Korea's Amazing Century_From Kings to Satellites

FROM KINGS TO SATELLITES

A Fulbright 50th Anniversary Commemoration Project

Pa*

KOREA'S AMAZING CENTURY: FROM KINGS TO SATELLITES

Mel Gurtov James F. Larson Robert R. Swartout, Jr. Edited by RayE. Weisenborn

Korea Fulbright Foundation and Korean-American Educational Commission

Korea's Amazing Century: From Kings to Satellites

Š Korea Fulbright Foundation and Korean-American Educational Commission

Published by the Korea Fulbright Foundation and Korean-American Educational Commission 89-4 Kyongun-dong, Chongno-gu, Seoul 110-3 10 Korea

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise — without the prior permission of the publishers.

Printed in Korea

KOREA'S AMAZING CENTURY: FROM KINGS TO SATELLITES

A Fulbright 50th Anniversary Commemoration Project

DEDICATED

To the Fulbright Program for its fifty years of nurturing world peace and understanding;

To the memory of Senator J. William Fulbright whose vision lit this candle and carried it forth;

To the Korean and American Fulbright scholars who have shared their lives with commitment to a global village.

CONTENTS

Foreword Preface Contributors and Editor

\\\ v vii

Part One A History ofKorean-American Relations

1

Robert R. Swartout, Jr. The Beginnings of Korean-American Relations

3

The First Era of Official Contact (1883-1905)

14

The Struggle For Korean Independence (1905-1948)

26

The Korean War and its Aftermath (1948 - 1960)

37

The Era of Park Chung-Hee (1960 - 1979)

48

Korean-American Relations Since 1979

59

Part Two Korea in the Asia-Pacific Community: Adapting Foreign Policy to a New Era

73

Mel Gurtov Security and Cooperation in Post-Cold War East Asia

75

Korea's Security: New Directions in Foreign Policy

82

The Nuclear Standoff with North Korea

89

Korea and the Major Powers

93

Korea's Economic Security and Regional Economic Cooperation Korea's Future in Asia

101 117

Part Three Korea Enters the Information Age

127

James F. Larson Overview

129

The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea

131

Toward the Millennium and the Information Society

154

Completing the Korean Transformation

170

Part Four An Eye to the Future.

173

Globalization- Toward a New Mindset

177

Ultimately - Optimism

178

Selected Biblography.

181

Notes & References

185

Foreword

In September 1994 members of the Korea Fulbright Foundation and the Korea Alumni Association formulated an idea for a Fulbright 50th Anniversary Research Award. The concept was to have awards made to American scholars whose research would "promote academic understanding between America and Korea." And, of course, they saw the significance of acknowledging the vision of Senator J. William Fulbright. The vision was planted in 1946 and in fifty years has spread worldwide, influencing untold numbers of world citizens.

The Fulbright Program was established by Congress "to increase the mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries." In April 1950 the official agreement for bilateral educational exchanges was signed between the governments of the Republic of Korea and the United States of America In the ensuing years, there have been over 800 Americans to Korea and 1000 Koreans to America under Fulbright Program sponsorship.

With the assistance and guidance of the Korean-American Educational Commission, the Korea Fulbright Alumni Association was initiated in May 1987. This date coincided with the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Fulbright Program worldwide, and the 25th anniversary of the Fulbright Program in Korea. In September 1991 the Korea Fulbright Foundation was established.

This 50* Fulbright Anniversary Commemoration Project is the result of the efforts of all Korean Fulbright Alumni. I am especially indebted to all those who have been active in developing Alumni and Foundation activities. My appreciation goes, in particular, to the officers who have preceded me and laid the groundwork for this project.

A special thanks must be given to many Korean Fulbright alumni.

Certainly, the idea was the composite of far more individuals than can be named. Key players in the project were Hahn Sang-joon, Kim Doo-hyun, Ro Chung-hyun, Kim Yong-kvvon, Kang Sin-taek and Shin Young-moo. They

represent the spirit of all Koreans who have participated in the Fulbright program, and all those who will surely follow.

The project was coordinated by the Korean-American Educational Commission with the solicitation of research proposals from American Fulbright scholars to Korea - past and present - and many excellent proposals were received.

On behalf of the Foundation, I would like to thank the Commission Executive Director, Dr. Ray Weisenborn, for his efforts in editing the contributors' works, and for coordinating the research project details.

As President of the Korea Fulbright Foundation, I am honored and pleased to present this work. The comprehensive research units tie together not only the goals for the awards, but also the "cutting edge" of the Fulbright Program itself.

As Senator Fulbright said: We must try to expand the boundaries ofhuman wisdom, empathy andperception, and there is no way ofdoing that except through education. Education is the best means -probably the only means by which nations can cultivate a degree ofobjectivity about each other 's behavior and intentions.

Dr. Hahn Sang-joon President Korea Fulbright Foundation Seoul, Korea November 1996

Preface

Professors Swartout, Gurtov and Larson have reflected the goals of the Fulbright 50th Anniversary Research Project in their scholarship. Independently, their works stand apart as insights to Korea and America. Collectively, they present an integrated span of the face-to-face relationship between an emerging world power and a country locked in tradition. It is a span of caution, of hostility, of denial. Yet today, the span has closed itself and become a partnership linking East and West - as Senator Fulbright might have said, it has become binationalism. Perhaps poetic, but the title, Korea 's Amazing Century: From Kings to Satellites, reflects the ebb and flow of Korean-American relations these scholars present.

When you enter Bob Swartout' s narrative of the early Korean and American encounters, it may seem as though you are in a Douglas Fairbanks movie, complete with gunboats, charging Marines, palace intrigue and international chess being played with Korea in checkmate. You will follow events through the emergence of Korea as an industrial power to its debut on the world's stage by way of the 1988 Olympics, to stand with her as she faces the challenges of democratization.

For many of us it is often difficult to realize that Korea is a true world player.

Mel Gurtov' s analysis of Korea's role in the Asian community and the world-atlarge eases our understanding. In addition to leading us through the details of Korea's development as a leader, he deftly isolates the challenges that are incumbent upon her. The delicate, yet pivotal, role Korea plays in Asian and world affairs is clearly presented.

Thirty years ago Korea had barely made the ranked list of the world's one hundred economies. Today, she is identified as one of the top ten to twelve.

Add to this phenomenon being a leader in the electronics industry. Jim Larson discusses the intricate weaving of government goals, chaebols and entrepreneurship that have made Korea an information highway society. The transition has not been haphazard, but as Larson notes, cleanly delineated.

For readers, the authors' perspectives lay a foundation for understanding Korean-American relations, pinpoint the current socio/political and economic environment, and illustrate one aspect of the results of a commitment to national - and individual - goals. For those who want to pursue a more in-depth perspective, the authors include detailed notes and references. I have made a selected bibliography of key works, excluding journals, newspapers and independent publications. Any omissions to the bibliography can be attributed tome.

Editing this work was undertaking somewhat of an ominous task. To blend three individual research and writing styles for continuity obviously reflects my own preferences. Nevertheless, I have done so. I have tried not to affect stylistic forms, but have sought consistency. For Korean names, I have used the English version Korea Times style of hyphenating given names, such as, Kim Young-sam. Any concerns for these matters should be directed to me.

As scholarly works, the individual and collective perspectives do not represent the positions of the Korean-American Educational Commission, the Korea Fulbright Foundation, nor the Korean and American governments.

Intellectual inquiry stands in and of itself.

The development of the Fulbright 50th Anniversary Research Project culminating in this book has been a complex task. Craig Morris, one of our office staff, has tirelessly and willingly worked on formatting the entire work for publication. Dr. David Kerbaugh read the manuscript and offered many key recommendations. I heartily extend my appreciation to Mel Gurtov, Jim Larson and Bob Swartout for their commitment, willingness to be flexible, responsiveness to my requests - and most importantly - their intellect. Credit for the entirety of the project rests with the Korean Fulbright alumni and the Korea Fulbright Foundation for supporting the scholars and publication of this book.

Thanks and appreciation are due to all these persons; 1 am responsible for all else. It is my hope that what is here presented will serve as an overview, a perspective, and as an eye to the future.

Ray E. Weisenborn Executive Director Korean-American Educational Commission Seoul, Korea November 1996

Contributors and Editor Mel Gurtov received his Ph.D. from the University of California - Los Angeles. His career has been as a specialist of East Asian affairs, with an emphasis on China. For fifteen years he was a Professor of Political Science at the University of California Riverside. Presently he is the Director of Asia Programs at Portland State University, and Professor of Political Science and International Studies. Gurtov did Chinese language training in Taiwan in 1965-66 through Stanford University's Inter-University Center. In 1994 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Korea. He is the author of numerous books, most recently, Global Politics in the Human Interest, and Revealing the World: An Interdisciplinary Reader in International Politics James F. Larson has honed his interests on Asia and Korea. He served in Korea with the Peace Corps 1971-72 and then was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Korea during 1985-86; he was on the faculty at the National University of Singapore during 1992-94.

Larson's Ph.D. is from Stanford University and he has been on the faculties at the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Washington and the University of Colorado. Larson became the Associate Director of the Korean-American Educational Commission in October 1996. His books include Television's Window on the World: International Affairs Coverage on the U.S. Networks, and Global Television and the Politics ofthe Seoul Olympics..

Robert R. Swartout, Jr. is Professor of History at Carroll College, Montana, teaching there from 1978. Since receiving his Ph.D. from Washington State University he has been a visiting professor in Korea, teaching at Ewha Women's University, Korea University, Yonsei University and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He served in Korea with the Peace Corps from 1970-72 and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Korea during 1986-87 and 1994-95. Having published numerous works on the American West and Korean history, two of his books are, Naval Surgeon in Korea: The Journal of George W. Woods, and Mandarins, Gunboats, and Power Politics: Owen Nickerson Denny and the International Rivalries in Korea.

Ray E. Weisenborn is Executive Director of the Korean-American Educational Commission. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University and has focused on international media studies during his career. His overseas teaching and administrative work has been in Europe, Africa and Asia with the University of Maryland, the University of Southern California, the American University in Cairo and Montana State University. In Korea he has taught at several universities. Weisenborn was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Egypt during 1977-78, and returned to the faculty at the American University in Cairo, 1991-93. He recently published Media in the Midst of War: the Gulf Warfrom Cairo to the Global Village.

Part One

A History of Korean-American Relations

Robert R. Swartout, Jr.

The Beginnings of Korean-American Relations

When Koreans and Americans first came into contact with one another during the mid-nineteenth century, it would have been difficult to imagine two peoples more dissimilar. Their differences in culture, economics, politics, and social values would complicate interaction between the two countries in the best of times, and during periods of crises, could produce grave misunderstandings. To appreciate the great gap that existed between these two peoples, we should consider some of the major characteristics that helped to define each nation during the mid-nineteenth century.

Korea, above all else, was an agrarian society organized primarily along village lines. Unlike many Western nations of the time, there was almost no industry or commerce. In terms of scientific technology, Korea in 1 850 was little different from the Korea of 1650. While the nation's total population stood at about 12,000,000, there were no major cities to speak of—with the possible exception of Seoul, which had about 300,000 people.

The heavy emphasis on farming was due, at least in part, to the fact that Korea was a Confucian-organized society. Indeed, when Yi Song-gye moved to overthrow the Koryo dynasty in 1392 and replaced it with what became known as the Choson (or Yi) dynasty, Confucianism was quickly recognized as the official ideology of the state.

This Confucianism, which was designed to maintain the social and political status quo, emphasized the importance of farmers~as the producers of rice and other foodstuffs—while minimizing the value of commerce or industry.

Confucianism also placed special emphasis on the importance of personal relationships—that is, the relationship between father and son, husband and wife, or elder brother and younger brother. Filial piety became a hallmark of Korean society. These social relationships, in turn, provided models for political relationships. Not only were subjects to look to their king for guidance, but politics as a whole was frequently based upon personal interaction as defined by

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Neo-Confucian teachings. Social status, and thus political status, was determined by birth, with the elite, or yangban, monopolizing all positions of power and authority.

Another important characteristic of mid-nineteenth century Korea was its almost complete isolation from other countries. This commitment to a policy of isolationism was not necessarily because of Korean xenophobia, but rather the result of painful historical experiences. Koreans still remembered the massive destruction to the peninsula caused by the Japanese invasions of the 1 590s, as well as the humiliating Manchu occupations of the 1620s and 1630s. To prevent similar occurrences in the future, the Korean government had decided to adopt a foreign policy that allowed only the most limited of contact with Japan and China, and virtually no contact with Western nations. When the first Western visitors to the peninsula began referring to Korea as "the Hermit Kingdom," it was not without some justification.

Finally, any general description of nineteenth-century Korea would be incomplete if it did not address the economic and political state of the country.

To put it bluntly, the Choson dynasty was in a serious state of decline by the 1850s (it had never really recovered from the Japanese invasions of the 1590s), and was ill prepared to deal with the pressures that would come from the West's industrial revolution and the subsequent search for foreign markets and territories.

A quick glimpse of the United States at mid century offers a very different view. America was a nation on the move, in more ways than one. In 1 800 its population had stood at just over 5 million. By 1 825 it had grown to 1 1 million; and by 1850 it had increased to more than 23 million. By the end of the century, it would more than triple to 76 million people. As America's population numbers exploded, citizens built urban communities—from established cities such as Philadelphia and New York to new western settlements such as Chicago and St. Louis—and spread westward across the North American continent.

Increasingly, Americans came to view their society in egalitarian terms. The ideology of the Constitution—which had been designed in part to reinforce the power of a ruling elite—had increasingly given way to the ideology of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence—a document that was much more radical in tone and would help to produce what would later be known as popular democracy. In the economic arena, this growing emphasis on egalitarianism gave rise to the notion that America was, or at least ought to be, a land of equal opportunity. In the political arena, egalitarianism reinforced the concept of "one-man, one-vote"—that is, that one person's vote was just as important as any other's in a democratic system of government. By the mid-nineteenth century Americans had also created a two-party system that tied national leaders to their local constituents all across the country.

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Although America, like Korea, had originally been a country comprised primarily of farmers, that, too, was rapidly changing. More and more, commerce and industry were becoming key characteristics of the American economy. An influential American politician of the nineteenth century, Henry Clay from Kentucky, had put forward something he called "the American System." Clay argued that the federal government ought to support a national bank, maintain a fixed rate of tariffs on foreign imports, and support the creation of a transportation network throughout the country so that commerce and industry would flourish.

To a considerable degree, this push for commercial and industrial expansion was at the heart of America's quest for territorial expansion in the nineteenth century. The 1840s, often referred to as the Age of Manifest Destiny, witnessed the outbreak of the Mexican War and the American takeover of Texas, the New Mexico territory, California, and the Oregon country. The later two possessions, in turn, gave the United States control of two magnificent Pacific Coast harbors-San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound. Expansionists such as President James K. Polk had coveted these two ports because they were seen as natural jumping off points for American commercial penetration into the Pacific Rim region.

American commercial interest in the Western Pacific, of course, did not suddenly begin in the 1840s. Ever since 1784, when an American clipper ship, The Empress of China, arrived in the Chinese port of Canton [Guangzhou], Americans had demonstrated a growing interest in trade with East Asia. Indeed, by the 1830s the United States had become one of the primary players in the socalled China trade. The Anglo-Chinese Opium War of 1839-42 forced the Chinese to begin accepting trade on Western terms and a series of unequal treaties soon followed. In 1844 the American president, John Tyler, dispatched Caleb Cushing to China with the intention of signing a diplomatic and commercial treaty. Soon thereafter, Cushing negotiated the Treaty of Wangxia, America's first official diplomatic agreement with an East Asian nation. Over the next two decades, American interest in China continued to grow, often fueled by the activities of American missionaries.

In 1868 a new diplomatic agreement was signed, the so-called Burlingame treaty, and for the first time the most-favored-nation clause, which the Americans had benefited from in China since 1844, was extended to the Chinese. One of the more significant results of this treaty was the opening of the United States, and especially the American West, to large-scale Chinese immigration-a movement of peoples that would continue until the 1880s and the passage of a series of U.S.-sponsored Chinese exclusion acts.

Meanwhile, the American takeover of the West Coast in the late 1840s had reinforced U.S. government interest in Japan. By the 1850s, the growth of

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America's textile industry (and thus the search for overseas markets), the frequent appearance of American whaling vessels throughout the Pacific region, and the apparent need for distant coaling stations all led President Millard Fillmore to dispatch a U.S. naval squadron, under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, to Japan. The result of this expedition was the signing of the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa, frequently referred to as the Perry treaty, Japan's first modern treaty with any western nation. This treaty, along with the more comprehensive Harris treaty of 1858, would help to dramatically alter Japan's place in the international community. Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the Japanese government not only began to welcome foreign trade, but also began pursuing the twin goals of industrial and military modernization, all in the hopes of preventing Japan from being overwhelmed by the forces of nineteenthcentury Western imperialism.

In the early 1860s Americans were consumed by their own Civil War, but with the end of that conflict in 1865, government and public attention was once again directed toward East Asia. And as more and more American vessels plied the waters between China and Japan, it was only a matter of time before America would turn to Korea for new commercial opportunities.

In fact, some Americans had begun to make reference to Korea even before the 1860s. For example, in 1834 the diplomat Edmund Roberts had suggested to U.S. Secretary of State John Forsyth that "one advantage in opening up trade with Japan is the possibility that it would lead to trade with Korea."1 Although nothing came of this suggestion, at least the word "Korea" had entered the American vocabulary. Roughly a decade later, in 1845, Congressman Zadoc Pratt, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, actually introduced a resolution calling for a diplomatic mission to Korea as well as to Japan to establish formal trade relations. Although no governmental action was taken, it seemed only a matter of time before some sort of contact between the United States and the peninsular kingdom took place.

The first significant contact, in fact, was quite accidental in nature. In 1855 four seamen aboard an American whaling vessel named the Two Brothers jumped ship off the Korean coast. They actually spent 30 days in Korea-they were well treated by local officials-before being sent on to China, and, finally, to the U.S. consulate in Shanghai, where they disappeared from the pages of history.

While these first visitors left no permanent imprint upon Korea soil, they were perhaps harbingers of things to come. In February of 1866, less than one year after the end of the American Civil War, a U.S. commercial vessel appeared off the port of Pusan and requested trade with Korean authorities.

Given Korea's fixed policy of seclusion, it was not surprising that local officials refused the request, stating that trade with any nation other that China or Japan

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was prohibited by Korean law. Four months later, another contact took place when an American vessel, the Surprise, was shipwrecked along the northwest coast of Korea.

As had been the case with the four seamen off the Two Brothers, "the crew [of the Surprise] were kindly treated . . . and handed over to the Chinese officers in Manchuria. . . ."2 Up to this point in time, interactions between Koreans and Americans, limited though they were, had ended peacefully and politely. But all that was about to change.

That same summer of 1866, a small commercial schooner known as the General Sherman, named after the famous American Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman, appeared off the coast of northern Korea. Aboard the vessel were three Americans, including her owner, W. B. Preston, and two Englishmen, including one Rev. Robert J. Thomas, who had hopes of becoming the first Protestant missionary in Korea. The crew included sixteen Chinese and two Malayans.

Preston was determined to open Korea to Western trade, and thus made the fateful decision to have the General Sherman ascend the Taedong River up to the provincial capital of Pyongyang. Local officials, of course, refused to enter into any trade talks and requested that the vessel depart from the inland waterway. Growing tensions led to violence when a Korean official, Yi Hyonik, was temporarily taken hostage aboard the General Sherman and crew members began firing at Korean civilians and soldiers on shore. Angered by such brutal action, and the death of at least seven Koreans, the governor of P'yongan Province, Pak Kyu-su, gave orders to have the ship destroyed. Too late, the General Sherman discovered that it was in a precarious situation. In its attempt to flee, the ship ran aground on a sandbar where it was completely burned by the Koreans and all aboard were killed.

While this troubling affair was unfolding in northern Korea, a much greater crisis was coming to a head that would rock the Choson dynasty to its foundations. Ever since the early nineteenth century, Catholicism had begun to make inroads into Korea. As the peninsular kingdom's economic and political conditions continued to deteriorate, significant numbers of Koreans were increasingly attracted to the religious teachings of Catholicism. (These teachings had been introduced into the peninsula by Korean visitors to Peking who had been converted to Catholicism beginning in the late eighteenth century.)

As the number of domestic converts grew into the thousands, the Korean government concluded that Catholicism posed a direct challenge to the NeoConfucian ideology of the state. As a result, the government ordered mass persecutions of these converts. Between 1866 and 1872, approximately 8,000 Korean Christians were executed, while thousands more were imprisoned.

These persecutions had ramifications beyond Korea's borders, for among the

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victims of 1866 were nine French priests who had secretly entered the country and were conducting proselytizing efforts.

When word of the French deaths leaked out (three French priests who had been in Korea were able to escape), French authorities in China concluded that some sort of retaliatory action had to be taken. On October 11, 1866, the French Asiatic Squadron appeared in Korean waters and proceeded to blockade the mouth of the Han River, the water gateway to Seoul. The French naval advantage was soon offset, however, when Korean military forces defeated a French landing party on the southern end of Kanghwa Island. Following this defeat French officials concluded that nothing could be gained from the naval blockade and the naval squadron was soon recalled from Korean waters.

Although this engagement resulted in a Korean victory, it also reinforced the Korean fears of outsiders, as well as the government's determination to maintain its foreign policy of seclusion.

Another incident soon followed on the heals of the French invasion that would reinforce Korea's negative view of foreigners. In 1868 a German soldier of fortune by the name of Ernest Oppert decided that he was the person who could force open Korea's doors to outside trade. He concocted a scheme whereby he would sail from China to Korea, march inland with his accomplices to the tomb of the Taewon' gun's father, and then break into the tomb in order to steal the body.3 His intention was to hold the body for ransom-that is, he would not return the body to Korean officials until they agreed to accept trade with the West.

This strange scheme actually went according to plan until Oppert and his men reached the site of the tomb. They discovered that the tomb walls were much thicker than they had imagined; word of their "invasion" had also gone out and Korean troops were descending upon the area. Oppert was thus forced to make a hasty retreat back to his ship and weigh anchor. Although Oppert s actions failed in opening Korea to any Western trade, they certainly did help to reinforce Korean suspicions about the West in general, and traders in particular.

Given the importance of filial piety in Korea's Confucian-oriented society it was hard to imagine a more insulting and barbaric action than that undertaken

by Oppert and his colleagues.

These three incidents»the General Sherman affair, the French invasion, and the Oppert adventure-would set the stage for one of the most important events in early Korean-American relations. As already noted, the end of the American Civil War had led to a renewed U.S. interest in expanding commercial relations in East Asia. In the spring of 1870, U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, who would serve under President Uylsses S. Grant for eight years, decided to send a naval expedition to Korea in an effort to negotiate a commercial treaty with the peninsular nation.

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To lead the naval expedition, Fish selected Rear Admiral John Rodgers, the commander of the U.S. Asiatic Squadron and an officer who was known for having extensive overseas experience. The diplomatic negotiations were to be handled by Frederick F. Low, a Republican politician from California who had just been named the U.S. minister to China.

The primary purposes of the treaty, should one by negotiated, were to open Korea to American trade and to provide protection for shipwrecked American sailors. Using the famous 1853-54 Perry expedition to Japan as a model, officials concluded that the mission was to be carried out "with a display of force adequate to support the dignity of this Government."4 Five naval vessels were selected for this "display of force," including Admiral Rodgers' s flagship, the U.S.S. Colorado. Before turning to the sad events that were about to transpire, it is worth noting that American officials had approached the Chinese government to see if it would assist in the negotiations, but that Peking had rejected the invitation, stating it had no responsibility over Korean affairs.

The American fleet arrived off the western coast of Korea in May 1871 and quickly made contact with local officials in order to state the purpose of the expedition. The local officials, for their part, received the Americans politely, but stated that they were unable to act upon the U.S. request. Any serious diplomat talks would have to be approved in Seoul. While the Americans waited for an official response from the capital, Admiral Rodgers and his officers decided that they would use this time to conduct some preliminary survey work along the Korean coastline. (Commodore Perry had done the same thing during his first visit to Japan in 1853.) Soon thereafter, a small survey crew was sent up a narrow channel between Kanghwa Island and the Korean mainland that led into the mouth of the Han River.

Unfortunately, this was almost exactly where the French had invaded Korea in 1866. Fearful that such a foreign force might pose a threat to Korean national security, especially given the location's proximity to Seoul, Korean coastal batteries on June 1st fired upon the "invaders." Although no Americans were killed or seriously injured during this brief encounter, leaders of the U.S. expedition interpreted the incident as an "unprovoked and wanton attack" upon the American flag, and demanded an apology.5 Korean officials, in turn, saw no need to apologize, but did offer the following explanation: The barriers ofdefense ofa country are important places, within which it is not allowable for foreign vessels to make their way. . . . This is thefixed rule ofall nations. Hence it was the ascent [up the channel] . . . to the Seagate by your vessels the other day that brought on the engagement between us. . . .

