Cosmopolitanism nationalism and the heritage of shame: comfort women memorials and the legacy of slavery in the United States

During World War II the Japanese military used approximately 200,000 women, mainly Koreans, as bonded workers they euphemistically labeled, ‘comfort women’. Since 2010, six memorial sites dedicated to the suffering of these women have been built in the United States. Campaigns for these memorials have been led by Korean-Americans, reflecting the importance this issue has in South Korea and within the Korean Diaspora. While a growing body of research has examined the political, social, and gender ramifications of the ‘Comfort Women’ issue in South Korea and on Korean-Japanese relations, less attention has been given to the transnational aspects of this memorializing campaign. What is the purpose of these memorials in the United States? How might visitors to such sites remember and memorialize trauma they know little about and which occurred far away? And how do these memorial sites dedicated to such distant trauma contrast with the absence of memorials for events much closer at hand, such as the historical realities of slavery? I examine these questions through an analysis of a ‘Comfort Women’s Memorial Peace Garden’ dedicated at the Fairfax County (Virginia) Government Center in May, 2014.     

The China factor in the US–South Korea alliance: the perceived usefulness of China in the Korean Peninsula

Over the past 10 years, South Korea has chosen inconsistent strategies with respect to the US–South Korea alliance. On the one hand, Seoul disagreed with Washington about the extended role of United States Forces Korea and the deployment of US missile defence systems in East Asia. On the other hand, these problems ironically coincided with South Korea's strong support for the USA in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. What explains the inconsistency of South Korea's alliance policies? Major schools of thought in international relations have offered explanations, but their analyses are deficient and indeterminate. This article looks at the South Korea–China–North Korea triangle as a new approach to explaining the puzzling behaviour of South Korea. The model shows that South Korea's alliance policies are driven by two causal variables. First, North Korea is an impelling force for South Korea to remain as a strong US alliance partner. This encourages Seoul to maintain cooperation with Washington in wide-ranging alliance tasks. Second, South Korea's policies are likely to reflect the way the nation perceives how useful China is in taming North Korea. The perceived usefulness of China causes Seoul to accommodate China and decrease cooperation with the USA. This might strain the relationship with the USA should South Korea evade alliance missions that might run contrary to China's security interests.     

Outstanding issues in bilateral economic relations between Australia and South Korea

This article examines and analyses the main issues in the current bilateral economic relations between Australia and South Korea, particularly focusing on the Korean perspective. Above all, the trade imbalance continuously favouring Australia has been an issue of great concern on the part of South Korea. Australia and South Korea have shown disagreement over the lopsided trade issue, regarding attitude, approach and standpoint in addressing it. While the Korean side broadly converges on the view that the bilateral trade imbalance needs to be redressed, there are four differing viewpoints on explaining the lopsided bilateral trade: (i) the Korean government's view; (ii) the Korean business sector's view; (iii) the relevance of culture; (iv) Korea's favourable perception of Australia. This paper seeks to answer an important question in the context of the two nations' economic/trade relationship: why South Korea has ever engaged with Australia on good terms, albeit with disadvantageous trade relations. In this case, the nexus of economics and politico‐security is largely in action. That is, on one plane, South Korea is ranked as an important trading partner and a major export market of Australia. On another plane, South Korea politically needs strong allies like Australia which can give an unswerving support for it in both the regional and international arenas.     

Domestic events,ideological changes and the post-cold war US–South Korea alliance

How can we account for the weakening of the US–South Korea alliance after the cold war? After the cold war, the US–South Korea alliance was expected to remain strong due to North Korea's threats of weapons of mass destruction. For the past decade and a half, this realist projection has not fully come to pass: rather, it has changed inversely. How can we account for this puzzle? In explaining this counter-intuitive development, the author employs the critical juncture approach. The author argues that in South Korea, certain domestic critical events readjusted domestic ideologies that affected its alliance policy towards the USA. With the initiation of Nordpolitik after the end of the cold war (the first critical juncture), conservative anti-communism and progressive nationalism became coexistent in South Korea, thus causing frictional policy towards the USA. The 2000 North–South Korean Summit (the second critical juncture) made the progressive nationalistic move more dominant in Korea, and this ideological change made its alliance policy towards the USA less friendly.     

