Author: annyang880410
Erica Carlson – Revisiting Korea: Different Perspectives
2017 Summer Study Abroad Program
GWIKS’s first two-week summer study 
abroad program in Seoul, South Korea ended on the 17th of June. The program was established to educate the students about the two Koreas with their identities, shared history, division, and economic differences. Under the instruction of Professor Jisoo Kim and Miok Pak, there were nine undergraduate and six graduate students that participated in this summer program. These participants were selected through a competitive application process as the program was designed to provide an opportunity for students who are pursuing Korean studies to visit Seoul and learn firsthand about the two Koreas.
This summer program was scheduled with site-visits that allowed the students to experience firsthand the history, culture, politics, economy, and society of the Koreans. On the first day, students explored the past of Korea by visiting Gyeongbok Palace and Bukchon Hanok Village. The Gyeongbok Palace was the main royal palace of the Joseon dynasty in the Korean Peninsula and was built in 1395. Bukchon Hanok village is a traditional village that is composed of remaining Joeseon houses that were preserved to show the 600-year-old urban environment.
The second day, the students learned
about the Korean War by visiting the War Memorial of Korea in Yongsan and the National Museum of Contemporary History. The next day, DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and JSA (Joint Security Area) were visited to learn further about the Korean war and the history of the divided country. JSA is the only part of the DMZ where both Korean forces face each other. It is used for diplomatic engagements between the two Koreas and is the only neutral area where free movement of both sides are allowed within its boundaries. To learn more about the inter-Korean relations, the students visited the Inter-Korean Transit Office in Dorasan and the Seodaemun Prison on the fourth day. The Dorasan Station is a railway station on the Gyeongui Line, which is the northernmost stop on South Korea’s railway line. Seodaemun Prison was where Japanese soldiers tortured and later executed Korean Independence Movement followers and currently is serving as a memorial to salute the Korean patriots. These visits later extended to a discussion about North Korean Human Rights Issues at Korea University as the university specially held a seminar for our students.
The fifth day continued the talk about North Korean Human Rights as the students visited the UN Human Rights Office located in Seoul. At the UN Human Rights Office, they met with Human Rights Officer Yunkyo Ahn and learned why the Office is located in Seoul instead of Pyongyang. After listening to Officer Ahn’s presentation, students had a Q&A session that allowed them to learn more in depth about human rights issue in North Korea. After the visit to the UN office, the students went to the Blue House Sarangchae for the hour English guide. Blue House is where the South Korean President resides and Sarangchae is an area that has exhibitions about Korean culture and the history of former presidents.
The weekends were opened for student’s independent traveling. The students submitted their travel plans for approvals from the instructors. Some students managed to leave the Capital City and others visited recommended tourist places in Seoul that were not included within the two-week schedule.
The program had a busy schedule the following
week as well. It was composed of learning about the modern days of South Korea. On Monday, the students learned about business and economic growth in South Korea by visiting one of the biggest corporation groups in South Korea – LG. Later Samsung and SK-Telecom were also visited on Wednesday to follow up more about the economic growth in South Korea. The same Monday after the LG visit, the students visited the Constitutional Court of Justice to learn about the law in South Korea. They had the honor to meet with Judge Chang-ho Ahn to hear about the Constitutional law in South Korea firsthand.
To learn about the role of media in South Korea, the students visited the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) Headquarter and attended a lecture about Korean wave. They also had the opportunity to attend a rehearsal of a Korean music program – Yu Heeyeol’s Sketchbook.
On Thursday, the students continued to 
explore the modern days and issues in South Korea, as they went to Hana Foundation to learn about the resettlement of North Korean refugees. Later they visited the Public Affairs office of the U.S. Embassy to hear a briefing about the work of public diplomacy in South Korea.
This marked the end of the well-rounded summer study abroad program regarding the two Koreas. The students actively attended seminars, briefings, discussions, lectures that were held at the sites they visited within the two weeks. Most of the evenings were re-capped with a wrap-up seminar back at the hotel. This two-week program ended with student’s portfolio presentations. (shared here) Students decided on their research topics and presented their research proposals, which will be completed back at the university. Please keep an eye out on their final research debrief during the Fall Semester!
Written by Ann Yang
Second Soh Jaipil Circle – Jai Kwan Jung
For our second SJP Circle meeting, we had Dr. Jai Kwan Jung present his working research: “Why Is There No Rebellion in North Korea?” Dr. Jung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University. Prior to joining Korea University, he was an Assistant Professor of our own George Washington University in the Department of Political Science and the Elliott School of International Affairs. His research interests include political conflict and violence, party politics, and inter-Korean relations. He is now working on a book project on a comparative study of the North Korean Regime’s durability.
North Korea is the longest existing “non-monarchy dictatorship” country to have avoided any large scale rebellion. Therefore, a topic that explores possible explanations for this phenomenon is of interest to many scholars. In many other autocratic states rebellions are mostly started by elites with political grievances toward the inner circle. However, the North Korean regime was seen to have established an effective elite control system that prevents the well-educated elites from starting a rebellion. This talk provided empirical evidence regarding the elite control system in North Korea that was found by conducting in-depth interviews with high-ranking North Korean defectors.
