The political implications of regional cooperation in Northeast Asia: Russia's changing role in the region, and the potentials of the Tumen River Project

Abstract

This paper discusses the political implications of creating a Northeast Asian system of regional cooperation, as the current global political changes now make it possible, and the security and economic measures that have to be taken to implement these new developmental projects. The Tumen River Project is one of the developmental projects designed to bring together former political and ideological adversaries, such as China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Due to the economic regionalism in the world, and to the subsequent need to create some sort of regional structure in the Asia-Pacific, these countries are striving to promote regional cooperation and overcome such serious problems as the reunification of the two Koreas, the security issues on the Korean Peninsula, the Russo-Japanese territorial dispute, and others.