Co-evolution of networks and discourses: a case from North Korean defector-activists

This article uses an eclectic approach of network and discourse analyses to examine symbiotic relations between the formation of professional networks and the constitution of normative discourses in international affairs. Based on more than 2000 English and Korean mixed materials about the five most-mentioned North Korean defector-activists in the media in 1998–2015, and assisted by a computer-based content analysis tool, the author demonstrates how each of those five defector-activists has employed their endogenous identities to join the system of international human rights activism and offered legitimate narratives for the campaigns against North Korea, while forming transnational networks in South Korea, the USA and the UK. She argues that individuals’ endogenous identities and agency are critical for shaping normative discourses in international human rights activism against North Korea in the first instance, which then grow exponentially through transnational networks formed by individuals.     

Explaining North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions: Power and Position on the Korean Peninsula

The USA has long called for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea. But is this a realistic policy option? In order to address this question, a broader question needs to be answered: What are the primary drivers of North Korea’s interest in nuclear weapons? Most answers to this question take one of two basic positions. ‘Doves’, on the one hand, see North Korea developing nuclear weapons because of the threatening foreign policies of the USA and South Korea. ‘Hawks’, on the other hand, see North Korean nuclear development as driven by factors internal to the North Korean regime, inherent in its personality. The author examines these two arguments against the evidence and finds them both wanting. In contrast, he puts forth an alternative argument focused on the power of the global hegemon, the USA, and its position on the Korean Peninsula. This power and positional alternative is shown to be better reflected in the evidence presented.     

Enter the ‘Far East’: Korean culture in early South Korea–Israel relations

Diplomatic relations between South Korea and Israel were formed only in 1962. Furthermore, as the two countries from both ends of the continent cooperated in various areas during the 1960s and 1970s, relations were becoming more complicated and even officially rather cool in light of Korea’s evolving relations with the Arab world. Against this backdrop, and based on the reading of contemporaneous Israeli press, the study argues that culture mattered very much in the early stages of the relations. Cultural contacts between Koreans and Israelis started well before the establishment of full diplomatic relations, and cultural diplomacy played a significant role in maintaining them in the decades that followed. Like today, both parties often emphasized the cultural and historical affinities between the two peoples, and in the process, the Israeli public was exposed to early glimpses into Korean culture while images of Korea and its people were created as well.     

North Korea and Zimbabwe, 1978–1982: from the strategic alliance to the symbolic comradeship between Kim Il Sung and Robert Mugabe

This article provides an explanation for North Korea-Zimbabwe bilateral relations from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, in the context of Cold War in the Third World. Supporting the military resistance of African nations, North Korea sought to gain its dominance over South Korea in the diplomatic war between the two Koreas. North Korea contributed to the liberation of Zimbabwe and helped Robert Mugabe establish his political foundations in the country. However, North Korea’s political gain from Zimbabwe was less than it expected and hence did not make any significant changes in its competition with South Korea.     

Remembering and forgetting 1974: the 2011 Brisbane floods and memories of an earlier disaster

The city of Brisbane, capital of the Australian state of Queensland, sits on a floodplain and has been struck by two devastating flood disasters in the last 50 years. This article contributes to the growing literature on disaster memory by tracing memories of a flood in 1974 as they were constructed and re‐enacted in a more recent disaster in 2011. The article examines how disaster memories shape local identities and considers how such memories influence policy and local knowledge, doing so by reference to an analysis of three forms of memory media—personal narratives, news media reporting, and built memorials. At times, memories of 1974 enabled Brisbane residents to prepare for an oncoming flood and to understand the scope of the 2011 event. Yet other memories produced a form of forgetting by positioning the earlier flood as a successfully navigated event now safely contained in the past. Findings from the analysis thus point to the importance of understanding memories of past disasters as a critical element of disaster planning and management.     

Remembering the Sea: Personal and Communal Recollections of Maritime Life in Jizan and the Farasan Islands,Saudi Arabia

