Category Archives: Korea

Dartmouth professor David C. Kang suggests a new tack in U.S. policy toward Korea in today’s Washington Post.

The United States can improve its position in East Asia, as well as solidify its alliance with South Korea, by widening its focus beyond North Korean denuclearization and coming out strongly and enthusiastically in favor of Korean unification. Although the United States rhetorically supports unification, it has been noticeably passive in pursuing policy to that end.

Such a policy shift would achieve many U.S. goals and would strengthen our alliance with South Korea in the process.

First and foremost, denuclearization is far more likely to occur with a change in North Korea’s regime and a resolution to the Korean War than it is without resolving that larger issue. Until now the United States has put denuclearization first, without making much progress. Folding the nuclear issue into the larger issue would provide far more leverage on both questions and potentially create new or broader areas for progress.

Second, such a policy would provide grounds for agreement between U.S. and South Korean policymakers from which they could cooperate and work together, rather than against each other. Exploring the best path toward unification will require both economic and military changes in the North — changes that will provide the United States with more flexibility to rebalance its own forces in the region.

Finally, it would put the United States in a solid position to retain goodwill and influence in Korea after unification — something that is far from ensured today, when many South Koreans are skeptical about U.S. attitudes and policies toward the region. If the United States is seen as a major source of help for unification, it is far more likely that the post-unification orientation of Korea will be favorable to Washington.

This would be a major policy change for the United States, but given the importance of the region and of the Korean Peninsula, it is the best path to follow.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard younger South Koreans imply–not very subtly–that the U.S. and Japan are the principal obstacles to Korean unification. Those two enemy countries just want to keep Korea divided to weaken it. Otherwise Korea would clearly dominate northeast Asia. In contrast, the addled leadership of the bankrupt brother state to the north strongly supports unification–on its own terms, of course.

I suppose Kang’s suggestion wouldn’t hurt. Talk is cheap, after all, although you wouldn’t know it from the incredible verbal parsimony of the Bush administration. But what concrete measures should follow from this policy headfake? The U.S. is also officially in favor of a unified China, but not a violently unified one.

Perhaps South Koreans, too, need to consider more fully the “post-unification orientation” of their suffering compatriots trapped in the time-frozen north.

Over the past couple decades, Wontack Hong, a professor of economics at Seoul National University, has been slowly building, revising, and strengthening a case for heavy migration from the Korean Peninsula into the Japanese Archipelago during what is now known as the Yayoi period. Hong further contends that the earliest rulers of Yamato came from the Peninsula. (I’m trying carefully to avoid using the misleading modern terms ‘Korean’ and ‘Japanese’ for peoples of that era.)

When I first became aware of his work, about a decade ago, I wondered whether it would achieve academic respectability among archeologists and historians. Of course, Hong’s thesis remains very controversial, but his efforts seem now to be taken seriously by reputable specialists in the early prehistory of the Peninsula and the Archipelago. Such specialists include University of Denver archaeologist Sarah M. Nelson, Wesleyan University art historian Jonathan Best, and University of Hawai‘i linguist Leon Serafim, who have reviewed Hong’s earlier books, Relationship between Korea and Japan in Early Period: Paekche and Yamato Wa (1988) and Paekche of Korea and the Origin of Yamato Japan (1994). However, Hong does quote with evident pride an assessment by Gari Ledyard, King Sejong Professor of Korean Studies Emeritus at Columbia University: “Wontack Hong writes outside the community of Korean historians of Korea.”

Now, Prof. Hong has a new book in the works. A Korean version (古代韓日關係史: 百濟倭) appeared in 2003, and an English version appears to be close to ready for publication. The latter is entitled “Korea and Japan in East Asian History: Paekche of the Korean Peninsula and the Origin of the Yamato Kingdom in the Japanese Islands.” Here are few snippets from its foreword and introduction.

From the Foreword:

About 400 BC, mountain glaciers started to re-advance, with cooler conditions persisting until 300 AD. The beginning of a Little Ice Age coincides with the great Celtic migrations in the west end of the Eurasian continent and the Warring States period in the east end. In 390 BC, the fierce Celtic warriors known as Gauls had besieged Rome itself. The Little Ice Age produced the heyday of the Roman Empire located in the warm Mediterranean zone and the Han Empire in mainland China. There followed a drought period of maximum intensity in the Mediterranean, North Africa and far to the east into Asia around 300-400 AD. The period of 300-400 AD coincides with the great Germanic folk migrations in the west end and the Five Barbarians and Sixteen States period in the east end.

