This was the year when Asia's "Berlin Wall" was breached and history may show it was the most important event of the year 2000 in the Asia-Pacific region. Although the razor wire and minefields of Korea's 38th parallel remain in place, the rhetoric of hatred has ebbed since South Korean President Kim Dae-jung made an emotional trip to communist Pyongyang in June.
The spectacular success of the summit between North and South Korea brought an outpouring of congratulations from neighbouring countries. In three days, the threat of war that had hung over East Asia for half a century was replaced by an agreement to work for reunification.
"We have put an end to 55 years of separation and hostilities, and have opened a new chapter in our nation's history," said the South Korean President as the reclusive northern leader, Kim Jongil, gulped down a glass of wine in celebration.
Japan's Prime Minister, Mr Yoshiro Mori, compared the event to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which was premature, but a gap is opening up in the last Cold War frontier in the shape of a road and rail link.
The coming year will test whether the rhetoric about working together towards reunification on the basis of "common elements" in the North's proposal for federation and the South's for confederation is founded on realism. At least the two sides have agreed to arrange exchange visits for separated families, to solve the issue of long-term prisoners and to promote co-operation in many fields. North and South Korean athletes marched together at the Olympic Games in Sydney.
In October, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright travelled to the North Korean capital to give Kim Jong-il a two-handed handshake and bestow international credibility on the Dear Leader by appearing with him at a Workers' Party propaganda show. The South Koreans bristled as the US rushed in through the door that they had opened.
Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton clearly saw an opportunity to open up to North Korea, just as Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon did with China in 197172.
Seoul fears that Kim Jong-il will put inter-Korean unity on the back burner again, having achieved his great goal of doing business with Washington. The Japanese were uneasy too that their concerns would be ignored by Pyongyang as North Korea cosied up to the United States.
On the other hand, the US seems to have secured a promise from the North Korean leader that it will stop firing missiles across Japan and regional tensions have eased considerably at the prospect of a deal over missiles to help bring North Korea out of its belligerent isolation.
The Americans also went a'courting another `@lost" communist country in Asia. The first visit by a US president to Vietnam since the end of the American War (as they call it in Hanoi) was more an emotional roller-coaster ride for Bill and Hillary Clinton than the breach of another Asian Berlin Wall. The November trip, nevertheless, did go a long way to help heal the wounds of the conflict. There was no apology for the excesses of the war or for the damage done by the spraying of Agent Orange over 14 per cent of the country's land surface. But Mr Clinton, who dodged the draft, depicted the war in terms of moral equivalence and paid tribute to the "staggering sacrifice" of three million Vietnamese on both sides.
The visit put the cap on a gradual normalisation of relations between the two countries, which culminated in July with the signing of a trade agreement between the US and Vietnam that could lead to a China-style opening up of the country's economy. The Americans see economic ties as the path to the liberalisation of society in communist Vietnam.
"The trend towards freedom is irreversible," said Mr Clinton as he left, having lectured the Vietnamese on the great benefits of democracy.
But this was a turbulent year for democracy in Asia. Several elected leaders found themselves in disgrace or under threat as the year drew to a close. Sex, corruption and gross incompetence were the main reasons.
Japan's Mr Mori found himself charged with the latter. A former judo and rugby enthusiast, he is nicknamed the "mirage" because of his talent for appearing to be decisive while having no well-defined policies, and in power he has been a political embarrassment.
Few expected great things from the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party when he became Prime Minister in the spring, but the rapid disintegration of his cabinet startled even his critics after his closest government ally, Hidenao Nakagawa, resigned over a sex scandal. The crisis has caused delay and confusion to Tokyo's important economic and financial reform programme.
Mr Mori weathered a challenge to his leadership in November but the crisis in Japan goes deeper than one man's weaknesses. Important economic and financial reforms may be beyond the LDP, which has lost popular support. Many say only political restructuring will restore legitimacy to Japan's political parties.
In March, Taiwan shone like a model of modern democracy when it elected a new president, bringing an end to 50 years of rule by the nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT). But a few months later President Chen Shui-bian was facing dismissal by parliament, in his case for mismanagement. The KMT still controls the legislature and has thwarted his reform plans.
Chen's allies believe it is plotting to get rid of the President or render him impotent. The nationalists professed outrage on October 26th when Mr Chen cancelled construction of the country's fourth nuclear power plant - a pet KMT project - just after his first "peace" meeting with the KMT leadership at which the issue was fudged. The KMT has started a process to "recall" Mr Chen, i.e. force him out of office. In the climate of political uncertainty, Taiwan's stocks and currency took a battering.