People create narratives of their maritime past through the remembering and forgetting of seafaring experiences, and through the retention and disposal of maritime artefacts that function mnemonically to evoke or suppress those experiences. The sustenance and reproduction of the resulting narratives depends further on effective media of intergenerational transmission; otherwise, they are lost. Rapid socio-economic transformation across Saudi Arabia in the age of oil has disrupted longstanding seafaring economies in the Red Sea archipelago of the Farasan Islands, and the nearby mainland port of Jizan. Vestiges of wooden boatbuilding activity are few; long-distance dhow trade with South Asia, the Arabian-Persian Gulf and East Africa has ceased; and a once substantial pearling and nacre (mother of pearl) collection industry has dwindled to a tiny group of hobbyists: no youth dive today. This widespread withdrawal from seafaring activity among many people in these formerly maritime-oriented communities has diminished the salience of such activity in cultural memory, and has set in motion narrative creation processes, through which memories are filtered and selected, and objects preserved, discarded, or lost. This paper is a product of the encounter of the authors with keepers of maritime memories and objects in the Farasan Islands and Jizan. An older generation of men recall memories of their experiences as boat builders, captains, seafarers, pearl divers and fishermen. Their recounted memories are inscribed, and Arabic seafaring terms recorded. The extent of the retention of maritime material cultural items as memorials is also assessed, and the rôle of individual, communal and state actors in that retention is considered. Through this reflection, it becomes clear that the extra-biological memory and archive of the region’s maritime past is sparse; that intergenerational transmission is failing; that the participation of state agencies in maritime heritage creation is highly limited; and that, as a result, memories current among the older generation have limited prospect of survival. These memories, recorded and interpreted here, identify the Farasan Islands as a former centre of the pearling industry in the Red Sea, and identify them and Jizan as open to far-reaching maritime-mediated cultural influences in an era before the imposition of the attributes of the modern nation-state.     

Seeking a Sense of Belonging: The Exclusion of Female Doctorate Holders in South Korea and the US

Despite the vast literature on East Asian international students in higher education during the current era of globalization, few studies examine how the international migration of doctorate holders is gendered. The migration and career choices of Korean women who hold doctorates from American universities, we argue, are shaped by geographical imaginations based on the political connections between South Korea and the US and their personal experiences from their home and host countries. The notion of the US as an ally of South Korea and the hegemony of US higher education in Korean academia have led Korean women to pursue doctorates in the United States. Yet, the Korean women who participated in this study revealed that earning a doctorate from a world-class university did not necessarily bring them greater mobility. Whether the interviewees returned to Korea or not, they found themselves situated within the hierarchy of gendered power relations and excluded from everyday practices such as decision-making both at home and at work. Consequently, they attempted to build a sense of belonging at various geographic scales. This study found that Korean women scholars’ migration and career choices were the multi-layered outcome of gendered power relations within the family, political connections between the two countries, and cultural values of their home and host countries.     

Neo‐Colonialism in South–South Relations? The Case of China and North Korea

The past decade has seen the rapid expansion of economic ties between China and North Korea, leading to questions of whether this emerging relationship resembles neo‐colonialism or a more positive form of South–South cooperation. This article argues that China's engagement is driven in the first instance by strategic considerations, namely the maintenance of the geopolitical status quo on the Korean peninsula. However, North Korea has also become increasingly important in terms of Beijing's aims of revitalizing its north‐eastern region, and as such, economic relations are becoming increasingly market‐led. Although this mode of engagement bears similarities with China's engagement elsewhere in the developing world, North Korea's catastrophic economic decline in the 1990s largely preceded the more recent revival of relations with China. We argue therefore that bilateral relations between the two countries cannot usefully be regarded as ‘neo‐colonial’ since North Korea is receiving much needed trade and investment from China within the context of broader international isolation. As such, we suggest that more attention needs to be paid to how geopolitical specificities influence the manner in which South–South cooperation shapes the possibilities of development, and that the dichotomous terrain of the existing debate between optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints is unhelpful.     

韩中建交后韩国华侨社会地位变化考察

采用定量分析的方法,对在韩华侨人数变化的趋势、有关在韩华侨研究的概况进行了分析;从政府对华侨的关注及政策的改进、韩中民间经济贸易关系加速、韩国华侨扩大对外交流的努力、华侨学校的再兴等方面阐述了韩中建交后韩国华侨社会的变化;并从政治、经济、社会、文化等层面对韩国华侨地位加以评估。结论是,由于韩国政府对外国人政策的变化,中国人在韩国的影响力日趋显著;受教育、人才等因素的影响,在韩华侨在韩国的地位并无明显改善;随着新华侨影响幅度的加强,在韩华侨社会有很大的发展前景;韩国政府对于外国人的政策已有相应程度的改善,包容多种文化的政治态度应予以肯定。     

Roadside Memorials: Interpreting New Deathscapes in Newcastle,New South Wales

Over recent years, roadside memorials to commemorate people killed in motor vehicle accidents have become increasingly noticeable in parts of the Australian landscape. In Newcastle, New South Wales, roadside memorials are placed for young people. The age/gender group most at risk of road death, and those most memorialised, are young men. This is linked to spatially specific constructions of masculinity which circulate within youth milieux of Newcastle. Like other memorials and monuments these ‘deathscapes’ have multiple meanings, differing between those who build, maintain and interpret them. They function as conservative memorials of youth machismo; of heroic aggression, disregard for safety and egocentrism. Roadside memorials need to be re-read as symbolic of societal flaws; of a wasteful road toll, and a testament to dominant and problematic strains of masculinity.     

