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Yuchan Kim: Critique on Major Presidential Candidate’s Policy Against North Korea

April 19, 2017April 1, 2020OpinionsLeave a Comment

Critique on Major Presidential Candidate’s Policy Against North Korea

Yuchan Kim

For the first time in the history of constitutional government, the 18^th President, Park Geun-hye was officially impeached by the Constitutional Court on March 10^th, and the National Election Commission officially announced May 9^th as the 19^th Presidential election. With the impeachment as a lesson, many now recognize the importance of casting a ballot, and it is anticipated that the voting rate will be much higher than that of previous presidential elections. Each voter must compare policies of different presidential candidates and to take those into account when casting a ballot. There are various pledges and policies that each presidential candidate has promised; however, in this article, the policy against North Korea will be discussed extensively as this policy is closely associated with our national security.

First major presidential candidate as well as the forerunner of most of the polls, Moon Jae-in from the Minjoo’s Party, is likely to take on a warmer approach to North Korea. In an interview, he discussed about how visit to North Korea is his top priority[i]. Moreover, Moon emphasized that Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), which was closed-down in 2016 by former President Park Geun-hye, will be reopened, re-operated and further be expanded[ii]. He criticized how hardline policy, which is majorly centered around the sanction, did not solve any problem but caused North Korea to be more dependent on China. In regard to Moon’s pledge of how to deal with North Korea, it seems to be very redundant and unrealistic. First, visiting North Korea requires a legitimate reason that all nations, especially United States, can accept. Furthermore, in this midst of escalated tension, it is highly unrealistic for the top official of a nation that is an adversary to North Korea to safely visit Kim Jong-un. Also, fundamentally, if Kim Jong-un doesn’t want to hold a dialogue (Kim never had a summit with other nations), this visit can be cancelled right away. In regard to KIC, reopening and expanding it will once again bring criticism of investing in North Korea’s missile and nuclear technology; moreover, many enterprises will most likely not invest in KIC as it is prone to shut-down and is highly unstable. Granted, hardline policy was not sufficient in dealing with North Korea, but Moon has to provide more realistic measures.

Another leading candidate from the Minjoo Party, Ahn Hee-jung, emphasized how policy against North Korea must be a mixture of dialogue and pressure along with the international community[iii]. However, I highly doubt whether this policy can be implemented as I view these two elements being contrary to each other. If there is certain pressure, the possibility of holding a dialogue is very slim; moreover, Ahn Hee-jung has to legitimately persuade United Nations Security Council to withdraw or lessen the current level of sanction. Would Trump administration, which is very concerned about North Korea’s recent launch of ballistic missiles, accept this proposal? Highly not. Therefore, Ahn’s statement about incorporating both engagement and hardline policy seems just to gain support from both sides. He needs to cover more details about his policy.

Ahn Cheol-soo, another presidential candidate from People’s Party (third-largest) has emphasized dialogue along with multilateral talks[iv]. However, there has been a failed incident of multilateral talks such as Six Party Talks; furthermore, Ahn’s policy of increasing military spending and continuing THAAD deployment will surely discourage both North Korea and China from participating a multilateral talk with South Korea and United States[v]. Therefore, if Ahn wants to implement such policy, he needs to reconsider his position on military policy or needs to compromise (take other nations’ interests into account) with participating nations such as China.

To sum up, every candidate’s recommended policy against North Korea has an area of criticism; however, one thing that all candidates must seek is to prioritize our national security before they make any pledge; moreover, I, as the citizen of Republic of Korea, want to see sincere, realistic pledges rather than pledges that targets for mere popularity.

[i] Ahn, J. (2016, December 15). Leading ROK presidential candidate to visit N. Korea if elected. Retrieved April 04, 2017, from https://www.nknews.org/2016/12/leading-rok-presidential-hopeful-wants-to-visit-n-korea-if-elected/

[ii] Ji, D. (2017, February 10). Moon pledges major Kaesong Industrial Complex expansion if elected. Retrieved April 04, 2017, from https://www.nknews.org/2017/02/moon-pledges-major-kaesong-industrial-complex-expansion-if-elected

[iii] Fifield, A. (2017, March 04). Little-known governor runs as the hope and change candidate in South Korea. Retrieved April 04, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/little-known-governor-runs-as-the-hope-and-change-candidate-in-south-korea/2017/03/03/6d2b8e76-fe99-11e6-9b78-824ccab94435_story.html?utm_term=.b2ca406c948c

