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Choi Jinwook, Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), writes, “North Korea has taken a harsher position since Kim Jong-il’s illness. It is not the Department of United Front but the military that plays a more important role in inter-Korean relations… The decision to launch a long-range rocket and carry out a nuclear test was clearly made by the military, not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The military seems to believe that it needs to become a nuclear power rather than try to resume talks with the United States at an earlier date.”

Liu Ming, deputy director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, writes, “If, as seems to be the case, the North Korean leadership is entering a transitional period, the new leader will face a strategic dilemma: whether to continue promoting denuclearization at the cost of worsening the economic situation. In the end, the final choice will be up to North Korea’s elite and people.”

Mark. J. Valencia, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, and Nazery Khalid, Senior Fellow at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, write, “there may be room for a co-operative solution like joint development, as practiced between Malaysia and Thailand in the Gulf of Thailand, although given the recent history the sharing would probably have to be largely in Indonesia’s favor… The relationship between the two is too close and precious to be soured over this issue, hence both parties must work hard at containing the dispute and settling it amicably for the sake of preserving bilateral ties and regional stability.”