중국 신지도부의 대한반도 정책의 변화 = 대북정책과 남북통일관을 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study aims to explore China's Korea policy in the 21st century as well as its views on Korean unification in the rapidly changing security environment of Northeast Asia. The study also seeks to examine the continuities and changes in China's policies toward the Korean peninsula, since inauguration of the Hu Jintao administration. Although there has not been much change in the fundamental elements of China's policy towards the Korean peninsula from that of the 1990s, with outbreak of the North Korean nuclear crisis and emergence of the Hu Jintao administration, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula has come to the fore as an issue. Under these circumstances, China's Korea policy can be classified into four categories. These are maintenance of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, expansion of China's influence in the Korean peninsula, independent and peaceful reunification through dialogue and negotiation between North and South, and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. What are China's priorities in its policies toward the Korean peninsula and in its strategic aims? Denuclearization of the North Korea, regime survival of North Korea, regime reform of North Korea, expansion of China's influence in the Korean peninsula, and support of gradual unification. These goals carry strategic meaning and are significant in that they can be organized into a hierarchy of importance. In considering China's foreign policy towards the Korean peninsula, use of such a roadmap can help us approach the problem more transparently. As far as unification method, I think that rather than a rapid unification in which the South absorbs the North, China prefers to maintain the status quo in the short term, and prefers the method of moving gradually from an integration stage to a unification stage. Also, to stem the influence of the United States and Japan over the Korean peninsula, China ultimately supports the model of neutral unification.