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- [Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age] published
- The first memory of and the definition work on the May 18 Democratization Movement! "In this splendid season, great citizens have changed the world" (Hwang Sok-yong) An underground bestseller 32 years ago—now, we remember May 18 openly and proudly The courage involved in and the truth of the May 18 Democratization Movement, which inspired struggles for freedom and justice worldwide Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age shocked the entire nation thirsting for the truth behind May 18 upon the publication of the first edition in 1985 and became an underground bestseller, to be read by countless people bated breath. Now, 32 years later, a completely revised edition has been published. The first systematic record of the May 18 Democratization Movement, Beyond Death, Beyond the Darkness of the Age strives not only to reflect wholly the perspectives and testimonies of citizens of Gwangju who took part in the resistance movement but also, in this full-fledged revision, to elucidate the historical and legal nature of the incident by including the contents of the military operation of the martial law troops leading to massacres starting on May 18 and the results of May 18-related trials that have been disclosed so far. In addition, the volume endeavors to describe the resistance in a multifaceted and objective manner through the testimonies of and reports by journalists both at home and abroad who covered the resistance on site at the time as well as the participants in the movement themselves. Begun in secret immediately after the incident in 1980 in order to escape the South Korean government's rigorous surveillance, the collection of materials and coverage regarding the struggle constituted a collective task where all those involved had to take considerable risks. Published under such restrictive conditions, the first edition of this work was only 320-pages-long. On the contrary, the revised edition published now summarizes vast additional materials based on investigations and research to date leading from public hearings and trials on May 18 and the legislation of the Special Act on the May Democratization Movement, Etc., thus amounting to over 600 pages, nearly twice the original edition. If the first edition published 32 years ago aimed at publicizing the truth of the struggle, distorted as "armed riots by insurgents" at the time, this revised edition has been prepared to resist the fabrications and disparagement of the truth of the movement and the participants, which have became increasingly blatant since the instatement of conservative administrations in 2008. Just as the first edition served to trigger the June Struggle of 1987 by exposing the Chun Doo-hwan regime's illegality and violence, the revision will become a foundation for setting contemporary South Korean history right and becoming a country of peace and human rights against the distortion of history that has been committed by ultra-right reactionary forces since the impeachment of the Park Geun-hye administration.
- [The Changbi Children's Library Series celebrated its 40th anniversary]
- Changbi books for children celebrate the 40th anniversary Begun in 1977, Changbi's publications for children celebrate the 40th anniversary this year. This is no small feat, for the time span is long enough for readers of the company's books for youngsters to have grown up and become parents and to recommend Changbi publications to their own children, to have become authors and to produce works for next generations, and to have joined the company to create new volumes. Changbi changes the practice of publishing children's literature from collections to single volumes The history of Changbi's books for youngsters began with the publication of three collections of stories for children on February 20, 1977: Little Ock by Yi Wonsu, My Mom Doesn't Have to Be Pretty by Yi Ju-hong, and The Deer and the Hunting Dog by Ma Hae-song. At a time when books for children consisted solely of costly collections and shoddy single volumes, the Changbi Children's Library Series, planned as quality books that could be purchased individually at bookstores, served as an occasion for transforming conventions regarding the publication of works for youngsters. In the 1980s, numerous works including A Village Where Frogs Cried, Lee O-deok's collection of poems for children, came under the South Korean government's attacks for "inflammatory" contents supposedly instigating conflict or confrontation among social classes. Nevertheless, masterpieces such as Sister Mongsil, an enduring work in South Korean juvenile literature, actually won readers' impassioned support amidst pressure for a sales ban. Standing tall as the center of the growth of South Korean children's literature In the 1990s, Changbi's publications for youngsters made a leap by newly establishing the Changbi Good Children's Book Contest in 1996. Since the publication of Chae In-sun's collection of stories for children Uncle Tall Tree (creative works) and Cho Eun-soo's How Did People Live Long Ago? (planning) in 1997, the company selected the 21st winner this spring. The Changbi Good Children's Book Contest is a cradle of South Korean juvenile literature in name and deed, discovering novel attempts and diverse trends such as: celebrated works that sturdily continue the company's spirit of realism including The Problem Kid, Your Noodles Will Get All Mushy! and Children of Kwaeng-i-bu-ri Village; weighty tales that prompt youngsters to look back at the present through history including Letters from Chojeong-ni, The Railroad Neighborhood, and Children Who Swallowed the Sun; and recent works that are beloved of children and grownups alike for their refreshing humor and themes including How to Use Mom and Candidate No. 3 "An Seok-bbong." Likewise, Changbi has successfully planned and published creative and unique nonfiction works such as Eo-jin's Farm Diary, Let's Play with Scientists! and Yummy! A Tasty Trip around the World, which, in turn, have served as stepping stones for the publication of volumes presenting various and rich information including the Let's Be Friends with Math Series, Let's Be Friends with Science Series, Let's Be Friends with Social Studies Series, and Changbi Curious Picture Books Series. Since the end of the 1990s, the company has also broadened its planning for publication by producing the Korean Poetry Picture Books Series and the Korean Classics Are Fun Series in response to the growth and diversification of the children's book market. In the 2000s, the growth of Changbi's works for youngsters has continued unabated. In 2012, Sister Mongsil, Kwon Jeongsaeng's novel for children (Changbi Children's Library Series vol. 14), recorded sales of 1 million copies 28 years after the publication of the first edition in 1984. In 2013, Children of Kwaeng-i-bu-ri Village, Kim Jungmi's novel for youngsters (Changbi Children's Library Series vol. 183), recorded sales of 2 million copies, an unprecedented achievement for a South Korean work for youngsters. In addition, the company founded in 2003 the quarterly Changbi Children, which is the only professional journal for juvenile literature criticism in South Korea, in order to repay readers' unceasing expectations and support. Changbi leads the internationalization of South Korean children's books including picture books Picture books, too, constitute a field in books for youngsters to which Changbi has steadfastly devoted considerable energy. Starting with the publication of Kwon Yoon-duck's There Dangles a Spider in 2003, the Changbi Korean Poetry Picture Books Series was launched (15 vols. in total; completed publication in 2014). In addition, Changbi successively received the BolognaRagazzi Award (grand prize) at the Bologna Children's Book Fair for A House of the Mind: Maum and Eyes through collaboration with overseas writer Iwona Chmielewska, an honor for the company's publications for children and a splendid achievement of South Korean picture books. Changbi has endeavored to present outstanding South Korean writers' works abroad as well. Centering on original stories, translations into Japanese began in the 1990s. Since 2003, when the company started to publish picture books in earnest, Changbi's publications for youngsters have met children around the globe, attracting attention from diverse countries worldwide including France, China, Taiwan, Germany, and Brazil.
- [Han Kang] Han Kang's The Vegetarian has won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize
- Han Kang's multi-part novel published by Changbi, The Vegetarian was selected as the winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. On May 16, the judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize (chair: Boyd Tonkin) gave its reason for the selection: "[The Vegetarian is a] compact, exquisite and disturbing book [and] will linger long in the minds, and maybe the dreams, of its readers." The Man Booker Prize has established itself as a prize enjoying international prestige since its creation in 1969, called one of the three major literary awards worldwide along with the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Prix Goncourt. A part of this prize, the Man Booker International Prize is awarded to single volumes of prose fiction that have been translated into English and published in the United Kingdom. Major writers who have received the Man Booker International Prize include Philip Roth (United States), Alice Munro (Canada), Ismail Kadare (Albania), and Chinua Achebe (Nigeria). In consideration of the importance of translation, a monetary award of 50,000 pounds (81.5 million Korean won) is equally divided between the author and translator of a winning work. Published by Changbi in 2007, The Vegetarian gathers the three interlinked novellas "The Vegetarian," "Mongolian Mark," and "Flaming Trees," and the overseas copyright has been sold to a total of 25 countries and regions including the United States and Europe to date(as of July 2016). The Guardian of the United Kingdom assessed the work as a "novel shocking for its combination of amazingly beautiful prose and unbelievably violent contents," and Publishers Weekly cited The Vegetarian as one of the "most anticipated books of spring 2016" as well.
- [Kim, Ae-Ran]A Korean Novelist, Kim, Ae-Ran, has won the 7th 'Prix de l'Inaperçu' in France with her short stories collection
- 'The Prix de l'Inaperçu', which commemorates its 7th anniversary in 2014, was established by literary critics and literature journalists in France to honor exceptional literary works unjustly overlooked by major literature award even with the great excellence in work. It was awarded to the one of French literary works and the one of foreign literary works respectively every year. The short story collection, titled 'I'm going to the convenience store', is a sequel of the author's another short story collection, 'Run, papa, run', translated into French in 2012(French title is 'Cours papa, cours!'). This book contains four short stories, which do not belong to her previous work. Mr. Nils C. Ahl, a literary critic and literary reporter of Le Monde, said, "All the four short stories in this collection are all divided but tranquil, and depressive but also delicate at the same time, therefore, it is never easy to choose only one selection. The talent of this young writer born in 1980 is well melted in this work through self-control. Even if the background of this novel is Korea, this work does not make readers feel isolated by foreign culture while maintaining its own unique oriental culture by using a technique to excellently combine the oriental literature with western literature." Furthermore, he also mentioned about the title story of 'I'm going to the convenience store' by saying, "The female main character tries to get rid of her own depression by frequently visiting a convenience store. However, her sorrow keeps growing and growing at the very kingdom of commercial product consumption and capital exchange. People's acts of consumption to buy a blade to cut their own artery or to buy a bottle of water to take sleeping pills raise the confusion by being combined with the daily tragedy. However, we will eventually be able to look for the hope through the genuinely humane impression, not just through a symbolical place called the convenience store." It is such a great pleasure and an honor for Chang-bi Publishers to announce the winning of the 7th Prix de l'Inaperçu with Korean literary work, and Chang-bi Publishers will try even much harder to contribute to the development of Korean Literature. http://www.prixdelinapercu.fr/
- [Paik Nak-chung] THE DIVISION SYSTEM IN CRISIS: Essays on Contemporary Korea
- THE DIVISION SYSTEM IN CRISIS: Essays on Contemporary Korea by Paik Nak-chung, editor of The Quarterly Changbi and Professor Emeritus of English at Seoul National University, was published by Global, Area, and International Archive, University of California Press in October, 2011. This book is based on the original Korean edition published in 1998. The Korean edition was widely acclaimed to have paved the way for understanding the Korean Peninsula issues and inter-Korean relations from the perspective of "the division system." lt was also translated into Japanese in 2001. Part I and Ⅱ of this English edition include the complete translation of the Korean edition except its third chapter, and Part III consists of three recent articles. The book contains Bruce Cumins' foreword and the author's preface to the English edition. The chronology of inter-Korean relations and the texts of major declarations and statements mentioned in the book are also added for the convenience of English readers. The book was translated by Kim Myung-hwan, Sol June-Kyu, Song Seung-cheol, and Ryu Young-joo, with the collaboration of the author.
