Korea Institute for National Unification

Abstract The ‘hub-and-spoke’ alliance structure led by the United States was – and remains – a major feature of security politics in the Asia-Pacific. This article links its ‘general interests’ with the larger issue of the Asia-Pacific's evolving multilateral regional order. After reviewing the concept of ‘hedging’, the first section problematises the literature that treats the US-led alliances which constitute the hub-and-spoke system mainly as instruments for the competitive side of a hedging strategy. The second section observes that they go beyond being instruments of threat response to becoming a more complicated network of regional multilateral order-maintenance and order-building. The third section claims that the United States and its regional allies have been utilising the hub-and-spoke alliance structure as a hedge against an undesirable multilateral order emerging in the region. The fourth section examines those arguments with reference to the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the Six Party Talks. The article concludes with some thoughts about what these findings mean for the future direction of the hub-and-spoke alliance structure in the Asia-Pacific.

Artemisinin, also called qinghaosu, is originally derived from the sweet wormwood plant (Artemisia annua), which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. Artemisinin and its derivatives (artemisinins) have been widely used for many years as anti-malarial agents, with few adverse side effects. Interestingly, evidence has recently shown that artemisinins might have a therapeutic value for several other diseases beyond malaria, including cancers, inflammatory diseases, and autoimmune disorders. Neurodegeneration is a challenging age-associated neurological disorder characterized by deterioration of neuronal structures as well as functions, whereas neuroinflammation has been considered to be an underlying factor in the development of various neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Recently discovered properties of artemisinins suggested that they might be used to treat neurodegenerative disorders by decreasing oxidation, inflammation, and amyloid beta protein (Aβ). In this review, we will introduce artemisinins and highlight the possible mechanisms of their neuroprotective activities, suggesting that artemisinins might have therapeutic potential in neurodegenerative disorders.

Journal Article The persistence of the US-led alliances in the Asia-Pacific: an order insurance explanation Get access Jae Jeok Park Jae Jeok Park * Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), Seoul, Republic of Korea *E-mail: jaejeokpark@yahoo.com Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Volume 13, Issue 3, September 2013, Pages 337–368, https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lct010 Published: 14 July 2013 Article history Received: 14 January 2013 Accepted: 02 June 2013 Published: 14 July 2013

What kind of policy goals and orientation would a unified Korea adopt? A concerned US asks, would it become a China-friendly state? Or, would it be an anchor for the American–Asian alliance network at the expense of China’s security interests? To address these questions, this article begins by identifying six possible scenarios for the US-Sino relationship at the time of a unification that result from the combination of (1) the relative power capabilities between the US and China and (2) whether the US and China cooperate or conflict with each other. After describing the six scenarios, this article examines what policies the US and China would pursue toward the Korean peninsula in each scenario. Also, it contemplates how a unified Korea should respond to policies of the US and China in each scenario.