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| 1990, Jan. 23 |
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| Pres. No's party and two opposition parties merged to gain a majority in the South Korean legislature. | 1 |
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| March 15 |
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Jiang Zemin, leader of the Chinese Communist Party, visited North Korea to meet with aging dictator Kim Il-s ng. | 2 |
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| May 10 |
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| Major demonstrations in Seoul protested No's new power bloc. | 3 |
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| June 5 |
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| Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev met with No in San Francisco and said diplomatic relations were to be opened (effected on Oct. 1). | 4 |
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| July–Aug |
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| New hopes for North-South relations were sparked. For five days in early August, the South Korean government eased restrictions on travel to the North. | 5 |
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| Sept. 5–7 |
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| Prime ministers from North and South Korea met for two days for talks, the highest level of contact since the Korean War. | 6 |
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| Sept. 29 |
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| Japan and North Korea finished a series of meetings and resolved to engage in talks about opening diplomatic relations. Negative repercussions in Japan greeted government officials' mention of paying reparations to Korean victims of Japanese colonialism. | 7 |
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| Dec. 29 |
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After two years of voluntary internal exile for the abuses of his regime, former president Ch n Tu-hwan returned home to Seoul. | 8 |
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