Revisiting the Cheonan sinking in the Yellow Sea

Abstract

This paper revisits the sinking of a South Korean naval ship called the Cheonan in March 2010, which profoundly undermined the security environment around the Korean peninsula. Employing an interactionist perspective in analysing the foreign policy behaviour of the Lee Myung-bak government and other key players at the time of the incident, the paper offers new insights into the debate over the mysterious sinking of the Cheonan. The paper reveals that the Lee government's use of the Cheonan tragedy to create a social structure that would pressure the North Korean government was only partly successful due to the counter-roles played by other relevant states.