Dr. Jung first examined the existing North Korea studies-related theories – Chuch’e ideology & supreme leader system, military first politics, and shadow economy – and proved how they weren’t fully explaining the reasons for not even having a small-scale rebellion since the 1990s. Even the academic answer – comparative authoritarianism – couldn’t explain how the collapse of the economy in North Korea still failed to bring about any rebellion. He sought to answer the question which other scholars or theories failed to fully answer. That is, “Why is there no rebellion in North Korea?”
The results of the qualitative research mainly focused on the elite control system in North Korea. One of the effective mean of controlling the elites was ideological control. The Chuch’e idealogy that emphasizes independence in politics, autonomy in the economy, and self-defense in the military worked well for the elite control in North Korea. However, there was skepticism that grew among elites, especially those with overseas experiences. The organizational control further explains the reason why North Korea didn’t see any rebelling organizations. The North Korean government executed “10 Principles” that strictly prohibited forming an organization or a voluntary association, which destroyed regional, family, school, and other social network ties. North Korea had no concept of social networks and didn’t have enough social capital for a rebellion to occur. The economic benefits for the inner elites were also seen as one of the main reasons that a rebellion didn’t occur. There was special distribution of goods and services for elites that made them satisfied with the current regime.
The conclusion of the talk was as follows:
- As long as the elite control system functions properly as a whole, highly authoritarian countries like North Korea may avoid rebellion and a regime collapse.
- There is a need to compare the elites’ perspective with other defectors’ perspectives to better assess the possibility of a regime collapse that may start from the bottom.
- There is also the need to compare North Korea with other autocracies (e.g., Romania, Serbia, Libya) to figure out how elite schisms emerge and develop.
Written by Ann Yang
Congratulations to Dr. Gregg Brazinsky for launching his book “Winning the Third World”
Dr. Gregg Brazinsky is the Acting Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. His book “Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War” was officially launched at the Wilson Center on May 8th, 2017. The full video of the talk at the book launch “U.S.-China Competition During the Cold War” can be found here.
In the book, Dr. Brazinsky examines afresh the intense and enduring rivalry between the United State and China during the Cold War. He shows how both nations fought vigorously to establish their influence in newly independent African and Asian countries. By playing a leadership role in Asia and Africa, China hoped to regain its status in world affairs, but Americans feared that China’s history as a nonwhite, anti-colonial nation would make it an even 
more dangerous threat in the postcolonial world than the Soviet Union. Drawing on a broad array of new archival materials from China and the United States, Dr. Brazinsky demonstrates that disrupting China’s efforts to elevate its stature became an important motive behind Washington’s use of both hard and soft power in the “Global South.” (Summary from the publication website introduction)
For more information about the book from the author, click here.
Congratulations to Professor Brazinsky!
Korean Literature Essay Contest 2017
GWIKS is organizing the 2017 Korean Literature Essay Contest with the support of LTI Korea (Literature Translation Institute Korea). It is an opportunity for all undergraduates and graduates in the D.C. metropolitan area. The application is until July 30 and you may win prizes that will assist you with the start of your new semester! If you are interested in learning more about the contest and requirements, please click here.
Washington DC International Film Festival: Korean Films
The Washington, DC International Film Festival (Filmfest DC) begins this Thursday, April 20th and continues through Sunday, April 30th. Now in its 31st year, some of the latest and best offerings from around the world will be presented at Filmfest DC 2017. Here is the flyer for Korean films:
Kyungmin Cho: Political Opinion
The new era has come. The first female president under the Constitutional history of South Korea has turned into another legacy of the first president to be impeached. With the mounting support rate for the opposition parties, Moon Jae-in triumphantly won the party election, and has stood up as the most prominent presidential candidate. However, his political attitude and populistic approach put himself into question on whether he is apt for successful statecraft.
Moon has used his close relationship to the former president Roh as the cornerstone of his political career where he stands as the representative of the opposition parties. Ever since he stepped into the political arena after Roh’s death, Moon has strived to earn national support with his populistic approach. The problem with this attitude is that he seems to focus on only earning popular support in absence of concrete plans to back his policies. He has made promises to solve the unemployment issue in South Korea by creating 810,000 government jobs. With existing 1.91 million jobs in the public sector, such additions will increase the total number by 40 percent. Regarding the fact that the such increase will enlarge the size of the government, which will not be easily reduced when necessary, a great sum of budget is required to sustain such government scale. Also, the South Korean government cut the pensions for the civil servants in 2015 to mediate the growing national debt. If implemented as Moon planned, the pension system will devour a greater amount of budget to add to the already asphyxiating burden of the nation. Moon implied that through budget adjustments in government spending, he would be able to supply the necessary funding to enlarge government size. Unfortunately, his other pledges don’t seem to give him space to do so.
