Meeting Report
The Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) held two plenary sessions in 2002. The
spring conference was held in Tokyo and Okinawa in April and hosted by The Japan
Institute of International Affairs. The second, held in Moscow in October, was
hosted by the Russian Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies.
The Moscow meeting was particularly significant because four officials from the DPRK's
Institute for Disarmament and Peace participated in the discussions. The DPRK is one
of the founding-member countries of NEACD, but has not joined the discussion since 1993.
NEACD participants in Moscow welcomed DPRK participation as a major development in Northeast Asian track two diplomatic processes.
In keeping with tradition, the first day of the Moscow Plenary focused on national
perspectives of regional security. Representatives for all six countries gave presentations
and answered questions. The theme of the second day was Northeast Asian energy security,
specifically the effect of energy supply and demand trends on regional energy security.
The Moscow meeting was extended by one day to convene a special Infrastructure and
Economic Development Workshop. Experts in Northeast Asian energy issues and issues
relating to railroad infrastructure were invited to deliver presentations to NEACD
participants. The presentations shed light on complex economic and political issues driving both energy policy and railroad infrastructure development in Northeast Asia.
Meeting roughly every eight months, NEACD provides a "track-two," or unofficial,
forum where foreign and defense ministry policy-level officials, military officers,
and academics from China, Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, and the United States
are able to meet and frankly discuss regional security issues. Founded in 1993,
the forum is considered the leading track-two forum in Northeast Asia.
At present there is no official "track-one" multilateral process in
Northeast Asia. The next NEACD and the Defense Information Sharing
Study Project will convene in Beijing in August 2003.
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