On the arrival ofyour vessels the court warned the civil and military authorities along the coast to avoid most carefully

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anything which should cause trouble or arouse ill-feeling, yet when your honorable vessels, not considering the fixed regulations of another country, penetrated its important pass, how could the officers appointed to guard (the close portals of) the frontier, whose duty it is to take measures of defense, calmly let it go by as ofno consequence? Pray do not then be offended at what occurred. 6 Admiral Rodgers and his associates concluded that this explanation was unsatisfactory. When a more specific apology was not forthcoming, Rodgers decided that the only way to uphold American honor was to attack the Korean fortifications from which the offending shots had been fired on June 1st. Thus, on June 10, 1871, 759 American marines and sailors landed along the southeastern coast of Kanghwa Island and quickly advanced upon the Korean forts in the vicinity. Although the Korean defenders, according to both Korean and American accounts, fought courageously, they were no match for the superior American firepower. By the time the forts had been overrun, more than 240 Korean soldiers had been killed. The American forces suffered 13 battle casualties, including three dead.

While the conflict of June 10th had resulted in an American military "victory," it had also, and more importantly, ended any chances of negotiating a diplomatic treaty between the two sides. Korean officials broke off all further contact with the Americans, proclaiming in the process: Looking at it now, one can know this much for certain: under outwardprofessions offriendship you cherish false and deceitful designs. To come to your landing, and thoroughly displaying your forte of committing public buildings to the flames, burning cottages, stealing property, sweeping up everything to the veriest trifle. These are the actions ofthieves and spies. . . . Where was such unsparing and implacable savagery ever exceeded? You came with professions offriendship and amity, and wish us to treat you with politeness, and your actions, forsooth, are such as these. 7 The Low-Rodgers expedition thus not only failed to achieve its primary mission-to open up Korea to American commerce—but also served to reinforce Korea's policy of seclusion. This incident, combined with the General Sherman episode, the French invasion of 1866, and Oppert affair, convinced many Korean leaders that all foreigners had to be kept at arms-length. The Taewon'gun himself had stone tablets erected in Seoul that declared: "The barbarians from beyond the seas have violated our borders and invaded our land. If we do not fight we must make treaties with them. Those who favor 10

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making a treaty sell their country. Let this be a warning to ten thousand generations."8 Although the tragic outcome of the Low-Rodgers expedition seemed to dash all hopes of a closer Korean-American relationship, changes were occurring throughout Northeast Asia by the 1870s that would soon bring America back into the picture. In fact, one of those changes took place within Korea itself. In 1874 the young Korean monarch, King Kojong, gained his majority and decided to force his father, the Taewon'gun, into retirement.

Kojong soon surrounded himself with a number of young advisers, many of whom concluded that the Taewon'gun' s foreign policy of seclusion could not be maintained in an age of growing western imperialism. These advisers were aware of what had happened to China in the 1840s and 1850s, as well as Japan's more positive response to the Western powers.

Indeed, it was Japan which first put pressure on Korea to reconsider its policy of seclusion. Perhaps recalling their own experiences at the hands of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853-54, Japanese officials in early 1876 decided to dispatch a six-vessel naval squadron to Korea in an effort to force the Koreans to enter into a new relationship with Japan. Although Seoul could have perhaps withstood this pressure (as it had with the Americans in 1871), the decision was reached to negotiate a modern, western-style treaty with Japanese officials. The result was the Treaty of Kanghwa, signed on February 27, 1876.

The treaty opened up three Korean ports, including Pusan, to Japanese trade. It also granted the Japanese the right of extraterritoriality, something which the Japanese were trying to remove from their own treaties with the Western powers.

However, perhaps the most important item in the Kanghwa Treaty was Article 1, which stated: Chosen [Korea] being an independent state enjoys the same sovereign rights as does Japan. In order to prove the sincerity of the friendship existing between the two nations, their intercourse shall henceforward be carried on in terms of equality and courtesy, each avoiding the giving of offense by arrogance or manifestations ofsuspicion.9 Although the above language may sound rather innocuous, it was inserted into the treaty by the Japanese for a specific reason. If Korea were truly an independent country, at least in terms of international law, then the Japanese could argue that China's traditional tributary claims over Korea were no longer valid. That being the case, Japan could begin to exercise greater economic and political influence over Korea in order to strengthen Tokyo's international position in Northeast Asia.

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Chinese officials in recent years had disclaimed any control over Korean foreign policy, but the Treaty of Kanghwa caused considerable concern in Peking. Any Japanese thrust into Korea needed to be thwarted, yet China had its hands full in the late 1870s dealing with numerous domestic and foreign problems.

As Chinese leaders were mulling over this dilemma, a possible solution to the "Korea question" seemed to arise. The Americans were once again showing an interest in negotiating a commercial treaty with Korea, and, in fact, had dispatched a naval officer, Commodore Robert Shufeldt, to East Asia in the hopes of achieving such a goal. Shufeldt had visited with Japanese officials in 1880 to see if Japan could help to arrange talks between U.S. officials and the Koreans, but nothing had come of that. Shufeldt then traveled to China where he met with Li Hongzhang a key Chinese official who was in charge of China's Korea policy. Li concluded that if he encouraged the Koreans to enter into talks with Shufeldt, he could use the United States, and perhaps other Western powers as well, to offset Japan's growing influence in the peninsular kingdom. As a result of this decision, talks took place in Tianjin , China during March and April of 1882 that produced an historic diplomatic agreement between the United States and Korea.

The Shufeldt agreement, titled the "Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce, and Navigation between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Corea," was formally signed in the Korean port city of Inch'on on May 22, 1882, by Shufeldt and two Korean senior officials, Sin Hon and Kim Hong-jip.

The document, which contained fourteen separate articles, was in many respects a typical nineteenth-century treaty. It provided for the protection of shipwrecked American sailors, the securing of coal supplies for American vessels visiting Korea, trading rights in selected Korean ports, and the exchange of diplomatic representatives It also granted the Americans extraterritoriality and mostfavored-nation status. In return for receiving these benefits, the United States agreed not to import opium or arms into Korea and recognized the right of the Korean king to temporarily prohibit the export of foodstuffs whenever a scarcity of these might exist. Finally, the treaty made no mention of religious privileges for Americans, a sensitive issue to many Korean officials given the legacy of the anti-Catholic persecutions in the mid-nineteenth century.

Two important issues were raised by the agreement that would haunt Korean-American relations in the years ahead. The first concerned Korea's status as an independent nation. During the talks between Shufeldt and Li Hong zhang in Tianjin , the later had originally insisted that the treaty contain an article clearly stating that Korea was a dependency-that is, a tributary state~of China. Shufeldt had opposed such language, declaring that the United States could not offer diplomatic recognition to any nation that might be legally bound 12

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by another. A compromise was finally reached when Shufeldt agreed that a letter accompanying the treaty could be sent by the king of Korea which would explain Korea's special relationship with China. Although this arrangement solved the immediate problem, it did not eliminate the controversy surrounding Korea's status in the international community. American and Chinese diplomats residing in Seoul during the next decade would butt heads more than once over this issue.

The other important issue raised by the treaty grew out of the second paragraph in article 1 of that document. That paragraph stated: "If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feelings."10 To the Americans, this statement had no special meaning; it was primarily an expression of friendship of one country for another. To many Koreans, however, this "good offices" clause seemed to imply much more. It appeared to be a promise that the United States would attempt to assist Korea in its efforts to remain an independent nation. For some Korean officials and scholars, it could even be interpreted as a diplomatic alliance between the two countries to fend off any foreign encroachment on the Korean peninsula.11 Not surprisingly, when such encroachments did begin to take place over the next two decades, American actions-whether diplomatically or militarily-rarely met Korean expectations.

In the short run, however, the Shufeldt treaty seemed to benefit all three principal parties. Korea was peacefully ushered on to the international stage, and it was hoped by at least some Korean officials that the new relationship with the United States would help to guarantee Korean independence in the age of imperialistic rivalries while also bringing about Korean modernization. China saw the Shufeldt treaty as a diplomatic opportunity to counterbalance growing Japanese influence in Korea. As for the Americans, the treaty seemed to accomplish two goals that they had been pursuing for over a decade: legal protection for shipwrecked American sailors and the opening of Korean ports to U.S. trade. While these three national interests seemed to be compatible, they would soon be tested by a series of crises that would sweep over Northeast Asia.

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The First Era of Official Contact (1883-1905) Korean-American relations entered a new era in the spring of 1883 when Lucius H. Foote arrived in Seoul to begin serving as America's first regular minister to Korea. As would be true for many of the American diplomats that would follow in his footsteps over the next twenty-two years, Foote quickly developed a warm affection for Korea. He made it clear to King Kojong that he would actively support both Korean independence and Korean modernization.

In an effort to strengthen the ties between the two countries, Foote suggested to the king that he dispatch what might be termed a fact-finding mission to the United States. The king followed through with the suggestion, and in the fall of 1883 a large group of Korean diplomats and officials toured the United States, meeting with American government leaders and observing the urban and industrial development that America was then experiencing.12 During various talks between Kojong and Foote in 1883 and 1884, the king indicated to the U.S. minister on numerous occasions that he wished to employ several American advisers in his government, including a specialist on foreign affairs, military officers to help train a modern Korea army, English-language teachers, and an agricultural expert. Foote passed these requests on to the American government, adding his own enthusiastic support. At one point he wrote to the U. S. secretary of state: "the influence of foreigners holding confidential positions in these Oriental countries, seems to add largely to the influence of their respective Governments."13 Yet despite this recommendation, the American government was slow to act. Eventually, several American advisers did come to Korea, but often with little assistance from Washington. Why was the America's official response so hesitant, even lackadaisical? One reason might have been that in the 1880s foreign affairs attracted little public attention in the United States. But the primary reason was that Korea simply was not important-either strategically or economically~to American national interests. If trade could open up in Korea that would augment American activities in other parts of East Asia, American officials would not complain. But Korea was much more interested in, even dependent upon, the United States than the U.S. was interested in Korea. This

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fundamental imbalance in the Korean-American relationship would create diplomatic problems for the next two decades.

The fact that Korea was of no particular importance to the United States was demonstrated soon after Foote arrived in Korea. He was notified by the State Department that his diplomatic rank in Seoul was being reduced from minister plenipotentiary to minister resident and consul general. In a response to Secretary of State Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Foote protested this reduction by declaring that "it is impossible to explain the reasons for the change [to the Koreans], without leaving the most unfortunate impression, while the Minister degraded in their estimation by the loss of rank, is no longer clothed with the same importance and influence."14 But the State Department decision stood.

Seoul simply was not as important as Peking or Tokyo, let alone the Great Power capitals of Europe. Rather than accept the demotion, Foote resigned his position and left Korea in January 1885.

Foote' s departure left the American legation in the hands of a young naval attach^, George C. Foulk, who became the acting charge d'affaires. Foulk has often been viewed as one of the most fascinating, and tragic, figures in the history of early Korean-American relations.15 He had come to Korea aboard the U.S.S. Trenton, the same vessel that had carried many of the Korean officials back to Korea following their tour of the United States in the fall of 1883.

Foulk, who was only twenty-nine years old when he took temporary charge of the U.S. legation, had become an eager student of Korean language, history, and culture. He also began to identify with and support Korean independence, a position that soon got him into political trouble.

Soon after Lucius Foote' s arrival in Seoul, Chinese officials began to have doubts about encouraging a closer Korean-American relationship. As indicated previously Li Hongzhang had initially thought that such a connection would help to limit Japanese influence in the peninsula. However, by 1885 it seemed increasingly clear to Li, and to his hand-picked representative in Seoul, Yuan Shikai, that American influence was leading Korea not only away from Japan, but away from China as well. George Foulk, in particular, came under intense China criticism in the mid 1880s for his ties to Korean reformers and his support of Korean independence.

By 1887 the Chinese government put pressure on the Korean Foreign Office and then Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard to have Foulk recalled.

This Bayard finally did in June 1887, claiming that he had no choice, since the Korean Foreign Office-which was staffed in part by certain conservative officials and was under heavy pressure from Yuan-had declared Foulk persona non grata. Yet that was not the whole story, for King Kojong himself had requested that Foulk be reinstated. Bayard's underlying concern was with SinoAmerican relations. He was unwilling to risk the anger of China by allowing the 15

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United States to take sides in the growing controversy over Korean independence.

The two ministers who eventually replaced Foote, Hugh Dinsmore (188790) and Augustine Heard (1980-93), generally sympathized with Korea, and supported that country's efforts to maintain its independence while moving toward modernization. Nonetheless, they did so in a more cautious fashion than had either Foote or Foulk. They were undoubtedly aware that Washington did not look with favor upon direct U.S. involvement in Korean affairs.

America's influence on Korea during the last two decades of the nineteenth century was not limited to the activities of its various ministers in Seoul. King Kojong's request for American advisers, regardless of Washington's rather lukewarm response, had begun to bear fruit. In July 1886 three American teachers-Delzell A. Bunker, George W. Gilmore, and Homer B. Hulbertarrived in Korea to help establish an English-language school for the government. In 1888 four American military advisers-William M. Dye, Edmund H. Cummins, John G. Lee, and Ferdinand J. H. Nienstend-finally arrived. In the mid 1880s another American, Henry F. Merrill, had also taken charge of the Korean Maritime Customs Service-though he was tied more strongly to Robert Hart and the Chinese Maritime Customs Service than he was to interests in the United States.

Perhaps the most important, and certainly one of the most controversial, American advisers to serve in Korea was Owen Nickerson Denny. Denny had served as the American consul in Tianjin, where he had become a friend of Li Hung-chang, and the consul general in Shanghai in the 1 870s and early 1 880s. It was his friendship with Li Hongzhang as well as the fact that he was an American, that brought him to Korea. In 1886, he was appointed by King Kojong to the twin posts of Director of Foreign Affairs (that is, adviser to the Foreign Office) and Vice-President of the Korean Home Ministry. The latter position was especially important, as it carried great prestige and it gave Denny direct access to the king.16 Almost as soon as Denny arrived in Seoul, he became directly involved in Korean foreign policy. Specifically, he played a significant role in negotiating two new treaties: the 1886 Franco-Korean treaty, which initiated diplomatic relations between the two countries; and the 1888 commercial treaty between Korea and Russia. Denny not only offered advice at critical times on both of these treaties, but, perhaps more surprisingly, was actually a signatory to each treaty as one of the official Korean representatives.

Denny is perhaps best remembered, however, for his spirited defense of Korean independence. As the foremost foreign champion of that cause in the late 1880s, he quickly ran afoul of Chinese interests in Korea. His opposition to Chinese efforts to dominate Korea's foreign and domestic policies would 16

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eventually destroy his friendship with Li Hung-chang and lead him to write a pamphlet titled China and Korea. In a letter to a friend he described the pamphlet as a legal argument "setting forth the international reasons why Corea is entitled to independent statehood, as well as exposing the violent treatment she has received for a long time from her powerful neighbor across the Gulf [China]."17 He went on to say, "this paper was prepared in my official capacity, and hence presents authoritatively Corea' s side of the controversy and will contribute at least something towards putting the political and other affairs of this little kingdom upon a different basis, unless brute force is permitted to set aside well established rules of international intercourse."18 At the same time that Denny was championing Korean independence, he was promoting Korean economic development. His economic program included the international development of mining interests, the construction of railroads, and the floating of a large international loan to help pay off several short-term debts and encourage foreign investment. When a multifaceted plan for economic development that Denny had been working on for several months collapsed in early 1 890--largely due to behind-the-scenes Chinese opposition-Denny angrily refused to accept a third two-year contract offered to him by King Kojong. He left Korea a few months later, no closer to achieving his goals of permanent Korean independence and economic prosperity than when he had arrived in Seoul four years earlier.

Although other American advisers, such as Charles W. LeGendre and Clarence R. Greathouse, were to work in Seoul following Denny's departure, their impact upon Korea was minimal. Collectively, the inability of these advisers to influence Korea in a positive fashion was due to a number of factors.

Beyond their personal shortcomings, which were significant in certain cases, most of these advisers were hampered by a general ignorance of Korean language and culture. But even if they had gained some knowledge of Korean society, they still found it almost impossible to overcome the rather Byzantine nature of the Korean bureaucracy, the lack of a clear sense of purpose within the Korean government, the pressures of Korea's more powerful neighbors, and, last but not least, the general indifference of their own government to Korean affairs.

There was one group of Americans, however, who did began to have a significant influence on Korea in the late nineteenth century, perhaps because, unlike U.S. diplomats or government advisers, they were not dependent upon Washington for direct support. These were, of course, the missionaries, who had begun arriving in the mid 1880s. The early success of Presbyterians such as Horace N. Allen (who later joined the diplomatic corps) and Methodists such as Henry G. Appenzeller encouraged dozens of others to make the dangerous voyage across the Pacific Ocean to the Hermit Kingdom. The flow of 17

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Americans to Korea was part of a larger movement that had been underway since the 1830s. Thousands of Americans, spurred on by a special sense ot mission, had departed for the American West (to work with Native Americans) the Hawaiian Islands, China, and Japan. Korea was the next stop along that roa Once in Korea, the missionaries began to build churches, schools, and hospitals. (They gained permission to enter Korea thanks to the efforts of Horace Allen, who while serving as the physician to the American legation m Seoul had saved the life of Min Yong-ik, the nephew of Queen Mm Min had been seriously wounded-mortally, it was thought-during the^ failed Kapsin coup of December 4, 1884.) In 1885 Horace G. Underwood established a boarding school for boys. In 1886 Mary F. Scranton, one of the first female missionaries in Korea, permanently established Ihwa haktang, a school for young girls, which would eventually evolve into Ewha Woman s University Missionaries were active in establishing a number of medical facilities but perhaps none was more important that Severance Hospital, which opened its doors in 1904 under the guidance of Dr. O.R.Avison.

The various missionary schools, ranging from temporary academies to full fledged colleges, enabled the missionaries to expand their proselytizing efforts.

This effort had gone slowly at first, but by 1910 it was estimated that there were roughly 200,000 Christian converts in Korea. As missionary influence grew it also helped stimulate two other changes occurring Korean society: first, the greater use of han 'guh which was certainly easier for the missionaries to master man were Chinese characters; and, second, the rise of modern Korean nationalism. Many of the Christian converts, by working closely with the American missionaries, had begun to pick up notions of American independence and democracy. As the years went by, a growing number of Korean thinkers anaactivists began to apply these concepts to the Korean political situation.

The primary purpose of the Shufeldt treaty, of course, had not been to encourage missionary activity in Korea nor to make it possible for American citizens to serve as advisers to the Korean government. The primary purpose of the treaty had been to open Korea's doors to American trade. Indeed, America s economic penetration of Korea seemed to get off to a good start.

In May 1 883, the same month that ratifications of the Shufeldt treaty were exchanged, James R. Morse's American Trading Company, with offices in New York and Yokohama, Japan, began to pursue trade opportunities in Korea. Over the next year, Morse's company did approximately $175,000 worth of business in Korea, most of it with the Korean government itself. Trade goods included such diverse items as arms and ammunition, tableware and furnishings for the royal palace,and stock animals for the government-run farm.

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One of Morse's associates in Yokohama, Walter D. Townsend, concluded that trade potential was strong enough in Korea that it was worth setting up business there. He decided to move to Korea, where he established Townsend and Company in the port city of Chemulp'o in 1886. Townsend's commercial activities over the years included exporting rice to Japan, importing oil to Korea for the Standard Oil Company, and helping to install a $47,000 electric lighting system in the king's palace in 1893. In pursuing these activities, Townsend undoubtedly did not see himselfas some"money-hungry imperialist," but rather as an enterprising businessman who was working to support his family while also aiding Korea's commercial development.19 In addition to the efforts of individuals such as Townsend, other American firms were able to obtain lucrative governmental concessions-largely due to King Kojong's desire to create closer Korean-American ties. These concessions included the building of the first Seoul-to-Inch'on railroad, trolley lines in Seoul, a city lighting plant, a public water supply system, and one of the first telephone systems in the country.

But far and away the most important concession that an American company was ever able to obtain was the Unsan gold mining franchise in P'yongan province. Horace N. Allen, the former missionary who would serve as both the secretary to the Korean legation in Washington and the American legation in Seoul before being named the U.S. minister to Korea in 1897, helped to convince the Korean government in 1895 that the Unsan concession should be granted to James Morse, who happened to be a personal friend of Allen's.20 Two years later Morse sold the rights to the concession to Leigh S. J. Hunt and J. Sloat Fassett of the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company headquartered in West Virginia. The site was quickly developed into one of the richest mining properties throughout Asia. By 1900, the mine employed approximately 70 Westerners, roughly an equal number of Japanese, about 700 Chinese, and over 2,000 Korean workers. From 1897 to 1939, when Japanese authorities finally forced the company out, it mined $56 million worth of ore while netting a profit of roughly $15 million-truly an astounding figure for any firm doing business in pre-World War II Korea.21 These numbers, in fact, might lead us to conclude that Americans were not only exploiting Korea, but that American investment in Korea was becoming truly significant by the turn of the century. In a sense, this was true. Historian Jong-suk Chay has estimated that in its peak year, 1908, American investment in Korea represented 27 percent of America's total investment in East Asia. On the other hand, the total dollar amount-$6,000,000~was only a fraction of America's total investments worldwide.

As for actual trade between the two countries, Chay estimates that from 1892, when the first accurate figures were collected, to 1908, it ranged from an 19

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annual low of $700 to a high of more than $4,500,000. The latter figure certainly sounds impressive, but again, numbers could be misleading. From the Korean viewpoint, trade with the United States between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War represented approximately 10 to 20 percent of Korea's total trade with foreign powers. In contrast, this same trade represented, on average, only 0.01 percent of America's global trade during the same period of time. Even within the context of East Asian trade, the figures were not much better. During the 1904/1905 fiscal year, total U.S. trade with the three East Asian nations could be divided into the following percentages: Japan, 55.7 percent; China, 43.95 percent; and Korea, just 0.35 percent.22 These percentages suggest that the early hopes for significant KoreanAmerican trade engendered by the Shufeldt treaty never materialized. Why was that? Part of the answer stems from the fact that Korea in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a desperately poor country. Beyond that, Korea's Confucian-bound society was ill prepared to engage in aggressive commercial activities. Finally, the high level of government corruption that was so common throughout the late Choson dynasty frequently inhibited the systematic growth of economic structures that would have encouraged commercial development. Ironically, had American trade with Korea been significantly greater and had American 'imperialists" invested more heavily in Korea, then perhaps the U.S. government would have been more willing to fight on behalf of Korean independence when other foreign forces began to descend upon the peninsula.

While American economic and missionary influences were taking root in Korea, a domestic crisis was brewing in the peninsular kingdom which would have a profound impact on international rivalries in Northeast Asia. This crisis became known as the Tonghak Rebellion.23 The Tonghak movement itself dated back to at least the 1860s. Ch'oe Cheu, the descendent of an impoverished yangban family, began to create a body of teachings that would address the severe economic problems and moral decay that plagued nineteenth-century Korean society. The Tonghak doctrine (meaning literally "Eastern Learning") that he preached could also be seen as a Korean reaction to the Catholic teachings that were then making their way into Korea. Although Ch'oe's efforts might be described as a reform movement today, Choson dynasty officials concluded that his teachings were not only antiforeign but also anti-government. As a result, in 1864 Ch'oe and twenty of his followers were executed by government order in the provincial city of Taegu.

Despite the death of Ch'oe Che-u, his movement did not disappear; rather, it was driven underground. During the next thirty years, as Korea's diplomatic doors were forced open and foreign goods began to flood into the country, public resentment grew, especially in the southwestern region of the peninsula.

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In 1 893 public demonstrations began occurring which were originally designed to rehabilitate Ch'oe Che-u. Augustine Heard, the American minister to Korea in the early 1890s, reported to Washington: A body, numbering about forty men, have been kneeling before the palace gate, waiting for an officer of the court to come and takefrom them a petition to be laid before the King.

These men were the representatives of a new religious sect that sprang into being in 1859. . . . Every effort has been made to stamp it out, but not withstanding the persecution, or perhaps because of the persecution, the sect has flourished, and, growing rapidly, now numbers many thousands of adherents, chiefly in the southern provinces.24 Fueled by the economic plight of farmers, who were being squeezed by rice exports to Japan and rising taxes, and by the corruption of local officials, the protests finally exploded into a full-scale revolt in Ch'ungch'ong and Cholla provinces in the spring of 1894. On May 31, 1894, a critical date in the drama, the provincial capital of Chonju fell to rebel forces.

The fall of Chonju sent shock waves throughout Seoul. John M. B. Sill, Heard's replacement as the U.S. minister to Korea, reported to the secretary of state: The Korean Government is in great anxiety over the disturbed condition ofaffairs in three southern provinces. . . .

The People have risen against the bitter and merciless oppression of the governors and other officials. While the agitation is at present confined to the three provinces . . . , Cholla Do being the most turbulent, the same conditions prevail elsewhere in the Kingdom, and a few successes on the part of the people such as now reportedfrom Cholla Do will stimulate them to like disorder and bloodshed elsewhere and to a general uprising against all officials.25 Kojong and other government officials were so frightened by these events that a fateful decision was reached: in June 1 894 the king appealed to Peking for Chinese troops to help put down the rebellion. Chinese officials, who had been working to subjugate Korea to China's will for the past decade, were more than happy to respond. There was one problem, however. According to the Tientsin Convention of 1885-which had followed on the heels of the Kapsin coup attempt of December 1884 and had led to the withdrawal of both Chinese and Japanese military units from Korea-China had to first notify Japan of its intentions before dispatching troops to Korea. The result of all this was that, in a matter of days, both Japanese and Chinese troops were pouring into Korea.