- [Paik Nak-chung] Reflections on Korea in 2010: Trials and prospects for recovery of common sense in 2011
- The following article originally appeared in Korean on The Weekly Changbi Commentary at the end of 2010, and was translated into English and posted on The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (www.japanfocus.org/-Paik-Nak_chung/3466) . Reflections on Korea in 2010: Trials and prospects for recovery of common sense in 2011 Paik Nak-chung It seems Korean society experienced more trials than usual in the year 2010. Perhaps it feels that way because the year's final weeks since the shelling of Yeongpyeong Island on the West Sea of the Korean peninsula on November 23 have been full of events to evoke sadness, anger, and anxiety. As for Yeongpyeong incident itself, whatever the cause or justification behind it, the fact that North Korea deliberately opened fire on South Korean territory is enough to bring shock and anger. To make matters worse, the incompetence and sloppiness of the South Korean government in its initial response caused uneasiness among the citizens, and its belated displays of toughness and escalation of tension, proclaiming "readiness for a full-scale war," has added to South Korean people's sense of insecurity and even stirred their anger. Taking advantage of the security crisis, members of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) on December 8 unilaterally and employing physical force rammed through the National Assembly the annual budget and other disputed bills. Such action trampled upon the system of checks and balance and rule of the law, a fresh reminder of the crisis of democracy in Korea. The main reason behind this 'snatching' action apparently was to push on with the Four Great Rivers Project and to pass the related pernicious legislation known as "Water-Friendly Region Law"1). We may now foresee a hastening destruction not only of the nation's environment but of democracy and rule of law as well. In the meantime, the speedy economic recovery that the government boasts about, setting aside for the moment the view of some experts that we still have to wait and see how real the recovery is, has not succeeded in improving the livelihood of the ordinary people or creating many new jobs. Indeed, even those with decent jobs feel overburdened with the cost of child care and privately paid informal education, and have gone on a "strike in child-bearing" to produce one of the lowest birth-rates in the world. As for inter-Korean relations, President Lee Myung-bak himself virtually admitted the failure of his North Korean policy, "Denuclearization, Opening, 3000," 2) when in his address to the nation on November 29 he ruled out the possibility for North Korea to give up its nuclear program voluntarily. Is the only thing now left either war or living in a state of continued threat while waiting for a regime collapse in Pyongyang? The Cheonan incident as a turning point and its functional relation to the Yeongpyeong Island attack It will easily be agreed that the antagonism that has been built up between the two Koreas lies in the background of the attack on Yeongpyeong Island. Though with ups and downs, tension had persisted since the launching of the Lee Myung-bak administration, but what turned it into outright hostility was the incident involving the naval ship Cheonan last March. 3) Thus, in order to have an accurate picture of today's situation, we need to return to that turning point and calmly review what has transpired since. For an appropriate response is possible only on the basis of an accurate understanding of the situation. After the attack on Yeongpyeong Island, popular sentiment attributing the sinking of the Cheonan North Korea has gained strength in South Korea. It has also become easier to accuse anyone casting doubt on the JIG report of being 'pro-North Korea and a Red'. However, the truth concerning the sinking of the Cheonan is something to be determined by neither popular sentiment nor political logic. It belongs to the realm of facts and can only be discerned through reason and logic. Unfortunately, there is yet no agreed conclusion regarding the Cheonan that has stood the test of reason and science. The JIG's conclusions have not passed the examination of independent scientists, while outside experts with limited access to the relevant data have not been able to offer a convincing alternative explanation. Accordingly, there is no single correct answer on the functional relationship between the attack on Yeongpyeong Island and the Cheonan sinking. One can only attempt inferences starting from multiple hypotheses. Let us consider only two such, for brevity's sake. Hypothesis A: Despite all the faults and inconsistencies of the JIG report, the Cheonan was indeed sunk by North Korean attack. Hypothesis B: Even though the full truth is unknown, there at least was no attack by North Korea on the Cheonan. What does Hypothesis A imply about the shelling on Yeongpyeong Island? First, if the North Korean military which had attacked and sunk the Cheonan has again attacked Yeongpyeong Island, this truly is an intolerable act of provocation. Moreover, the same North Koreans who expressed such elation after killing two marines and burning down some civilian dwellings through their shelling vehemently denied responsibility for what must have been a far greater military feat, the sinking of a naval corvette and killing of 46 naval personnel in a move that still defies the calculation of military experts. Such a regime cannot but be an almost psychotic criminal group. Again, if Hypothesis A is correct, the response of the South Korean military proves not only incompetent but close to being criminal. The country had lost a naval ship and scores of innocent lives through the attack on the Cheonan, and the whole world not to mention the entire nation had been thrown into commotion. But what are we to say of a military that (according to the testimony of the chief of National Intelligence Service to the Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly) had detected in August signs of preparation for an attack but remained totally unprepared, presuming this was just another bluffing threat by the North? Not just the resignation of the Defense Minister (which did happen) but a massive reorganization of the top echelon of the military would be in order. If, on the other hand, Hypothesis B is correct, the response by the South Korean military becomes somewhat more understandable. As at least key figures in the government and the top military leadership must have known that the Cheonan had not been attacked by the North, the intelligence gathered in August regarding a possible attack on the island could have sounded like yet another habitual threatening by the North. Of course, this does not excuse the grave error of judgment, nor absolve responsibility for the incompetence in responding to the actual attack. However, the utter disgrace of the entire South Korean military under Hypothesis A would at least be alleviated. Concerning the North Korean regime, too, Hypothesis B enforces a considerably different view. The attack on South Korean soil does remain a clear violation of the Armistice Agreement as well as the North-South Basic Agreement of 1992, and an indisputable act of provocation. But it becomes more probable that the attack was a meticulously calculated operation on Pyongyang's part. At the time of the Cheonan sinking there was talk of a possible inter-Korean summit meeting, but the incident changed at a stroke the whole inter-Korean relation to one of antagonism; North Korea was faced with the danger of branded as a criminal on the international stage; and a series of unprecedented high-intensity military exercises by South Korean and American forces ensued. In this context North Korea may have decided on a deliberate gambit of its own. Nor would the outcome be considered a total loss. Of course, it is a serious loss to alienate the South Korean people, but such a long-term consideration never had a priority in Pyongyang's calculations. More important to them and a possible cause for celebration would be their success in clearly impressing on the international community the disputed status of the West Sea area, while strengthening their own internal unity, and also creating new opportunities in the negotiations with the United States, aided by the restraint they showed regarding new live-fire drills by South Korea as well as by reported agreements with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson during his visit to Pyongyang. Toward 2011 as a year to begin recovery of common sense and humane culture Which of the two inferences sounds more reasonable will be decided by each depending on his or her convictions and good sense. One should not forget, however, that these are no more than inferences deriving respectively from two mutually exclusive hypotheses, A and B, and which premise is correct belongs wholly to the realm of empirical facts. Not that we can entrust all matters to natural science. For instance, science alone will not tell us what to do once the truth has been ascertained, and dealing with a situation where scientific truth is being disregarded will also call for humane culture and competence beyond natural science. However, recognizing and respecting the authority of science in matters where science should have its say, while also doing what needs to be done beyond the boundaries of science, is precisely what constitutes humane culture and the necessary qualifications of a democratic citizen aiming to be the master of one's own life. At any rate, whether the Cheonan was sunk by a torpedo attack, ran aground, hit a mine, or suffered a mine explosion after a grounding accident, is wholly a question that must be answered scientifically by recourse to physics, chemistry, etc. There could be no right or left, nor liberal or conservative, on the matter. Yet the fact that this question has been immersed in political and ideological battles has been one of the most painful frustrations of 2010. It also demonstrated the shallowness of our general culture not only among those in the government, the legislature and media but among intellectuals as well. Fortunately, South Korea in 2010 was not totally dominated by lack of culture and common sense. A number of courageous individuals came forward attempting to expose the truth, at considerable personal risk, while numerous internet users and anonymous scientists responded and supported those efforts. More importantly, in the nationwide local elections of June 2, the people successfully resisted the so-called "North wind" 4) purposely instigated by the government, sending a stern message of warning to President Lee Myung-bak. The most difficult challenge, however, probably will come when the truth about the sinking of the Cheonan has been brought to light. Whichever of the two hypotheses turns out to be correct, it involves a much direr situation than we generally think. While the proposition that war must be prevented will still hold true even if Hypothesis A is correct, it will be an unnerving task to manage an utterly dangerous situation in which a North Korean regime not only criminal but impervious to rational calculations possesses nuclear weapons as well. On the other hand, if in accordance with Hypothesis B there was no North Korean attack on the Cheonan, but our government has deliberately distorted and even fabricated the evidence, this too is a highly unnerving and dangerous state of affairs. We cannot exclude the possibility that in order to cover it up the government may resort to other extreme measures. And it would hardly be desirable to see a legitimately elected government falling too rapidly and too paralyzingly into a state of lame duck. Only the combination of sound common sense on the part of ordinary citizens and the rational capabilities of various individuals in their respective fields, transcending the antiquated framework of liberal versus conservative, will overcome this crisis and realize a new leap toward the future. Korean society since its democratization in 1987 enjoys a space open to a change of political regime through the electoral process. Thus, any talk of a 'new leap' that fails to take account of the two major elections in 2012, for the National Assembly in April and the presidential election in December, will prove unrealistic. However, no great results in 2012 can be expected, either, unless recovery of common sense and humane culture, together with a wholesale refurbishing of the nation's governance, can begin in 2011. Above all, we need to display wisdom in applying to the new political environment the lesson of the 2010 local elections regarding the value of coalition politics. Also, this process naturally must reflect the new forces, not necessarily related to electioneering, that have been maturing during the past year in various sectors of our society. The endeavors continuing in the religious and civic sectors against the Four Rivers Project have so far failed to alter government policies, but they are actually changing the very constitution of our society. The struggles of the most disadvantaged workers for livelihood and jobs scored valuable victories at Giryung Electronics and at KTX 5) . And these should not be judged by their scale alone. Looking back, 2010 was a year of considerable achievements as well as frustrations and trials. Personally I am full of hope that, starting from those achievements and trials, we may go on in the coming year to make advances comparable to any year in our recent history. Translated by the author with the assistance of Beckhee Cho Notes 1) The Four Great Rivers Project is a major civil engineering project being pursued by the Lee Myung-bak administration with the proclaimed aim of preventing flooding, solving water shortage problems, and improving the quality of drinking water of the four major rivers in South Korea. Despite public opposition including local governments, opposition parties, academia, environmental groups and the four major religious orders expressing concern that the project would wreak havoc with the nation's natural environment while doing little to actually bring about the promised benefits, the government has been pushing forward at unusual speed and showing little regard for procedural regulations. The "Water-Friendly Region Law" gives Korea Water Resources Corporation extraordinary powers to develop leisure and tourist facilities in the vicinity of the four rivers. The opposition claims that this law is meant to compensate the Corporation for the huge debt incurred by undertaking the Four Rivers Project as the government's proxy, a legally questionable move serving to exempt much of the Project funds from legislative scrutiny. (All notes provided by translator Beckhee Cho) 2) Lee Myung-bak's campain slogan and subsequent policy "Denuclearization. Opening. 3000" promises to help North Korea reach a per capita GDP level of US$3,000 within ten years in return for giving up its nuclear program and opening its society to the outside world. 3) The South Korean navy corvette Cheonan split in two and sank on March 26, 2010 near Baeknyeong Island in the West Sea, killing 46 seamen. The Lee Myung-bak administration organized a joint military-civilian investigation group (JIG) to look into the cause of the sinking. The JIG announced in its 'interim report' on May 20 that the Cheonan had sunk as a result of a North Korean torpedo attack, a charge that Pyongyang denied. The Lee government took the case to the UN Security Council, calling for a UN resolution condemning North Korea. However, with China and Russia opposing it and independent scientists raising doubts about the JIG findings, the Council only agreed on an ambiguous presidential statement condemning the incident without specifying North Korea as the culprit. 4) The term signifies the influence on election results by negative developments in North-South relations. The governing party suffered a serious setback in the wake of the anti-North campaign waged by the government on the issue of the alleged torpedo attack. 5) The struggles of summarily discharged workers at Giryung Electronics for reinstatement and of the female train attendants of the high speed trains (Korea Train Express, or KTX) at KORAIL to gain regular employee status have ended in victory for those who had persisted through close to five years of strikes, demonstrations and legal battles.
