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Abstract:In the past decade, the threat of North Korea’s WMD (weapons of mass destruction) has challenged South Korea, Japan, and the United States. The Korean peninsula has long been a focal point for tension and rivalry among the various nations concerned about the implications for their own security of developments in Korea. North Korea’s admission of continued nuclear weapons development further heightened tensions in the Northeast Asia region. South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. demanded that North Korea guarantee that it would not produce weapons-grade plutonium from the old reactors. The growing economic vulnerability of North Korea, particularly since the demise the USSR in late 1991, has made the situation in Northeast Asia even more volatile. In an effort to defuse this situation, Six-Party Talks began in Beijing in August 2003, with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, and North Korea participating.In order to evaluate the chance for success in these talks, we need to take into account how the six participants each identify their national interest. We should remember that what North Korea wants most is survival. What South Korea wants is peace. China wants North Korea to remain a buffer between China and the U.S. Russia, too, wants North Korea to survive as an independent state. Japan wants North Korea’s nuclear threat eliminated. And the U.S. also wants North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Canada watches and hopes that these multilateral talks will lead to a solution that serves the interests of the Korean people, North and South.

• GeneralL. Castle and C. Findlay. Pacific Trade in Services. Sydney, Wellington, London, and Boston: Allen & Unwin, in association with the Pacific Trade and Development Conference Secretariat and the Australian National University, 1988. Pp. 294.Denys Lombard and Jean Aubin, editors. Marchands et Hommes d'Affaires Asiatiques. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1988. Pp. 375. Plates, maps, tables. 260F, paper.R.J. May and William J. O'Malley, editors. Observing Change in Asia. Essays in Honour of J.A.C. Mackie. Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1989. Pp. x, 265. Tables, acknowledgments, notes, bibliographies, index.Amin Saikal, editor. Refugees in the Modern World. Canberra Studies in World Affairs Number 25. Canberra: Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1989. Pp. 125.• China and inner AsiaArif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner, editors. Marxism and the Chinese Experience. Armonk, New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1989. Pp. 384. Index, contents, acknowledgements, introduction, notes.Michael S. Duke, editor. Modern Chinese Women Writers: Critical Appraisals. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1989. Pp. 272.Thomas Heberer. China and its National Minorities, Autonomy or Assimilation? Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1989. Pp. 165. Contents, preface, notes, glossary, illustrations, tables, maps, bibliography, index. $39.95, cloth.Ray Huang. China: A Macro History. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1987. Pp. xix, 277. Maps, line drawings, chronological charts, index.Huang Tsung-hsi. The Records of Ming Scholars. Edited by Julia Ching with the collaboration of Chaoying Fang. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. Pp. xxi, 336. Acknowledgements, note, abbreviations, glossary, introduction, bibliographies, index. US$27.00, cloth.Ono Kazuko. Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution 1850-1950. Edited by Joshua A. Fogel. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. Pp. v, 255. Prefaces, introduction by Joshua A. Fogel and Susan Mann, chronology, notes, supplementary references, index. Hardcover.Colin Mackerras, Kevin Bucknall, Russell Trood. The Beijing Tragedy: Implications for China and Australia. Australia-Asia Papers No. 51. Brisbane: Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations, Griffith University, 1989. Pp. ii, 93. $6.00, paper.Zhang Xinxin and Sang Ye. Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China. Edited by W.J.F Jenner and Delia Davin. London: Penguin Books, 1989. Pp. v, 367. Contents, preface, editor's introduction, author's note, chronology, map, Chinese titles and sources. $14.99, paper.Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China is an abridged English language version of Beijingren: Yibaige putongrende zishu (Shanghai: Wenyi Chubanshe, 1986, repr. 1987; 616 pp.).• Japan and Northeast AsiaTheodore C. Bestor. Neighborhood Tokyo. Stanford: Stanford University, 1989. Pp. x, 268. Acknowledgements, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth.Scott S. Burnett, editor. Korean-American Relations: Documents Pertaining to the Far Eastern Diplomacy of the United States. Volume 3. The Period of Diminishing Influence, 1896-1905. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. Pp. xiii, 304. Introduction. US$24.Yur-Bok Lee. West Goes East: Paul Georg Von Mollendorff and Great Power Imperialism in Late Yi Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. x, 295. Preface, notes, bibliography, index, illustrations. US$29.00.Stephen E. Marsland. The Birth of the Japanese Labor Movement: Takano Fusataro and the Rodo Kumiai Kiseikai. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. Pp. ix, 271. Preface, appendixes, notes, bibliography, index. US$27.00, cloth.Robert A. Scalapino and Hongkoo Lee, editors. Korea-US Relations: The Politics of Trade and Security Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1988. Research Papers and Policy Studies Number 25. Pp. vi, 242. Introduction, contributors. US$17.00, paper.Tanizaki Jun'ichirô. A Cat, Shôzô and Two Women. Translated by Matsui Sakuko. The University of Sydney East Asian Series, Wild Peony, Sydney, 1988.Karel van Wolferen. The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp. 496. Acknowledgements, notes, index. Hardcover.Paul Varley and Kumakura ISAO, editors. Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. Pp. vii, 285. Contents, preface, glossary, index, black-and-white and colour photographs. $25.00, cloth.• Southeast AsiaSharom Ahmat and Sharon Siddique, editors. Islamic Society, Higher Education and Development in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986. Pp. xii, 219. Contents, foreword, acknowledgements, contributors, introduction. S$18.40, paper.William J. Duiker. Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Asian Historical Dictionaries No. 1. Metuchen NJ & London: The Scarecrow Press Inc., 1989. Pp. xiv, 269. Preface, maps, appendices, bibliography. $32.50, cloth.Charles Higham. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xvi, 387. Maps, illustrations. $99.00.Ruurdje Laarhoven. Triumph of Moro Diplomacy: The Maguindanao Sultanate in the 17th Century. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1989. Pp. xx, 268. Foreword, acknowledgements, abbreviations, introduction, maps, appendices, reference notes, glossary, bibliography. $14.25, paper. Distributed outside the Philippines by the Cellar Book Shop, Detroit.Donald H. Mcmillen, editor. Conflict Resolution in Kampuchea: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Indochina. Brisbane: Centre for the Study of Australian-Asian Relations, 1989. Pp. 151. $10.00, paper.Vincente L. Rafael. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988. Pp. 230. Plates, bibliography.Garry Rodan. The Political Economy of Singapore's Industrialization: National State and International Capital. London: Macmillan, 1989. Pp. xvii, 266. Preface, acknowledgements, list of tables, index, abbreviations, notes and bibliography. £35, cloth.Friedrich Seltmann. Die Kalang: Eine Volksgruppe auf Java und ihre Stamm-Mythe, ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte Javas. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, 1987. Pp. 430. Tabular overview, indices, glossary, seventeen sketches, forty-five black-and-white photos, eight colour photographs, maps. DM244, cloth.Yoshikazu Takaya. Agricultural Development of a Tropical Delta: A Study of the Chao Phraya Delta. Translated by Peter Hawkes. English-Language Series no. 17, monographs of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. Honoloul: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. Pp. xviii, 269.

The modern state is a theoretical concept and a historical phenomenon which can be examined as force, power, and authority. The foundations of the modern state in China were laid by the Nationalist regime in Nankin after 1927. The Kuomintang's efforts in unification and treaty renegotiation greatly facilitated the labors of the Communists when they came to power. State development since 1949 reflects Nationalist influence in constitutionalism, party role, status of the army, and even world outlook. If the Nationalist and Communist periods are viewed as a continuum, state evolution in modern China appears as a rough recapitulation of the European state's development.