Ironically, just as China and Japan were about to square off against each other in 21

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Korea, Korean government forces gained the upper hand against the Tonghak rebels. Seoul then requested its two neighbors to remove their troops from the peninsula, but by then it was too late.

On July 25, 1894, the Sino-Japanese War broke out when Japanese naval forces attacked the Chinese fleet in the Yellow Sea. Two days earlier, the Japanese had occupied Kyongbok Palace, seized King Kojong, disarmed Korean troops, and dictated a series of pro-Japanese policies to Korean government officials.

Japan's heavy-handed takeover of many government offices sparked general public outrage, with the result that a second Tonghak rebellion broke out, this one directed primarily at Japanese forces in Korea. During the fall of that year, approximately 100,000 Korean farmers took up arms against the invaders. They fought courageously, but were no match for the modern army of Japan. Over the winter months the uprising was ruthlessly suppressed. Meanwhile, Japanese officials in Seoul intensified their intimidation of the Korean government, an intimidation that would ultimately result in the assassination of Queen Min on October 8, 1895.

Japanese ambitions in Korea did not go unnoticed in the foreign diplomatic community. John Sill, who would serve as U.S. minister to Korea from 1894 to 1897, was particularly troubled. He, like the other American ministers who had preceded him, came to identify with the Korean cause. As Japanese power over Korea continued to increase, Sill moved repeatedly to thwart Japanese aggression and preserve Korean independence. During the course of the SinoJapanese War Sill had strongly supported the offer of American "good offices" to help stop the fighting, an offer the Japanese refused to consider. Following Japan's victory in the war and the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895, Sill used the American legation to shelter Korean officials who had opposed the Japanese domination of their country.

When news of Sill's various activities reached Washington, President Grover Cleveland's Secretary of State, Richard Olney, sent a direct order to the U.S. minister in Seoul: "Confine yourself strictly [to the] protection of American citizens and interest. You have no concern in internal [Korean] affairs."26 However, Sill continued to follow his own policy in Korea. On June 10, 1896, an angry Olney admonished the minister: "Your course in continued intermingling with Korean political affairs in violation of repeated instructions [is] noted with astonishment and disapproval. Cable briefly any explanation you have to make, also answer whether you intend to comply with instructions given."27 Clearly, officials in Washington were no more interested in confronting Japan over the issue of Korean independence than they had been in taking on the Chinese a decade earlier. Ultimately, Sill was recalled by the McKinley administration which came to power in the spring of 1897, largely because of his continued opposition to Japanese policies in Korea.

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As American influence in Korea began to decline in the wake of the SinoJapanese War, Japanese officials discovered that they had perhaps bitten off more than they could chew. True, China had been driven from the Korean peninsula as a major player, not to return for more than a half century. But the international community had been shocked at Japan's implication in the murder of Queen Min. Then, on February 11, 1896, King Kojong was able to slip away from the royal palace and make his way to the Russian legation, where he remained as a guest of the Russians for approximately a year. Japan concluded that it was not yet prepared for a showdown with Russia over the fate of Korea, and, as a result, the beleaguered kingdom was able to gain a decade-long reprieve.

The decade between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War was an interesting time in Korean history. Although America's diplomatic influence seemed to wain after Washington made it clear that it would not consider the use of force to challenge Japan's actions in Korea, American missionary and economic efforts rose considerably. Young Korean reformers, often influenced by American ideals, were also busy at work. An organization known as the Independence Club sprung up to advance political, social, and economic reforms. It also began to publish one of the first modern newspapers in Korean history. One of the more remarkable things about the newspaper was that it was published in both han 'gul and English.

Unfortunately, these reform efforts had little impact on the workings of the government itself. King Kojong, never a particularly strong leader, seemed to be even more timid and less forceful following the assassination of his wife, Queen Min. Corruption remained rampant in the government, while economic conditions for most Korean citizens continued to be rather bleak. Finally, in the first weeks of 1904, the temporary calm that had settled over the peninsula was broken.

On February 8, 1904, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack against the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on the tip of the Liaotung peninsula in China. The long-awaited showdown between Japan and Russia had begun. Although the major battles in this conflict took place outside Korea, the war itself would have a profound impact on the fate of all Koreans.

Although Japan had gained an early advantage in the war, it seemed unable to deliver a knockout punch on the battlefield. Eventually, as the war dragged on, the United States decided to help mediate the conflict. President Theodore Roosevelt invited Japanese and Russian diplomats to come to the New England community of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to see if some sort of solution could be found.

Shortly before the formal negotiations in Portsmouth were to begin, Roosevelt dispatched his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, to the 23

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Philippines by way of Japan. During his stopover in Tokyo, Taft would help to produce what is generally regarded as perhaps the most controversial document in the history of Korean-American relations. In talks held with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Taro on the morning of July 27, 1905, the U.S. secretary of war reached an understanding on behalf of the Roosevelt administration that would become known as the Taft-Katsura Memorandum.

In a nutshell, the memorandum of the July 27 conversation stated that the United States was willing to recognize Japan's paramount interests in Korea in return for Japan's recognition of America's special interests in the Philippines.

(The United States had recently gained control of the Philippines as a result of the 1898 Spanish-American War and the rather brutal U.S. suppression of a subsequent Filipino revolt.) On July 29, Taft telegraphed a copy of the memorandum back to Washington; just two days later, on July 31, Roosevelt sent a telegram to Taft confirming "every word you have said."28 But why did the United States enter into this secret understanding, especially given the role that the Americans had played in the opening of Korea in 1882? A good part of the answer had to do with Roosevelt's personal opinions of Korea. For example, in January 1905, a good six months before Taft's visit to Japan, he had remarked to his Secretary of State, John Hay: "We cannot possibly interfere for the Koreans against Japan. They could not strike one blow in their own defense."29 Given Korea's weaknesses and state of decay, Roosevelt concluded that it would be best for the Korean people if they came under Japan's tutelage.

Another factor was the role of power politics in the age of empire building.

Roosevelt, like numerous American presidents and secretaries of state over the previous two decades, had concluded that the Korean peninsula was not vital to U.S. national interests. True, American missionaries were active in the country and American commercial investments in Korea had grown. But in geopolitical terms, Korea was not critical to the United States, as was, for example, the isthmus of Panama. And although some commercial interests in Korea had developed, they were still an extremely small part of America's global trade.

At the turn of the century the American public simply would not have tolerated the dispatch of U.S. troops to Korea on behalf of Korean independence, especially if those troops were to engage in direct combat with Japanese forces. That being the case, Roosevelt was more than willing to sacrifice Korean independence in order to strengthen America's position in the Philippines. And the Americans were not alone. On August 12, 1905, Great Britain also agreed to recognize Japan's special interests in Korea.

On September 5, 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed, officially ending the Russo-Japanese War. As a result, Japanese rights in Manchuria were expanded and the southern half of Sakhalin Island was ceded to Japan. In terms 24

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of Korea's fate, the most important element in the treaty was article 2, which stated in part: "The Imperial Government of Russia, recognizing that Japan has predominant political, military, and economic interests in Korea, agrees not to interfere or place obstacles in the way of any measure of direction, protection, and supervision which the Imperial Government of Japan may deem necessary to adopt in Korea"30 For his efforts in mediating the dispute between Japan and Russia, Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, undoubtedly a bitter pill for many Koreans to swallow.

Soon after the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed, Kojong quietly dispatched the American Homer B. Hulbert, a long-time friend of Korea, to the United States in an effort to plead Korea's case to President Roosevelt. The plea fell on deaf ears.

On November 17, 1905, Japanese authorities forced Korean officials to sign a protectorate treaty, whereby Japan was to take charge of Korean foreign affairs. In reality, almost all aspects of Korean sovereignty disappeared with the signing of the forced agreement. Just a scant seven days later, on November 24, 1905, U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root ordered the immediate withdrawal of the American legation from Seoul. The United States, the first Western nation to establish diplomatic relations with Korea, also became the first Western nation to close down its legation following the Russo-Japanese War. Historians have long debated the significance of the Taft-Katsura Memorandum and its impact on Korean independence. Most Korean scholars have condemned it as blatant power politics at best, and as a sellout at worst.

Other scholars have noted that the agreement was not a legally binding arrangement; it was never submitted to Congress, let alone ratified, as a normal treaty would have been. In fact, the document itself had remained a secret until the 1920s when it was accidentally unearthed in the Roosevelt papers by historian Tyler Dennett. It might be termed, then, a "special understanding" between the Roosevelt administration and the Katsura government.

But even if the United States had not been legally bound to maintain Korean independence, the way in which the United States "deserted" Korea was a severe blow to many Koreans. The United States-through the "good offices" clause of the Shufeldt treaty, through the efforts of various American diplomats and advisers in Korea, and through the good will of numerous missionaries-had given the impression that the Korean-American relationship was indeed special.

In 1905, that "specialness" seemed but a memory.

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The Struggle For Korean Independence (1905-1948)

Five years after the Protectorate treaty of 1905 was forced upon Korea, Japanese leaders decided to eliminate all vestiges of Korean independence by annexing the peninsula outright into the growing Japanese empire. Thus began thirty-five years of colonial rule for the Korean people. During this period, of course, Korean-American relations took on a much different shape.

With the closing of the American legation in Seoul, official diplomatic recognition had ended. An American consulate was maintained in Seoul, but its responsibilities were quite limited. Indeed, throughout the colonial period, the most important contacts between the United States and Korea tended to be of an unofficial nature, and were generally along social or cultural lines.

At the very close of the Choson dynasty-that is, between 1903 and 1905— an important though little-noticed chapter had begun to unfold in the history of Korean-American relations. This was the immigration of more than 7,000 Koreans to the American territory of Hawaii. A select number of Koreans, of course, had visited the United States prior to the twentieth century-mostly as diplomats or students. The new arrivals to Hawaii, on the other hand, came with the intention of settling and working in the United States.

This first sizable Korean immigration to the United States was brought about by three major forces. One of these was the fact that, by the first decade of the twentieth century, sugar plantations in Hawaii were facing a shortage of field laborers. The number of Chinese and Japanese who had traditionally worked in the fields was not large enough to keep pace with demand. Secondly, individual shipping companies in the business of bringing laborers to Hawaii, and who, as it turned out, had ties to Horace N. Allen, then the U.S. minister to Korea, saw a chance to make good profits by transporting the Koreans to the islands. Finally, given the economic dislocation then occurring in Korea, particularly in the cities, there was a sizable number of unemployed workers who were willing to consider immigration as a way of improving their station in life.

The Koreans who came to Hawaii during this brief period of time were, in many respects, both unique and impressive. Compared to Korean society in 26

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general, they were more likely to come from urban areas; they were more likely to be Christian; and they tended to have a higher level of education, or at least, a higher rate of literacy. Rarely were they content to simply stay on the plantations as field laborers. Some made their way to the American mainland, where they took on a variety of occupations. For those who remained in Hawaii, many pursued commercial opportunities in Honolulu and elsewhere.

Collectively, they strove to make significant social and economic contributions to their newly adopted land.

And yet, despite their successes, virtually all Korean immigration to Hawaii stopped after 1905. Why was that? Had Koreans suddenly lost interest in coming to America? In fact, the passage of American laws against what was called "contract-labor" made it increasingly difficult for immigrants such as the Koreans to gain entrance into the United States. In more general terms, the rising tide of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States also posed problems.

But by far the greatest barrier arose in Korea itself, or, to be more precise, in Tokyo. As Japan tightened its grip over Korea during the Russo-Japanese War, Japanese diplomats began to raise questions about the movement of Koreans to Hawaii. If too many migrated, perhaps they would threaten the social and economic positions that Japanese immigrants to Hawaii had built up over the previous two decades. Even more important, however, was the thought that the free movement of Koreans to the United States might imply that Koreans were a people free to make their own decisions, and that, indeed, the government of Korea could act in an independent fashion. Consequently, when the Protectorate treaty was forced upon Korea, Japanese officials moved quickly to end further immigration of laborers to Hawaii.31 The Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 gave many Korean immigrants the sense that they were a people without a country, or at least, without a home country to go back to. Perhaps that is one reason why Korean-Americans worked so hard to be accepted into the mainstream of American society. But the Japanese takeover of Korea gave rise to another phenomenon~the rise of Korean organizations in the United States, such as the Korean National Association, dedicated to the eventual return of Korean independence. During the grim years of Japanese colonial rule, these organizations provided both financial and psychological support to those who strove for Korean self-rule.

While Koreans in significant numbers were settling in the United States for the first time, and thus helping to establish Korean-American social relations, American missionaries continued to play an important role in Korea. Although many of them had been privately opposed to the Japanese annexation of Korea, they could argue that their work in Korea was not political in nature, and that they therefore should not be drawn into the political controversies swirling

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about Korea. This attempt at remaining above politics was seriously tested in 1919 when one of the great turning points in Korean history suddenly arose.

The March First Uprising, a seminal event in the growth of modern Korean nationalism, was triggered by a number of factors, both foreign and domestic.

Many Koreans had bitterly resented the Japanese annexation of their country.

That resentment had only gotten stronger with the passage of time. Meanwhile, events were occurring abroad that were making news in Korea. The First World War had broken out in 1914. Three years later, the United States had joined the conflict on the side of the Entente Powers.

To the American President, Woodrow Wilson, and to the American people at the time, the war was not being fought simply to protect American trade rights ("freedom of the seas") or to secure U.S. loans made to the Entente Powers. Rather, as Wilson phrased it, this was a war "to make the world safe for democracy." In Wilson's famous Fourteen Points Speech of January 8, 1918, whereby he outlined in great detail the justifications for U.S. participation in the war, Wilson talked at length about the importance of "self-determination" for all peoples.32 Wilson may having been thinking primarily of those peoples who had been forced to live under the control of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, but the term "self-determination" struck a cord with millions of colonial peoples around the world, including Koreans.

Moreover, the call for self-determination did not end with Wilson's Fourteen Points Speech. Following the armistice that ended the fighting in November 1918, leaders of the victorious nations gathered on the outskirts of Paris to write the terms of peace. Many colonial peoples hoped that the results of the Paris Peace conference would bring them national independence.

Exiled Korean representatives, such as Kim Kyu-sik, traveled to Paris in the hopes of gaining the ear of the American president. However, during the negotiations in Paris, Japanese officials (Japan, too, had joined the war on the side of the Entente Powers) made it clear that they did not intend to give up any of their colonial possessions. Neither, for that matter, did the British, French, Italians or Americans.

While the talk of self-determination renewed hope for Korean independence, the immediate spark for the March First uprising was the death of King Kojong on January 21, 1919, who had been forced by the Japanese to step down from his throne in 1907. Although the king had been unable to preserve Korean sovereignty during his own lifetime, in death he was to serve as a symbol of Korean patriotism and self-rule.

It was announced that a state funeral would be held March 3, 1919. Two days before that scheduled event, a Korean Declaration of Independence was signed and read in public at Pagoda Park in Seoul. Of the thirty-three original signers, fifteen were Christians; fifteen were followers of Ch'ondokyo, the 28

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doctrine that had emerged from the Tonghak movement; and three were Buddhists. The proclamation on March 1st served as a catalyst for approximately 1,500 demonstrations that arose across the country involving more than 2,000,000 citizens.

Japanese authorities responded to this peaceful mass protest for Korean independence with brutal force. Although it is difficult to come up with absolute figures, perhaps as many as 7,000 Koreans were killed, another 15,000 were wounded, while 46,000 were arrested. Although the roots of modern Korean nationalism may be traced back to the intellectual activities of the 1890s and the Tonghak movement, there is no doubt that the March First Uprising, and the way in which it was suppressed, proved to be a watershed in twentieth-century Korean history.

Yet despite the brutality of Japanese actions against unarmed civilians, there was almost no official response from the international community.

Western allies of Japan who had colonial empires of their own were reluctant to criticize Japanese actions. In the spring of 1919 the U.S. State Department went so far as to deny passports to Koreans living in America-including Syngman Rhee (Yi Sung-man) and Henry Chung~who wanted to travel to the Paris Peace Conference to present Korea's side of the story. A March 1920 motion in the United States Senate supporting the independence of Korea was defeated.

America's official response to the Japanese actions, sad though it was, was not surprising given the U.S. withdrawal from Korea in 1905 and the rising tide of isolationism that was beginning to swell in America following the close of World War I. Those Americans who were most likely to react to Japanese brutality were the missionaries already living in Korea. To some degree, they could not ignore the crisis. Many of their Korean friends and fellow churchgoers had been swept up in the Japanese dragnet. Moreover, certain Japanese authorities went so far as to blame the missionaries for the uprising. The Chosen Shinbun, a semi-official mouthpiece, at one point declared: It (the present disturbance) is because behind them are invisible . . . wirepullers who cleverly manipulate the strings. . . . Who are these invisible persons? We have no hesitation in here affirming that the hands of the foreign missionaries . . . are fanning a cursed flame through out Corea. The foreign missionaries who come to Corea-if one enquires into their learning, their personality, their character, they are failures from home, given a paltry three hundred gold dollars, sent out all the way to the three provinces of Corea. To ask of such people learning, character is an unreasonable request. . . .

That the disturbances throughout the world are without any 29

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reason twisted entirely out ofthe heads ofsuch inferior people is in the ordinary course ofthings.33 In truth the missionaries played no role in the planning of the March First Uprising. After all, if missionaries sided openly with Korean independence fighters, they could quite easily be deported from the country by Japanese authorities. And if that happened, then their work in Korea was finished.

But over time it became increasingly difficult for many missionaries to ignore the excessive force employed by the Japanese, especially when Japanese authorities began to put pressure on missionary leaders to "control" their Korean church members. Individual missionaries from across the country were reporting scenes of brutality that "would make your hair stand on end."34 Eventually, the Northern Presbyterian missionaries produced a document on these events that was to be the most thorough report prepared by any missionary group.

The report began by stating the traditional policy of political neutrality under which the missionaries operated: "It is the unvarying policy of the Boards [the Board of Foreign Missions] and their missions loyally to accept the constituted governments of the countries in which Mission work is carried on, to do everything in their power to keep the missionary enterprise free from political movements. . . ."35 The report, however, then went on to list in detail the grievances that the Koreans had against Japanese rule. These grievances included, among other things, the "loss of independence through gradual assumption of power by the Japanese under various pretexts and in spite of explicit promises"; "a reign of [military] terror for the Koreans"; "no liberty of speech, press, assembly, or of conscience"; "an intolerable system of police espionage'; "an attempt . . .to make one race into another by restricting and regulating the racial language (Korean) and forcing the adoption of Japanese ideals"; the "debauching and demoralizing of Korean youth"; and "the practical enslavement of women operatives." 36

The authors concluded their report by declaring that Japanese mistreatment of Koreans was so extensive that it would be "cowardly and unchristian" for missionaries to look the other way: It is too much to expect that missionaries representing the Gospel of Christ . . . should be silent when inhuman atrocities are being inflicted upon a helpless and unresisting people.

Even right thinking Japanese, Christian or non-Christian, would not do so. ... If reporting to the world the brutal 30

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inhumanity with which the revolt in this country is being suppressed be a breech of neutrality then the missionaries have laid themselves open to the charge: No neutrality for brutality." 37 Despite such private (yet official) misgivings, American missionaries serving in Korea during the colonial period were faced with an ongoing dilemma: if they were too public in their condemnation of Japanese rule, they could easily be kicked out of the country. In attempting to find a middle ground between providing moral support for the Korean people and efforts to work within the rules laid down by Japanese authorities, they occasionally could, and would, be accused of being accommodationists~or worse, collaboratorsregarding Japan's continued domination of the peninsula.

On the other hand, for Washington officials, no dilemma existed. Korea was a part of the Japanese empire, and that was that. This attitude among American leaders about Korea changed after the United States began to view Japan as a threat to American security. And even then, Korea would only gain some importance to the United States as a means of weakening Japanese strength in East Asia.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the subsequent American declaration of war against Japan the following day, would have an important, if gradual, impact on Korean-American relations. One might assume that with the outbreak of the Pacific War, America would go on record as supporting the independence of any and all peoples held under Japanese subjugation. After all, when American President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941 to produce, among other things, the Atlantic Charter as a moral guide in the fight against fascism, the call for "self-determination" was written into that document by the American representatives.

The issue of Korean independence was not raised-other than by Korean themselves -during the early months of the war. This was due in part to the fact that Korea was of no vital interest to either the United States or Great Britain during 1941-42. By March of 1943, Korea finally did begin to come up in conversations between American and British leaders. The United States suggested informally that perhaps a trusteeship—involving Great Britain, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States-might be established for Korea following the close of the war.

From the American perspective, a trusteeship might offer several advantages. First, it would be one way of maintaining international cooperation, especially among the Great Powers, in the aftermath of the war—a time when such cooperation would be severely tested as well as greatly needed. Second, a trusteeship for Korea would be one way for the United States to play an ongoing 31

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role in Northeast Asia through the mid-twentieth century. Third, the idea of a trusteeship appealed to some American leaders because it reflected their opinion, based upon U.S. experience in the Philippines and Latin America, that third-world peoples needed to be trained over time for the responsibilities of independent rule. And finally, for Americans such as Roosevelt, trusteeships were seen as a middle ground between perpetual colonial status and immediate independence for third-world peoples. Roosevelt knew that once the war was over, the British and the French would be reluctant to set free their own colonial possessions; indeed, these countries generally opposed even the idea of trusteeships out of fear that this arrangement might be applied to British India or French Indochina.

During some of the most important conferences of World War II, Korea began to emerge as a secondary topic. For example, at the close of the Cairo Conference in December 1943, Roosevelt, along with Churchill and Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, pledged that Korean independence would be achieved "in due course."

A few days later, when Roosevelt and Churchill met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Teheran Conference, the phrase was used again. Roosevelt probably like the phrase precisely because of its ambiguity. Korean patriots, on the other hand, could not help but be frustrated by the lack of a direct pledge for immediate Korean independence.

Perhaps the single-most important wartime conference took place at the Russian coastal resort of Yalta in February 1945. It was the final meeting of the "big three" before Roosevelt's death in April of that year. The primary discussions at the conference concerned allied cooperation in postwar Europe and the need for Russian participation in the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. Again, the topic of Korea came up as a secondary issue. Roosevelt suggested at the conference that perhaps a 20-30 year joint trusteeship for Korea be established once Japan surrendered. It was thought by American officials that Russia's promised attack on Japanese forces, an attack that the Americans strongly desired in the winter and spring of 1945, would come through Manchuria and Korea. A trusteeship would allow the Americans some say over Korea's postwar fate. But by the time the conference ended on February 11, 1945, no specific allied decision was made regarding Korea's future.

In the late summer of 1945 military events began to unfold that would have a dramatic impact on Korea. On August 6th, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 8th, the SoviUnion declared war against Japan and began its military assault on Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea. On August 9th, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. As a result of all these events, it appeared that the Pacific War might end considerably sooner than 32

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American experts had predicted only a few months earlier. Were that to happen, it was conceivable that the Soviets would be in a position to call the shots in Korea.

During an all-night session held on August 10-11, 1945, of the State-WarNavy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC had been created during the war in order to simplify the government's decision-making process), a critical decision was reached concerning Korea. Two colonels from the War Department, Charles Bonesteel and Dean Rusk, were given thirty minutes to come up with a proposal regarding America's possible postwar position in Korea.

After consulting a map of Korea, the two colonels suggested to SWNCC that Korea be temporarily divided into two zones of military occupation, one Soviet and one American. The two zones could be separated along the 38th parallel, which was roughly halfway down the peninsula and just north of the capital of Seoul. SWNCC officials accepted this suggestion and quickly passed it on to their Russian counterparts.

Somewhat to the surprise of Dea-> Rusk, Soviet officials accepted the American proposal, at least one indication that the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States could still produce some goodwill. In a sense, the Americans were fortunate that World War II ended as quickly as it did. Had Japan not surrendered on August 15, 1945, it is likely that Soviet military forces would have easily occupied all of the Korean peninsula, and would have thus been in a position to determine postwar policies in Korea, just as the United States was about to do in Japan.

America's sudden decision to "divide" Korea has remained controversial ever since 1945. Many Koreans, of course, have questioned the right of the United States, or any other outside power, to militarily occupy the peninsula, even for a brief period of time. After all, Korea, like the allied nations of World War II, was a victim of Japanese aggression. By occupying the country, the allies were treating Korea as a conquered nation. Some people have suggested that the United States had no business being in Korea at all. If the Americans had not participated in the division of the peninsula, then the recent history of Korea would have been far more peaceful than it turned out to be.

Other scholars have criticized the United States for making a pact with the Soviet Union. According to these critics, the American government should have occupied all of the peninsula as the preeminent military power in the Pacific at the close of the war. Had America taken charge of Korean affairs, communism would have been kept at bay and the Korean War would have never occurred.

In reality, it would have been difficult, perhaps even impossible, to keep Soviet forces out of Korea. Soviet troops began arriving in the peninsula as early as August 12th, three days before the announced Japanese surrender, and almost a month before the first American troops appeared. Under those 33

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circumstances, American policy makers considered it fortunate that the United States was able to participate in any form of occupation.