- [Lee Hae-young] Renegotiation of the KOREA-US FTA, American Hegemony and the "Dismantling" of the Of
- Renegotiation of the KOREA-US FTA, American Hegemony and the "Dismantling" of the Office of the Minister for Trade Lee Hae-young Whether the Free Trade Agreement reached between South Korea and the United States (KORUS FTA) prior to the November 12 Seoul G20 Summit constituted a hasty "renegotiation" of the 2007 Treaty to comply with US demands on the eve of President Barak Obama's visit to Seoul, is no longer just a matter of semantics. Of course, it is apparent why the Lee Myung-bak administration — as well as certain news outlets under its influence — has doggedly insisted on referring to the negotiations by a different name. First, this was to hide the fact that the administration's declaration of "no renegotiation" had failed. Second, it was a kind of ploy to avoid a National Assembly review, the argument being that no such review was required since this was not "renegotiation." However hard the Lee administration has worked to conceal it, the U.S. press with its freedom of speech has provided a detailed account of virtually all matters. And one can even find a fair amount of information trickling through the South Korean press as well. It was fierce resistance to renegotiation in South Korea that prevented the two presidents from announcing the conclusion of the FTA as planned during Obama's visit to Seoul for the G20 Summit. Let's go over the Minister for Trade's report to the National Assembly on November 16. First, automobiles. The U.S. demand is, quite literally, for the introduction of new provisions on mileage and greenhouse gas emissions involving the relaxation of existing environmental and safety standards for U.S. cars imported into Korea and allowing for self-certification rather than testing. In addition to these NTB (non-tariff barrier)-related areas, the U.S. demanded tariff-related concessions as well: it seeks to postpone the immediate abolition of a 2.5 percent tariff on Korean cars entering the U.S., to delay the ten-year timeline for abolishing pickup truck tariffs by another ten years, and to apply a "snap-back" (tariff reimposition) clause, one of the most poisonous provisions which would make subsequent tariffs retroactive. In a demand for treatment on a par with South Korea's FTA with the European Union, it has proposed the addition of a separate duty drawback provision. Duty Drawback Provison is a stipulation that defines import duties or taxes repaid by a government in whole or in part, when the imported goods are re-exported or used in the manufacture of exported goods. While EU has forbidden this provision till now when it comes to contract FTA with other countries, Korea has been maintained it for a long time. And in a request that went unreported in the Korean press, it suggested changing rules of origin regulations in order to increase the percentage of domestic parts used on U.S. automobiles for export. In this way, in the case of cars made in Korea, the ratio of cheap foreign parts is lowered, which weakens the price competition in American markets. So it is unfavorable to Korea. Automobiles and Beef: Giveaway Negotiations If the U.S. demands are all to be met, the following items would have to be modified in the FTA text: (1) "Annex 2-B: Tariff Elimination," which contains the schedule for abolishing the U.S.'s 2.5 percent tariff, including pickup trucks; (2) "Confirmation Letter (Specific Auto Regulatory Issues)" in Chapter 9 on "Technical Barriers to Trade," which deals with automobile environmental performance and safety standards; (3) "Annex 6-A: Specific Rules of Origin"; and (4) Item 5 in "Annex 22-A: Alternative Procedures for Disputes Concerning Motor Vehicles." In addition, (5) duty drawback provisions would need to be newly drafted along the lines of the KOREU FTA. The KOREU FTA included a separate "protocol" at the end of the text, and it appears that this would take the form of a separate "annex" or "confirmation letter" in the KORUS FTA. U.S. demands go beyond automobiles. The Lee administration has presented the same lame excuse it has been making for four years, claiming that the beef issue is "separate" from the KORUS FTA and speaking as if it is not subject to negotiation. This has not been the case, however. It has engaged in beef negotiations from the very beginning, and the U.S. has demanded complete fulfillment of the terms reached in bilateral beef discussions in 2008, specifically that Korea permit the import of beef from cattle aged 30 months and over. At the time, Korean protests that the agreement could open the way for import of beef from cattle with mad cow disease led to scrapping the provision and limiting imports to beef produced from cattle under 30 months of age. With negotiations at an impasse, President Barack Obama issued an "instruction" to the governments of "both countries" during the South Korea-U.S. summit, urging them to work around the clock to finalize the deal within the next few weeks. A Serious Crisis of Trade Governance When I see Korea's Office of the Minister for Trade (OMT) being driven to renegotiate the KORUS FTA, making substantive, far-reaching changes to a text of which it previously said it would "not change a single word," and engaging in one-sided giveaway negotiations behind closed doors, I sense a serious crisis in trade governance. Indeed, this has been the case. It was June 2007 when the U.S. began talking about "renegotiation" of the earlier KORUS FTA. Since then, it has availed itself of every opportunity to push it forward. At every step, the OMT responded that there would be no renegotiation. Then it argued that it was necessary for South Korea to ratify the KORUS FTA first in order to head off pressures to renegotiate. In short, it has avoided acting in a timely and appropriate manner, indulging in self-deception about a "balance of interests" that does not exist, only to find itself facing a worst-case scenario. Trade issues, which are necessarily broad-ranging, represent a specialized area. Even the government's own offices and ministries have been unable to keep an appropriate leash on the OMT, which exercises exclusive negotiation rights. The Blue House lacks the systems and personnel to check it. The OMT has avoided even discussing matters with the National Assembly, citing "trade secrecy," and trade negotiations in South Korea have long since become the exclusive jurisdiction of these trade officials. In the modern economy, trade is not simply a matter of abolishing tariffs and reducing quotas. It is a grave miscalculation to view trade policy as just one of many policies such as those regarding interest rates, exchange rates, or real estate. For all intents and purposes, trade is everything in South Korea's export-dependent economy, every aspect external to it, and at this moment all trade negotiation powers — the authority to reach trade agreements — lie exclusively in the hands of a tiny group of trade officials. In short, a serious problem of unchecked abuse of trade authority has become a chronic condition. The recent "happenings" surrounding the amendment of the Marketing Act and Large Enterprise and Small-Medium Enterprise Cooperation Act, legislation intended to preserve small-scale commercial districts, provide a clear example of the consequences of botched trade negotiations. The main contents is focused on the restriction of the entry of powerful retailers to the small-scale commercial distract. The OMT has already rejected an amendment that passed the National Assembly Standing Committee, arguing that it violated a WTO agreement as well as the KOREU FTA, which had not even been signed at that point. Coincidentally, the argument was very similar to that of the UK Business Secretary, who was lobbied by the English retailer TESCO, an opponent of the legislation. This type of problem would never have emerged if, while negotiating the KOREU FTA, South Korea had simply included an "economic needs test" provision in the conditions for retail service openness. Seven EU nations have such provisions, which require an assessment of the effects on surrounding commercial areas, the environment, transportation, and employment when a large-scale overseas supermarket enters the country. Eventually, OMT exposes domestic minor enterprisers defenselessly to the mighty large enterprises abroad, thereby tackles the amendment of the law of circulation and coexistence that protects the right of small retailers. In short, the OMT opposed legislation that had passed the Standing Committee, pinning responsibility for the negotiations failure on the National Assembly. It is apparent that, in the off chance that a trade dispute flares up between South Korea and the UK, the official OMT opinion submitted to the National Assembly will be cited as evidence in the UK's favor. Should the OMT Be Left to Its Own Devices? The KORUS FTA renegotiations are no different in nature. Despite a change in administrations, the myth of the OMT's autonomy has remained intact, and its power has become even greater; at some point, trade agreements became something of the OMT, by the OMT, and for the OMT. In the U.S., where trade governance is relatively good, the Trade Representative must discuss matters with Congress before, after, and during the process. Such untrammeled power as exists in South Korea is beyond their wildest imaginings. Senior technical experts from the House Ways and Means Committee are known to have accompanied the U.S. on these renegotiations as well. Broadly speaking, trade agreements can be separated into domestic and overseas agreements. In South Korea's case, domestic agreements are little more than formalities. For National Assembly discussions, an after-the-fact report will suffice. Overseas agreements are confidential and thus take place exclusively under the OMT's purview. But new trade governance will have to balance both of these aspects. The OMT, as it stands now, should be dismantled. It would be far more effective in terms of improving bargaining ability and expertise to invest these functions in an organization directly under the President as in the U.S, an independent office like the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), or an economic office as in Japan or Germany, rather than to leave it in its current diplomatic status due to the negotiation "function." Also, a permanent trade committee should be set up in the National Assembly to provide checks and balances. In addition, given that trade issues have a crucial impact on voters' economic lives, active participation should be legally guaranteed both for the stakeholders and for civil society. Owing to its structure, the nature of trade in recent years has been such that even a single botched negotiation for every ten successful ones may have a fatal impact. As such, the recent trend in places like the U.S. and Europe has been to emphasize a constant communication network linked to civil society. A Trade Procedure Law based on "National Assembly's Right to Consent to the Conclusion of Treaties," as guaranteed by the Constitution, was first proposed in 2005. Since then, it has drifted along, shunted aside by the political maneuverings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Whatever we call the renewed deliberations on the KORUS FTA, it is high time to initiate reforms to trade governance as it stands. The OMT has to be dismantled if it stands in the way. Lee Hae-young is professor in the Department of International Relations at Hanshin University and a director of The Trade & Democracy Institute in Korea.
