Abstract
One of the major frontline of the Cold War divided North East Asia (NEA),
turning former regional cooperation into military confrontation. Against
this background the United Nation Development Program (UNDP) ceased the
opportunity of the end of the bipolar world order to start the Tumen
River Area Development Programme (TRADP), which succeeded in 1995 in bringing
together the riparian states of the river, China, Russia and North Korea,
plus South Korea and Mongolia, into a regime of cross-border cooperation
with defined institutions and development goals.
Based on the favorable situation in natural resources as well as in
location, the two main goals of the TRADP were fixed as Strenghtening
of the economic power of the region? and ?Development of the role of the
region as eurasian Entrepot.
During the programme, which ran from 1991 until 2000, the main focus
was on the hardware development especially of the transportation infrastructure.
The problems of reciprocal mistrust and xenophobia, different expectations
of possible gains, and most important of the remains of the cold war in
the region, as exemplified in the division of the Korean peninsula, did
however prevent major positive developments of the area.
At the end of the year 2000, the Tumen River Area added several new
roads, rail connections, airports and port installations to its infrastructure.
Major successes in the deepening of the interregional cooperation or the
attraction of large amouts of Foreign Direct Investment or transcontinental
cargo can unfortunately not be recorded.
Structure of the dissertation:
After an introduction and some methodological and technical remarks,
Ch. 2 describes the economic and political development of NEA and especially
the Tumen River Area.
Ch. 3 shows the development of the regional transportation infrastructure
and its special importance for interregional cooperation.
In Ch. 4 a brief discussion of the members states of TRADP and the new
geo-political role of NEA in the 90s provides the framework for the development
of the programme.
Ch. 5 analyses the history of the TRADP from its beginnings in 1990
until the planned end at the end of 1999, including results in some major
non-infrastructural areas, which are related in Ch. 6.
TRADP was prolonged for a year, so Ch. 7 presents the developments of
the year 2000, which were influenced by the restart of the innerkorean
dialogue as well as by the growing criticism of TRADPs activities and lack
of results by the members countries.
The final Ch. 8 presents a summary of the discussion of the development
of TRADP and the reasons for its failure and ends with a look at the chances
and challenges of NEA in the new millenium. | 