-The U S. decision to send troops to Korea, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their arrival, symbolized a fundamental change in America s Korea poHcy and in the nature of the Korean-American relationship. Although American policy makers still knew very little about Korea and its people there was little doubt that the United States, for the first time in its history, would be a major player in the international relations of Northeast Asia.

The Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, triggered mass celebrations across Korea. Koreans at home and abroad assumed that Japan s defeat would mean the quick removal of the hated colonial masters and the return of national independence. But beneath the celebrations, fissures began to appear in Korean society that would make any return to a free, peaceful Korea a challenging task.

For example, who would rule Korea, assuming that the Americans and the Russians would soon depart from the peninsula? A Korean Provisional Government (KPG) that had operated out of Chongqing, China, during World War II hoped to be able to provide an answer, but because its leaders had lived for so long outside Korea they had only limited local support. Even the United States government was reluctant to recognize the KPG as an authoritative body.

Within Korea, a series of people's committees had sprung up; these: eventually led to the establishment of what was called the Korean People s Republic of September 6, 1945. But again, the United States baulked at recognizing this organization, fearing that it was controlled largely by leftists or leftist ^ndeeTa growing split was developing between the left and the right in Korea a split that had been exacerbated by Japanese economic policies during the colonial period. It was true that significant industrialization ™d economic growth had occurred in Korea in the three decades prior to World War II. But fhe benefits of that growth had been restricted primarily to a select number of Korean industrialists and wealthy landowners. For the average Korean, who usually lived in the countryside and was often a tenant farmer, life was increasingly difficult. This common economic hardship, at the very least created strong pressures for land reform. It also led to the rise of active^socialist and Communist parties in the country even before all Japanese forces had been removed from the peninsula.39 It was into this pressure cooker that American troops arrived September 9, 1945 The Commanding General of these forces-which would henceforth be known as USAFIK (United States Army Forces in Korea)-was John R. Hodge, a experienced combat veteran of World War II. Unfortunately, neither Hodge nor his troops had any experience in or affinity for Korea. In fact, the primary reason they were given the task of occupying Korea was one of proximity-since 34

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they had been stationed in Okinawa at the end of the war, they were the closest American troops to the peninsula.

Hodge demonstrated his ignorance of Korean feelings almost upon arriving when he announced that Japanese police officials, perhaps the most despised element of the Japanese colonial system, would be retained in their positions until adequate Korean replacements could be selected and trained by American forces. The public outburst against this policy was so immediate and widespread that Hodge quickly adjusted the order.

American problems in Korea, however, were not simply the result of ignorance. As Korean demands for land reforms and other fundamental changes grew, American authorities in Washington and Korea began to fear that Korea was ripe for a leftist revolt. In order to prevent such a victory from taking place, U.S. officials began to throw their support behind the conservative forces that still existed in the country. Unfortunately, a good number of these conservatives, though by no means all, had been associated with Japanese rule in Korea.

These conservative forces were given a boost on October 16, 1945, when Syngman Rhee returned to his homeland after several decades in exile.

Syngman Rhee (Yi Sung-man in Korean) had been a young reformer in the latter years of the Choson dynasty who had fled to the United States following the Japanese takeover of his country. In the United States he studied politics (receiving a Ph.D. from Princeton University) and had become an important figure in overseas efforts to reclaim Korean national independence. Along the way he had developed friendships with various American officials, particularly those of a conservative persuasion. It was revealing, perhaps, that he returned to Korea in the fall of 1945 aboard one of General Douglas MacArthur's private planes.

As USAFIK attempted to set up an administrative system in 1945-46, confrontations and violence became increasingly common in the southern half of the peninsula. And in most of these cases American forces found themselves siding with Korean conservatives. (Politics aside, rightists, perhaps because of their ties to missionaries and their level of education, were more likely to speak English than were leftists.) As Korean politics became increasingly polarized, the moderate political leaders, who probably represented a majority of Korean public opinion at the close of World War II, found themselves under attack from both sides.

The growing frustrations and divisions within Korea were not simply the product of these domestic conditions, important though they were. To understand what happened in Korea between 1945 and 1948, one must also take into account the impact of the Cold War. During the first two years following World War II, Soviet-American cooperation quickly gave way to mutual 35

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mistrust and hostility. This conflict was focused primarily on the countries of Eastern Europe-especially Poland and Germany. Just as the Soviet Union feared that the West intended to rebuild and rearm the western sector of Germany in order to threaten Soviet interests, the United States became convinced that the Soviets intended to expand their influence, either through political or military means, into central and western Europe.

This mutual hostility eventually led to the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947. In asking congressional support for military and economic assistance for Greece and Turkey, President Harry Truman helped to establish what would be the cornerstone of American foreign policy for the next three-some would say five-decades. This was the policy of containment.

Other events pertaining to the Cold War in Europe would quickly follow: the Marshall Plan, the Molotov Plan and the Berlin Blockade, to name the most obvious.

As the Cold War arose, it had a profound impact upon the future of Korea.

Indeed, it is fair to say that Korea became one of the most dramatic casualties of the Cold War. It needs to be remembered that when the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to a joint military occupation of Korea in August 1945, it was to be a temporary arrangement. Once Japanese forces and officials were removed from the peninsula and once appropriate Korean leaders could be identified, this military occupation was to end. The United States and the Soviet Union established a joint commission in 1946 that was to produce an independent, unified Korea. But almost from the beginning, the commission had little chance of success.

From 1946 onward, both of the super powers were determined to establish client states in their zones that would be ideologically and politically friendly to the respective power. The result was that, between 1946 and 1948, leftists were purged in the south while rightists were purged in the north. Not only were thousands of Koreans killed or injured on both sides of the 38th parallel during this period, but thousands more became refugees as they fled across the parallel to what they saw as safe havens.

By 1948 the United Nations, with the active support of the United States, sanctioned elections in Korea that were to produce a free and independent government. Since the Soviets had already indicated that they would not allow such elections to be held in the north, this essentially meant setting up a separate South Korean government. On May 10, 1948, those elections took place. With all leftists and most moderates already purged from the political process, Syngman Rhee was able to claim victory. Three months later, on August 15, 1948-Liberation Day-the establishment of the Republic of Korea was officially proclaimed.

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Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had decided to install the Communist Kim li sting, whom the Soviets had brought into Korea soon after they occupied the country, as the leader of a North Korean regime. In selecting the thirty-two year old Kim, the Soviets chose to bypass a number of older and more well known Korean Communist activists. The Soviets must have concluded that since Kim was beholding to them for his initial appointment, perhaps he would be more amenable to Soviet wishes in the future. They were in for a surprise. At any rate, on September 9, 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was officially established, with Kim Il-sung serving as premier. Koreans had finally regained their independence, at least on paper, but at a rather heavy price.

The Korean War and its Aftermath (1948 - 1960)

Following the establishment of rival regimes in Korea in 1948, the bulk of both Soviet and American forces were withdrawn from the peninsula. But problems remained. Neither Kim Il-sung nor Syngman Rhee viewed the division of Korea as an acceptable arrangement. Each saw the other as an illegitimate ruler and each was determined to unify the country under his own leadership, if given the opportunity. Indeed, the United States was so concerned that Rhee might attempt to march northward that it limited the flow of military weapons to the Republic of Korea between 1948 and 1950.

Kim Il-sung, on the other hand, had no such problems. As we now know from recent documentation, the Soviet Union was willing to supply the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with weapons that could be used in an assault against the south. As early as 1949 Kim had discussions with Joseph Stalin concerning efforts to unify the peninsula. Russian leaders not only supported a North Korean attack, but played a direct role in helping to plan the invasion. Moreover, this attack was approved by Mao Zedong and Chinese Communist leaders.40 Perhaps one reason Kim and others were confident that the plan would succeed was because of a now-famous speech the U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,on January 37

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12 1950 In that speech Acheson declared that the American defense perimeter L the Far East extended from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, through Japan and foe RvXu Islands, to the Philippines. It was obvious that Korea was to the WJSX Une Commenting on those nations which lay outside the penme er, Ach son r marked: "Should ... an attack occur [on one of those countries] . the reliance must be on the people attacked to resist it and then upon the ChaTe o the United Nations which so far has not proved a weak reed to lean on by People who are determined to protect their independence^uist outside aggression." Acheson went on to say: "But it is a mistake 1.think in coSeSl Pacific and Far Eastern problems to become obsessed with military ^tSSfTgood many people have concluded over the years that AchesoTs speech was an indication that the U.S. was uninterested in Sou h Kola's defense, such was not necessarily the case. The Republic of Korea was Sclud ifrom Acheson's defense perimeter because many American officials betel 5 if attacked from North Korea the ROK Army would have no Sein repelling the invaders."" Conversely, the Japanese home islands, the Ryuk™ and L Philippines were not capable of defending themselves against aS foreign assault As it turned out, those same military and diplomatic offidals great* overestimated Seoul's ability to withstand an attack from the A northern invasion of the south was a gamble, but Communist leaders felt that mey deceived no clear-cut signals that the United States would actively Send the Republic of Korea. The opinions of General Douglas MacArthur Elding, it appeared that America's main focus.reman on European affairs Within the Western Pacific region itself, the United States had been

COTCwS^tortrflecked all along the 38th parallel on June 25 1950 they not only caught the South Korean army by surprise, but also most AmericanOfficials in both Seoul and Washington. President Truman who had bel in his home state of Missouri when news of the fighting reached him, quickly rimed to Washington and met with his chief diplomatic and military advisers on the evening of June 25 (Washington time> Truman and his advisers, including Dean Rusk and Secretary of State Ache^Tlre convinced that the outbreak of war in Korea was being orches^ted by Moscow. This notion was shared by rank-and-file members of botii political parties in the United States, as well as by the mass media. Truman wld later wL in his memoirs that "Communism was acting in Korea just a Sta Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years "arlS itlt certain that if South Korea were allowed to fall Communist leaders would have been emboldened to override nations closer to our shores.

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Truman might have added that, given the role the United States had played in helping to establish the Republic of Korea, the American government had a special responsibility to protect the sovereignty of South Korea. In truth, Truman felt that that was exactly the case.

Some historians have given the impression that Truman's decision to commit American combat troops to the Korean War was made in a rather cavalier fashion. Actually, it was made only after intense and deliberate discussions, as well as much personal sole-searching. As Truman himself admitted, it "was the most difficult decision of his presidency, more so than the decision to use the atomic bomb" against Japan.44 When Truman made the decision in late June 1950 to send U.S. troops to Korea, he not only changed the direction of the war, but undoubtedly the direction of Korean-American relations for the remainder of the twentieth century. For the first time in its history, the United States would come to view Korea as being critical to American national interests. While it is certainly true that this American commitment to the Republic of Korea was primarily a byproduct of U.S. fears of Soviet aggression and the Cold War in general, it is also true that once the United States became actively involved in the fate of the Korean peninsula, that involvement-whether it be political, military, economic, or even cultural-would over time take on a life of its own.

Although the U.S. participation in the Korean War would later prove controversial, it is worth remembering that Truman's public announcement on June 27th that American troops were being sent to Korea was rarely questioned at the time. On the contrary, "cheers broke out in the [U.S.] House and Senate when the [President's] statement was read aloud. By a vote of 314 to 4, the House voted a one-year extension of the draft law." In addition, "the response of the American people-by mail, telegram, phone calls to the White House and Congress~the response of the press, of nearly everyone whose opinion carried weight in Washington and in the country, was immediate, resounding approval."45 In the process of dispatching American troops to Korea, Truman made one other critical choice in late June 1950-the decision to use the United Nations as a diplomatic tool to resolve the crisis. Part of the reasoning for this was political. That is, by getting the United Nations to pass a resolution condemning North Korea as the aggressor, the United States could take the moral high ground in sending troops to protect the security of South Korea. But Truman had another reason for going to the United Nations. As a liberal Democrat and as the torch bearer for the Franklin Roosevelt legacy, Truman strongly supported the concept that the United Nations ought to play a role as an international peacekeeper. Moreover, it had been the United Nations that had sanctioned the establishment of the Republic of Korea back in 1948. Eventually eighteen other 39

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nations, fighting under the United Nations flag, would join the United States as allies of South Korea.46 Despite Truman's efforts to protect Syngman Rhee's regime, the first few weeks of the war went badly for American and South Korean troops. North Korean forces had the momentum and superior firepower. In a matter of days they captured Seoul. Through the weeks of July and August they were able to continue their push southward until only the southeastern corner of the peninsula--the Yongnam region-remained in South Korean-American hands.

That enclave became known as the Pusan perimeter. Perhaps with one last effort, the peninsula would finally be unified under a single government, that of the Democratic Republic of Korea.

American troops in Korea had been placed under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, who during the previous five years had been in charge of the U.S. occupation of Japan. By September MacArthur and his advisers had concluded that U.S. forces were in a position to mount a counterattack against North Korean troops. Rather than attempt a massive breakthrough along the Pusan perimeter, MacArthur approved a large, and what was thought to be risky, amphibious landing near the west coast city of Inch'on. The North Koreans had not heavily fortified that region, assuming that the dramatic tidal changes along the west coast would make a large landing there all but impossible.

The Inch'on Landing occurred on September 15, 1950,and was all that the Americans had hoped for. U.S. troops quickly established a beachhead and then overran North Korean forces in Inch'on. Within a matter of days, Seoul was recaptured by South Korean-American forces. North Korean troops stationed along the Pusan perimeter now found themselves in a precarious position. While facing an increasingly large and well supplied American force across the perimeter, they soon saw their supply lines to the rear being cut off by U.S. troops in the center of the peninsula. By late September, these North Korean troops were caught in a huge pincer movement, and by early October, they had not only been pushed back from the Pusan perimeter, but were on the retreat throughout the entire southern half of the peninsula.

President Truman's initial goal in the war, to defend the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea, had been achieved. But the direction of the war was about to change dramatically. With the spectacular success of the Inch'on Landing and the complete routing of North Korean forces, Truman was confronted with the question of whether or not to send U.S. troops across the 38th parallel.

There was no doubt as to where Douglas MacArthur stood on the question.

The general recommended "hot pursuit" of the enemy forces, hoping to completely destroy them once and for all. As historian David McCullough has noted, this "pursuit" strategy was also supported by "the Joint Chiefs [of Staff], the press, politicians in both parties, and the great majority of the American 40

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people. And understandably. It was a heady time, the excitement of victory was in the air. Except for a few at the State Department . . . virtually no one was urging a halt at the 38th parallel."47 Syngman Rhee also enthusiastically supported the crossing of the parallel.

Throughout the month of October American troops poured across the 38th parallel, pursuing the fleeing North Korean forces up both flanks of the rugged peninsula. As U.S. forces penetrated into the mountainous north, progress slowed, and weather conditions began to worsen. Nonetheless, MacArthur was confident that total victory was within his grasp, suggesting to those around him that "I hope we can get the boys home by Christmas."48 On more than one occasion, these words would come back to haunt the famous general.

In his eagerness to push northward, MacArthur had committed a serious tactical error. He had divided his forces by ordering the Tenth Corps up the east side of the peninsula, while sending the Eighth Army up the west side. This had allowed him to move his forces quickly, but at the same time had weakened communications between the two distant armies. Should a hostile force move into the remote mountains of northcentral Korea, that movement might go largely undetected. Indeed, that is precisely what happened.

The American decision to cross the 38th parallel caused considerable alarm in Peking. Chinese officials, who had approved of the initial North Korean plan of attack on South Korea, had hoped to see the unification of the peninsula under Communist rule. When such unification failed to materialize, China's position on the war began to shift. A unified Korea under American, rather than Soviet or Chinese, influence might pose a direct threat to Chinese national security, especially since the peninsula bordered the southeastern side of Manchuria, a region of critical economic and strategic importance. Moreover, Mao Zedong and other Communist leaders in China had never forgiven the United States for its extensive support of the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek during the Chinese civil war that had finally ended in a Communist victory in 1949.

As American forces began to move closer to the Yalu in the fall of 1950, the Chinese government attempted to indicate through third parties-including diplomats from the non-aligned country of India-that it could not accept the presence of American troops on its Manchurian border. Truman had been concerned about possible Chinese intervention in the war, but had been assured

by MacArthur that there was very little chance that the Chinese would intervene.

With victory apparently only a few weeks away, both Truman and MacArthur chose to ignore the threatening signals coming from Peking.

By November, tens of thousands of Chinese troops had quietly made their way into the northcentral region of Korea. They attacked the northern-most American units with full force and sent them reeling backward. Suffering from 41

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terrible weather conditions and dependent upon overly long supply lines, the U.S. troops had no choice but to retreat. They were not only pushed entirely out of North Korea but were forced to retreat well into South Korea before their defensive lines could be reestablished. Seoul was overrun by Chinese troops and fell for the third time in the brief history of the war. For the Americans the winter of 1950-51 was truly the darkest period in the entire history of the conflict.

As President Truman labored to rally home support for a war that had suddenly become much more complicated and costly, he was confronted with a major command problem as well. MacArthur, rather than accepting responsibility for the failure of his northern offensive in the fall of 1950, began to go on the verbal offensive. He called for an expansion of the war effort into China, talked about the need to "unleash" Chiang Kai-shek, and~perhaps most damaging-called into question Truman's leadership as Commander-in-Chief.

Truman was convinced that the war should not be allowed to spread to other regions, especially those in either China or the Soviet Union. America's strategic and military goals in the war were of a limited nature, and thus the war itself should be as limited as possible.

The Truman administration did achieve a diplomatic advantage of sorts in February 1951 when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the People's Republic of China as an "aggressor" by a vote of 44 to 7. And by the early spring of that year, United Nations forces, in some of the fiercest fighting of the war, had been able to push the front back up to the middle of the peninsula, just north of Seoul.

But during this same period Truman's relationship with MacArthur only worsened. Finally fed up with the general's behavior and public comments, the President relieved MacArthur of command on April 11, 1951. In doing so Truman had the full support of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had also concluded that MacArthur' s behavior was now detrimental to American policies and actions in the war. Although most historians agree that Truman had little recourse but to make the decision that he did, he paid a heavy price at home.

Much of the American public was outraged at the general's dismissal and numerous members of Congress, especially Republican partisans, harshly denounced Truman. Some even called for his impeachment.

Although the furor over MacArthur' s firing would gradually die down (congressional testimony supporting Truman by George Marshall, Omar Bradley and the Joint Chiefs did much to undercut MacArthur's credibility), Truman never recovered politically. Despite his plummeting popularity in the polls at home, Truman stuck to his conviction that the war had to remain limited in nature. If complete victory in Korea ran the risk of igniting a super power ~

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and perhaps nuclear ~ confrontation then the United States and the Republic of Korea had to be satisfied with a partial victory.

Truman replaced MacArthur with General Matthew B. Ridgway, an experienced and respected veteran of World War II who performed admirably in Korea. The President also authorized the beginning of truce negotiations-talks that commenced on July 10, 1951. Truman, was no longer president when those negotiations were finally concluded, but he did remain convinced throughout the remainder of his term that he had made the right decisions: to originally intervene in the Korean War, remove MacArthur, and ultimately accept a limited victory. In an often-forgotten passage of Truman's farewell address of 1953, the outgoing President spoke directly to the future of Korea and the fate of the Cold War: As the free world grows stronger, more united, more attractive to men on both sides of the Iron Curtain-and the Soviet hopes for easy expansion are blocked-then there will have to come a time of change in the Soviet world. Nobody can say for sure when that is going to be, or exactly how it will come about, whether by revolution, or trouble in the satellite states, or by change inside the Kremlin.

Whether the Communist rulers shift their policies of their own free will-or whether the change will come about in some other way-l have not a doubt in the world that a change will occur.

I have a deep and abidingfaith in the destiny offree men.

With patience and courage, we shall some day move into a new era. . . .49 At least in part because of the American public's growing frustration over the unresolved course of the war in Korea, for the first time in twenty years the Democratic Party lost control of the White House with the November 1952 presidential election. The Republican victor in that race was one of America's military heroes of World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower. At one point in the presidential campaign, Eisenhower declared that, if necessary, he would "go to Korea" to resolve the conflict. Exactly what this phrase meant was unclear, but it did seem to indicate to voters that Eisenhower would not accept the continuing stalemate.

Through a combination of stepped-up military pressure and diplomatic initiatives, it appeared as through the truce talks-which had begun in Kaesong but were later moved to P'anmunjom--were finally bearing fruit by the spring of 1953. At least one major player in Korean politics was not happy with this turn of events: Syngman Rhee. Rhee had never given up his hope of a unified Korea and was thus opposed to any negotiated settlement, especially when he believed 43

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that the United States held an industrial and a military advantage over the Chinese.

In a effort to sabotage the talks, Rhee took dramatic action. In June 1953, he ordered South Korean military authorities to release approximately 27,000 North Korean prisoners under their control. This was a controversial action, as Rhee well knew, because North Korean and Chinese authorities had been insisting for many months that all prisoners of war were to be returned to their respective governments. (It was a major embarrassment to both Peking and Pyongyang that many of the Communist prisoners did not want to be returned "home.")

Although Rhee's actions threatened to disrupt the final stages of the negotiations, Washington's determination to reach a settlement ultimately did produce an agreement. The official armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The Korean War—at least the military side of it--had finally come to an end. In the process, it had profoundly changed the nature of the Korean-American relationship.

Although the Truman and Eisenhower administrations had managed to keep the war limited, its impact on the United States was sizable. The U.S. government had spent more than $15 billion on the war itself. Approximately one million Americans served in the war during the three years of conflict; of that number, about 150,000 became casualties, while 36,568 were officially listed as killed. Several thousand more were listed as missing-in-action and were presumably dead.

In broader terms, the conflict had a major influence on American foreign policy. The war, like nothing before it, had solidified the American commitment to the policy of containment. Defense spending dramatically increased. Soon after the war began,U.S. officials decided to help rearm Germany in order to forestall a possible Soviet thrust into Central Europe. The U.S. Seventh Fleet was dispatched to the Taiwan Strait to prevent the PRC from mounting an invasion against Chiang Kai-shek's beleaguered Nationalist government; this decision, as well as the fighting between Chinese and American troops on the Korean peninsula, would produce twenty years of hostility and thirty years of non-recognition in the Sino-American relationship.

The Korean War also led the United States into areas where it had shown little interest before 1950. Soon after the initial North Korean attack, the Truman administration made the fateful decision to begin supplying France with military aid in Southeast Asia, aid that was designed to help the French suppress the Vietnamese revolution being led by Ho Chi Minn. Between 1950 and 1954, the United States would provide France with more than $2 billion worth of assistance, covering roughly 75 percent of all French costs in the Indochinese war during that period.

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For our purposes, of course, the most important diplomatic action to come out of the war was the signing on October 1, 1953, of a Mutual Security Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea. (The treaty became a binding document on January 26, 1954, when it was ratified by the U.S. Senate.)

Syngman Rhee had desperately wanted this arrangement and, in fact, it was part of a larger promise for extensive military and economic that Washington had already given to Rhee in return for his acceptance-if not approval-of the July 27th armistice.

The signing of the 1953 Mutual Security Treaty had tremendous implications for both Korea and the United States. The two nations were bound together as never before in their history. The United States was legally and publicly committed to the defense of the Republic of Korea. As part of that defense, significant numbers of American ground, air, and naval forces would be stationed in Korea for decades to come. This military commitment also implied a major political and economic commitment to the Republic of Korea.

The 1953 treaty not only helped to secure the continued existence of the Republic of Korea, but also reinforced the division of the peninsula into two hostile camps. For just as South Korea would turn to the United States for assistance and protection, North Korea would depend largely upon the Soviet Union and China to rebuild its economic and military structures~at least in the immediate years ahead.

Above all else, the Korean War brought unparalleled devastation to the Korean peninsula. For the United States, for the United Nations, even for the Chinese, the Korean conflict might be labeled a "limited war." Not so for Koreans. The economy and transportation infrastructure~both north and southlay in a shambles. Of a total population of about 30 million, historians have estimated that there were approximately 3 million casualties, 2 million of whom were civilians. Millions more had become refugees-often separated from family and loved ones~as they fled war and political oppression. From the perspective of the late 20th century, it can be argued that no other event in Korean historynotthe Mongol invasions of the 13th century, not the Hideyoshi invasions of the 1590s, not even Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century—had a more traumatic impact upon the Korean people.

As terrible as the Korean War was, it gave Syngman Rhee a new lease on life, politically speaking. On the eve of the war, Rhee's support within South Korea had become increasingly shaky; Washington, too, had growing doubts about his ability to govern the country effectively. In the war's wake, the American government's position on Rhee seemed to change considerably. Why was that so?

First of all, Rhee's anti-Communist credentials were impeccable. Given America's fears of Soviet expansion at the height of the Cold War, Rhee's 45

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staunch opposition to Communism won him numerous admirers in the United States, especially among conservative public opinion-makers who were already deeply troubled over the "loss" of China. Moreover, Rhee's government seemed to at least pay some lip service to democratic ideals and institutions The Republic of Korea functioned under the 1948 constitution; Rhee had been elected to a second two-year term in 1952, even while the war raged on. Finally, since many Korean moderates had been purged from politics in the 1940s, there didn't appear to be many other alternatives—at least from a distance—to Syngman Rhee in the mid 1950s.

