Trends on the Korean Peninsula and Soviet Policy Toward Korea: Implications for U.S.-Japan Relations.

摘要

Nearly two years ago, Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a major address in Vladivostok. In this speech -- the English translation of which ran to twenty single-spaced pages -- there are only three brief references to the Korean Peninsula: a one-sentence allusion to the militarized Washington-Tokyo-Seoul triangle allegedly 'taking shape'; and equally brief allusion to U.S. deployment of nuclear-weapons delivery vehicles and nuclear warheads in Korea and endorsement of North Korea's proposal for the creation of a 'nuclear-freeze zone' on the Korean Peninsula; and a vague, two-sentence reference to the possibility of progress toward reducing tension on the Peninsula. Although Gorbachev expressed the USSR's intention to give more dynamism to its bilateral relations with all countries situated here, without exception, 'notably missing from his lengthy list of non-communist Asian/Pacific nations (twelve) with whom the Soviet Union is 'ready to expand (its) ties' was any reference to South Korea. Keywords: Foreign policy, International relations.