- [Paik Nak-chung] The Idea of East Asian Community and Korea's Division System
- * The following paper was presented at the Third East Asian Critical Journals Conference on 'The Historical Culture of the Cold War' held at Kinmen (Jinmen Island), Taiwan, October 27-28, 2010. It was intended to lead of the panel discussion on the Korean Peninsula on the second day. The Idea of East Asian Community and Korea's Division System Paik Nak-chung Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University; Editor, The Quarterly Changbi 1. Instead of a regular paper, I propose to add some scattered remarks to the two texts of mine already circulated: "The Idea of 'East Asian Community' and the Korean Peninsula" (first published in Japanese translation in Sekai , May 2010; a slightly expanded Korean version printed in Yôksa Pip'yông , Autumn 2010) and "Overcoming Statism and the Korean Peninsula Project of Restructuring the State" (a paper presented at the Third East Asia Peace Forum, Seoul, November 4, 2010). The former takes up the then Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama's proposal for an East Asian Community, and points out the crucial importance of resolving the problem of the Korean Peninsula if the design is to produce any concrete results. (Domestically, the issue of Okinawa bases was of course even more crucial, but the two are not unrelated, as I shall stress again later.) The article then goes on to explore possibilities for a regional framework suited to peculiarly East Asian realities. The latter paper supports the overcoming of statism as a long-term goal, but stresses the need for various mid-term projects at the regional and national (as well as global and local) levels, and cites as one such example the task of building a new type of confederal state in the course of overcoming Korea's division system. 2. I focus on the Korean Peninsula partly because it is the part of the world I know best, but in any event not to claim for it an inherently privileged status. I grant the primacy of the goal we at this conference all share of building East Asian regional solidarity and, further, of overcoming statism as such. But statism cannot be eliminated so long as there are states, and if we accept Immanuel Wallerstein's thesis that the 'inter-state system' comprises an integral part of the capitalist world-system, states cannot be abolished so long as capitalism persists. In the meantime, we can only, and must perforce, endeavor to build regional solidarities that weaken statism and, within individual states, to reform the state structure in a way conducive to such regional solidarity and the eventual transformation of the inter-state system. 3. East Asia, both because of the continuing division between Japan and the rest and the huge disparity in size and population between China and the rest, cannot hope for regional integration in the manner of the European Union, that is, through a union of nation-states for its basic framework. But this should prompt the people of East Asia to try the harder for regional solidarity in a less state-oriented, i.e., more people-oriented way. This is not to deny the absolute need for cooperation among concerned states, including bilateral or multilateral treaties and agreements and various international frameworks of collaboration. But, lacking a tighter inter-state structure like the European Union, regional integration will have to proceed on the strength of the actual movements of people, goods and culture as these occur under given circumstances. Thus, unlike the European Union {or North American Free Trade Area for that matter}, the contours of 'East Asia' will be flexible and indeterminate, not entirely coinciding with territories of the states involved. It will also fluctuate depending on the specific field of regional solidarity one works in. Thus, 'East Asia' will cover different areas when it comes to economic cooperation or transnational civic movements—and again, when it is a question of military security, in which case any regional framework will have to be defined in terms of states and include the United States and Russia among major 'East Asian' players. Then, in (say) literature, if anything like 'East Asian regional literature' is to emerge, it will involve those literatures of East Asian peoples that are best suited to form a common regional literature on account of shared cultural legacy, relative ease of mutual translation, and other factors facilitating actual exchanges and collaboration among writers, intellectuals, publishers and readers. All these delimitations naturally will also vary over time as conditions in each field change, whether for good or for worse. 4. In this context, Okinawa, Kinmen (Jinmen Island) and the Korean Peninsula, each in its singular fashion, represent special possibilities. The Korean case differs from either of the others in that North and South Korea are both members of the United Nations, that is, recognized by the international community as sovereign states, while agreeing between themselves that theirs is "not a relation between states but a special relation temporarily formed in the progress toward the reunification" (Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation between North and South Korea, 1992, commonly known as the North-South Basic Agreement). Then in June 2000, the top leaders met and agreed (in Article 2 of the June 15 Joint Declaration) that reunification process should include an intermediate stage of confederation (or 'low-level federation', the North's alternative term). This has not only excluded any unilateral action on the part of either government, but opened up a space for participation by non-state actors. In other words, the power of the states will be significantly circumscribed and relativized in this crucial task of creating a new state-structure. To what extent and with what end results will of course depend on both the quantity and quality of popular input that the population of the peninsula and concerned citizens throughout the world manage to bring to the reunification process. 5. Okinawa, if I may speak under correction, represents quite a different problem. First of all, today's Okinawa is not a sovereign state, and the chief goal of its people, as far as I know, is not to build an independent state or even a confederal state. The main issue appears to be one of justice and equality, and greater local autonomy to guarantee just and equal treatment by the central government. For Tokyo and the Japanese people to grant this, however, would entail a more fundamental change in the Japanese state than giving a little more leeway to one prefecture. The Okinawan people seem to be already exercising a de facto veto power over the implementation of the U.S.-Japan agreement on the relocation of American military bases within Okinawa, and if such power becomes de jurethrough some new arrangement between Tokyo and Naha, it may amount to a virtually federal status for Okinawa and signify the beginning of the evolution of the Japanese state into a more people-oriented structure. 6. I know even less about Kinmen than about Okinawa, so I shall speak of the more general problem of the relation between Taiwan and mainland China. Taiwan has a functioning state, but here too a confederal solution seems out of the question because not only Peking but Taipei as well claims there is only one China (without even a federal system). Evolution of China into a federal state may or may not occur in future, but not in any foreseeable future and certainly not to accommodate Taipei. At the same time, even unification allowing for different political systems ('one country, two systems' as in the case of Hong Kong) would strike many Taiwanese as too threatening and restrictive. A settlement between Peking and Taipei that could allay such fears and guarantee the survival of Taiwan's quasi-national identity (including the special status of Kinmen as a former battleground now turned into a favored site of peaceful cross-Straits intercourse) would produce many benign effects for all parties concerned: not only for the people of Taiwan (or a preponderant majority of them at any rate), but for China, which would then firmly embark on a course toward a more humane and democratic governance, and for neighboring countries whose suspicion of China's nationalism and 'great power chauvinism' would be reduced as well. 7. One of the great merits of a confederal solution in the Korean Peninsula would be to encourage such developments in both Japan and China. The presence of two divided and confrontational states, that is, by definition strongly statist national security states, in Korea would tend to reinforce statism among Korea's neighbors, and how such a tendency could work to the detriment of civic and popular causes was dramatically illustrated by the U.S. and Japanese governments' use of the South Korean naval ship Cheonan's sinking in March this year to engineer Tokyo's surrender to Washington on Okinawa bases. But a united Korea per se would not necessarily create a fundamentally different regional climate—witness the war between China and Vietnam after the latter's unification in 1975—unless it emerges out of a process of gradual weakening of state power vis-à-vis its people and lowering of barriers vis-à-vis other countries and peoples. The road to such an outcome in Korea has been open since June 2000. The question is whether we can actually traverse it.