The migration of rice farmers from the southern Korean peninsula into the Japanese islands and the commencement of the Yayoi period (ca. 300 BC-300 AD) had coincided with the beginning of a Little Ice Age. I contend that the conquest of the Japanese islands and establishment of the Yamato kingdom by the Paekche people from the Korean peninsula occurred some time between 300-400 AD. That is, the commencement of the Tomb Period (ca. 300-700 AD) on the Japanese islands by the people from the Korean peninsula coincides with a global drought period of maximum intensity.

From the Introduction:

The Paleolithic Ainu in the Japanese archipelago were bound to encounter the Malayo-Polynesians arriving through the sea route of Philippines-Taiwan-Ryukyu islands, giving rise together to the Neolithic Jōmon culture of hunting-fishing-gathering (ca. 10,000-300 BC). They were joined eventually by the people coming from the Korean peninsula, all of them together commencing the Bronze-Iron Yayoi era of rice cultivation (ca. 300 BC-300 AD).

The early history of the Japanese islands reveals some conspicuous parallels with that of the British Isles at the other end of the Eurasian continent. During the 600-year Yayoi period, Korean influences penetrated to the Japanese islands as visibly as the influences of the Anglo-Saxon on Celtic Britain and, during the next 400-year Tomb period of 300-700 AD, changes came as swiftly and strongly as the Norman Conquest of England. Then the parallel with the British Isles fades away. The Korean influences on the Japanese islands petered out thereafter, resulting in a brief period of active importation of Tang Chinese culture by the Yamato court followed by a prolonged period of isolation, producing a fairly unique indigenous culture through internal evolution. As a cultural periphery in an anthropological context, old outmoded habits and institutions have been tenaciously preserved in the Japanese islands, a spectacular example of which is, as Reischauer (1973: 325) states, “the survival of the imperial family as the theoretical source of all political authority for a millennium after it had lost all real political power.”

The river crossing didn’t take long, two minutes, perhaps, of running across the ice with as little noise as possible. I still remember clearly the mix of emotions I felt just then. There was certainly fear–of getting caught and of what awaited me on the other side–but I also felt sadness. I was abandoning something indefinable that was reproaching me for leaving. … Those two or three minutes on the ice were like an eternity.

Though the area was supposed to be under surveillance, we didn’t see a single guard. Running across the border today is even easier: many more people are at the starting line, and the guards are more lax than ever. Just give them some money or a good pack of cigarettes and they’ll let you pass. Back in 1992, if they saw a fugitive, they would cry “Halt,” then start firing.

We arrived at our guide’s house tired and out of breath. We found him dressed in South Korean-made jacket and pants, which must have cost the equivalent of a North Korean worker’s monthly wages. He was a man bubbling over with plans, the first of which was to move to South Korea as soon as he had enough money saved up. “Going from the North directly to the South is impossible,” he said with effect, trying to bait us. But we weren’t going for it. We had taken the precaution of not telling him we were wanted by the authorities. While he was happy to help people make little “business” trips into China, he had no interest in running seriously afoul of the law. To help ensure he kept quiet about our crossing, I gave him a handsome wad of cash [sent by relatives in Japan], for which he was also supposed to find us a truck to Yonji–or Yongil, as we say in Korea–the capital of China’s autonomous Korean region. As we sat chatting that first night, we heard some astonishing things from our guide. We learned, for example, that he was actually a member of the Chinese Communist Party. It was totally baffling. Korean Communists were hard, austere ideologues–or at least tried to act that way–and here was this Chinese Communist proudly flaunting his wealth!

The next evening’s meal was as ample as the first. The guide’s wife claimed it was just the usual fare, but what was ordinary to them was gargantuan to me: there were many different dishes, and several had meat! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt as if I’d been invited to a feast for Party cadres. In the North, alcohol is very expensive; an average bottle sells for 10 won, one-tenth of a worker’s monthly wages. The most popular spirit, pai jou (white alcohol), comes from China. It costs 60 won a bottle and is usually reserved for special occasions. Here it was being poured into our glasses as an ordinary accompaniment to an improvised meal! … China was like paradise, and I began to sense the huge gulf separating the universe as I knew it and the world as it might actually be.