Rhee's regime was further assisted by the introduction of large amounts of American aid in the 1950s. Between 1954 and 1960, roughly $2.6 billion worth of economic grants-in-aid poured into South Korea. This figure represented about 8.6 percent of South Korea's total GNP during that period. Along with this economic aid, the United States also provided $1.2 billion in military assistance, or about 76 percent of the Republic of Korea's total military budget.

While the purpose of the military aid was obvious, much of the economic aid was used to rebuild the country's badly damaged infrastructure and temporarily feed much of the Korean population.

This assistance helped to create a strong bond between the Korean and American peoples in the years immediately following the Korean War. It also allowed the U.S. government to gain a considerable degree of leverage over the Korean government. However, it should not be assumed that Rhee was simply a puppet of the United States. Rhee could be fiercely independent, as was indicated in the controversy over Korean-Japanese relations.

Ironically, Japan had benefited greatly from the outbreak of the Korean War. It was often used as a staging and supply area for American troops headed to the front in Korea and as a result, large amounts of money began to flow into Japan. The U.S. government had also concluded that with the outbreak of the war, Japan was of vital importance to American security interests in East Asia and the Western Pacific. Washington thus began to place even greater emphasis on the need to rebuild Japan's war-torn economy. Meanwhile, U.S. officials increased their efforts to tie Japan to the Western alliance that the United States had recently formed to halt the possible spread of Soviet influence. These American efforts reached fruition in September 1951 when both a peace treaty (ending World War II) and a mutual security agreement were signed by Japan and the United States.

Because East Asia was being viewed as critical to American security and because the United States had defense pacts with both Tokyo and Seoul, Washington officials believed that a rapprochement in Korean-Japanese relations would be beneficial to the region as a whole. But for Korean nationalists such as Syngman Rhee, who still had vivid memories of Japan's 46

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brutal occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945, normalization of KoreanJapanese relations was out of the question. (Any Korean suggestion of normalization talks might have also incited anti-government demonstrations in South Korea.) Thus, no matter how strongly Washington urged such talks to take place, Rhee successfully thwarted these efforts through his remaining years in power.

As it turned out, those years were numbered. For many Koreans it appeared that with each passing year, Rhee's style of governing had become increasingly heavy-handed. On April 19, 1960, a political uprising led by students directly challenged Rhee's right to rule.50 A turning point in the crisis occurred when South Korean military forces, equally dissatisfied with Rhee's leadership, chose not to intervene on his behalf. The major question mark in the drama remained the United States.

Although the United States government had publicly supported Rhee throughout the fifties, there had been growing frustration over developments~or the lack thereof~in Korea. Rhee's personal rule had become increasingly arbitrary. The original 1948 constitution had stated that the presidency had a two-term limit. In an effort to serve a third term, Rhee had successfully pushed for a constitutional amendment in 1954 that had removed any presidential term limit, thus paving the way for his reelection in 1956. The elections themselves appeared to be a mockery of the democratic process, as Rhee used his Liberal Party to manipulate various voting outcomes. It was precisely this "flagrant" abuse of power in the 1960 election that had triggered the student revolution of that year.51 In addition to this abuse of power, both Korean and American observers were disillusioned by the rampant corruption that seemed to accompany Rhee's rule. Too often, it appeared that personal favors and connections,rather than the needs of the country or the rule of law, determined how political decisions were made.

Finally, given the American conviction that a strong anti-Communist government could only be sustained if there were an equal measure of economic prosperity, the lack of significant economic growth or successful long-range planning undercut support that Rhee might have otherwise had. To be fair, Korea's economic condition in the months and years immediately following the war was so desperate that it would have been a challenge for any government to produce significant growth figures. Nonetheless, there was a perception in many circles that too often growth and planning potential were being sacrificed for short-term political advantages.

When Rhee was finally forced to resign from the presidency in late April 1960, the United States offered to provide him with sanctuary in Hawaii. Rhee and various American officials might have had their differences over the years 47

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(to put it mildly), but given the role that the United States had played in helping to establish the Republic of Korea and the close identification that Washington had had with the Rhee regime, it did not seem appropriate that the United States totally turn its back on the discredited Korean leader during his last years in exile.

The Korean War indicated that for the first time in the long history of the Korean-American relationship, Korea had become critical to American national interests. Yet this development did not mean that Korean and American goals were always the same. Nor did it indicate that the two nations were on an equal footing. As Korea strove to move beyond the role of simply being an American client-state, and as differing national needs and goals rose to the surface in the 1960s and 1970s, tensions and mutual challenges also arose.

The Era of Park Chung-Hee (1960 - 1979)

By the early 1960s, three themes had begun to emerge in modern KoreanAmerican relations. The first of these focused on the security needs of the United States and the Republic of Korea. Although a common fear of potential North Korean aggression had produced the 1953 mutual security pact and thus served as the primary justification for the ongoing South Korean-American military alliance, the security interests of the two countries were not identical.

When these interests differed, bilateral tensions could arise, as we shall see.

A second theme had to do with the balance of power between the United States and Korea. Given its economic and military presence in the world, the United States was going exercise more clout than Korea. This kind of clientstate status for the Republic of Korea was reinforced by Seoul's military dependence upon Washington for its security. Such a dissimilarity in power would, on occasion, lead the United States to try to influence events within Korea, an influence that quite naturally could produce Korean resentment.

Again, as well shall see, one of the important changes in Korean-American relations since the 1960s has been Korea's effort to gain greater autonomy and international prestige while at the same time maintaining a close working relationship with the United States for security and economic purposes.

The mention of economics brings us to the third theme. As we have already seen, one reason for the United States showing such little interest in Korea prior 48

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to the 1950s was because Korea was of no special economic importance. Even through the 1950s, economic ties between the two countries were one-sided, and were designed primarily to support a certain political system for strategic purposes. But that, too, would change in the years ahead. Koreans understood that economic growth would not only provide a higher standard of living; it would also pave the way for greater national security. As Korea became a major economic force on the international stage over the next three decades, this growth was bound to strongly affect the nature of the Korean-American relationship.

The fall of Syngman Rhee's government in 1960 led to the establishment of what Koreans refer to as the Second Republic-that is, a new constitution was written to replace the 1948 document. The new constitution weakened the executive branch of the national government, strengthened the legislative branch, and granted greater autonomy to local units-the latter being a promise that Syngman Rhee had not fulfilled. The 1960 constitution also placed most of the responsibilities of the executive branch within the hands of a prime minister.

The office of president still existed, but it was largely a figurehead position.

The new government of Prime Minister Chang Myon (also known as John M. Chang to many Americans) was strongly supported by the United States.

U.S. officials applauded the growth of democratic institutions, as well as the government's efforts to initiate long-term economic planning. What would have come of these changes remains unknown, for the days of the Second Republic were clearly numbered.

Although the changes mentioned above suggested the promise of a brighter future, short-term problems had begun to plague the Chang Myon government during its twelve-month tenure. Factional fighting, a chronic feature of Korean party politics, was no stranger to the ruling Democratic Party. (The Liberal Party had disappeared almost overnight with the fall of the Rhee government.)

Moreover, although some economic planning had begun, a sudden upswing in inflation created economic hardships for many. And perhaps most telling, students protests had begun to resurface, at least partly because students were often frustrated by what they saw as the slow pace of reform. All of these developments, taken together, gave the impression of a government suffering from political indecision at best, and perhaps even political chaos at worst.

There were those in Korean society who feared that these conditions would leave the South vulnerable to North Korean threats.

The sense of political drift suddenly ended on May 16, l'961, when a military coup led by Brigadier General Park Chung-hee toppled the Chang Myon government. In the wake of that action civil rights were suspended, elections were prohibited for two years, and traditional party leaders were banned from political participation because of their decadent ways.

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Although an American secretary of state, Dean Rusk, issued a statement in July 1961 publicly supporting the new military junta, privately there was strong criticism of Park's seizure of power. Indeed, for roughly the next two years, the U.S. government put intense pressure on Park and his colleagues to return government control to the civilian sector by approving a democratic~or at least semi-democratic~constitution and holding new national elections. At one point, when Park declared in March 1963 that military rule needed to be extended for four more years, a U.S. State Department spokesman responded: "We believe that prolongation of military rule could constitute a threat to a stable and effective government. . . ."52 To drive home the point, the Kennedy administration "flatly turned down the military junta's request for an additional $25 million in economic aid, thus underscoring its determination to bring constitutional government to Korea."53 Eventually Park gave in to these pressures~to some degree, at any rate. A new constitution was written in 1963, thus initiating the Third Republic. Park then gave up his generalship in the Korean army, created his own political party (whose leaders were usually drawn from the military establishment), and successfully ran for the Korean presidency late that same year. Four years later, in 1967, Park was reelected to a second term.

Although the United States appeared to be satisfied with these changes, Park himself resented the fact that he had to yield to such American pressures.

Given the nature of the Korean-American relationship in the early 1960s~that is, that the United States was able to wield considerable military and economic influence over Korea-Park believed that he had no choice but to respond to at least some of these pressures. But he would remember the experience and was determined to make the Republic of Korea as militarily and economically strong as possible so that, if need be, it could pursue its own independent policies in the future.

For the time being, however, South Korean-American relations entered into a very positive period. American officials applauded the democratic aspects of the Third Republic. They were also impressed by the degree of detail that the Park government gave to economic development and military self-defense. But perhaps the most important elements leading to South Korean-American cooperation stemmed from external sources.

If South Koreans and Americans needed reminders that North Korea still posed a threat to their joint security, they suddenly appeared in 1968. In January of that year, North Korean commandos carried out an attack on Chongwadae ("The Blue House") in an effort to assassinate Park Chung-hee. Although the assault failed, it was frightening to realize that North Korean agents had penetrated the grounds of the Executive Mansion.

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Then, just two days later, North Korean patrol boats captured the American naval intelligence vessel Pueblo off the northeast coast of Korea. Although the eighty-three crew members of the Pueblo were freed after a year's captivity when the U.S. government officially apologized for "penetrating" North Korea's coastal waters, the event reinforced the views in Washington and Seoul that the Pyongyang regime was still extremely dangerous. This common fear also helped strengthen South Korean-U.S. cooperation.

One other important factor that helped to cement Korean-American ties in the mid 1960s was the Vietnam War. By 1965, the buildup of American ground forces in Vietnam was clearly underway. In an attempt to show that the U.S. policy in Vietnam had broad international support, President Lyndon Johnson was hopeful of recruiting other foreign forces to the American cause. For the most part, this campaign proved to be unsuccessful, with few nations eager to send their own combat troops to Vietnam. The one primary exception to this rule was the Republic of Korea.

Between 1965 and 1973 the Korean government authorized the dispatch of more than 47,000 South Korean troops to Vietnam. This figure represented the maximum number of troops from specific units sent to Vietnam. However, since there was an annual rotation of troops within these units~as there was for most American units serving in Vietnam~the total number of individual South Korean soldiers sent to Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 came to approximately 312,000. This was far and away the largest contingent of foreign troops sent to Vietnam outside of American forces.54 These troops were sent to Vietnam for a variety of reasons. A significant number of Koreans at the time, including much of the general public, saw the dispatch of troops as an opportunity to repay the Americans for the sacrifices they had made on behalf of the Republic of Korea during the Korean War. Korea had spent more than a decade receiving "handouts" from the United States; for once, Korea could be seen in the international community as giving something back.

This was also a time in Korea's contemporary history when the fear of North Korea-fear reinforced by the commando attack on Chongwadae—placed South Korea strongly within the anti-Communist camp. Newspapers, magazines, newsreels, and public documents all produced a steady stream of information describing the dangers of Communism. The dispatch of South Korean troops to Vietnam was thus another way of fighting the forces of Communism, albeit a long way from the Korean DMZ. Finally, there was the issue of money. Of all the nations that agreed to send troops to Vietnam to assist the United States, Korea was in the weakest financial position. To overcome this problem, Seoul and Washington entered into a thensecret agreement known as the Brown Memorandum of March 4, 1966.

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Through this arrangement the United States government, according to historian Frank Baldwin, "agreed to pay virtually all the expenses of the R.O.K. forces for Vietnam, plus providing billions of dollars' worth of new military equipment, assistance to South Korean businessmen in Vietnam, and employment of South Korean civilian workers in Vietnam."55 The bonuses paid to individual Korean troops were especially significant. In July 1969, for example, the monthly basic pay for a private in the South Korean army was' $1.60. The monthly overseas allowance paid by the United States to that same private while serving in Vietnam was $37.50 (figured at a rate of $1.25 per day). While the figure of $37.50 does not sound very impressive by today's standards, in 1969 it was twenty-three times larger than a soldier's base pay.56 , The large presence of Korean troops in Vietnam was undoubtedly appreciated by their American counterparts. Yet at the same time, the vast sums of money that Korean soldiers and Korean businesses were able to earn from the war would have an important impact on Korea's own economic development.

Nor was this fact lost on the Park Chung-hee regime. Park clearly saw Korea's participation the the Vietnam War, at least in part, as a way of earning badly needed capitalÂťthe pay to Koreans was in dollars, not in Korean won-that would help to jump start Korea' s industrial development.

At the same time that Park was willing to assist the United States in Vietnam, however, he worked to strengthen the autonomy of Korea's military forces. The military equipment gained through Vietnam was one way of accomplishing that. More importantly, Park refused to place Korean troops in Vietnam under the operational control of American field commanders. When Washington pressed the South Korean government on this issue, Park threatened to withdraw his troops from Vietnam. Nor could dollars alone be used to dictate terms to Seoul. "On two occasions," historian Bae-Ho Hahn has observed, "the Park government refused to send more ROK troops to Vietnam despite repeated and urgent requests from the U.S. government."57 Yet despite such differences behind the scenes, Korean-American relations during this period, as already noted, were marked by cooperation and mutual interest. One of these areas of mutual interest was the effort to establish a sound foundation for future economic growth in Korea. Indeed, from his first days in power, Park was determined to move Korea ahead economically. If this could be accomplished, it would~in Park's mind-clearly strengthen Korean national security and independence, while also serving as a legitimizing force for the Park regime. Few Koreans, after all, had forgotten how Park Chung-hee had originally come to power.

In many respects, Park and his economic advisers took Japan as their economic model. They concluded that the quickest way to move Korea ahead 52

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was through the development of heavy industries-such as petrochemicals, steel, and shipbuilding-and exports. In order to bring these changes about, the government emphasized the importance of central planning. Many of the brightest minds in the country were brought together in Seoul to focus on economic growth. While critical planning was taking place, the government also began to move away from the kind of direct financial assistance that it had received from the United States during the grim years following the Korean War. Significant growth in heavy industries meant the need for a significant influx of foreign capital, and for this the government turned increasingly to international bank loans. This was a gamble of sorts, for such increased loans also produced a sizable foreign debt. (The debt would reach about $35 billion by 1987.) But if industrial growth could occur rapidly enough, then this debt might be successfully managed.

Organizations such as the International Monetary Fund were not the only source of foreign capital. Another was just a few hundred miles away-Japan.

But for Korea and Japan to strengthen their economic ties, they first had to establish normal diplomatic relations. Such recognition had been a controversial issue since 1948, with thousands, if not millions, of Koreans still bitterly resenting Japan's colonial occupation of their country. Park Chung-hee, however, was determined to push ahead and in 1965, despite strong public protest in South Korea, his government established full diplomatic relations with Japan. Now, not only could Japanese capital begin flowing into Korea, but Japanese technology as well. This technology would be critical to Korea's first efforts at exporting industrial products abroad.

The United States, for the most part, was not responsible for the dramatic economic growth which took place in Korea between 1965 and 1980. That growth was due primarily to the intelligence, the diligence, and the sense of national purpose that marked the Korean people during this period. On the other hand, the United States did play a valuable role in this development. The American contributions came in three forms. First, it provided research and academic facilities for many of Korea's finest minds. An unusually large number of Seoul's most influential economists and planners were Americantrained in United States universities. And a fair number of those had worked for American firms and agencies before returning to Korea.

A second contribution, as already indicated, was in the form of moneies and experiences provided by the Vietnam War. The hard currency that Korea gained by participating in that conflict provided badly needed capital for industrial investment. Finally, and perhaps most important, the United States aided Korea's economic growth by simply being the United States-that is, by having the largest market in the world for industrial and consumer products and making that market open to all comers, including Korea.

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As political and economic ties were being changed and strengthened during the 1960s, so, too, were certain social and cultural ties. Ever since the late 1940s there had been a sizable presence of American citizens in Korea. Missionaries had been replaced by soldiers as the most obvious influence. But that influence was a mixed blessing. As Korean historians and sociologists have noted, a kind of "G.I. culture" began to appear in Korea.58 Although individual American soldiers could be friendly and even generous in their relations with Korean citizens, camp life could also expose some rather unsavory aspects of both American and Korean society. In addition, the money and goods that often flowed out of American military compounds in the 1950s and 1960s stimulated the growth of a black-market economy that could sometimes be disruptive. As a result, although most South Koreans still had warm feelings for the United States and appreciated the presence of U.S. troops on the peninsula, a certain degree of resentment arose over the very size of that presence, especially when it appeared as though Americans living in Korea did not share in the same hardships that many Koreans experienced.

A new group of Americans began arriving in Korea in the mid 1960s. These were not missionaries--at least, not in the religious sense~nor soldiers. They were young, mostly college graduates, and were known as Peace Corps volunteers.

The Peace Corps began in the early 1960s at the bequest of President John F. Kennedy. At the height of the Cold War Kennedy wished to demonstrate to the international community that the youth of the United States, despite their country's economic wealth, were not all decadent, lazy, or materialistic, as was frequently claimed in the Soviet press. In calling for a commitment to a "New Frontier" spirit, Kennedy challenged young Americans to volunteer on behalf of their country for public service in Third World settings. The Peace Corps program, especially in its early years, carried a political as well as a social and economic message.

From the mid 1960s to the end of the 1970s, hundreds of American volunteers were sent to Korea to take on a variety of tasks. They served as health care workers in rural areas, college science and English teachers, high school English teachers, and middle school English teachers, the latter being the largest single Peace Corps program in Korea over the years. In a few instances, experienced volunteers with special technical and language skills were assigned to important government agencies, such as the Economic Planning Board.

Whatever their work might be, volunteers lived within the Korean community, eating the same foods and using the same public facilities as the general Korean population. Their standard of living was comparable to their Korean counterparts. For example, a middle school volunteer in 1970 receive a monthly

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stipend of approximately $75. That was to cover all of his or her living expenses for the entire month.59 It would be false to suggest that these American volunteers had any dramatic impact on Korean society. Nonetheless, they did provide many Koreans, especially those without the means to travel abroad, with their first close glimpse of non-military Americans. The volunteers, by and large, also provided valuable services to Korea during an important period of transition.

But perhaps the greatest value of the Peace Corps program was what the volunteers themselves took away from Korea. As sociologist Kim Kyong-Dong has remarked, "they learned firsthand whatever Korean culture had to offer."

Kim goes on to say that "in the Peace Corps, the Americans learned from Korea [rather than Koreans learning from America], perhaps for the first time in the history of the relationship between the two societies."60 The volunteers not only learnedfrom Korea; they also learned about Korea.

Upon returning to the United States, many of them began to specialize in Korea studies. Over the years, some of those pursued careers in diplomacy, economics, business, and academics, where they would often work to strengthen ties between the United States and Korea while trying to explain Korea to their fellow Americans.

By the early 1 970s, changes were taking place within and near Korea, that would have an important, and sometimes troubling, impact on Korean-American relations. Domestically speaking, these changes could be traced back to 1969. In October of that year President Park pushed through a revision in the Third Republic's constitution that would allow him to run for a third term. (The 1963 constitution, like the 1948 constitution, had stated that the executive could serve only two four-year terms; Park's second term would be up in 1971 .)

In the 1971 presidential election, Park's major opponent was a young, charismatic political from South Cholla province named Kim Dae-jung. When the final votes were counted, Park had won by an apparently comfortable margin, 51.4 percent to Kim's 43.6 percent. But that margin of victory could be deceiving. To begin with, given the government party's complete monopolization of the levers of power, many people doubted that Kim could get more than forty percent of the vote. Perhaps even more troubling for Park, Kim had done especially well not just in his home province, but also in many urban areas across the country. This did not bode well for Park and his party, as the rapid industrialization then underway was beginning to shift Korea's population from rurai to urban settings.

Koreans were still reassessing the meaning of the presidential election when the government, without warning, proclaimed an official state of emergency on December 6, 1971. The Park administration cited national security needs as justification for this emergency decree. Specifically noted were two recent 55

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developments concerning the United States. In July 1969, as President Richard Nixon was beginning to withdraw American ground forces from Vietnam, he announced what became known as the Nixon Doctrine. The Nixon Doctrine basically stated that while the United States intended to remain as a major player in East Asian affairs, it would henceforth expect its East Asian allies, including Korea, to play a greater role in taking care of their own defense needs, especially in the area of manpower. Or, as Nixon stated it: "we must avoid the kind of policy that will make countries in Asia so dependent upon us that we are dragged into conflicts such as the one that we have in Vietnam."61 In March 1971, it appeared as though the Nixon administration was directly implementing this Doctrine when the announcement was made that the U.S. Army's Seventh Division was being withdrawn from Korea. The removal of these troops, which lowered the number of U.S. forces in Korea from approximately 60,000 to about 40,000, might have been justified by changing economic and diplomatic circumstances, but it was nonetheless a shock to many Koreans who had come to view U.S. troops as a primary defense against possible North Korean aggression.

Nor had shifts in America's East Asian policies and actions ended with these two developments. The greatest surprise of all came in early 1972 when it was announced that the President of the United States would be flying to Peking to meet with leading Chinese officials. The famous Nixon trip to China, in February 1972, not only brought an end to what historian Warren Cohen has called "The Great Aberration" in Sino-American relations, but also signaled to the other countries of the East Asian region that the international community, as they had known it for the past two decades, was about to change rather dramatically. The Sino-American rapprochement, which would culminate in full diplomatic recognition in 1979, meant that international relations could no longer be defined in bipolar terms.62 Given the diplomatic uncertainty that these American actions inspired, the Park administration announced that "Korea needed a firm hand." That firm hand appeared on October 17, 1972, when the Korean government enacted martial law. Immediately the 1963 constitution was suspended and replaced by a new document known as the Yushin (or "Revitalization") Constitution. Two months later on December 23, 1972, Park was "elected" to a new six-year presidential term by an electoral college known as the "National Conference for Unification."

The abolishment of direct elections for the presidency was not the only change that would take place under the Yushin Constitution. The new constitution greatly enhanced the president's overall powers while reducing those of the National Assembly. Moreover, the president now appointed onethird of the members to the National Assembly. The judicial branch of 56

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government was similarly dominated by the president, who would henceforth appoint all nine justices of the supreme court to six-term terms. Park referred to all of these changes contained in the Yushin Constitution as a practice in "Koreanized democracy."63 This effort to rule Korea with a firm hand did not end with the Yushin Constitution. Under Emergency Measure No. 1 proclaimed on January 9, 1974, any criticism of the Yushin Constitution or the existing government system was prohibited. Press censorship, which had remained in place since 1961, became especially oppressive. For example, the poet Kim Chi-ha, whose works were suppressed, was arrested, tortured, and sent to prison.64 Likewise, the works of songwriter Kim Min-gi were banned by the government.

While Park Chung-hee undoubtedly felt justified in implementing this new system due to the changing international environment, the system itself had a dramatic impact on Korean society, As political scientist Yong Whan Kihl as noted: South Korea under Park's Yushin system changedfrom the hopeful, modernizing, and fairly democratic system of the 1960s to the increasingly arbitrary, repressive, and authoritarian system ofthe 1970s. Yushin Korea, in spite ofits success in achieving an "economic miracle," became a model of political repression and authoritarian rule. The basis of political support of the regime became increasingly narrow, eroding as the decade of the 1970s progressed. The growing alienation of the progressive forces in society, including intellectuals, religious leaders, students, and the press, made President Park's hold on power that much more precarious and vulnerable. 65 It might be added that this alienation of reform forces would also have a bearing on the direction American-Korean relations in the 1980s and 1990s.

Although the United States government under Richard Nixon said little publicly about the changes taking place in Korea in the early 1970s, there was growing private concern about the direction of Korean politics. As Professor Kihl indicated above, it appeared as though the democratic gains won in the 1960s were now being thrown away. Those suspicions were reinforced in the summer of 1974 when the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) kidnapped opposition political leader Kim Dae-jung in Japan in an effort to silence him.

Domestic politics in America in the 1970s also had an impact on KoreanAmerican relations. The Watergate affair, which culminated in Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974, led to an increased emphasis on ethics in politics. The need for politicians who would abide by certain ethical standards helped Jimmy 57

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Carter to gain the presidency in 1976. Carter was seen by many Americans as someone who had a strong sense of moral principles; moreover, because he had never held a federal office, the former governor from Georgia was viewed as an "outsider" untainted by the corrupting influence of Washington power.