- [Paik Nak-chung] Reflections on Poetry and Communication
- Reflections on Poetry and Communication Zen Poetry and Realism Reconsidered Paik Nak-chung Reflections_on_Poetry_and_Communication.pdf 1. I would like to make some reflections on poetry, focusing on 'the space of communication', one of the key words of this festival. Perhaps my talk better suits the theme of tomorrow's forum, 'the communicative sea', than today's 'the imaginative sea'. Seventeen years ago, I contributed to the festschrift volume for the poet Ko Un's sixtieth birthday an essay about the possibility of a meeting between Zen poetry and realism ("Zen Poetry and Realism: On Ko Un's Three Recent Collections of Verse," in The Literary World of Ko Un , ed. Paik Nak-chung, Shin Kyung-rim et al., Changbi Publishers 1993; also included in my book, The Rewards of Korean Literature in the Age of Reunification , Changbi 2006). Characterizing his poems of the 1990s, I noted "the way they solidify the 'inherent Zen-like quality' that 'all poems have,' while also achieving a degree of realism rarely found in works of shorter verse," ( The Rewards of Korean Literature in the Age of Reunification , p.221). This characteristic is maintained also in his later works and the thirty volumes of Maninbo ( Ten Thousand Lives , completed in 2010). However, it must hold true for every authentic poetic achievement, not just for Ko Un's. To avoid a misunderstanding, I hasten to add that 'realism' in this context does not necessarily entail the adoption of realistic or naturalistic techniques. The concept involves rather the poet's attitude of adequately perceiving and responding to the reality in his/her time. 2. Demands for communication are particularly frequent in today's Korea. It is because we are having so many cases of absence of communication in every part of society, including the political sphere. The realm of Korean poetry does not quite represent a 'space of communication', either, which might indicate a phenomenon at some distance from 'the sea-like spirit of poetry'. But is this against the spirit of poetry as such? It is undeniable that, like other forms of art, poetry has performed the function of a communication medium. Especially before the development of printing, verse rather than prose served as the dominant medium of literary communication, since it was easier to follow and learn by heart and readier to be combined with other genres such as song and dance. In the modern society, however, the importance of verse has largely diminished, as the novel emerged as the most popular channel of communication and many subjects previously treated in verse moved over to the realm of prose. Now, the development of new spaces of communication like electronic visual media is producing yet another change. With the novel requiring to be read alone and taking much time, shorter verse which can be recited for and together with a mass audience and more easily combined with other media has regained a relatively high status. On the other hand, it is yet to be seen whether such retrieval could prevail over a larger trend of the decline of literature in general. There have also been a number of instances arguing that communication is not one of the many functions of art, but the very essence of it. Tolstoy is one of them, and in What is Art? he argues that the reason for the failure of most of existing theories to properly define art is "that the conception of art has been based on conception of beauty," (Leo N. Tolstoy, What is Art?, tr. Aylmer Maude, The Liberal Arts Press 1960, Chapter 4, p.47). He then goes on to propose his own definition that art is "one of the means of intercourse between man and man" (Chapter 5, p.49), a human activity of deliberately "infecting" others with one's own feelings (Chapter 5, p.51). According to him, the stronger infective power it has the more successful it is as art (Chapter 15, p.140), while good and bad art can be distinguished by the kind of emotion it infects people with (Chapter 16). Plato also noted the infective power of art but, wary of its pernicious effects, wished to expel poets from his ideal republic. In contrast, Tolstoy actively defends art as a means to deliver and communicate the 'religious perception' peculiar to each age, that is, "an understanding of the meaning of life which represents the highest level to which men of that society have attained" (Chapter 16, p.143). Here, I do not have time to elaborate on Tolstoy's theory of art, (for a relatively more detailed examination, see my essay "The Literary and the Human", National Literature and World Literature Ⅰ , Changbi Publishers 1978, especially pp.89-100), but if there is indeed an understanding of the meaning of life which represents the highest level attained by each age, there is no denying the importance of transmitting it through emotions and feelings as well as through the language of reason and science. One could even say that undertaking such a grand task may correspond to 'the sea-like spirit of poetry'. Nor should we find any problem with Tolstoy's calling this highest level of understanding a 'religious perception' or 'religious sense', if we take the essence of religion to be an exploration of man's relation to the ultimate ("man's relation to God," in Tolstoy's words, Chapter 10, p.97) untrammeled by the dogmas or rituals of a particular religion. 3. Tolstoy does prove himself too narrow-minded and dogmatic in applying his theory of art to concrete works. Perhaps, it has something to do with his somewhat hasty conclusion that "to establish brotherly union among men" (Chapter 9, p.71) is the one and only goal in our age. More fundamentally, however, his doctrine must run into the Buddhist criticism that brotherly union or whatever other goal, as long as it is articulated in language, inevitably falls short of the enlightenment beyond language ['not establishing words and letters'], that is, religious perception at truly the highest level. I am not attempting to establish a hierarchy between Buddhism and Christianity (or Tolstoy's version of Christianity). I bring in Zen Buddhism only to pose a certain fundamental question about Tolstoy's theory of art, despite general sympathy with it. Tolstoy rightly observes that artistic communication distinguishes itself from communication through the language of reason in that it exercises the infective power of feelings. However, if this observation leads to the dichotomy between 'the language of reason vs. the language of feeling', it would distort the true nature of art. Tolstoy himself never formulates it that way, but he does fall short of a solid understanding of the fact that the infective power of authentic art involves the working of reason as well, thus appealing to the unified sensibility (to use T. S. Eliot's term) prior to 'the dissociation of sensibility' that separated thought from feeling. In other words, the difference between discursive language and artistic language does not signify a difference between the language of reason and the language of feeling. Rather, it is the difference between the language limited to reason and the language employing reason and emotion together, or poetic language "pushing forward the whole body with the whole body" (Kim Su-young). If the highest (religious) perception of a given age is to be truly that, it must continuously push itself forward to a new level, standing on the frontier. It needs to combine a powerful impulse to share with one's contemporaries what it already has attained to and an earnest effort to explore what it has not yet attained and does not even know whether it could share. That is exactly the raison d'être of Zen poetry, which moves beyond everything communicable through language and endeavors to capture what might be impossible to communicate, and it is also why, unlike Tolstoy, we may not easily dismiss certain works just because they seem obscure. Yet, unless the obscurity ultimately serves the achievement and sharing of the highest perception by the whole humanity as brothers and sisters, but becomes something enjoyed for its own sake by a limited circle of artists and their audience — when, that is, "instead of an artistic activity aiming at transmitting the highest feelings to which humanity has attained, those flowing from religious perception, we have an activity which aims at affording the greatest enjoyment to a certain class of society"(Chapter 9, p.71) – it could hardly escape Tolstoy's accusation that it represents the decadent and false art of a privileged class. This also justifies the demand that, while poetry should have some Zen-like quality, it also should show the 'realist' urge to achieve and spread the best understanding of reality in a given age and to change the world in accordance with that understanding. To repeat, 'realism' in this context differs from privileging naturalistic representation in art, and Tolstoy himself firmly opposes taking up realism in the latter sense as the standard of judgment, (Chapter 11, p.104). Of course, that does not mean that naturalistic representation must perforce be excluded. Whether or not the use of naturalistic details contributes to the successful combination of 'Zen-ness' and 'realism' should be decided case by case. Ko Un's Maninbo I mentioned at the beginning deserves and demands such a critical examination. For a proper performance of such a task involving 30 volumes, one would need to take up and scrutinize neither too many nor too few specific poems, rather than just making some general remarks. I myself look upon it as a standing assignment, but for the moment must leave it standing. Instead, I would like to conclude my talk by reading a poem written by another poet of a different character belonging to a different generation. The warrant was dismissed but I had to report for reinvestigation They've collected records of all my cell phone calls From May 2008 to March 2009 My case is just a breach of night-time rules in the General Road Traffic Act But a furtive glance shows that the records are graciously specific about time and place Like near Tom N Toms Coffee at Cheonggyecheon . . . The interrogator says they'll also bring records of all the text messages And that another candlelight demonstrator had his house searched And his bankbooks seized, then Spinning his chair and smiling He says, come clean and 'blow' What should I blow I would prefer to blow a balloon Prefer to blow a leaf-flute Prefer to blow a huge yawn A trumpet or an accordion would be fine too I say one year's record of calls Not enough to measure my brain A few years' record of text messages Not enough to judge me, please be serious If you want to delve into my past You should have at least searched the genetic information Of homo sapiens carved into sand mountains in the desert Should have collected the evidence of some thousand meters of sedimentary layers in the sea Should have at least confiscated the cry of birds The blowing cool winds If you want to know me that much you should say you love me, What the hell are you up to (The full text of "At Hyehwa Police Station" by Song Kyung-dong, Answering Trivial Questions , Changbi 2009) The poem can primarily be read as a work of resistance exposing improper and excessive law enforcement by the police in the crackdown on candlelight rallies. It is rich in precise realistic descriptions and, even when the speaker's imagination gets fully activated in the later stanzas, the poem never entirely breaks away from the realistic sphere. The point, however, is not realistic faithfulness itself, but the fact that it describes the pathetic and petty reality in such a precise, detailed way that a different world, the world of genuine being open to 'the imaginative sea' (so to speak) is evoked all the more convincingly. The climax of this brilliant final stanza is, indeed, the last two lines. If you want to know me that much you should say you love me, What the hell are you up to Not because these lines contain the message of 'love' emphasized by so many people including Tolstoy. In fact, the word 'love', when used too easily, can slacken poetic tension, (as sometimes happens also in this collection of Song's). But the sheer absurdity of demanding the police interrogator that he should say he loves the suspect if he wants to properly investigate him prevents any such slackening, and "What the hell are you up to" in the last line throws a finishing blow. This question, which today's young Internet users would probably shorten and misspell in their accustomed way, reaches the height of lighthearted jeering, but without at all reducing the weight of the understanding that in "the cry of birds" and "the blowing cool winds" lie the truth of 'me' and the truth of us all. Translation by Hwang Jung-A
- [Paik Nak-chung] After the Local Elections and the Cheonan Incident