There were more surprises to come. After dinner, our host suggested we walk to a nightclub in the neighboring village. We accepted the invitation–though I couldn’t help thinking, Don’t these people go to work? It was nearing midnight, and we were only now stepping out! Finally, I worked up the courage to ask, “Don’t you have to wake up early tomorrow?” His answer left me stunned: it was “up in the air!” His next observation, though, is the one that really did me in. “In any case,” he said, “the important thing isn’t work; it’s to enjoy life.” I was speechless.

SOURCE: The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, by Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, translated by Yair Reiner (Basic Books, 2001), pp. 197-198

South Korean scholars are finally beginning to re-evaluate the sharp dichotomy between “collaborators” and “nationalists” in their narratives of the Japanese colonial period, according to an article entitled “War and the Colonial Legacy in Recent South Korean Scholarship” by Kyu Hyun Kim in IIAS Newsletter no. 38.

In the mainstream Korean narrative of the wartime period (1941-1945, or more accurately 1937-1945, dated from the outbreak of the continental war against China), Koreans are relegated to the position of victims. It was during this period that Japanese exploitation of Korean socio-economic resources, both material and human, reached its height. It was also during this period, according to most Korean scholars, that the Japanese colonizers tried to eradicate Korean culture by forcing Koreans to worship at Shinto shrines, by banning the Korean language from official use and designating Japanese as the ‘national language’ (kokugo), and by adapting Korean family lineages into the Japanese household system, compelling the latter to choose Japanese-style names. Koreans have come to refer to this set of policies, promoted under the ideological campaign of naisen ittai 内鮮一体 (Japan and Korea as One) as ‘ethnocidal policies’ (minjok malsal chôngch’aek 民族抹殺政策) through which the Japanese colonizers sought to eradicate Korean identity altogether, absorbing it into the ontological category of the Japanese imperial subject (kôkoku shinmin).

The wartime period was characterized as a pitch-black vacuum (amhûggi 暗黒期, the ‘era of darkness’) in which only certain elite members, the ‘pro-Japanese’ traitors (ch’inilp’a 親日派), were allowed to profit and flourish at the expense of the majority of Koreans. However, this characterization of the wartime period has also suppressed frank, open-minded investigation of the actual circumstances involving Japanese colonialism’s infiltration into Korean culture and society. Studying the colonial-period ‘collaboration’ between Japanese and Koreans was anathema for many years, especially under the dictatorial regimes of Syngman Rhee (1946-1960) and Park Chung-hee (1961-1979). Indeed, President Park, who seized presidential power through a military coup d’etat, was a direct progeny of Japanese wartime militarism, a graduate of the Manchurian Military Academy.

Democratization and rehabilitation of the South Korean public sphere in the late 1980s and early 1990s, following monumental protest and resistance against Park’s junta successors, finally opened the space to examine the collaborationist activities of the Korean colonial elite. ‘Progressive’ scholars and critics, riding the surf of democratization and liberalization and embracing hitherto-forbidden Marxist and radical-populist perspectives, challenged the whitewashing and exposed the lacunae found in historiography, literary collections and the biographical data of ‘collaborators’. Scholars excavated shrill pronouncements written by prominent writers, intellectuals, educators and government leaders of post-liberation South Korea, inculcating Korean youth to throw away their lives for the glory of the Japanese empire, or fictional works enveloped in a sheen of patriotic fervor and serene acceptance of the Holy War, looking to a future when Japan would emerge triumphant in the titanic struggle against the venal white races.

By the mid-1990s, this newfound freedom in exposing the past sins of the fathers and the scholarship it engendered moved into a new phase. While the democratically elected regimes of Kim Dae-jung (1997-2002) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003-present) have continued to struggle with ‘the dark legacy’ of the colonial period, South Korean scholars, now relatively unencumbered by the desire to subordinate such reflections to the political objective of overthrowing military dictatorship, have begun a long and arduous process of parsing through the legacy of the colonial period, engaging in long-overdue reflection on the possibility of post-colonial identity for Koreans.

via Hunjangûi karûch’im