In a 1976 presidential debate with Republican Gerald R. Ford, Carter called for a new approach to American diplomacy. At one point in the debate, he declared: "We [Americans] ought to be a beacon for nations who search for peace and who search for freedom, who search for individual liberty, who search for basic human rights."66 In the same speech, he denounced the personalized, pragmatic approach to foreign policy that had been featured by the Nixon and Ford administrations. In particular, he called attention to America's support of a military dictatorship which had recently seized power in Chile.

Although Korea was not specifically cited in the speech, it was not difficult for observers to drawn parallels between the abuse of human rights in Chile and what was going on in Korea under the Yushin system.

Jimmy Carter's attention to human rights was not the only factor to produce a strain in Korean-American relations. As a presidential candidate, Carter publicly suggested that it was perhaps time to withdraw the remainder of American ground troops from Korea. While this suggestion might have been seen as a natural development of the Nixon Doctrine, as well as an indication that South Korea had economically and militarily come of age, the suggestion drew immediate criticism in both the United States and South Korea. To a number of security specialists in the United States, Carter's suggestion seemed to indicate that the U.S. had lost the will to protect its national interests in Northeast Asia. Although the United States was pursuing detente with both China and the Soviet Union in the mid 1970s, these same specialists argued that the region was still a very dangerous place, especially given the power and unpredictable nature of North Korea.

Opposition to Carter's suggestion was even more pronounced in South Korea. To many Koreans, Carter's comments seemed to indicate that the United States was no longer willing to protect the national sovereignty of the Republic of Korea. Some commentators went so far as to draw a parallel between Carter's suggestion and the Taft-Katsura Memorandum of 1905. Although Jimmy Carter decided not to withdraw substantial American forces from Korea, the public attention that was focused on the issue further exacerbated Korean-American relations during the second half of the 1970s.

There was another controversy which arose at about this same time that would rock Korean-American relations. In the American press it became known as Koreagate. The scandal focused on a Korean middleman by the name of Park Tongsun who had graduated from Georgetown University in the early 1960s.

Park had been caught bribing American congressional officials in the process of 58

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securing specific Korean purchases of American rice. What made the case even more intriguing was that Park had developed connections with both the Unification Church of Moon Sun-myung and the KCIA. While Seoul's heavyhanded lobbying efforts in Washington~both official and unofficial-may have been a byproduct of Korean fears over the direction of U.S. foreign policy, the negative publicity surrounding the Koreagate scandal further strained KoreanAmerican relations.67 By the end of the 1970s, the tension in official Korean-American relations was undoubtedly stronger than at any time since the Korean War. Park Chunghee~based upon his reading of the Nixon Doctrine, the pullout of American troops from Vietnam, and the remarks of Jimmy Carter-had serious doubts about America's long-term commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea. At the same time, Park believed that the United States, through a variety of actions, was not only interfering in domestic Korean affairs, but was also undermining his own authority. As a result of these convictions, Park strove to make his regime both militarily and politically independent of the United States.

These efforts were reinforced by the notion that perhaps for the first time in the history of the bilateral relationship, the United States needed Korea (to protect its interests in Japan) just as much as Korea needed the United States.

However one might assess his place in history, there is no doubt that Park Chung-hee had played a crucial role in the evolution of modern KoreanAmerican relations. By 1979, the Republic of Korea was economically and militarily stronger than it had ever been. It was increasingly eager to step out from under the shadow of the United States But Park's role in that unfolding story abruptly ended. On October 26, 1979, the man who had dominated Korean politics for almost twenty years was assassinated-killed by the head of his own Central Intelligence Agency, Kim Jae-kyu.

Korean-American Relations Since 1979

Although the assassination of Park Chung-hee caught almost everyone by surprise, the act itself was part of an on-going struggle within the highest circles of the Park regime. In the fall of 1979 large anti-government demonstrations had broken out in the cities of Pusan and Masan. Kim Jae-kyu was apparently part of a faction that suggested the need for government reforms, reforms that Park ultimately rejected. Kim evidently concluded that the only way to bring about the necessary changes was through the elimination of the nation's strongman.

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Soon after Park's death, an interim government was formed, headed by Choy Kyu-ha, Park's last prime minister. On December 6, 1979, Choy was named president of the Republic of Korea by the National Conference for Unification.

Despite his title, Choy held little real authority within the new government.

The man who gradually emerged as a new force in Korean politics was Major General Chun Doo-hwan, then in charge of what was called the Defense Security Command-another name for army intelligence. Chun was a member of the eleventh graduating class of the Korean Military Academy and an admirer of Park Chung-hee. Like Park, he believed that to thrive, Korea needed a firm hand at the top.

Chun began his move to power on December 12, 1979, when he led a coup within the Korean military itself by ordering the arrest of General Chung Seunghwa, then Martial Law Commander and Army Chief of Staff. Chun quickly consolidated his control over the military; on April 14, 1980, he was named acting director of the Agency for National Security Planning (the new title given to the KCIA).

As Chun was strengthening his position in the spring of 1980, student demonstrations began to grow. These students, like many members of the general public, had hoped that Park's passing would lead to the return of more democratic institutions and practices. These hopes, however, were dashed on May 17, 1980, when the government closed all universities, tightened press censorship, and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders Kim Dae-jung (who had only recently been freed) and Kim Young-sam. The next day, a civil uprising broke out in the city of Kwangju, Kim Dae-jung's home base. Less than ten days later the government, using Korean troops technically under the control of the commanding U.S. general in Korea, brutally suppressed the uprising.

By the summer of 1980 Chun's rise to power was complete. In a series of carefully orchestrated moves, Choy Kyu-ha first stepped down from the presidency on August 16, 1980. Six days later, Chun resigned from active duty.

Eight days after that, on August 30th, the former general was elected president by the National Conference for Unification. Despite his control of the government, Chun concluded that the Yushin Constitution was no longer a viable form of governance. It was thus replaced by a new, equally authoritarian constitution in the fall of 1980, thereby inaugurating what would become known as the Fifth Republic. Finally, in February 1981, Chun was elected to a new seven-year term as president of the Republic of Korea.

While these dramatic changes were occurring in Korea, there was also a change in leadership in the United States. In the November 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan had won a convincing victory over Jimmy Carter. A conservative Republican, Reagan had promised American voters that if elected, he would strengthen America's military capabilities while pursuing a much 60

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more determined anti-Communist foreign policy. As part of the latter promise, Reagan indicated that he would reach out to those countries which, although not entirely democratic in the traditional sense, stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against Communism.

It was not surprising then, that the first major head of state invited to the White House following Reagan's inauguration was President Chun Doo-hwan.

Reagan had considered Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights and criticism of the Park regime in Korea to be misguided. Reagan preferred to emphasize what his advisers called "quiet diplomacy." The United States should stand fast in its diplomatic and military commitment to the Republic of Korea. If the Chun government was to be urged to adopt more democratic means, then those urgings ought to be done in a private, not public, fashion. Chun's visit to Washington in February 1981 was reciprocated in November 1983 when the American president visited Seoul. During his brief stay in Korea, Reagan visited American troops in the DMZ and applauded the Chun government for maintaining political stability, economic growth, and an unequivocal stance against Communism.

While official relations between the United States and Korea warmed considerably during the first half of the 1980s, trouble was brewing within Korea. The Chun government had hoped that continued economic growth, and the invitation to host the 1988 Olympics, would enable it to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. But such was not the case. Demonstrations on university campuses became increasingly common and violent as the decade progressed. And more and more, it appeared as though much of the public sympathized with the student protesters. Perhaps most ominous were signals that, contrary to promises made at the beginning of Chun's presidency, the government was disinclined to grant greater liberties and hold freer elections once Chun's seven-year term was up.

By early 1987 a shift had begun to take place in Washington's stance on Korea. Ambassador Richard Walker, who had been closely identified with Chun Doo-hwan, was replaced in 1986 by James R. Lilley. Then in February 1987, Gaston Sigour, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, gave a widely publicized speech in which he "openly questioned the Chun government's legitimacy and bluntly called on the Korean military to get out of politics."68 The United States government, of course, still saw stability as a critical factor for Korea, and thus for America's own interests in Northeast Asia. But it began to appear as though Chun's style of rule was producing anything but stability. Observers both in and out of Korea increasingly concluded that the only way to guarantee Korea's future economic and political stability was through political compromise and the establishment of truly democratic institutions.

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That change came with surprising suddenness. On June 29, 1987, Prime Minister Roh Tae-woo announced that the government, among other things, would lift press censorship; write a new, liberal constitution; and hold democratic presidential elections. The new constitution was indeed written, and overwhelmingly approved by a national plebiscite on October 27, 1987. Less than two months later, on December 17, 1987, the most democratic presidential election in the history of the Republic of Korea was held. In a winner-take-all affair, Roh Tae-woo himself was elected with 37 percent of the popular vote.

(The other two major candidates, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, received 28 percent and 27 percent, respectively.)

Needless to say, the United States government was tremendously pleased with the political changes that took place in Korea in 1987-88. The two presidents who succeeded Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton, both traveled to Korea to assure the Korean government and the Korean people that the United States remained committed to the defense of the Republic of Korea.

In a speech before the Korean National Assembly in January 1992, Bush also declared that "the winds of change are with us now. . . . The day will come when this last wound of the Cold War struggle will heal. Korea will be whole again. . . . The American people share your goal of peaceful unification on terms acceptable to the Korean people. This is clear. This is simple. This is American policy."69 Likewise, in his July 1993 visit to Korea, Clinton stated that the "Korean peninsula remains a vital American interest. . . . Our troops will stay here as long as the Korean people want and need us here."70 As recently as April 1996, Clinton reaffirmed this commitment during his brief visit to Chejudo.71 The statements quoted above might give the impression that contemporary Korean-American relations have reached an unprecedented level of mutual respect and understanding. Such, unfortunately, is not the case. Although there have been important political agreements reached in recent years, there are other issues that pose major challenges to the evolution of a successful partnership. In broad terms, these issues might be labeled: social, economic, and military/strategic. Let us briefly examine these three areas.

One of the most dramatic changes that occurred in Korea-American relations after 1980 was the rise of anti-Americanism within Korean society.

The depth of this anti-Americanism was first revealed in the mid 1980s when USIS (United States Information Service) offices in Seoul, Kwangju, Pusan, and Taegu were physically attacked by radical students. These attacks, which included firebombings, were followed by mass demonstrations on college campuses across the country denouncing the United States. The denunciations focused on past as well as present American misdeeds. For example, during a student takeover of Konkuk University in October 1986, students declared: "The 62

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Korean war was a pan-national struggle for liberation from the American imperialist rule over South Korea."72 For Americans who were accustomed to Korean praise of U.S. values and institutions in the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s, such sentiments seemed shocking. And yet there were very real reasons for why anti-American feelings would burst on the scene when they did. Given the powerful political and economic role that the United States had played in Korea for over thirty years, it was not at all surprising that some Korean resentments would arise. Moreover, the dominating physical presence of thousands of American troops on Korean soil, even if they were stationed there to help maintain South Korean security, could quite naturally lead to social and cultural conflicts.

But the rise of anti-Americanism was not simply the result of broad historical trends. Rather, it was the byproduct of specific events and policies that emerged in the 1 980s. To begin with, large numbers of Koreans, and not just radical students, held the United States responsible for the Kwangju massacre of 1980. Because of the establishment of the bi-national Combined Forces Command (CFC) in 1978, after the Kwangju uprising was suppressed many Koreans were increasingly convinced that the United States could have prevented the violence from occurring.73 Some critics went so far as to suggest that the United States actually ordered the attack on Kwangju. Despite repeated denials of these charges by U.S. diplomatic and military personnel, antiAmerican activists repeatedly denounced the United States as a collaborator in the Kwangju massacre.

These suspicions of American misbehavior in Korea were certainly not lessened by the Reagan administration's public endorsement of Chun Doohwan. In fact, just the opposite occurred. Since Chun's rule was viewed by many Koreans as illegitimate, American support for such an illegitimate regime brought into question the very nature of America's Korea policy. To a growing number of Koreans, it appeared as though the United States government was far more interested in stability, and perhaps economic gains, than in the return of democracy or the preservation of individual liberties.

The issue of economics, which will be examined in greater detail shortly, also became a key factor in the rise of anti-Americanism. For radical intellectuals, the worst features of Korea's exploitative capitalist system-poor pay and grim working conditions—were a natural extension of America's worldwide capitalist empire. More specifically, Koreans from many different walks of life resented the pressure that the United States was exerting on the Seoul government to open Korea's markets to American goods. This seemed to be another example of the United States using its political might to dictate terms to a weaker client state.

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One of the most important reasons for the rise of anti-Americanism was the ideological shift that was taking place with numerous college students, especially those in positions of leadership. For many years the Park and Chun regimes had used the threat of Communism from the north to justify tight censorship of academic materials. Ironically, if not surprisingly, this banning of left-wing materials made such writings all the more appealing to student intellectuals. By the mid 1980s, neo-Marxian interpretations dominated much of the student debate concerning Korean society and Korean-American relations.

Tied to this leftist influence was the rising power of contemporary Korean nationalism. As memories of the Japanese colonial occupation and the Korean War faded, many Koreans, especially of the younger generation, believed that their country deserved greater respect than it was being given by its primary ally. Charges of "American arrogance" were a frequent part of most antiAmerican demonstrations.74 Finally, anti-Americanism arose at least in part because the United States, as a great power, became a convenient scapegoat for social and political problems that offered no easy solutions. The United States government often found itself caught between competing interests. For example, if the United States made any diplomatic overtures to North Korea, it was frequently accused

by South Korean conservatives of "selling out." On the other hand, if the United States gave the appearance of making specific demands upon North Korea, then it was accused by student activists of attempting to perpetuate the division of the Korean peninsula.

Since the implementation of the 1987 constitution, much of the public's support for the student movement has declined. For many middle-class Koreans, the mass protests of the mid 1980s had achieved their goal: Korea's political system had been democratized, and, in 1992, a politician without a military background, Kim Young-sam, had been elected president. The more radical aspects of the student movement~the calls for a redistribution of economic wealth and praise for the North Korean regime-often alienated those middleclass Koreans. With the decline of the radical student movement in recent years, anti-Americanism has been muted to some degree. Nonetheless, it remains and important element of contemporary Korean culture.75 Negative stories on the United States have often been featured in the mass media, with little attempt to achieve editorial balance. Part of this has stemmed from the frequently held assumption that the United States is racked by social, racial, and economic ills (much of which, of course, is true). During the first half of the 1990s, considerable public anger was directed at the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that defined the legal rights of American troops serving in Korea. To many Korean citizens across the political spectrum, the agreement,

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which was originally hammered out in the 1960s, placed those troops above Korean laws.

Recent public opinion polls have often revealed this general distrust of the United States, especially among younger Koreans. For example, in a poll of Seoul National University students—supposedly the "best and the brightest" that Korea has to offer-taken in the summer of 1995, students were asked a series of questions relating to the United States. On the question of Korean unification, "more than half of the students claimed that the United States hampers Korean unification, followed by Japan (28.3 percent), and Russia and China (4.4 percent apiece)." When the students were asked which country had caused the division of Korea, 47.7 percent named the United States, while 25.9 percent cited Japan, just 17.9 percent named Russia, and a mere 0.7 percent listed China.76 While the above figures are from just one poll, they do indicate that the amount of goodwill which had marked Korean-American relations in the quarter-century following the Korean War has significantly declined. On the other hand, it is also important to note the Korean-American relationship of recent years has been based on a greater degree of equality than ever before.

One fundamental reason for that has been the rise of Korea as an international economic power and the importance of that position to the United States.

South Korea's economic growth during the 1980s and 1990s has been truly phenomenal. For much of the past decade and a half, the annual growth rate was in the double digits. Another way of tracking this economic growth is through the change in annual per capita income. In round figures, the per capita GNP (Gross National Product) in 1970 was just $260. By 1980, it had climbed to $1,600; by 1990, to almost $6,000; and by 1995 to about $10,000.

Much of this growth, as already indicated, was driven by a dramatic upswing in Korean exports. And no country was more important to those exports than the United States, Indeed, in 1986 the American market absorbed approximately 40 percent of all Korean exports, more than any other region in the world. But while Korean exports to the United States—including steel, electronic products, and eventually automobiles—were shooting upward, Korea's own market remained largely closed to the United States. Given how far Korea had to come economically to join the major industrial powers of the world, it wasn't surprising that the domestic market would remain locked behind high tariffs and various government regulations.

By the middle of the 1980s, however, American businesses and government officials felt that they could no longer ignore the growing trade deficit between the two countries. This was partly due to the size of the deficit itself. Between 1981 and 1989, Korea racked up a trade surplus with the United States of roughly $42 billion. In certain years, the annual Korean surplus was running close to $10 billion. Such figures indicated to American trade negotiators that 65

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Korea was no longer a weak, third-world country that depended upon outside assistance for its economic well being.

The U.S. efforts in the 1980s to pry open Korean markets were also a reflection of America's overall trade woes. Over the past decade, it has not been unusual for the United States to run a global trade deficit of more than $100 billion, half of which has usually been a result of America's trade deficit with Japan. Thus, American commentators in the 1980s began to say that if the United States did not focus on Korea now, Seoul might eventually become as big a problem as Tokyo.

As Washington began to apply serious trade pressure on Seoul, many Koreans bitterly resented that pressure, as well as the frequent comparisons to Japan. They noted, quite correctly, that Korea's situation was far different from Japan's. To begin with, Korea's economy, on a per capita basis, was still much smaller than that of its neighbor. Moreover, Korea itself was forced to run a large trade deficit with Japan in order to import the sophisticated technology that made Korea's own exports possible. Perhaps even more important, South Korea felt compelled to spend a significant amount of its income on defense due to the apparent threat posed by North Korea. Japan, on the other hand, was free to spend almost nothing of its national budget on defense items. Finally, many South Koreans believed that their nation had been a loyal ally of the United States for thirty years and, as such, deserved better treatment when it came to trade issues.

While trade friction between the two countries has not necessarily declined in the 1990s, the trade itself has changed significantly. Few Americans, for example, have been aware of the fact that since 1990, the United States has not run a trade deficit with South Korea. Indeed, for the year of 1995, the United States actually enjoyed a trade surplus with the Republic of Korea of $6.2 billion.77 This change has come about for several reasons.

First, many Korean markets have been opened to various American products over the past decade. A quick stroll down almost any Korean street, or a visit into any Korean department store, will make that abundantly clear.

Second, as Korean society has become more affluent, the local demand for foreign goods, especially brand-name products that symbolize social status (such as women's cosmetics) has grown dramatically.

Finally, an important factor influencing bilateral trade has been the significant increase in Korean labor costs, thereby making Korean products more expensive abroad. One byproduct of the historic political changes in Korea in 1987-88 was the new-found power of Korean labor unions. For the first time in modern Korean history, labor unions were granted the rights to enter into serious wage negotiations. Demands for wage increases, and many subsequent strikes, became a common feature of Korean industry in the late 1980s.

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Management, in many respects, could not ignore these demands. As a result, wages increased by 13.5 percent in 1988 and by 17.9 percent in 1989. Although wage and salary gains have been more modest in the 1990s, they have nonetheless made it more difficult for many Korean firms, especially those at the low-tech end, to compete on the international stage with countries such as China.

A second trend in Korean trade in the 1990s has been the move away from a dependence on the American market. While the United States still represents the largest single market for Korean goods, America's share of Korea's total exports has declined, at least in terms of percentages. Whereas in 1986 the United States absorbed roughly 40 percent of all Korean exports, by 1992 that number had declined to 23 percent. Korean firms have made serious efforts in recent years to extend their operations into other Asian countries, especially those in Southeast Asia.

Korea, of course, remains one of America's most important trade partners.

Korean investments in the United States, such as the building of semi-conductor plants, are on the rise. The very size of that trade, however, also creates the potential for future trade friction. Current American efforts to open up Korean agricultural markets, including those in rice and beef, arouse suspicion and anger among many Koreans.78 This is partly due to the fact that, historically speaking, Korean farmers have not benefited from their country's economic prosperity in the same way that urban dwellers have. In addition to this issue, the United States government has continued to put pressure on Seoul to open up Korea's thriving automobile market, which has remained largely closed to American firms,79 as well as service areas such as insurance and banking.

As James Larson illustrates in Part Three of this book, one of the most important areas of growth, both now and in the future, involves technology transfer. Competition in this area may product trade conflict, but the communication revolution described by Larson also has the potential for creating cooperative ventures between Korea and the United States that will be both increasingly sophisticated and based upon a shared sense of mutual respect and equality.

Apart from social and economic issues, perhaps the greatest challenge to the Korean-American relationship involves military/strategic matters. The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s meant an end to the Cold War in many parts of the world. But because of the continued tension between North and South Korea, such has not been the case in Northeast Asia. The continued stationing of approximately 37,000 American troops in the Republic of Korea is a reminder that the issues which led to the division of the peninsula back in the late 1940s have not yet been resolved.

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The very presence of those troops has caused controversy in contemporary Korean-American relations. Some critics, particularly on the left, argue that these troops are the primary cause of the continued division of the peninsula.

Other critics, usually on the right, take any suggestion of a withdrawal or drawdown of these forces as an indication that the United States is turning its back on South Korea's security needs. And then apart from the strategic questions raised by the presence of U.S. troops on Korean soil, there are economic and social considerations.

One thorny question in recent years has had to do with Seoul's contribution to the cost of maintaining almost 40,000 American troops in Korea. For some time, the United States had insisted that Korea increase its contributions by more than 20 percent; Korean officials usually responded that such a figure was far too high. However, a breakthrough of sorts appears to have been achieved in discussions that were held in early November of 1995. At the 27th Korea-U.S. Security Consultation Meeting (SCM), "the two countries agreed to Seoul's proposal to increase its share by 10 percent annually for the next three years."

Under that formula, the Republic of Korea is to contribute $330 million in 1996, $363 million in 1997, and $399 million in 1998.80 In certain respects an even thornier issue, because it touched on Korean pride and sovereignty, concerned the operational control that the United States exercised over ROK forces. As indicated earlier, the structure of the Combined Forces Command had raised questions about the degree of American responsibility for the brutal suppression of the Kwangju uprising. Finally, at the end of 1994, that operational control over ROK forces was transferred to the government of South Korea.

Still to be resolved is the controversy over the current Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which had produced sporadic public demonstrations in recent years outside American army bases. Among many Koreans there is a widely help assumption that American troops commonly commit crimes against Korean civilians and then are not properly punished because of special provisions granted to U.S. forces under SOFA. Within the past year, the United States government, including Secretary of Defense William Perry, has agreed to revise the SOFA arrangement. Whether those changes meet Korean expectations, however, remains to be seen.

But by far the most important long-range issue in Korean-American relations is North Korea. In an effort to decrease tensions on the peninsula, the United States began to engage in a series of low-level diplomatic talks with North Korean representatives as early as 1988. In the spring of 1994, however, a new crisis, which had been brewing for many months, suddenly erupted.

North Korean officials had announced that they would not allow inspectors from

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the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to examine two nuclear facilities at Yongbyon that were of a military nature.

North Korea's tough stance alarmed many members of the international community precisely because it was feared that the graphite-moderated reactor in Yongbyon was possibly producing weapons-grade plutonium. As tensions mounted, and as the American press began to focus on the story, one U.S. senator even suggested that the United States might have to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea to prevent that nation from developing nuclear weapons. As reporter Don Oberdorfer has stated, "Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program brought the outbreak of a new war on the Korean peninsula closer than at any time since the bloody 1950-53 conflict, and much closer than most people realized."81 The escalating tension was broken in mid-June, 1994, when former President Jimmy Carter made a much-publicized visit to North Korea and met directly with Kim Il-sung. In return for possible American assistance in building more modern nuclear reactors, the North Korean leader agreed to an immediate freeze on nuclear activity. Kim even suggested a willingness to meet directly with South Korean President Kim Young-sam in an effort to forge a new NorthSouth relationship. Those summit talks were eventually scheduled to take place in Pyongyang on July 25-27. 1994. However, the long-awaited meeting never took place, for on July 8, 1994, Kim Il-sung died.

Although Kim's death eliminated an opportunity for a possible breakthrough in North-South talks, the general agreement that Jimmy Carter had helped to hammer out was not abandoned. In the months ahead, an American negotiating team led by Robert Gallucci strove to reach an agreement that would be acceptable to the United States, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan.

Finally, in June 1995, such an agreement was achieved in meetings held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.82 One of the major problems in the talks was what do do about the existing graphite-moderated reactor in North Korea. After consulting with its allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, the United States agreed that it would help to build a modern light-water reactor~a type of nuclear power plant that does not produce weapons-grade plutonium~to replace the graphite-moderated reactor in Yongpyon. To finance such a project, which was estimated to cost about $4 billion, an international consortium was created. Known as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the consortium represented the United States, South Korea, and Japan. Along with the nuclear issue, which dominated the talks between U.S. and North Korean representatives, the United States also promised to help provide up to $1 billion in additional aid that would attempt to address some of the chronic economic woes plaguing North Korea.83 69

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Although the South Korean government endorsed the agreement reached at Kuala Lumpur, there was a fair amount of public, as well as official, resentment about the way in which the deal was negotiated. Some South Koreans resented the fact that while their government was not able to play a direct role in the talks, it was still being asked to foot more than half the costs of constructing the new nuclear power plant in the north.