The economy of the Philippines also suffered, as one-time B-movie actor President Joseph Estrada faced a growing "people power" movement for his removal. The House of Representatives in Manila voted in November to impeach Mr Estrada after a former millionaire buddy accused him of taking massive bribes to allow illegal gambling. The money was allegedly used to finance several mansions for his mistresses. Estrada fought hard to cling on to office and prevent the credits rolling on his last performance.
In Indonesia, President Abdurrahman Wahid, the country's first democratically-elected leader, survived an attempt to push him out of office in a parliamentary session in August. But his ineptitude and capriciousness have sapped the strength of the student-led reformasi movement, which got rid of President Suharto and drove a national campaign against corruption.
Misgivings about his ability to hold the Indonesian archipelago together and control the army have grown. The situation in Ambon, Aceh and Irian Jaya has deteriorated, and militias in West Timor were reined in only because of international outrage over the murder of three UN workers. When a bomb exploded in the Jakarta Stock Exchange in September, Mr Wahid ordered the arrest of Tommy Suharto and sacked the national police chief when he refused.
Tommy, the youngest son of the former president, was later found guilty of corruption by the Supreme Court and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Mr Wahid refused clemency, restoring some hope that Indonesia was at last tackling its legacy of Suharto-era corruption, but Tommy promptly disappeared.
The President's defenders argue that the problems he inherited are so huge that no reformer could have done much better. They say that Indonesia's economy is recovering, that new judges are being put in place and that a process of devolving power to the turbulent regions is under way.
The cause of reformasi is not yet lost. This year saw the emergence of a new nation in Asia, which the United Nations is trying to help become a model democracy. The international community promised to rebuild East Timor after the scorched-earth campaign of the pro-Jakarta militias left the tiny country in ruins. A donor conference in Tokyo in December 1999 pledged $600 million but little of the money has come through.
By September, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the UN mission running the former Portuguese colony, was working on a total UN budget for the fiscal year of $60 million. The result is that, a year after the conflagration, the centre of Dili is still in ruins. Life has, however, returned to the city, the skeleton of a civil society has been put in place and the country is gearing up for elections next year.
Meanwhile, 120,000 East Timorese refugees still languish in camps in West Timor.
In China, economic, although not political, reform made a great leap forward in 2000 in the form of an agreement with the EU and the US on entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after 14 years of talks. This was followed by the decision of the US Congress to give China "permanent normal trade relations". Many WTO members are not so enthusiastic, especially as China has proposed different inspection standards for domestic and foreign products, which could allow the blocking of imports China doesn't want.
President Clinton said that WTO membership for China would not just lower tariffs but speed positive internal change - the standard argument for engagement. However, the US State Department continued to find that China's "poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout [1999] as the government intensified efforts to suppress dissent".
Evidence of this could be found in Beijing's Tiananmen Square most days, when members of Falun Gong defied a ban on their organisation and offered themselves up as martyrs to security police who beat and kicked them. The Chinese government banned the spiritual movement in 1999 as an evil cult and hundreds have been sent to labour camps. Falun Gong claims 59 have died in custody.
Many feel that no political change will come in China until at least 2002, when the old guard gives way to the next generation of leaders.
Ireland's relationship with China continued to improve in 2000. Chinese vice-Prime Minister Mr Li Lanqing became so enthusiastic about Ireland's tiger economy on a visit to Dublin that many Chinese trade, business and academic delegations have followed in his footsteps. The Tanaiste, Mary Harney, made a return trip to China in September and opened Ireland's first consulate in Shanghai, one of the main recommendations of the Government's Asia Strategy Group, which has raised the profile of Ireland in Asia.
The big unresolved issue for China remains Taiwan, although it stewed rather than simmered in the months after the election of Taiwan's first pro-independence president in March. The sound and fury that accompanied Chen's victory have given way to low-level exchanges, with Taiwanese officials, academics and businessmen coming to the mainland in droves at China's invitation.
Beijing's shock at Chen's win, and hardening independence attitudes in Taiwan, apparently prompted it to switch to diplomacy rather than bellicosity. Cross-strait trade is growing but there are still no direct air, sea or communications links between China and Taiwan. This often overlooked `Berlin Wall" in Asia is still standing.