[iv] Presidential hopeful eyes multiple levels of dialogue with North Korea. (n.d.). Retrieved April 04, 2017, from http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2017/03/02/0301000000AEN20170302010700315.html

[v] People’s Party may soften stance on THAAD. (2017, February 21). Retrieved April 04, 2017, from http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/02/356_224410.html

Second Lecture Series – Yafeng Xia

April 12, 2017July 29, 2021Archived Events, News, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

Professor Yafeng Xia was invited as the second lecturer for the GW Institute for Korean Studies Lecture Series. This lecture attracted more than 70 people who are interested in the issues of Sino-North Korean relations. Yafeng Xia is currently a Professor of History at Long Island University in New York and Senior Research Fellow at Research Institute for Asian Neighborhood, East China Normal University in Shanghai. His lecture was about China’s policy towards North Korea during the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1969. He argues that despite the myth of the “brotherly affection” between China and North Korea, the relationship had reached its lowest ebb during the Cultural Revolution.

Yafeng Xia giving lecture next to projector in front of audience Yafeng Xia presenting to room full of audience

With the Cultural Revolution, China had radical and uncompromising policies both domestically and internationally. Chinese leaders accused North Korean leaders that they had become revisionists and the Red guards verbally attacked Kim Il Sung. North Korea also wasn’t shy with criticizing China’s leftist opportunism, dogmatism, and chauvinism. It was during that time when the economic and military aid that China was providing to North Korea was suspended, no high-levels visited mutually, and no cultural or economic agreements were signed. Though, he reemphasized the fact that both countries remained sensitive to the fragile relationship as China left North Korea alone from the Cultural Revolution and Kim Il-Sung never once criticized the Chinese leaders by name in public. There was also bilateral trade that continued between the two countries though limited.

With the examination of the historical relationship between the two countries during Cold War, Professor Xia provided three interpretations from different perspectives:

Geopolitical and ideological perspectives: During the Cold War, Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung maintained asymmetric alliance relations as a big power and a small power. Except for the period during the Cultural Revolution, Kim Il Sung visited China almost every year but Mao never set foot on North Korea. Nonetheless, Kim ensured North Korea’s political and diplomatic independence.
Cultural traditions and diplomacy perspectives: Post-WWII Sino-North Korean relations were in the process of transformation from a suzerain/vassal state to a modern state-to-state relationship. It was a struggle between China’s concept of a suzerain/vassal state relationship and North Korea’s Juche ideology and resistance to flunkeyism.
Code of conduct and political norms perspectives: The Sino-North Korean alliance demonstrated the structural drawbacks of relations among socialist states. Politically, China, “the big brother of this socialist family”, believed that it had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of “other members of the socialist family”, North Korea. On the other hand, the “younger brother”, North Korea, could be capricious and act shamelessly, while the “big brother”, China, endured the humiliation in order to carry out the common mission.

The lecture ended successfully with a high participation and vigorous questions. This event brought a lot of interest as the Sino-North Korean relationship is a subject that is not as commonly studied. We thank Professor Xia for taking his time to share his studies with the GW students, GW faculty members, and other scholars in DC.

Written by Ann Yang

“The Emotions of Justice” received James B. Palais Prize

March 8, 2017April 1, 2020NewsLeave a Comment

We are proud to announce that Director of GWIKS, Professor Jisoo Kim, received the James B. Palais Prize for 2017 for her book “The Emotions of Justice”.

“The Emotions of Justice”

The Choson state (1392-1910) is typically portrayed as a rigid society because of its hereditary status system, slavery, and Confucian gender norms. However, The Emotions of Justice reveals a surprisingly complex picture of a judicial system that operated in a contradictory fashion by discriminating against subjects while simultaneously minimizing such discrimination. Jisoo Kim contends that the state’s recognition of won, or the sense of being wronged, permitted subjects of different genders or statuses to interact in the legal realm and in doing so illuminates the intersection of law, emotions, and gender in premodern Korea.

For more information, click here.

The James B. Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies is given annually to an outstanding scholar of Korean studies from any discipline or country specialization to recognize distinguished scholarly work on Korea.

