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Cheon Seongwhun, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), writes, “the Obama administration is likely to ask for stronger verification measures than what was agreed during the Bush administration… The new administration will regard material sampling as an indispensable condition for effective verification, and even push for inspections on undeclared facilities, the nuclear testing site, and explosive testing facilities which were practically exempted from verification under the current agreement.”

Jia Xijin, Associate Professor at the NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, and Zhao Yusi, Project Assistant of NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, write, “governmental reform, the development of the market economy, the differentiation of social stratum and interest patterns, the speeding up of public participation and political democracy, as well as the rapid strides in communications using the Internet and mobile devises, have increased the needs of citizens for social services and their ability to form voluntary associations. Under these conditions non-profit organizations in China are becoming more active and developing vigorously.”

Kim Yeoncheol, Director of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute (http://koreahana.net/sub05_01_1.htm), writes, “If the government misses the time to engage the North, it will only be more time consuming and expensive to compensate later… The government should think about its long term future… The tension in the inter-Korean relationship is becoming more intense. If we don’t act now there will be only more regret for the wasted time and lost opportunities in the future.”