- After the Local Elections and the Cheonan Incident Paik Nak-chung Determining the Truth about the Cheonan's Sinking Is a Decisive Link in Restoring Democracy and Improving Inter-Korean Relations Paik Nak-chung_interview_PRESSian.pdf June 15 Joint Declaration 10th Anniversary Interview Series, Part Two: Paik Nak-chung, Emeritus Professor, Seoul National University The second figure in our series of interviews to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration is Paik Nak-chung, Chairman Emeritus of the South Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration. Paik described the June 2 local elections, which ended in a big defeat for the Grand National Party, as "a decisive occasion on which South Korean democracy and the Korean Peninsula peace process, which had been in free-fall, reversed course once again." At the same time, he emphasized that finding out the truth behind the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan is an immediate task marrying the twin goals of improving inter-Korean relations and restoring democracy, and that serious efforts to do so should begin right away. As the theoretician who pioneered the "Division System Theory," as well as someone who put ideas into practice as leader of the South Korean Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration, Paik is one of South Korea's representative intellects. The following is the full text of an interview with Paik that took place at the Segyo Institute in Seoul's Seogyo neighborhood on June 7. The interview was conducted by PRESSian president Park In-kyu. ― Editor. "This election could turn out to be a crucial event decisively affecting the course of our history." PRESSian : How do you view the outcome of the June 2 local elections? Paik, Nak-chung : It was demonstrated once again that the Korean people are not to be taken lightly. I think this election could be viewed, from the long historical view, as a decisive occasion on which South Korean democracy and the Korean Peninsula peace process, which had been in free-fall, reversed course once again. It may turn out to be a crucial event that decisively affected the course of our history. But for those of us living in the immediate reality, it is no more than a brief respite. I expect that we will still have to spend many more difficult days of fighting and fighting. The Four Major Rivers Project has not gone away, and it does not look like the administration is going to back down without a fight. Now we should not content ourselves with having confirmed the popular opposition to the Project. We need to continue calling for a halt to it. At the same time, we need to examine the works that have already taken place, to see which ones are all right and should continue, and also how things are going to be handled after they have been halted. There really is a lot to do. We should also expect the administration tol continue its attempts to control broadcasting, and that the struggle will continue for people from various walks of life ― journalists, government employee union members, members of the Korean Teachers' and Education Workers' Union ― who are losing their jobs and being arrested for their opposition to the administration's reckless policies. Most of all, I think that the business of bringing to light the truth about the Cheonan incident is a vital task. PRESSian : Do you agree that the election outcome indicates that the people do not accept the official investigation announcement on the Cheonan sinking? Paik : We saw that popular opinion was not swayed by the so-called "Northern wind" maneuvers, the attempt by the government to exploit the Cheonan incident to win the elections, but I wouldn't say that there has yet been a public verdict on the truth about the Cheonan. In the days ahead, we will need to work to discover the truth and assign responsibility where it is due. PRESSian : In May, you said, "To get hung up on questions like whether it was a torpedo or not, or whether or not North Korea was responsible, is to remain caught in the frame set by the Lee administration. We need to try changing it to a citizens' frame." Paik : The government's approach to the Cheonan situation has shown successive changes. In the beginning, it adopted a very cautious stance ― at least, the President did ― in saying there was no basis for concluding that North Korea was responsible. Then there was a gradual attempt to turn it into a "Northern wind" issue, making it out to be North Korea's doing. They started doing this some time around mid-April, and then there was another turning point on May 13 when Park Hyung-joon, the senior secretary for political affairs at the Blue House, used the term "external attack." Before that, they had been talking about "external explosion" or "external impact," but now he changed it to "attack." And on May 15, the so-called "conclusive evidence" was salvaged. When I said we must not let ourselves get caught in a "North Korea / torpedo frame," that was on May 11, and I said it after listening to a discussion that went on at length about different hypothetical scenarios ― mine explosions, etc. ― at the session [of Korea Peace Forum] where I made the remark. It seemed obvious that the government was trying to use the incident for political ends, and I said that dwelling too much on whether it was a torpedo or a mine meant getting trapped in the government's frame. I suggested that we change the frame and ask instead, from the standpoint of democratic citizens, "Is this government capable of abusing an incident like this for political purposes?" or "In light of its past behavior, is this government capable of deceiving and making a mockery of the public?" I think it was a reasonable stance at the time. But now, with the government coming out with its "conclusive evidence" and ruling that the sinking was North Korea's doing, and carrying out specific containment operations against North Korea, the major task is to determine whether that conclusive evidence is really conclusive after all ― to find out what the truth is. Many experts, and many citizens and intellectuals with common sense, are saying that the announcement of the findings by the Joint Investigation Group (JIG) was poorly prepared and that the story had changed too many times in the process leading up to the announcement. But without having the facts, since the government still isn't giving out the necessary information, it isn't the right response to dwell too much on the different scenarios ― how the ship ran aground, or how there was a second incident as it got off the rocks after running aground, or whether a mine instead of a torpedo did the work. Instead, we should be focusing on pointing out the problems, saying, "The announcement seems bogus," or "Explain all of these things that don't make sense," or asking, "Why are you refusing to disclose information and blocking access to the survivors?" Presenting alternative scenarios when you only have partial information at your disposal is not a wise approach. Of course, as a way of pressuring the government into carrying out a proper investigation, you could say, for instance, "Wasn't the stranding explanation you reportedly gave at first to the surviving family members more plausible than the torpedo explanation you're offering now?" or "If it was a torpedo, that means North Korea broke through the cordon during joint military exercises with the U.S. and made utter fools of both South Korean and U.S. armed forces. Wouldn't it be better for your self-respect to claim it was a mine rather than a torpedo?" You could say these things as a rhetorical device. But we don't yet have the ability to present alternative scenarios, and shouldn't overreach ourselves. PRESSian : There was a report that China proposed a joint investigation with South Korea, North Korea, the U.S., and itself. Paik : A joint investigation would be desirable. North Korea said that it wanted to send a review team, but, while it may be their customary terminology, the term "review team" (kŏmyŏldan) was a rather inappropriate expression. In any case, when the review team proposal came, the South Korean government made a counterproposal, saying that it was going to convene the Military Armistice Commission with the UN Command investigation results and that North Korea should come there. Now, the Military Armistice Commission has long since become an almost entirely nominal entity, but when they said they would be reviving it, North Korea rejected the offer, saying, in effect, "Why do bring up the Armistice Commission after all these years?" But the modified proposal reportedly presented by China, to have a joint four-country investigation involving South Korea, North Korea, the U.S., and China, coincides with the South Korean position for recycling the Armistice Commission. They aren't saying, "Come submit to questioning based on a unilateral investigation by the UN Command, and get a dressing-down." They're saying, "Let's have four countries conduct the actual investigation." So there's no reason for North Korea to object, and if the South Korean government is confident enough, it can, and should, accept this proposal. But if the government did all of this without any basis in fact, then it has put itself into a position where it cannot accept any proposal for a fair investigation. It has become a real dilemma. As recently as May 11, when I said we shouldn't let ourselves get caught in a "North Korea/torpedo frame," I was expecting that the government would shy away from presenting any firm conclusion, that it would carry things along in a kind of perpetually unresolved state, just hinting continually that North Korea was responsible, and then backing off once the elections were over. In a way, I underestimated our government's ― should I say boldness, or recklessness. I'm now repenting my error. (Laughter) So if we look at it somewhat maliciously, at first they wanted only to play a naughty game, but things got out of hand so that it ended up no longer being a game. Now the government has no choice but to either persuade the people of South Korea, and the international community, by presenting additional data, or suffer a humiliation without precedent in the history of the Republic of Korea. Who among us South Koreans would want to see our country humiliated? I certainly don't. But we are no longer living in a time when you can bury the truth for a long time, as with the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Look at the experts and Internet users in Korea and overseas, and the questions they're raising. What a scary world to live in! It's impossible to keep the lid on things indefinitely. I don't know how the government is going to resolve things. It needs to offer evidence that the international community can really accept. It isn't as though the President could say, "I didn't know, I was fooled by false reports," just as President Kim Il-sung said "I didn't know" about the Kim Sin-jo incident back in 1968. Things are far too complicated here. For we have a different system from North Korea. It's very worrying, but there is no other option but to resolve things based on the facts. Civil society needs to respond on the basis of truth and principles if it is to justify its existence. For instance, if you're the opposition party and you have the elections coming up, you could say, "Accepting that North Korea is responsible, what were you guys in the government doing? Isn't this crass incompetence in national security affairs? The Roh Moo-hyun administration was more competent than this." But when members of civil society lack confidence that the government is telling the truth, they have to keep asking questions and insist on solving the problem based on the facts. No matter how hard it may be, there's just no other way. The mistaken belief that South Korea can solve the nuclear issue on its own PRESSian : As recently as early 2010, there was talk about efforts toward a summit meeting. Paik : The Lee Myung-bak administration has shown continuous vacillation in inter-Korean relations. My personal impression is that President Lee Myung-bak had some intention of adopting a pragmatic approach at least regarding inter-Korean relations, even though he was pushing to reverse the ten years of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations in domestic issues. His failure to be pragmatic can be ascribed to two causes. First, perhaps because he personally lacks knowledge of inter-Korean relations, or has been misled by his advisers, he has operated under the premise that North Korea will agree to denuclearization if South Korea demands it. But denuclearization is basically an issue between the U.S. and North Korea, and the six-party talks framework was created and has been operating to resolve it, but then Lee Myung-bak came in and messed things up with his "Denuclearization, Opening, and 3000 [dollars of per capita income for North Koreans as a reward for denuclearization and opening its society]." Another thing is that, as I have long been saying, in the broad scheme of things the development of inter-Korean relations and the advancement of democracy within South Korea march in tandem. Of course, it isn't a one-to-one correspondence. Sometimes inter-Korean relations go a step ahead, sometimes internal democracy does. But in a larger sense, the two are linked. Early in its term, the Lee administration kept going overboard and ended up running into popular resistance, including the candlelight demonstrations. He opted to engage in coercion rather than accepting popular opinion and changing his policy. The result was that any momentum for resolving inter-Korean relations disappeared. Instead, he ended up having to depend on the forces that desire inter-Korean antagonism. So his administration drifted about, and after inter-Korean relations went downhill for a time, it tried to push for a summit, perhaps saying, "Why, this isn't working, while it now looks like North Korea-U.S. relations are thawing." But to begin with, they lacked the ability to bring about a summit meeting. Bringing one into reality actually requires no small amount of expertise. You have to be able to coordinate, to prepare, and to restrain what needs to be restrained to make it happen, and neither the President nor the people around him seem to have that kind of ability. Also, having a summit would require a shift in the course of governance in domestic politics as well. But they had no intention of doing that, and the end result was that they incurred more and more popular discontent, and they were facing the local elections under those circumstances, and then along came this enormous situation with the Cheonan. We don't know the truth for certain, but there is a possibility that it was some kind of accident that the Navy or Defense Ministry authorities want to conceal, rather than a North Korean torpedo attack. In the beginning, the President was circumspect, compared to certain news outlets and Defense Ministry authorities who were already trying to attribute responsibility to North Korea. In the end, though, forces that wanted to use this incident to revive the antagonism between South and North, forces that wanted to thrust us into a hostile situation once again, with help of all kinds of short-term political