On Lee Myung-bak Government's Policy Toward The Dprk

The presidential election of the Republic of Korea closed on December 19,2007, and Lee Myung-bak, as the representative of the Korean Grand National Party, was elected as the 17th president of South Korea. On February 25,2008, Lee Myung-bak took the oath of office. The Grand National Party that Lee Myung-bak represents is a right-wing conservative party, thus it ends the era in which the Democratic Party was in power with Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-hyun as its representatives. Its foreign policies, particularly policies towards DPRK, have had obvious changes.This thesis consists four parts and the first part is to review the policies towards DPRK by the South Korea governments after the Cold War. The second part puts emphasis on the characteristics of the policies towards DPRK after Lee Myung-bak's coming into power, mainly reflected in the principles of pragmatism and reciprocity, strategy conception of non-nuclear, open and 3000, the policy objectives of coexistence and co-glory as well as the unification plan of economy after peace. The third part focuses on that the changes in policies towards DPRK are taken under the circumstances of repairing the US-South Korea relationship, enhancing the US-South Korea alliance, improving the Japan-South Korea relationship, challenges to the policies towards DPRK by the former government, changes of the domestic political economic conditions and changes of the ruling concepts of the leaders. The last part is to discuss that although the polices towards DPRK by Lee Myung-bak government, yet the principles of pragmatism and reciprocity have already been the basic tone as well as the basic framework of the policies towards DPRK with means of non-nuclear, open and 3000 and with objectives of coexistence and co-glory has already been established. Adjustment to policies towards DPRK significantly influences the peace and stability of the two countries of Korean peninsula and northeast Asia area.