North Korea is perilously close to developing strategic nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States and its East Asian allies. Since their first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has struggled to perfect the required delivery systems. Kim Jong-un’s regime now appears to be close, however. Sung Chull Kim, Michael D. Cohen, and the volume contributors contend that the time to prevent North Korea from achieving this capability is virtually over; scholars and policymakers must turn their attention to how to deter a nuclear North Korea. The United States, South Korea, and Japan must also come to terms with the fact that North Korea will be able to deter them with its nuclear arsenal. How will the erratic Kim Jong-un behave when North Korea develops the capability to hit medium- and long-range targets with nuclear weapons? How will and should the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China respond, and what will this mean for regional stability in the short term and long term? The international group of authors in this volume address these questions and offer a timely analysis of the consequences of an operational North Korean nuclear capability for international security.

This timely and important collection of original essays analyzes China’s foremost social cleavage: the rural–urban gap. It is now clear that the Chinese communist revolution, though professing dedication to an egalitarian society, in practice created a rural order akin to serfdom, in which 80 percent of the population was effectively bound to the land. China is still struggling with that legacy. The reforms of 1978 changed basic aspects of economic and social life in China’s villages and cities and altered the nature of the rural-urban relationship. But some important institutions and practices have changed only marginally or not at all, and China is still sharply divided into rural and urban castes with different rights and opportunities in life, resulting in growing social tensions.

The contributors, many of whom conducted extensive fieldwork, examine the historical background of rural–urban relations; the size and trend in the income gap between rural and urban residents in recent years; aspects of inequality apart from income (access to education and medical care, the digital divide, housing quality and location); experiences of discrimination, particularly among urban migrants; and conceptual and policy debates in China regarding the status and treatment of rural residents and urban migrants.