calculations before the elections, managed to prevail both inside and outside the administration. Now it seems they've arrived at a situation where they either have to change this country into a completely different one, or else accept a miserable failure in diplomacy and domestic politics. PRESSian : The U.S. lent its full support to the South Korea government's position on the Cheonan incident. Why was that? Paik : Well, if I could meet President Obama, I'd like to ask him why he's doing this. It's a good while since the high expectations that South Korean civil society had pinned on the Obama administration when it first took office have turned to disappointment. And North Korea is not without its share of responsibility, either, in things developing that way. Also, what may be something to celebrate, South Korea has become much more proficient than in the past at binding the hands of a big nation like the U.S. Thanks to increased national power, the Lee Myung-bak administration has demonstrated no small ability to constrain the United States, at least when it comes to issues affecting the Korean Peninsula. Moreover, President Obama wouldn't really know much about Korea or have the luxury of examining it closely, and I think a lot of the problems stem from the fact that the people handling Korean Peninsula issues underneath him are the same old faces. That's how it appears in the broad scheme of things. With regard to the Cheonan incident, the U.S. was relatively cautious at first, asking the South Korean government to exercise restraint. It changed along the way, however, and we can only guess as to why. In the short term, this incident kind of puts the U.S. in the catbird seat. As long as South Korea doesn't start another war over this issue or attack North Korea militarily, the rest of it just means so much short-term gain for the United States. Even if the U.S. knows that the truth of the Cheonan sinking differs from the South Korean government's version, it is under no obligation to make that known. If Seoul presses its case, it just says, "All right, since that's what you guys are saying, we'll stand behind you as an ally." And so it accumulates another IOU from Seoul. Later on, it could extract repayment in a different matter. The situation will help with weapons sales, too. The Korean military now is all for strengthening naval power, and who is it going to buy the weapons from? It's also a good card to play against China. The U.S. could say, for instance: "The South Korean government formed an international investigation team and came up with these results. Can a responsible power just sit there and do nothing?" Of course, China will not listen, but if it doesn't, that's no loss to the U.S. either. They can say, "We made a legitimate request, and China just shields North Korea." China doesn't want to hear that all it does is shield North Korea, and so suggests conducting a joint investigation and says that once the findings came out, it would not be shielding anyone. The U.S. probably was somewhat taken aback. So all that talk about getting a resolution passed in the Security Council for additional sanctions has gone away, and they postponed the military exercises in the West Sea. In fact, such exercises would more like be targeting China than North Korea, so if the U.S. can do them, that's not a bad thing, either. In terms of relations with Japan, it has already collected tangible results, extracting Japanese concessions in the issue of relocating the Okinawa bases by using the Cheonan incident as a pretext. The same thing applies as regards North Korea. If the U.S. can get China to take part in further pressuring North Korea and North Korea happens to collapse, many Americans will like that. Even if things don't go that far, there will, at any rate, be a pressure effect on North Korea. Before the Cheonan incident, the U.S. was urging North Korea to return to the six-party talks, and Pyongyang was somewhat high-nosed about it, saying it would do so only if the sanctions against it were lifted. Now, however, the U.S. is in the position of looking like it's doing North Korea a favor by holding the six-party talks. In May, Chairman Kim Jong-il met with Chinese President Hu Jintao and asked China to arrange suitable conditions for the six-party talks to take place. In other words, North Korea is feeling the pressure to return to the six-party talks. The U.S. is reaping short-term benefits from the Cheonan situation, but… So in the short term, the U.S. is reaping the rewards, but if the JIG's findings on the Cheonan turn out not to be true, or if it comes to light that the U.S., with its ample intelligence capabilities, knew the truth but cooperated with South Korea anyway, its international prestige is bound to suffer. In particular, the people of South Korea will inevitably recall the 1980s. While it is an exaggeration to say that the U.S. directed the Kwangju massacre, it did suffer tremendous damage in the eyes of South Koreans from condoning it and supporting the Chun Doo-hwan administration. It may not be that bad this time, but the U.S. could still suffer considerable damages. What the U.S. is doing now is dangerous and could severely compromise its friendship with the South Korean people. Of course, the U.S. isn't staking everything in this. It keeps saying that it will lend support as South Korea leads international action on the Cheonan, which means that South Korea will have to bear the responsibility too. PRESSian : In that sense, there doesn't seem to be any incentive for the U.S. to take part in a four-country joint investigation. Paik : I don't think an international joint investigation will take place unless there's a significant amount of pressure from the public so that the South Korean government accepts it as a kind of exit strategy. But if something like that occurs, the U.S. will again take the position, "South Korea says it's going to accept it, and we'll give our support." The U.S. won't take the initiative in calling for a joint investigation, nor will it take the lead in expressing opposition. If Chinese make the proposal to the United States, it will probably say something like, "Okay, we see what you mean. Why don't you talk it over with the South Korean government?" PRESSian : Some people are now saying that the Cheonan incident has led to the revival of a new Cold War, with South Korea, the U.S., and Japan pitted against North Korea, China, and Russia. Paik : Right now, the international situation seems too volatile for that kind of fixed framework of antagonism to come into being again. Even if such a framework is revived, it will be a tremendously asymmetrical relationship. Before, it was largely a structure of antagonism between the socialist world and the capitalist world, but Russia is no longer a socialist state, and China isn't a socialist state in the same sense as it was back then. In addition, both of them now have diplomatic relations with South Korea, and engaged in a lot of interchange and economic cooperation. So there's no chance of a fixed standoff between North Korea, which is allied only with China, and South Korea, which has relations with the U.S., Japan, China, Russia, and a lot of other states. There can be no stable confrontation between the two camps, which is why North Korea feels the need to arm itself with nuclear weapons. So I think the situation on the Korean Peninsula will either proceed along this unstable and extremely dangerous line, or else change course toward building a peace regime. What it won't do is to go back to a stable structure of antagonism. PRESSian : There is a lot of distrust in the government's announcement on the Cheonan, as well as a widespread belief that the sinking may have been an accident, yet we cannot rule out the possibility that North Korea actually was responsible. Paik : We should not rule out a priori the possibility of North Korean responsibility. It's just that if you look at the facts that have come to light so far, it does not seem very likely. The North Korean system fundamentally has a lot of problems, and now finds itself in a very difficult position. We also can't rule out the presence of violent elements internally. So someone may have committed a reckless act that would not be acceptable as a policy decision by Chairman Kim Jong-il. So I am not claiming there is absolutely no possibility of North Korea's doing this. As Defense Minister Kim Tae-young put it, we should consider the case while leaving all possibilities open. (Laughter) It's just that after considering all possibilities and then proceeding to narrowing them down on the basis of the various given facts, including those announced by the government, the argument that it was a North Korean attack seems to gradually lose ground. PRESSian : It seems quite likely that if things keep on this way, the truth of the incident will never be revealed, and it will become an permanent mystery. Paik : There is a possibility that in spite of the questions raised by many observers, and facts that force you to harbor doubts, the government will refuse to disclose the relevant data and continue stonewalling in the international community as well. In that case, it will remain an unsolved mystery, at least for the next two and a half years. But even so, we'll have to accept it as an unforunate reality and choose our responses based on that reality. The Cheonan situation shows what a mess the current governance system of the Republic of Korea is in. It shows that this is a society where things that should never happen in a democratic society, nor even in a dictatorship with a certain degree of orderliness, are taking place with impunity. And even supposing North Korea was responsible, what a mess has the government made of the situation? And then, suppose North Korea had nothing to do with this and it was some kind of accident. They're covering up the accident and making it impossible for anybody to ask rational questions. If someone dares to do so, he or she is branded as a public security criminal. They control the media or turn journalists into voluntary accomplices. This is not the way you run a healthy society. The Cheonan incident is important in terms of inter-Korean relations, but it also calls on us to reflect fundamentally on the health of our society and the way the nation is being governed. While I'm on the subject, I'd like to talk about the media's reporting on the Cheonan incident. Recently, three media workers groups (the National Federation of Media Workers Unions, the Journalists Association of Korea, and the Korean Federation of Network Program Directors' Associations) gave a press conference raising issues with the announcement of the JIG findings. But it received almost no coverage in the newspapers or on television. I didn't see a piece even in PRESSian, which I would otherwise say has been a model in its reporting on the Cheonan incident. The Hankyoreh could be acknwledged as a representative independent media on other issues, but I think it's been very disappointing in its reporting on the Cheonan to date. There's no need for the newspapers to print every story that floats around the Internet, but wasn't the report presented this time created by major media workers' groups? PRESSian : How do you view President Lee's May 24 address to the nation? Paik : This address by the President was practically an extra-legal measure. Since it was in the format of a Presidential address to the nation, it was up to him to speak from the Blue House or the War Memorial of Korea, but does it make any sense to give an address that overturns some two decades of national policy in that way without having any consultation with the National Assembly or sounding out of public opinion? By the government's own account, the final announcement of the Cheonan investigation team is not supposed to come out until July 20. That means that the May 20 announcement was just an interim report. On the basis of this flimsy and problem-ridden interim report, the President, with through a mere presidential address, goes out to demolish all kinds of inter-Korean agreements made to date, including the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act that was passed by the National Assembly [in 2005] with a bipartisan consensus. This isn't just a reversal of a decade's achievements by liberal regimes. It does away, in a single stroke, with the accomplishments of 22 years of improvement in inter-Korean relations since the July 7 Declaration by President Roh Tae-woo in 1988. It is also a momentous action that could undermine the developments in South Korean democracy that have progressed in conjunction with the advancement of inter-Korean relations. But since its format was a presidential address, there remains the possibility of reversing its content once again with a new address, and pressure from the public and the National Assembly could keep him from implementing it. Such a possibility has widened as a result of the June 2 local elections. But if South Korea's National Assembly and civil society give him a free hand, they will be tacitly approving a kind of "subvesion of the constitutional order by installment." (Laughter) Park Chung-hee made a single down-payment coup, so to speak, and Chun Doo-hwan subverted the constitutional order in two installments, on December 12, 1979 and May 17, 1980. This administration isn't carrying out a military coup. but instead, it's trying to alter the Republic of Korea's constitutional order bit by bit on a long-term, five-year installment plan. PRESSian : I have a question about the achievements and limitations of the June 15 Joint Declaration over the past decade. There have been several agreements between South and North before and since then, including the July 4 Joint Statement and the October 4 Declaration. Why, of all of these, should we pay more attention to the June 15 Declaration? Paik : To understand the meaning of the June 15 Declaration, it is important to compare it with agreements that came before it. Since the October 4 Summit Declaration