In a broader sense, there was some feeling, at least among conservative commentators, that American overtures to North Korea were a betrayal of the traditional South Korean-U.S. alliance. As a recent editorial in the Joong-ang Ilbo noted, "such overtures by the United States have frustrated the South Korean government and public opinion because, regardless of U.S. intentions, they are widely viewed as evidence that North Korea is succeeding in its strategy to push aside South Korea and deal directly with the United States. . . .

There is much concern that this situation might mean that the mutually cooperative ties between South Korea and the United States are being undermined."84 While U.S. government officials have made continual efforts to alleviate such South Korean fears,85 they nonetheless remain-at least for the present.

Over the past 125 years-indeed, over just the past 25 years-KoreanAmerican relations have changed profoundly. Up to World War II, Korea was of little importance to either the United States government or the American people. During the 1940s and 1950s, that opinion changed, largely because of the onset of the Cold War. Yet even after almost 40,000 Americans had lost their lives in the Korean War, the peninsula only remained important to the United States primarily for strategic purposes.

Korea's strategic importance to the United States still exists, as Mel Gurtov's writing in this book illustrates. On the other hand, contemporary Korea has become an economic power in its own right, and thus has come to play an important role in America's own trade policies. As the coming years unfold, these economic and trade issues are likely to have an even greater impact on the direction of Korean-American relations.

Another factor in the Korean-American relationship, and one which is beyond the scope of this study, is the recent immigration of tens of thousands of Koreans to the United States. There are now well over one million Koreans and Korean-Americans in the United States; collectively and individually, they are having an increasingly significant cultural, social, economic, and academic impact on the United States. Moreover, as they pursue careers in business, academia, and government, they frequently play important roles in the evolution of Korean-American relations.

Finally, there is the North Korean factor. One cannot predict what is likely to happen in either North Korean-U.S. relations or intra-Korean contacts in the 70

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near future. Nonetheless, it seems clear that Korean-American relations as a whole are on the verge of entering a distinctly new era.Let us hope that they will be peaceful, productive, and based upon mutual respect for the cultures and peoples of both countries.

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Part Two

Korea in the Asia-Pacific Community: Adapting Foreign Policy to a New Era

Mel Gurtov

Security and Cooperation in Post-Cold War East Asia

The end of the cold war has had both positive and negative consequences for security in East Asia. As the 1990s began, ideological barriers between formerly hostile countries were breached, and new bilateral and multilateral economic relationships were forged. Political tensions subsided nearly everywhere, including the Korean peninsula, enabling governments to consider making large-scale shifts of resources from military spending to social and economic development. But the end of the cold war also gave new life to traditional forces, such as nationalism and historical rivalries, that conflict with the trend toward regional, multilateral cooperation. The result is that now and for the foreseeable future, East Asia is likely to be a region of sustained economic growth (with a few exceptions, such as North Korea and Burma) and considerable strategic and political fluidity.

South Korea's foreign policy since the late 1980s merits attention in part because it mirrors these contradictory trends in East Asia. The Republic of Korea (ROK) rose to regional and even international prominence as a trading state. It may become the first "third-world" country to attain first-world status. In its efforts to transcend the cold war with North Korea and the socialist world, the ROK experienced initial successes, but then encountered the limitations imposed by Korea's division and its historical vulnerability to the interests of the major powers.

This writing explores the achievements and handicaps of South Korea's foreign policy, particularly foreign economic and security policy. This discussion begins with an overview of post-cold war trends in East Asian security and political economy. The focus is on developments that have promoted or retarded regional stability, specifically in Northeast Asia, a region of unusual complexity compared with the rest of Asia. ("Northeast Asia" refers to Japan, China, Russia's

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Far East region, North and South Korea, and Mongolia. When the term is used in discussion of regional cooperation, it refers more specifically to China's Northeast region—the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning—and adjacent Russian territories.) Against the backdrop of regional events, South Korean foreign policy is examined in several dimensions: changing concepts of Korean interests; diplomatic initiatives in the 1990s, especially with the major powers and North Korea; the impact on Korean foreign policy of the dispute over North Korea's nuclear program; foreign economic policy in Asia; and South Korea's approach to regional cooperation. The concluding section evaluates the problems and options of South Korean foreign policy against the background of post-cold war trends.

Overall, the intent is to underscore the distinctive (and new) features of Korean foreign policy in the 1990s, and the implications of political, economic, and strategic trends in East Asia for Korea's quest to achieve its long-standing objectives of national unification and peninsular security.

Trends Affecting Security in Post-Cold War East Asia One general trend in East Asia since the end of the cold war is for economic gains to ease and even overcome political tensions. China's relations with Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, Japan's with South Korea, Russia's with South Korea, and Vietnam's with its Southeast Asian neighbors, for example, have all unquestionably been changed for the better by the opening up or expansion of trade and investment. The regionalization of commerce around trade and investment zones (see below) has helped bridge some political differences.

A second positive trend is the growth of regional associations. The two principal groups are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which now has seven members (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei and most recently, Vietnam) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), a forum of eighteen states. Their common purpose is to promote economic cooperation and "the habit of dialogue," with enhancement of mutual security as one expected byproduct. The concept of security has itself changed.

Inspired by Japan and Australia early in the 1980s, several Southeast Asian governments seek to build "comprehensive security," which directs state resources to the nonmilitary components of security, of which export-led economic growth is foremost. As states reorient their foreign and defense policies around comprehensive security, the assumption is that their economic development programs will necessitate deeper regional cooperation and promote peaceful regional relationships.

Practice has largely followed theory: The ASEAN states have moved from concluding trade- and investment-enhancing agreements to exploring regional political and security issues. ASEAN' s diplomatic intervention in the Cambodian 76

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conflict, its creation of a post-ministerial conference (PMC) so as to involve additional governments in regional security issues, and its decision in 1994 to establish a Regional Forum (ARF) specifically to hold dialogues on security disputes reflect this widening of the regionalist spectrum.

It has been said that four key ingredients of security cooperation do not exist in East Asia: political trust, a common security objective or enemy, an issue that commands the attention of the world community, and a consensus on multilateral security cooperation itself." Nevertheless, the evolution of Asian regionalism via comprehensive security has given birth to what may be called an "Asian way" of security cooperation. In contrast with the traditional Western approach to security, epitomized by NATO and other alliance structures, the "Asian way" relies on stepby-step progress, development of mutual confidence through discussion and cultivation of personal relationships and preference for informal discussion over negotiations. It eschews essentially Western norms such as institution-building, contractual obligations and military commitments. The "Asian" approach is thus cautious and conflict-avoiding; but its proponents contend that as projects of common interest succeed and trust-building occurs, mutual security will be enhanced.

Regional consciousness in East Asia has also emerged as the consequence of economic regionalizatkm. Sub-regions and economic zones comprised of states and national regions have become trading and investment areas in and of themselves, to some extent independently of central governments. Examples are the territories that border the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea economic zones, the Chinese Economic Area ("Greater China": southeast coastal PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong), and the Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia triangle. As these commercial areas increase in importance, they expand the regional network of economic relationships and, it is widely assumed, help diminish political tensions between governments.

It would, however, be a vast overstatement to say that as these transnational economic and technological forces exert their impact on regional politics, they literally enforce peaceful relations between states. Economic interdependence in some instances has actually helped intensify some rivalries, such as between China and Japan, by introducing new grounds for disputes (over aid and technology policies) and raising suspicions about each country's great-power ambitions. Trade policies and deficits have become some of the Asia-Pacific's key political disputes.

Economic success, unfortunately, has helped make possible new arms acquisitions as well as the capacity to manufacture weapons for national defense and export.

These capabilities have contributed to a heightening of strategic uncertainty around East Asia.87 In the case of environmental damage and resource competition, interdependence has clearly intensified demands on local systems, and laid the basis for interstate disputes. Among the consequences of the region 77

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wide push for ever-higher rates of growth and exports are widespread deforestation, serious air and water pollution, reduced fisheries, and belated attention to environmental-protection standards.

Finally, economic interdependence has contributed to an array of already serious human-rights problems in East Asia, including maltreatment of migrant workers, poverty and widening income gaps, lowering of health and safety standards for workers, childworker slavery, and abuse of and discrimination against women.

Whatever its consequences, economic interdependence has transformed the meaning of "national security" in Asia-Pacific as elsewhere. Instead of being understood mainly in terms of military power—maintenance of the balance of power and the capability to deter attack—national security today means economic and technological superiority, environmental and resource protection, and, increasingly, social justice and political pluralism. Likewise, threats to security are increasingly transnational in character. Access to resources (food, energy, water), protection from acid rain and poisoning of fisheries, international concerns about human rights (for example, with respect to migrant workers, women, and children), and disputes over trade and technology transfer policies are among the newer sources of national insecurity.

The other face of the new security agenda in the Asia-Pacific is internal.

Market forces and increased social and political pluralism have created new problems of social stability or exacerbated old ones. Among them are corruption (as in South Korea), human-rights abuses (as in China and North Korea), intraelite and inter-party conflicts (as in Japan), and severe environmental problems that are transnational as well as national. As elements of civil society appear, even in China and Vietnam, so are a great variety of political opposition groups and non-governmental organizations dedicated to human rights, labor, education, women's rights, and environmental protection.

Potential interstate conflict in Asia may still arise from traditional sources: territorial disputes, perceptions (and misperceptions) of another state's intentions, and unresolved national unification. But as prevalent as these kinds of disputes are, notably in Northeast Asia, they are far less likely than in the cold-war period to lead to war. The economic power of a rising China and a nationalistic Japan has drawn the attention of some analysts as potential threats to regional security, as has North Korea's nuclear program. But these countries face great constraints on their external behavior. One is internal: China's weakening or fragmentation following Deng Xiaoping' s death, the failure of political reform in Japan, corruption and instability in South Korea, and the potential for collapse of communist rule in North Korea. The other constraint is external: a shared interest in regional cooperation, multilateral dialogue, and conflict avoidance. Even in Korea, war by design is hard to imagine; the nuclear standoff of 1993-94, as argued later, was not

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primarily a military crisis, and was effectively dealt with by the kind of multilateral diplomacy that is becoming well-established in Asia.

Northeast Asia: A Structural Overview Northeast Asia is quite unlike East Asia in its political-economic complexion.

The region's affairs continue to be burdened by the past. Historical tensions remain salient, as a result of which Japan is the one state that is viewed with suspicion by all the others. Important elements of the cold-war competition persist on the Korean peninsula and in Sino-U.S. relations despite the diplomatic breakthroughs when South Korea established relations with Russia (1990) and China (1992). Bilateral security treaties are still the norm (U.S.-ROK and U.S. Japan), inhibiting U.S. support of multilateral security efforts even while being welcome evidence to most governments in the region of a continuing U.S. interest.

Military budgets, spending, and exports and imports have risen far faster in Northeast Asia than elsewhere in Asia.88 And the dangers of nuclear proliferation, in a subregion that already has three nuclear powers (counting U.S. naval forces), make Northeast Asia peculiarly vulnerable to international tensions.

There are also new, and ambiguous, features in Northeast Asia's security picture; they can be interpreted either as stabilizing or destabilizing the region. A once highly visible U.S. military presence in air and sea power, designed to anchor containment of communism, has been reduced to around 100,000. Uncertainty has increased about the future behavior of several countries: North Korea, now that its alliances with China and Russia are finished; Japan, now that the principal motive for U.S. protection, the Soviet threat, is a thing of the past; and China, now that it has the economic wherewithal and updated equipment to project military power beyond its borders. To some observers, the removal of constraints of the past make these countries greater potential security threats. On the other hand, Japan has been an important force behind Asia-Pacific multilateral economic and political cooperation and international peacekeeping. China, for all the attention to its emerging great-power status, has successfully mended fences with a number of bordering countries in a decade-long diplomatic offensive. And North Korea finally reached agreement with the United States in late 1994 to freeze and dismantle its nuclear facilities in exchange for energy assistance and other benefits.

Political tensions and outright conflicts have inhibited economic cooperation.

On paper, Northeast Asia, with a population of around 300 million, is a region with great potential for interdependent economic development. Its economies are highly complementary in terms of factor endowments, as a 1991 report of the UN Development Programme indicated.89 Northeast Asia accounts for sizable proportions of world production and world trade—about 13 percent and 11 percent, respectively, in 1989.90 In the 1990s the region opened up because of the 79

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Soviet collapse, China's increasingly regionalized foreign economic structure, and the 1991 North-South Korea detente that will be discussed later. Nevertheless, the differences between Northeast Asia and East Asia as a whole are striking.

Northeast Asia's members comprise a full range of economies and economic systems, two of which are highly underdeveloped (if Mongolia is included with North Korea), two underdeveloped but industrializing at different speeds (China and the Russian Far East), one newly industrialized and export-dependent (South Korea), and one post-industrial (Japan). These dissimilarities make for divergent economic development programs, interests in economic cooperation, trade and foreign-investment policies, and attitudes toward multilateralism. As a result, while intraregional trade in Northeast Asia is increasing, it is only a small part of each country's total trade (except for North Korea). As importantly (see Table 1), the regional trade is dominated by three bilateral relationships: Japan-South Korea (48 percent of the total in 1989-1990), Japan-China (26 percent), and China-South Korea (which was just beginning then, but is quite significant now, with about $1 1 billion in two-way trade in 1993). There is nothing in Northeast Asia that parallels the uniformly high growth rates of the East Asian NICs and ASEAN, their export orientation (and export dependence), or the multilateral cooperation efforts in Southeast and East Asia, such as the ASEAN Free Trade Association (AFTA) and the various subregional trading zones.

Further unlike Northeast Asia, East Asia is characterized by an "open regionalism": Intraregional trade is growing rapidly; but, propelled by strong links with Japan and the United States, trade remains even more strongly oriented to the trans-Pacific (under APEC) and the world (under GATT) trading systems.

Intraregional trade in East Asia, in share of exports to total trade, grew from 3 1 percent in 1970 to 39 percent in 1990, and in import share from 29 percent to 44 percent in those years. Even so, it might be noted that these figures are considerably less than for the member-countries of the European Union, where intraregional trade was around 75 percent of total trade in 1990, mainly due to high import dependence in East Asia on Japan and export dependence on the United States." As we will see, South Korea's trade picture fits precisely with this model of trade imbalance amidst increasing involvement in intraregional trade.

On the environmental side, Northeast Asia appears to have far more serious problems than other Asian subregions—problems that are transnational in nature and that are, or may become, security issues. One is the thinning ozone layer, which is currently being reduced by about 10 percent a year worldwide. Nuclear waste disposal at sea is another serious issue. The London Convention's ban on high-level dumping of radioactive waste went into force in 1985; a ban on lowlevel dumping followed in 1994. Russia, however, failed to ratify the latter and, in fact, has been in clear violation of the ban by dumping radioactive materials in the Sea of Japan. Negotiations among Russia, South Korea, and Japan have taken 80

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place since 1993 on this issue, and study teams of experts are now involved."

Acid rain, soil erosion and deforestation in China are also increasingly important cross-boundary problems. For instance, Korean sources claim that China is the source of "yellow sand," a pollutant that arrives in April every year. Yellow sand was blamed for 14 days of Seoul pollution in 1993, compared with 5 in 1984, and for 50 percent of South Korea's acid rain." Finally, maritime issues, such as disputes over ocean resources, are coming onto the regional agenda.'4 Table 1 Trade Among Northeast Asia Countries (1990/1991) (in $US millions) North Korea

FSU/ Russia

8,400

190

3,060

—

1,400

119

625

260

20

160

—

890

5,160

8,100

3,440

—

360

1,690

6,174

2,700

350

1,700

1,350

—

RUSSIA** RUSSIAN FAR EAST**

1,532

658

92

412

1

Japan

PRC

South Korea

Exports from/to

AsiaPacific

JAPAN

274,500

...

16,400

SOUTH KOREA

62,300

13,480

NORTH KOREA*

1,910

PRC

* World total in column one; all figures are for 1989. ** 1992 figure.

Sources: see note 95.

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Korea's Security: New Directions in Foreign Policy

Perhaps the chief significance of the post-cold war period for Korea is that never before has it had as much foreign-policy maneuverability or influence over its own security. The long-standing contradiction in Korean foreign policy between the historic desire for independence and the need to rely on others for security from external threat remains in place. But the combination of economic successes and a strategic breakthrough in foreign policy that began in the late 1980s has strengthened South Korea's ability to control its own fate.

As a number of Korea specialists have written, the early cold-war years set certain patterns in the foreign policy of both Koreas that generally persisted into the late 1980s." These patterns may be summarized as a self-perception of victimization by outside powers, including Korea's benefactors; loss of control of the nation's fate; low international standing, due largely to absorption in cold-war politics and the ideological struggle over the peninsula's future; and domestic insecurity, as the state manipulated "national security" to perpetuate itself.

Animated above all by a fierce nationalism, the two Korean states took opposite paths to achieve the same goals: legitimacy, national security, and economic development. Their foreign policies were dominated by competition for international recognition, strong ties with major-power allies, and a search for economic self-reliance as the key to modernization, internal security, policy autonomy, and international respectability." Politically, however, achievement of these objectives was undermined by harsh authoritarian rule in both countries, which was justified by their "cutthroat" competition."

National unification was actually only a secondary objective in the competition between the two Koreas. Although state leaders in Seoul and Pyongyang talked endlessly about unification, and from time to time offered proposals to the other side for bringing unification about, the reality is that unification was only acceptable to either one by conquest or absorption— "hegemonic unification," as B. C. Koh calls it." Consequently, both sides devoted large proportions of their budgets and GNP to the maintenance of military and police forces. Strengthening the "national security state" had priority over compromising with the other side on national unification.

The process of self-strengthening began for South Korea with its embracement of rapid industrialization and export-led growth in the early 1960s.

The remarkable successes achieved in these areas gradually established the ROK's international legitimacy, not merely as a trading state but, by virtue of the 82

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diversification of its economic partners and its ability to grow with manageable international debt, as an autonomous actor. In the 1980s clientalism in Korean foreign policy gave way to self-confidence - including a search for greater independence from U.S. interests - as the Korean quality of life leaped forward, the Seoul Olympics were held, and trade and diplomatic relations were established with the socialist states of Eastern Europe. Innovativeness replaced reactiveness in diplomacy and conformism in the foreign-policy bureaucracy.100 Of course, as Koh observes, developments outside Korea, such as changes in relations among the major powers and increasing economic interdependence, also influenced South (and North) Korea's expanding international relations in the 1970s and 1980s.""

But, it could be argued that domestic changes were crucial in the ROK's "new bilateralism" and later interest in multilateralism. The salience of domestic factors became clear following the highly competitive presidential election of 1987 that brought Roh Tae-woo to power. Largely as the result of "people power," South Korea began the break with authoritarianism that had so sapped people's morale and diminished the country's international reputation.'02 It was at that point that a new approach to North Korea and the socialist world became possible. As discussed in the next section, Roh devised the "Northern Policy," which opened the door to relations with the socialist world and achieved substantive and wide-ranging agreements between the two Koreas.'03 He did this at considerable domestic political risk, not only from hard-line anticommunist conservatives, but also from radical students and dissidents, who questioned the sincerity of Roh's interest in unification. The result was a crackdown on critics from the left and development of a formula for unification that generally followed that of Roh's predecessors, except for the new idea of moving in stages to higher levels of inter-Korean contact.'"

Against the background of increasing domestic confidence and economic successes abroad, a leading Korean economist in 1988 made the following forecast: With 7-8% growth per year [based on a study by the Korea Development Institute in 1986], Korea's GNP at 1984 prices could reach $250-$275 billion by the year 2000. . . . GNP per capita will grow at about 5-7% on average per annum . . . At this rate, GNP per capital will reach the $5,000-$5,500 level by the year 2000, and at this level Korea's standard of living will be comparable to that ofSpain and Ireland today. '" The economist went on to predict equally striking gains in the real annual growth of exports (12.5% for 1985-2000) and imports (12.5% for 1991-2000).

Thus, in comparison with North Korea, the ROK by 2000 would have a GNP seven times larger and GNP per capita four times larger.106

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The extraordinary thing about these predictions is that they were too conservative. GNP actually surpassed $200 billion in 1989 and was close to $300 billion by 1991. GNP per capita reached $5,000 in 1990 (by some accounts, in 1989), passed $7,000 in 1994, and by 1995 was around $10,000. Propelled by trade, South Korea's average annual growth rate of imports was 21 .6 percent, and of exports 17.9 percent, from 1987 to 1990. From 1987 through 1991, South Korea's trade averaged 60.6 percent of its GNP, compared with 49.8 percent from 1962-1981 and 66 percent from 1982-1986. As a result, by 1990 the South's GNP was already ten times larger than the North's, and its per capita GNP was five times larger.107 Having become a richer country, Korea entertained larger ambitions: to join the 25-member Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) by 1996, become an affiliate of the G-7 (and thus become the first Third World country to graduate into the First World), see a Korean become the first head of the World Trade Organization (the successor to the GATT), and acquire a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

By 1992 Korea was the fifteenth largest economy in the world, and ranked eleventh in world trade. South Korean strategic thinking showed signs of further evolution; clearly, a more global perspective was needed to fit with the new circumstances. South Korea's contribution of a medical team to the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was one measure of that perspective and ability to look beyond the peninsula and the region.'™ Subsequently, Koreans elected Kim Young-sam in 1993 and thus realized the first civilian government in 32 years. This major step forward in democratization strengthened national unity and Kim's ability to widen Korea's perspective still more. Domestically, Kim systematically removed the military from politics; announced various political reforms designed to broaden democracy (opening up all local elections to popular vote beginning in 1995) and reduce corruption (ending the practice of false-name bank accounts); and releasing most political prisoners. Kim rejected the urgings of both the United States and the political opposition, however, to annul the National Security Law, which had enabled his predecessors to jail dissenters as subversives.

"New Diplomacy" "New Diplomacy" was a term coined and defined by the new foreign ministry team headed by Dr. Han Sung-joo. It aimed to capture the essential global perspectives and multilateral policies that would have to guide South Korea in the post-cold war order."" These new ideas significantly extended the Northern Policy geographically and conceptually. Korean foreign policy would now comprehend the entire Asia-Pacific region, especially the ASEAN countries, and would give new weight to Third World development and global issues."0 Korea would thus be more future-oriented in foreign policy and have interests well 84

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beyond national unification. As one Korean scholar argued some time before "new diplomacy" got underway, Seoul needed to break away from traditional Realism, under which "Korea's obsession with economic development was synonymous with the issue of national survival." The domestic and international changes of the late 1980s, it was argued, required that Korea, both for its own economic wellbeing and the well-being of the global community, should more deeply enmesh itself in interdependence. "The Republic of Korea's global interests," this scholar wrote, "require two favorable international conditions: a hospitable international political order and a prosperous international economic order."1" Setting the new tone in an early address, Kim said that Korea's foreign policy would henceforth be "open and global" rather than be "a hostage of inter-Korean competition," that is, focused exclusively on the Korean peninsula, the Northeast Asia region, and the bilateral security arrangement with the United States. He spoke of national reconciliation along with national unification, involvement in regional security cooperation, and "resolving global problems such as poverty."

Steps such as these were also said to be part of a new morality in foreign policy that would emphasize global values, including peace and human rights. As Han Sung-joo put it: With the advent ofthe era ofglobalism, Korea 's diplomacy needs to pay more attention to such universal values as freedom, justice, peace and welfare. These values should become an integral part of the Korean moral value system. Diplomacy based on ideals and moral values is not mere idealism. These universal values will also promote Korea's own security and national interest ....'"

Casting such a wide net was designed to give evidence of South Korea's selfconfidence, internationalization, and domestic stability; that is, that the ROK could now afford to be more global-minded. Korea dispatched a 250-man army engineering unit in 1993 to join the UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia. The Korean government also contributed $2 million to the operation. Subsequently, the ROK also contributed to two other peacekeeping operations: It sent a medical team to Western Sahara and 200 military engineers to Angola.'" At considerable political risk, Kim's government signed the Uruguay Round accords on trade liberalization, beginning the difficult process of opening the Korean economy to foreign rice, banking, autos, and other competitors of the chaebol, the giant family-owned conglomerates. Korea joined with China, Russia, and Japan on various transnational environmental cooperation projects, with Han Sung-joo going so far as to say that "environmental problems can be seen as replacing the Cold War ideological rivalry "'" Plans were announced to increase Korean assistance programs for economic development in the Third World. These programs, which were established in the 85

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late 1980s, are: the Economic Development Cooperation Funds, for foreign aid; the International Private Economic Council, to dispense private forms of assistance to socialist countries; and training programs such as the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), set up by the government in 1991 to make grants of equipment and provide technical training to the poorest of Third World countries. As a prospective member of the OECD, South Korea was under international pressure to raise official development assistance (ODA) to the average developed-country level of 0.33 percent of GNP. Between 1970 and 1990, Korean bilateral grants totaled a mere $91.4 million, and $72.7 million in technical assistance between 1985 and 1990. In 1992, total Korean ODA surpassed $100 million, and reached about $170 million in 1993. Priority went to Asia. In 1994, for instance, Korean ODA consisted of building vocational training centers, inviting trainees, sending technical experts abroad, and granting industrial equipment, at a total cost of about $40 million.'" Yet ODA in that year was still only $147 million, or 0.04 percent of GNP, a lower percentage than in 1985."6 As the head of KOICA said, that amount "is only about one-fifth of average aid provided by developed countries," and well below what countries of similar size provided at a comparable level of development. He went on to indicate that Korean aid would not be a giveaway program, but—citing the newly begun grants and loans to Vietnam—would open markets for private enterprise and improve Korea's image abroad.'"