First Soh Jaipil Circle – Dr. Daniel Roh

February 21, 2017July 29, 2021Archived Events, News, Soh Jaipil Circle on Contemporary Korean AffairsLeave a Comment

GWIKS held its first Soh Jaipil Circle, a meeting to bring professionals together from the academic and think tank communities to engage in conversations related to Korean issues, on February 16th, 2017 at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies conference room. For our first meeting, we had the honor of having Dr. Daniel Roh, president and CEO of Asia Risk Monitor, Inc., as our first speaker. With his work and study experience in Hong Kong, China, Japan, and Korea, he is an expert in East Asian relations. He received his Ph.D. degree in the field of comparative political economy as a specialist in Japanese studies at MIT. In recent years, he has been interested in historical conflicts between Japan and Korea. As the current political turmoil between Japan and Korea heightens, his main talk explored the prospects of reconciliation between the two countries. He explained the history of main conflicts between Japan and Korea: Dokdo/Takeshima, comfort women, and post-war tensions. He shared his interesting prospects about the current issues between Japan and Korea to 30+ professors and students who gathered for the Soh Jaipil Circle meeting.

Written by Ann Yang

GWIKS Officially Launched and Running!

January 23, 2017April 1, 2020NewsLeave a Comment

With the start of a new year, GW officially launched the Institute for Korean Studies, thanks to the generosity of the Academy of Korean Studies. The Inaugural Ceremony was held on the 12th of January at the Elliott School of International Affairs. The George Washington University Emeritus Professor and GWIKS Senior Advisor Young-Key Kim-Renaud organized the all-day Inaugural Ceremony and Conference by securing funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities grant. Thanks to the support of Language Translation Institute of Korea, The Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the USA, Korea Foundation, and The Korean Literary Society of Washington, the event was held successfully. There were more than a hundred participants, far beyond the room capacity that joined to celebrate the establishment of GWIKS.

At the Inaugural Ceremony, special remarks were given by:

GW President, Steven Knapp;
Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, Ahn Ho-Young;
President of the Academy of KoreanStudies, Ki-Dong Lee;
Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, William D. Adams;
President of the Korea Foundation, Sihyung Lee;
President of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Seong-Kon Kim;
Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, Reuben E. Brigety;
Dean of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Ben Vinson III;
Senior Associate Provost for GW International Strategy, Douglas B. Shaw;
Senior Advisor of the Institute for Korean Studies, Young-Key Kim-Renaud;
Director of Institute for Korean Studies, Jisoo Kim;
Interim Director of Institute for Korean Studies, Gregg A. Brazinsky.

The remarks by President of the Academy of Korean Studies, Ki-Dong Lee; President of the Korea Foundation, Sihyung Lee; the Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, Reuben E. Brigety were read by proxy, by R. Richard Grinker, Seayoun Lee, and Edward McCord respectively.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony followed the special remarks, which officially indicated the opening of the brand new Institute for Korean Studies at GW.

In the afternoon there was an Inaugural Conference on Korean literature that met under the title, “Korean humanities and the Korean diaspora. Several well-known Korean scholars spoke at the conference, as listed below:

First Panel

Wiebke Denecke, “Towards Comparative Studies of the Sinographic Sphere: The Poetics of Literary Beginnings in Korea and Japan”
Young-Key Kim-Renaud, “Yongbiŏch’ŏn ka and the Korean Humanities”
Sookja Cho, “Rhapsody for Humanity: Expanding Self and Space in the Borderlands of Seventeenth-Century Korean War Narratives”
Michael J. Pettid, “Writing Women in Pre-modern Korea”
Grace Koh, Commentary

Second Panel

We Jung Yi, “Writing between Worlds: Choi In-hun and Alternative Globalities in Korean Literature”
Christopher P. Hanscom, “The Return of the Real in Contemporary South Korean Fiction”
Seong-Kon Kim, “The Spiritual Exile and (Post) Diasporic Identities of Korean American and Korean Writers: Don Lee and Han Kang”
Moon Chung-hee, “The Future of the Korean Diaspora”
James H. Mattson, Commentary

GWIKS thanks everyone who took their time to participate in the event to celebrate the opening of GWIKS with us! Big thanks to all the supporters for a successful event.

Link to GW Today News

Written by Ann Yang