of 2007 represented a kind of practical guideline based on the June 15 Declaration, the proponents of the October 4 Declaration won't be at all upset if you say that the June 15 Declaration is more fundamental. The July 4 Joint Statement of 1972 promulgated the three major principles of South-North unification. But specific measures, such as the South-North Coordinating Committee, were immediately discontinued, and for a long time there was no progress regarding the three principles of unification, either. So its significance is more or less limited to the fact that it was the first official agreement between South and North Korea authorities and that it stated the principles for unification. In comparison, the South-North Basic Agreement of 1991 was far more advanced. There are a lot of specific items in it that surpass the June 15 Declaration. But there are two respects in which it does not have as much significance as the Declaration. First of all, the Basic Agreement was signed not through a direct negotiation between top leaders but at the Prime Ministerial level. In the North Korean system, a document that has not been signed personally by President Kim Il-sung or Chairman Kim Jong-il can be changed at any time with little problem. Of course, the situation is different in South Korea, but even here a limitation exists, in that the Basic Agreement did not go through ratification procedures at the National Assembly. Second, the issue that always creates problems whenever an agreement is attempted between South and North is the reunification plan. In particular, North Korea has maintained that there is no point in making agreements on minor issues while leaving alone "basic questions" like the method of reunification. But when the Basic Agreement was adopted, North Korea seems to have been in a very pressing situation, with the socialist bloc collapsing and China and Russia opening diplomatic relations with South Korea. So under that kind of pressure, it made an agreement in which it conceded a lot and skirted the issue of a unification plan. It only contains a clause on how the relationship between South and North is "not a relationship between country and country, but a special relationship tentatively formed in the course of aspiring to unification," and there is no mention of how this tentative special relationship is to be evolved into a reunification process. But if you look at Article 2 of the June 15 Joint Declaration, there is an agreement on unification plan, albeit a very vague one. It says there are commonalities in the plans of two sides, and agrees to proceed in that direction. There were no immediate follow-up measures, but because there was that agreement, inter-Korean exchange and cooperation came to reach a level far beyond anything in the previous years, even though the provisions regarding them were far vaguer than the comprehensive and specific items in the Basic Agreement. The levels of interchange before June 15 and after June 15 are two entirely different ball games. But the Lee Myung-bak administration was skeptical from the very beginning about the June 15 Declaration. First the President said that the Basic Agreement was better, and then at a later point the administration did advance to the point where it said it would respect the spirit of all agreements. Now, however, the President said in his May 24 address that South Korea would halt all inter-Korean interchange. In other words, he expressed the intention of abandoning even the Basic Agreement. But there still is a way out since he did not state explicitly that South Korea would be abrogating the Basic Agreement or the June 15 Declaration. That much is fortunate. And while the Kaesong Industrial Complex is, as someone put it, "on a respirator" right now, there is still a chance for resuscitation. But I can't help feeling distressed that we are greeting the tenth anniversary of the June 15 Declaration in this state. PRESSian : Based just on the current situation, it could be argued that we've failed to achieve the expected levels of advancement in the ten years since the June 15 Declaration. What do we have to blame for that? Paik : You can't pinpoint any one thing. For instance, I think that with the June 15 Declaration the North made a strategic decision to try resolve inter-Korean issues together with the South, but still it probably has a lot of problems on its side that we don't know about, and a lot of conflict between different camps, so North Korea must have encountered various domestic impediments of its own. But the really decisive blow in the post-June 15 situation was the change of administrations in the U.S. After George W. Bush took office in 2001, all kinds of stumbling blocks to inter-Korean relations were put up for the next six years. But South Korea at least had the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, so that things did not deteriorate more than they did. Under their influence, combined with Bush's loss in the 2006 U.S. midterm elections, the position of the U.S. government changed. "The main front in solving Korean Peninsula issues now lies within South Korean society" So I have been saying that, since late 2006, the main front in solving Korean Peninsula issues has shifted to within South Korean society. Before that, the biggest issue, and the main front, was antagonism between North Korea and the U.S., but a situation has unfolded in which things now hinge on what the South does. This is how the South Korean government managed to take advantage of the shift in the U.S. attitude and to produce the second Inter-Korean Summit in 2007. But the forces pursuing inter-Korean reconciliation and the advancement of democracy in South Korea lost both the 2007 presidential election and the 2008 general elections. There was no chance of inter-Korean relations being resolved after such a defeat on the main front. The situation became such that regardless of who took office in the U.S., whether it was Obama or someone else, and regardless of whether North Korea showed more or less good faith, it would be impossible to solve problems unless the approach of the South Korean government changed. The way things have progressed since 2008 is a testament to this. Of course, even if things weren't goingd well, it is questionable whether North Korea did the right thing in hastening to launch a rocket and conducting a second nuclear test. But these are things that would not have happened if the situation in South Korea had not deteriorated. If the main front has shifted to within South Korean society, the responsibility of not only the government but also the South Korean people becomes that much weightier. Perhaps in early stages, the government's role is decisive and the general public must play a supplementary role. In things like summit meetings and economic cooperation, it's the government that takes the initiative, and after it businesses have a major role. Civil society winds up playing a supporting role. But I believe that if you take the long view, the question of whether we continue developing inter-Korean relations in conjunction with democratization ultimately hinges on ordinary citizens. And you have to say that the extent to which citizens do a good job of protecting the four major rivers or preserving media freedom and fairness also has a profound effect on the resolution of Korean Peninsula issues. When I emphasize the role of civil society in this way, I am often asked, "How can civil society determine inter-Korean relations?" I believe that the defining characteristic of the division of the Korean Peninsula is that it cannot be surmounted merely through actions by government authorities. Vietnam waged a total war mobilizing the entire people, but it was, essentially a government-led military unification. And in Germany, the possibility for unification presented itself through the actions of civil society, but it was the government that wrapped things up with a rapid unification-by-absorption. As for Yemen, it was unified through collusion between leaders from both sides. But the situation on the Korean Peninsula is such that none of these methods would work. For that reason, no matter what kind of progress the government accomplishes, they are liable to be reversed if left to governements alone. So while inter-Korean relations are in need of improvement, South Korean civil society itself needs to wage a far more comprehensive and diverse range of efforts to restore true law and order, healthy common sense, and some elementary state of human cultivation. As it happens, the link joining the two tasks, inter-Korean and domestic South Korean, is the effort to find out the truth about the Cheonan. This is not the type of issue that can be resolved through demonstrations and denunciations. We need to muster expertise, but at the same time we need to be cautious of lapsing into excessively expert-oriented discussions. We also need to establish a perspective that views these issues as linked with other domestic issues, and to improve our performance on the international stage as well. PRESSian : Civil society does play an important role, but the government also has a major part to play. If the main front in solving Korean Peninsula issues has moved to within South Korean society, the 2012 presidential election will be a watershed. What is your view? Paik : Of course, it matters a great deal. But there is a lot that needs to be done before 2012. Right now, the conditions are exceedingly poor, with an administration in power that is working against democracy and inter-Korean reconciliation, and a National Assembly overwhelmingly dominated by forces blindly obedient to this administration. But we need to slow down the government's one-way traffic at least a bit, and develop new forces. The recent local elections were historic in having furnished a starting point for initiating such an effort. But I had those tasks in mind when I said that the immediate situation was no more than a respite. PRESSian : North Korea probably remembers how it changed the approach of President Bush with its first nuclear test in 2006. So many people are speculating that it might conduct another nuclear test if tougher sanctions and pressure are applied this time. Paik : If even China and Russia cooperate in pressuring North Korea over the Cheonan, there is a chance Pyongyang might conduct a third nuclear test. But I wonder if the North Korean leaders aren't overly conscious of only one aspect of the first nuclear test. They only see the positive outcome, the fact that the Bush administration's stance changed and negotiations produced some tangible results after the test. What they don't see is how greatly distrust and dislike of the North Korean regime grew in the U.S. and South Korean society because of the nuclear test. It's not just an issue of the North Korean regime declining in popularity. Really, they didn't bring into calculation how narrow their room for maneuver becomes when something like the Cheonan incident occurs. As an obvious example, if North Korea hadn't conducted a nuclear test, the cockamamie "Denuclearization, Openness, 3000" platform presented by Lee Myung-bak in his presidential run would not have gone over. And with the Cheonan incident, a lot of South Koreans think, "North Koreans are weird enough to do anything." So even the opposition parties shy away from tackling the JIG's announcement head on. But there's a world of difference between "They might do anything" and "They did this particular thing." PRESSian : North Korea says, "We are being uncompromising because the Lee Myung-bak administration is being uncompromising." Paik : Inferring from the internal situation in South Korea, I imagine that there would also be many in North Korea, especially within the ruling elite, who would be upset if reconciliation and cooperation happened. Those people would be thrilled even if North Korea caused the incident, and if it didn't, they would be thrilled to see South Korea voluntarily pursuing a policy of antagonism. Right now, they're probably exulting over the hard-line response of the Lee Myung-bak administration, saying, "Look at that! Did you really say you wanted to cooperate and reconcile with these guys?" PRESSian : Is there anything you would like to say about North Korea's response? Paik : Many people calling for implementation of the June 15 Declaration have been advising them not to overreact, and I would give the same advice. And as I've said before, I hope that in the long term, they will focus more on the trend of popular sentiment in the South. PRESSian : Are there any important social change since the June 15 Declaration that you would particularly point to? Paik : The big news outlets are blaming South Koreans' "national security apathy," but this could actually be a trait that represents an adaptation to the changed situation on the Korean Peninsula since June 15 Declaration. If something like the Cheonan incident had happened in the days before such changes, it might have put South Korean society into a state of panic, and the party that should be put on trial in the elections might have garnered most of the votes. But there was very little of that, and places like Paju and Kosŏng, the so-called "areas on the enemy border" where votes used to go to conservative candidates in the past, were all taken by the opposition. This is another evidence that advancements in inter-Korean reconciliation over the ten years following the June 15 Declaration became directly linked to the real-life needs of the people in these regions. It is because nobody can afford to rock the economic base created in South Korea by the June 15 Declaration, that the President, who at one point was saying, "I'm not afraid of war," has recently had to affirm, "I don't want war" and "There is absolutely no chance of an all-out war." The June 15 Declaration has become embedded in our lives to that extent, and undoing it will not at all be easy. Recorded by Hwang Jun-ho & Ahn Eun-byeol Translated by Colin Mouat with the collaboration of the author