In parts of Asia, carrying 500 grams of one white powder can draw a death sentence, but importing 1,000 tons of another lethal white dust is both legal and profitable.

The Korean War technically ended in 1953 with the signing of an armistice agreement. But not only has there been no peace treaty, but inter-Korean military confrontation and heightened tension have continued, often resulting in overt military clashes. Defying the new security architecture followed by the demise of the Cold War system, the Korean peninsula still remains as its last relic without any clear signs of conflict termination. Suspicion and mutual distrust emanating from the protracted conflict have further accelerated fierce conventional arms races on the Korean peninsula. Taking advantage of its economic growth and industrial maturity, South Korea has been maintaining an edge over the North in this arms race. Meanwhile, North Korea has responded to the widening disparity in conventional forces by venturing to play the nuclear weapons card. As a result, peace and security on the Korean peninsula have become all the more precarious and uncertain. Against this backdrop, the article examines the patterns of military spending of the two Koreas, compares their conventional military capabilities, and traces implications for weapons of mass destruction on the Korean peninsula. The article concludes with some policy suggestions for denuclearization and peace-building in Korea.

Like the reporter Nobuko Tanaka, whose 2010 interview with artist Tomiyama Taeko is published below, I vividly remember my first encounter with Tomiyama's art. That was in 1984, when I visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum to see Maruki Iri and Toshi's newly completed mural of the Battle of Okinawa, on display before travelling to its permanent home at the Sakima Museum in Ginowan, Okinawa (https://sakima.jp/exhibition-okinawasen.html). The adjacent room held a linked exhibit of Tomiyama's black-and-white lithographs depicting Japan's coal miners, including Koreans who had been forced to work in Japan's wartime mines. I was just then writing about the history of labor relations in Japan's coal industry, including the horrific treatment of Korean and Chinese slave workers during the war. Tomiyama's images, such as “Sending off the Spirits of the Dead,” which evoked not only the Koreans who disappeared into the mines but also the families they left behind, impressed me as both social and aesthetic creations.