Coming to Terms with the Stasi: History and Memory in the Bautzen Memorial

This paper examines the role played by the encounter of history and personal memories in the difficult process of coming to terms with the Stasi in present-day eastern Germany. While historians have made substantial progress over the last two decades in accounting for the wide range of ways in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is remembered by East Germans, the memorials and museums of the reunified Germany remain unable to integrate memories of dictatorial oppression and happiness in everyday life. Sites commemorating state repression are thus often assumed to lack impact on former GDR citizens whose memories differ from official versions of history. These assumptions are tested for the Bautzen Memorial, formerly known as the ‘celebrities’ prison' of the East German Ministry of State Security. Focusing on the differing receptions of GDR memorial sites, this article draws on interviews with two former political prisoners and with visitors to the Memorial who grew up in socialist East Germany. It argues that the open approach of the Memorial, which leaves visitors to draw their own conclusions from the exhibition, allows different stakeholders to find ways of personal engagement with the past at the site despite the disparities with their own memories.     

东北亚地缘政治特点与中韩经贸合作趋势

本文在简述亚太及东北亚地区战略格局的基础上,分析了东北亚地区的地缘政治的两个特点,探讨评价了中韩两国经贸合作的基础、原因,取得的成绩以及存在的不足,指出了两国今后经贸合作的趋势与方向。     

中韩国际婚姻的跨国家庭纽带研究——以汉族婚姻移民女性为中心

论文以22名嫁韩中国女性为对象,从跨国主义的视角分析她们在韩的婚姻现状、与原生家庭间的跨国联系及这种联系的性质和意义。研究发现,这些女性绝大多数来自中国东北三省和山东沿海地区;中介婚姻占近70%,且与丈夫的年龄差距普遍较大;再婚者占较大比例。其中,60%与韩国丈夫育有子女,已在韩国生活多年,并从事各种非专业化工作。这些女性通过汇款寄物,信息通讯交流,回国探亲,邀请家人来韩等一系列方式维持着跨国家庭纽带。而她们的中国家人也为其提供育儿、家政以及精神抚慰等多方面的支持。通过跨国家庭纽带,汉族女性与原生家庭成员之间实现的是一种灵活变动着的"跨国看护",双方是互惠互利的。     

North Korea's diplomacy to engage the United States

For the past two decades relations between North Korea and the United States have become increasingly hostile. Pervasive and vociferous criticism of North Korea's dangerous and seemingly irrational behaviour has focused on Pyongyang's use of nuclear brinkmanship, violations of human rights and general disregard for the well-being of the North Korean people, as exemplified by its decision to develop a nuclear programme while the country suffered from widespread famine. However, an alternate view put forth by both American and South Korean experts on North Korea holds that Pyongyang's use of the nuclear wager primarily has been intended to demand Washington's attention in order to initiate bilateral talks and eventually normalise relations with the US. Certainly, Pyongyang's actions have been ham-fisted at times; however, its commitment to the goal of normalisation has been unwavering. The current controversy regarding North Korea's nuclear programme may serve as a necessary step to build trust between Washington and Pyongyang and might continue for sometime, given the short history of direct engagement. However, one thing is clear: neither Washington nor Pyongyang can afford to go back to the starting point.     

Restructuring the US-South Korea alliance to deal with the second Korean nuclear crisis

As the US-South Korea alliance faces the second Korean nuclear crisis, Seoul and Washington no longer share a common unifying threat perception of North Korea. This divide has allowed North Korea to advance its interests by playing a 'South Korea card' against the United States in the nuclear standoff. The divide is not a transient problem that can be ignored or addressed with ad hoc fixes but a secular phenomenon rooted in South Korea's growing wealth and deepening democracy. What is needed now is more distance in the alliance. The alliance must be restructured to reflect the reality that South Korea can defend itself against North Korea without the help of the United States. For both Seoul and Washington, the restructured alliance would produce a more complete and robust set of options to advance their respective North Korea policies.     

论罗唐战争的性质及其双方的交往

本文利用中韩现存史料以及新发现的金石墓志资料,探讨了罗唐战争期间(669—676)、战后双方的交往,交往的性质,中韩学界对其的评议等问题。认为战争的终结是在新罗积极抵抗,唐朝军事目标转移及罗唐双方通过交涉前提下达成的一种妥协,应该说双方没有严格意义上的胜者或败者,但双方都达到了预期的目的。