the “delicate balance”.
What is required in tandem with precluding Northeast Asia from falling into instability are efforts to build a stable regional security framework that depends less on military power, including nuclear weapons. The creation of such a framework will demand a substantial amount of time, and the current security environment seems to militate against the possibility of realizing such a goal. However, such endeavors would be consistent with ongoing attempts to modify the Japan-U.S. alliance so as to contribute further to regional and international stability and would also enable U.S. predominance in the Northeast Asian regional security structure in a moderate manner while allowing a “rising China” to assume a key role in the region as “a responsible stakeholder.”