Moon mentioned the possibility of reducing the mandatory military service term from 21 months to 18 months. This is a great way to mobilize South Korea’s young male generations that have not served or are currently serving in the military into Moon’s support groups. In order to cut the service period while maintaining the same level of national defense, more number of soldiers are required. Unfortunately, South Korea suffers from the low-birth rate that falls short of the replacement rate. With the decreasing number of young male generations, supplementing the demand for more soldiers to carry out Moon’s policy is not viable. Even if this pledge was made in the expectation of decreased demand for large troops due to successful reconciliation with North Korea, Moon must realize that such blind hope may jeopardize 51 million South Korean populations at any time. Furthermore, he promised to increase the military spending from 2.4 percent to 3 percent of South Korea’s GDP. He asserted that this is necessary for a future self-reliant national defense capability after the redemption of wartime operational control from the United States. Even if this increased spending contributes to the more high-tech military modernization to reduce the number of soldiers required, there still rises another need for more troops in management and maintenance work. Here again, Moon did not come up with any concrete plans to supplement the necessity for budget and manpower.
In the context of self-reliant national defense, Moon has been reluctant to deploy THAAD in South Korea. He mentioned in the interview with The New York Times that there is no need to hurry in deploying THAAD, which implies that the deployment may take place in the next presidential term. Moon has been saying that South Korea needs the self-reliant national defense so that it does not get swayed by interests of certain nations, and he believes that saying “no” to the demands from the US alliance is the way to his promised defense system. However, he must realize that the right path toward self-reliant defense is South Korea’s capability to adhere to its best defense interests, not swaying the public by saying arbitrary “no” to the ROK-US Alliance. The deployment of THAAD is under great controversy among South Koreans. Whatever choice he makes on this issue, if he becomes the president, must be made after thorough calculations on how this will fully guarantee the security of South Korea against the threat from the North.
Moon Jae-in has showed favorable attitude in communicating with South Korean citizens. However, it seems like that he has been focusing too much on earning popular support to be elected as a president. Only if he comes up with strategic and concrete plans for his pre-election pledges, I believe that he will be able to earn more support from the diverse groups of voters. He needs credibility for his words.
Soh JaiPil Circle – The Second Talk: Why is There No Rebellion in North Korea?
Considering its dire economic conditions and abrupt leadership changes since the 1990s, North Korea has been considered one of the most likely autocracies that could experience a large scale rebellion. In reality, however, there has been no such internal turmoil so far. What can account for the absence of rebellion in North Korea? This talk is about a paper that seeks to answer this question based on the understanding of how rebel groups emerge in autocracies. Since rebel groups are generally formed by a small number of the relatively well-educated who have support networks and political grievances toward the inner circle of ruling elites, they argue that the North Korean regime established an effective elite control system that prevents an elite schism from developing into a rebellion. To support this argument, they draw empirical evidence from the historical development of elite control system in North Korea and in-depth interviews with high-ranking North Korean defectors.
|
April 26th, Wednesday
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Lunch will be provided.
The Elliott School of International Affairs
Chung-Wen Shih Conference Room
Sigur Center for Asian Studies
1957 E st. NW, Suite 503
Washington DC, 20052
|
with Jai Kwan Jung
Jai Kwan Jung (Ph.D., Cornell University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University. Prior to joining Korea University, he was a Korea Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Elliott School at the George Washington University. His research interests include political conflict and violence, party politics, and inter-Korean relations. His work has appeared in a number of academic journals such as Democratization, European Journal of Political Research, International Political Science Review, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Mobilization, and Pacific Focus. He is now working on a book project on a comparative study of the North Korean Regime’s durability.
Moderated By Celeste Arrington
Celeste Arrington is a Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW. She is one of the core faculties of GWIKS and a member of the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation’s U.S.-Japan Network for the Future and its U.S.-Korea Scholar-Policymaker Nexus. She specializes in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. Her research interests include civil society, social movements, democratic governance, law and society, policymaking processes, the media and politics, and qualitative methods. She is also interested in the international relations and security of Northeast Asia and transnational activism.
Words from a North Korea Defector: Sung Ho Ji, President of NAUH
March 3rd, Friday: Korean International Studies Organization (KISO) on North Korean Human Rights
Time: 15:00 to 16:30
Location: Elliott School of International Affairs B12.
Now Action & Unity for Human rights (NAUH) is an NGO, found in April, 2010, that works hand-in-hand with youths from South Korea, North Korea, and overseas with the aim of improving the human rights conditions in North Korea and further working to achieve unification in the Korean Peninsula.
President of NAUH, Sung Ho Ji, is a North Korean defector and he will give a short lecture on the miseries in North Korea and the role of the current generation, the young adults of the present days, for the improvement of the human rights conditions in North Korea.
President of NAUH, Sung Ho Ji, is a North Korean defector and he will give a short lecture on the miseries in North Korea and the role of the current generation, the young adults of the present days, for the improvement of the human rights conditions in North Korea.