New Thinking on National Defense Korean thinking on security has undergone a considerable transformation: It is no longer a simple matter of defense against the North under the U.S. umbrella.

The meanings of security and the contexts of security cooperation have broadened, in both instances with a new stress on multilateral diplomacy. Militarily, regional and multilateral relationships have gained importance, particularly in light of the many political changes and strategic uncertainties in East Asia in the last decade or so. Economically, as Korea's prosperity has become intimately tied to its international competitiveness, its regional and global economic position has also become a crucial ingredient of national security. And as environmental and social problems increasingly cross national boundaries, they have also been viewed as potential security threats.'"

For military security, Seoul foresees the necessity to rely on three levels of diplomacy to supplement the bilateral treaty with the United States. At the regional level, the ASEAN-PMC and multilateral dialogue are the key channels. At the subregional level, the hope was to create "a Mini-CSCE [Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe] like framework ... for dialogue and cooperation," an idea that Han Sung-joo sometimes referred to as a Northeast Asia Security 86

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Dialogue and a Northeast Asia multilateral security framework. The third level of diplomacy is the Korean peninsula, where the objective is North-South Korean dialogue to implement the inter-Korean accords. Ongoing regional bilateral and especially multilateral economic cooperation (through APEC) contribute to security at each of these levels. The first level is regarded as promising but longterm; the second, as more feasible by involving the four outside powers with common interest in peninsular stability; the third, as a difficult process of engaging North Korea in "cooperative coexistence."1" The novel feature of the above is the high priority Koreans attach to creation of a new multilateral dialogue mechanism for Northeast Asia. Its appeal lies in its flexibility. It will bring together the six countries (North Korea included) with the most substantial interests in Korean security. It will also enable the ROK to play a leading role in the organization and focus its agenda on specific problems such as implementing confidence-building measures (CBMs) between the two Koreas.

And, Korean specialists believe, the dialogue mechanism will permit Korea, even after unification, to retain the U.S.-ROK treaty and seek additional new bilateral security agreements with neighboring countries.120 Additional advantages for Korea in a Northeast Asian multilateral system are that it will be able to count on support from neighbors (especially Japan) that have a stake in regional economic cooperation; pursue nonmilitary security issues, such as trans-boundary pollution and trade conflicts (such as with China and Japan); and rely on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as official diplomacy.121 Given the nearness of the nuclear issue, the ever-present possibility of interKorean conflict, and the host of divisive regional issues that already command attention (Japan's and China's future military ambitions, China-Taiwan and ChinaHong Kong tensions, and the unpredictability of Russian developments), Seoul cannot wait on the evolution of a European-style collective security treaty system.

Nor do its analysts believe that existing regional mechanisms, such as ASEANPMC and the ARF, will be able to contribute directly to Korean security. North Korea is not a member of these groups; the extent of U.S. backing for the security purposes of ASEAN is unclear; and specific security issues in Northeast Asia, such as confidence-building measures and arms control, are considered too different from other parts of East Asia.122 As for APEC, it fits well with Korean regional economic interests (see below), but not with national-defense concerns.

The changeover to a larger-than-national, more-than-economics interpretation of Korea's interests made its mark in the Ministry of National Defense (MND).

Prior to the Kim Young-sam administration, the last official "defense objectives" statement (in November 1981) had focused almost entirely on the North Korean threat: "to defend the nation from armed aggression by potential adversaries, support the nation's efforts for peaceful unification, and contribute to the security and peace of the region." The 1994 revision amplified the last objective so that 87

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"the emphasis of our military activities is on regional cooperation to establish peace and security in the region." The revision included specific mention of "actively participating in the UN peacekeeping operations and efforts for regional security."1" Besides ROK peacekeeping forces, military units were designated for future assignment under UN Standby Arrangements. The monitoring assignments were to the Western Sahara, Georgia, and the Indo-Pakistani Military Observer Group.'" A defense ministry spokesman said the revised guidelines would also mean increased "military diplomacy," such as enhanced military ties with neighbors, including Japan.125 Comparison of the Defense White Papers before and after Kim took office reveals important shifts in outlook and budgeting for national defense. The 19931994 version gave specific attention to arms control and confidence-building measures on the peninsula, as agreed to in the 1991 accords with North Korea (see below). The defense ministry statement spoke of the prospects for "gradual arms reduction" if the confidence-building measures were implemented. It also put Korea's arms-control policies in global perspective, observing that South Korea was already a participant in the UN's arms register and "Report of Military Expenditure"; that it was prepared to join in "efforts to construct a cooperative security system ... in each area of the world"; and that in 1991 it had renounced the manufacture, deployment or use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.126 The new defense statement tried to minimize the increasing absolute levels of official military spending, which rose from $5.39 billion in 1988 to $6.23 billion in 1991 and $6.89 billion in 1993." The MND pointed to several qualifications: constant declines in the defense portion of the government budget (from 31.6 percent in 1988 to 24.2 percent in 1993); similar declines in the proportion of GNP devoted to defense (from 5.2 percent to 3.5 percent between 1988 and 1993); a very low real growth rate (after inflation) of military spending (it was 6.2 percent in 1992 and 5.3 percent in 1993); and the increasing costs of operations and maintenance as compared with force improvements. 128 Granting these qualifications, South Korea's military spending basically remained at cold-war levels, particularly considering that the decline of official military spending was only proportional to growth and spending that were rapidly rising.

South Korea has also taken steps to become more self-reliant in defense and increase its arms options. First, it has strengthened its own arms industries, which are dominated by the chaebol. Korea has emphasized co-production, joint ventures in weapons assembly, and military technology transfers along with large-scale purchases of U.S. weapons and equipment.129 As a result, it now has four submarines of its own manufacture and the latest version of the F-16 jet fighter, assembled by Samsung Aerospace. Second, Korea has stepped up arms exports as a means of ensuring the profitability of its arms-manufacturing firms.130 Third, 88

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Korea has begun diversifying military procurement away from excessive reliance on the United States. For example, in 1994 it replaced U.S.-made C-123 transport aircraft with Spanish-made planes, the first time the Korean air force purchased a non-U.S. aircraft. Later, Korea also purchased a French-made antiaircraft missile launcher, the Mistral. The Korean navy, which has purchased submarines and submarine technology from Germany, bought British software for its destroyers.131 Russia, as noted earlier, has reportedly sold weapons to South Korea in partial settlement of its debt. It is also said to be interested in joint-venture military production, both for arms exports and use by the two armed forces."2 Fourth, the ROK has expanded international military cooperation. In February 1995, for example, announcement was made of exchanges of visits with China by senior military officials.1"

The Nuclear Standoff with North Korea In terms of the foreign-policy goals of legitimacy and economic development, South Korea clearly had won the cold war as the 1990's began. But the third goal, national security, remained elusive in spite of what seemed to be a series of breakthroughs in diplomacy. During 1988 Roh made several proposals, on the basis of a shared nationalism, to build trust with Pyongyang and improve peninsular security.134 These included increased North-South contacts (in trade, separated families, and exchanges of visitors); withdrawal of opposition to trade and improved relations by South Korean allies with North Korea; establishment of a "city of peace" in the Demilitarized Zone to facilitate such contacts; a summit conference with Kim Il-Sung; a declaration of non-aggression or nonuse of force; and a "consultative conference for peace" involving the two Koreas and the four major outside powers (the United States, Russia, China, and Japan). In 1991 North Korea, clearly prodded by Russia's and China's embrace of the ROK, abandoned its long-standing opposition to dual Korean membership in the UN. President Bush ordered the withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea and other locations.

These positive developments culminated in December 1991 and January 1992, when Korean leaders signed two accords that laid out conditions for de nuclearization, coexistence, and confidence-building measures. For Seoul, the accords were another sign of foreign-policy autonomy and assertiveness, having clearly been made in Seoul, not in Washington. The accords seemed to satisfy foreign-policy principles first laid down nearly 20 years earlier, in the June 23rd (1973) Declaration of Peace and Unification, issued by Park Chung-hee. The declaration was devoted mainly to improving relations with North Korea; but it also reached out to the other socialist countries. Its principles included 89

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noninterference and nonaggression in North-South relations; dual UN membership for the two Koreas; willingness to accept North Korea's participation in other international organizations alongside the ROK; and openness to relations with all countries regardless of ideology.135 For a time, the accords seemed to spark a fundamental transformation of the security picture on the Korean peninsula. In April 1992, after North Korea ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the IAEA carried out the first of six inspections of its nuclear facilities. The annual U.S.-ROK joint military exercises, "Team Spirit," were canceled for the year.

Yet, perhaps precisely because of the success by then of the Northern Policy in opening up Korea's relations with the other socialist states, the 1991-92 accords foundered. As one scholar has commented, "the South was oblivious to [the accords'] impact on North Korea." By weaning Russia and China away from their previously tight alignments with Pyongyang, and by failing to balance these victories by securing U.S. and Japanese normalization of relations with the North—which Roh's July 7, 1988 "declaration for national unification" and other speeches had seemed to promise—South Korea dramatically heightened North Korea's insecurity."6 One senior foreign ministry official interviewed by this author essentially agreed with this interpretation. He said the basic issue in NorthSouth Korean relations is a lack of balance caused by the overwhelming economic strength of the ROK. This imbalance, which the Northern Policy came to represent, makes Pyongyang constantly aware of its weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and therefore less inclined to negotiate with the South.

As for the United States and Japan, their support of the Northern Policy led them to miss a unique opportunity to complete cross-recognition during the favorable diplomatic events of 1991. Instead, they allowed the nuclear issue to intervene.'37 Had they recognized the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), one may speculate, the later problems over its nuclear program might have been avoided inasmuch as political trust could have been slowly built up over the years.

Beginning in the spring of 1993, amid indications from satellite observations that it might have an active nuclear-weapons program, Pyongyang balked at fullscope IAEA inspections of its seven declared nuclear facilities, withdrew (in March) from, and later "suspended" (June) its participation in the NPT. It insisted on direct talks with the United States to resolve the conditions of its reinvolvement. North Korea's chief objectives were to use its nuclear-weapon potential to ward off absorption by the South, ensure regime survival and gain U.S. and Japanese recognition and assistance.

The standoff between North Korea and the United States went on for over a year. Seoul kept its composure, however. Instead of treating the matter as a national-security crisis, with fulminations against Pyongyang and a domestic 90

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clamp-down such as commonly happened in the cold-war period, the government made clear its preference for a negotiated solution. As the deadline for inspections neared and it seemed the IAEA board of governors would have to report North Korea's refusal to the UN Security Council, Seoul hurriedly dispatched its foreign minister to Washington to dampen talk of a crisis and war preparations, there and at home. The South Koreans were determined to resolve the matter via bilateral South-North talks within the scope of the denuclearization accord and international agreements, rather than through UN sanctions.

This position was consistent with South Korean attitudes as reflected in a July 1993 public opinion poll, which strongly believed that the North was developing nuclear weapons, but almost as strongly wanted to treat the North as brethren in need of economic and other support. The poll found, not surprisingly, that the younger and better educated the respondent, the greater the support for nonconfrontational policies toward North Korea.1" But the standoff also revealed that, notwithstanding the end of the East-West ideological battles, both Koreas remained captives of the cold war and had to maneuver within its traditional confines. North Korea, deserted by Russia, was left only with China's support; but Beijing, while not prepared to abandon Pyongyang, had to be concerned about what a desperate Kim Il-sung might do with a nuclear weapon, especially if it came under UN sanctions and he was pushed into a corner.

As for South Korea, U.S. concern about nonproliferation intruded into Seoul's diplomacy, scuttling Kim Young-sam's evident hope for a Korean solution on the basis (as Roh had also proposed) of a shared nationalism. Kim had hoped to win over the North by offering unification through "a gradual and peaceful step," rather than absorption. His policy toward North Korea would be based, he said, on "peaceful coexistence, joint prosperity and common welfare." As for the nuclear issue, Kim proposed that "it has to be through an inter-Korean dialogue between the authorities that North Korea should resolve the nuclear issue and other related questions in a responsible manner."139 Rebuffed by the North on proposals for direct dialogue, the ROK had to rely on U.S.-DPRK negotiations to backstop South Korean security interests. Seoul essentially became a silent partner as the United States and North Korea negotiated over terms for IAEA inspections of Pyongyang's nuclear facilities. These terms inevitably included matters that bore directly on South Korea's defense, including cancellation of "Team Spirit" exercises, North Korea's fulfillment of previous agreements with the South on exchanges of special emissaries, on mutual inspections of nuclear facilities, and removal of the U.S. nuclear threat (which U.S. negotiators agreed to do at the conclusion of the second round of direct talks in June 1993). Not until March 1994, when the North agreed to allow the IAEA to inspect its seven declared nuclear facilities, did U.S. and South Korean negotiating positions coincide: Washington declared it would not sit down for a third round of 91

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direct talks with Pyongyang and would not suspend "Team Spirit," until NorthSouth talks between special envoys started and the inspections were satisfactorily completed. (In fact, direct inter-Korean talks never did take place prior to or during U.S.-DPRK negotiations for a nuclear deal.) In short, the nuclear crisis with North Korea severely constrained the "New Diplomacy" as all of Seoul's diplomatic efforts had to refocus on South-North relations and alliance politics.

North Korea, on the other hand, achieved one of its major objectives, which was direct talks with Washington. The talks bypassed the inter-Korean accords of the previous winter, and thus accomplished two other purposes. The ROK's objective of "Koreanizing" the Korea question was defeated; and the U.S.-South Korean relationship was to some extent disrupted. During early 1994, for example, Korean newspapers carried stories of legislators from the ruling and opposition parties who were upset with South Korea's seeming exclusion from U.S.-DPRK talks and the government's subservience to U.S. policy. But Pyongyang could only play its hand so far, inasmuch as Washington insisted that it allow full-scope inspections by the IAEA before negotiating a direct political relationship, which was clearly another of Pyongyang's objectives.

The United States held out other "carrots" to gain North Korea's compliance, such as suspending "Team Spirit" and withdrawing Patriot missiles that were shipped to South Korea in April 1994. Some kind of package deal was clearly in the offing. North Korea was made aware that once the nuclear issue was resolved it could expect diplomatic recognition and aid, including nuclear-energy assistance; but if the issue was not resolved, there was the threat of sanctions and renewed military encirclement. North Korea may have succeeded at making an atomic bomb; but it remained economically and militarily vulnerable. According to South Korean specialists, North Korea's GNP in 1993 fell to a mere $205 million (compared with South Korea's $3.2 billion), the fourth straight year of negative growth. Trade, manufacturing, and food production all were either stagnant or falling."0 By the spring of 1994, North Korea's last source of international support for playing the nuclear card had evaporated. Beijing for the first time took an initiative on the nuclear issue in the UN Security Council when, in April, it authored a compromise "statement" by the Security Council president that urged the DPRK to allow IAEA inspections to go forward. Though Pyongyang rejected the appeal, the erosion of Chinese support made some kind of diplomatic resolution of the nuclear issue increasingly probable. Following a visit to Pyongyang by former President Jimmy Carter in June 1994 for talks with Kim Il-Sung, who died suddenly on July 8, the United States and the DPRK concluded an "Agreed Framework" on October 21. The agreement in essence traded a North Korean freeze and eventual opening up of all its nuclear facilities to international inspection for nuclear-energy and oil assistance, and the beginning of diplomatic ties.

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One longer-term effect of the nuclear issue was to hinder thinking in South Korea about Northeast Asia regional security cooperation. Some Korean analysts argued not simply that unification must precede multilateral dialogue on security, but also that Koreans must first resolve their own problems before allowing others to play a role.14' Other Korean scholars and officials interviewed by this author were simply deeply suspicious about the real intentions of the major outside powers, particularly the United States. In any event, North Korea's direct diplomatic engagement with the United States on its nuclear program preempted South Korea's striking out in a new direction. Seoul was put outside the formal negotiating sessions, leaving it informed of the talks but without a veto power over the substance. Unification took a back seat to nonproliferation as the U.S. strove mainly to pry open North Korea's nuclear program. When, in the Agreed Framework, Washington at last succeeded at gaining Pyongyang's promise to freeze its nuclear reprocessing, it was in return for U.S. agreement to establish a liaison office in Pyongyang—a diplomatic achievement for the North that was unwelcome news in Seoul.

Korea and the Major Powers

The nuclear standoff clarified that the major powers share an interest in avoiding another war on the Korean peninsula and in keeping it nuclear-free. The standoff also brought to light and, for many Korean specialists, confirmed them in the belief—that unification is not a priority of any of the four major powers.'42 Either the four powers prefer Korea's continued division to unification or, they attach no priority to facilitating or hastening unification. In this section South Korea's evolving relationship with the major powers is explored, relying mainly on the author's interviews with Korean academics, government specialists, business people and journalists.

China Since the establishment of relations with the ROK, China's official policy toward the Korean peninsula has been based on "peace and stability." PRC leaders welcomed the 1991 North-South accords, made economic partnership with South Korea a high priority, counseled North Korea to pursue economic reforms along Chinese lines, backed a nuclear-free Korea, and supported Korean unification through peaceful means.'43 During the nuclear standoff, China consistently urged resolution of the nuclear issue through dialogue; but it refused to play a mediator's role despite the 93

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possibility of a nuclear confrontation. Beijing's intention evidently was to maintain positive relations with both Koreas for as long as possible, essentially by separating its long-standing political and military ties with North Korea from its booming economic relationship with South Korea. China's strategy became apparent when Kim Young-sam made a five-day state visit to Beijing in late March 1994. Kim clearly hoped for a more forceful PRC intervention in the nuclear issue. Instead, he came away with the same Chinese avowals of concern about nuclear weapons and hopes for solution through dialogue that PRC officials had been stating for many months. China's concerns, including the prospect that South Korea and Japan might themselves "go nuclear" if North Korea proceeded to build a bomb, had to be balanced against North Korea's value as a security buffer, as a shield against relentless capitalism, and as a demonstration of China's reliability in the global battle against the forces of "hegemonism."

Thus, China's public stance was invariably to call for more dialogue and avoid imposing sanctions against North Korea, which would only make a bad situation worse. The latter view did not change until May 1994, at which point, according to a senior South Korean official, Beijing helped pave the way for the 1994 U.S.-DPRK agreement. Chinese leaders became disturbed at reports that North Korea was going to remove several thousand spent fuel rods from its Yongbyon reactor prior to its refueling. The possibility that North Korea might then be able to reprocess plutonium sufficient to build several nuclear bombs worried the Chinese enough that for the first time they refrained from threatening a veto of sanctions in the Security Council and instead proposed a toughly worded rebuke of Pyongyang.

Until then, the South Korean government seems to have expected more from China, specifically, that Beijing would apply pressure on Pyongyang to halt the nuclear program, as political compensation for South Korea's trade and investment. The assumption seemed to be that China, as Pyongyang's last important friend in the world, held the key to bringing out full-scale inspections by the IAEA of North Korea's nuclear facilities. But China consistently indicated it had no intention of becoming a party to the dispute, leading one Korean scholar to warn against the "danger of [South Korea's] becoming a political hostage to China as a result of investment and business operations by Korean companies there."144 China continued to balance its Korea policy after the crisis. For instance, it supported North Korea's decision to withdraw from the Military Armistice Commission in the Demilitarized Zone, and, unlike Russia, China refused to scrap its Korean War-era mutual defense treaty with the DPRK. On the other hand, in support of South Korea's position, it rejected North Korea's bid to conclude a peace treaty with the United States alone to replace the armistice and formally end the Korean War.145 And, in November 1995, President Jiang Zemin visited Seoul

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for the first time, addressed the national assembly, and backed the ROK's policy of direct North-South talks to replace the armistice and resolve the nuclear issue.

China's two-Korea policy during and after the nuclear confrontation is based not only on its separate interests in North and South Korea, but also on its concerns about U.S. policy and Korea's future. Beijing's refusal to support UN sanctions probably rested in part on wanting to avoid facilitating an American victory over North Korea. North Korea would have been weakened and might even have collapsed; in either case, Beijing's decision would have strengthened U.S. claims to the position of solitary superpower. The paramount PRC interest in the Korean peninsula is to prevent destabilizing developments that would jeopardize its own stability and security. These would include a North Korea entirely under capitalism and introducing political pluralism; or a Korean peninsula in upheaval over unification; or a unified Korea deciding to "go nuclear" independently of the United States. Unified Korea might become the object of Sino-Japanese competition yet again; it might remain tied to the U.S. security system; or, as a nuclear state, it might be a competitor and potential threat.1" If Korean unification under Seoul's authority is inevitable, the preferred Chinese scenario for Korea's future seems to be that it occur gradually and without conflict. The more closely tied South Korea becomes to China's economic fortunes, the more reliable an ally it will be on foreign-policy issues such as opposition to "Japanese militarism" and perhaps to "U.S. hegemonism." This strategy became evident during Jiang Zemin's 1995 meetings with Kim Youngsam. Both leaders used the opportunity to make public statements highly critical of Japan's past aggressions in Asia. For China, then, a policy of gradualism is most conducive to a future in which a unified Korea is friendly, or at least not hostile, to Chinese influence.

Japan The Korea-Japan relationship has repeatedly been buffeted by contending nationalisms, historical grievances, and Korean feelings of victimization and junior status in trade and political relations. These have long been barriers to what Koreans want: a "mature" relationship between equal partners. The cold-war linkage between Korea's defense and Japanese security helped to keep tensions within bounds; but in the minds of numerous Korean specialists, Japan's intentions with respect to Korea's unification have always been suspect at best, notwithstanding Japan's official support of it. On a number of occasions, Japan has engaged in "two-Koreas" diplomacy, as Koreans see it; and in fact, Japanese efforts to normalize relations with North Korea began anew once the Agreed Framework was signed.

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Many Korean specialists firmly believe Japan's actual policy is to prolong Korea's division. In their view, Japan regards a united peninsula as a trade competitor and potential security threat.- A reasonable argument can be made, however, that Japan would benefit even more from a unified, prosperous Korea, which would be an even more valuable market for Japan that it already is. Japan would also benefit from the impetus that Korean unification would provide to regional economic development, helping preserve or extend Japan s dominant position (around 70 percent) in Northeast Asia intraregional trade. The diverse economies of the Yellow Sea would make for a well-balanced economic cooperation zone favorable to Japanese trade and investment interests. But these latter views are rarely heard among Koreans. One senior newspaper editor observed in an interview that Japan is already competing economically in the North with South Korea. Behind the scenes Japan will seek to hinder unification, and once unification is achieved Seoul will have to control the scale of Japanese economic penetration. Some Korean Japan experts believe that the new nationalists" in Japan not only want to keep Korea divided, but also favor North Korea's development of nuclear weapons in order to justify Japans own nuclearization.1" . . .

According to one senior Japan specialist in the Korean foreign ministry, domestic political changes in both countries early in the 1990s - the new civilian government in Seoul and the abbreviated end of Liberal Democratic Party dominance in Tokyo - provided the opportunity to build a more positive KoreaJapan relationship. Prospects for a new level of understanding between South Korea and Japan seemed good when Prime Minister Hosokawa Monhiro and Kim Young-sam held a summit meeting at Kyongju in November 1993. The Japanese leader apologized for his country's conduct before 1945, to which Kun responded that relations should henceforth be more "future-oriented."'* What the specialist calls for, however, is a new "regional partnership" between the two countries, one that can only begin after Japan squarely faces the past and fully apologizes for it as a precondition of trust-building. Koreans for their part, he writes, should avoid preoccupation with the past.""0 "Partnership" for Koreans means that Japan's influence and involvement in regional affairs ought to be applied in close consultation with Seoul, and not in such a way as to project Japanese power. Thus, this specialist s analysis of Northeast Asian instability leads to various suggestions for a Japanese role but invariably in coordination with Korea's - for example, in support of a Northeast Asia security dialogue, which the ROK has officially proposed; in adopting a gradual approach to unification by easing North Korea out of its isolation; in sustaining China's economic reforms and Russia's liberalization; and in promoting subregional economic cooperation."'

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Such hope for coordinated policy-making may be too optimistic, inasmuch as it may assign far more weight to Korea than Japan is willing to concede. The two countries share a multitude of common interests in the Asia-Pacific; indeed, the same specialist maintains that "Japan's regional role is one of the few diplomatic issues that enjoy national consensus in Korea.""2 But the two countries also are quite different in economic weight, political influence, and, most obviously, in the fact of Korea's division. Even if Japan never becomes a "normal" state with armed forces of great-power capabilities, it is bound to have objectives in the region and on the Korean peninsula that are different from South Korea's — and, upon Korean unification, different again. The political outcome of China's reforms, whether toward pluralism and liberalization or toward aggressive nationalism and instability, will also shape future Korea-Japan relations. And, try as they might, Tokyo-Seoul relations constantly stumble over Japan's colonial occupation.

During 1995, a Japanese cabinet minister and a member of parliament made statements suggesting the legality and the benefits to Koreans of Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910. These remarks led to very public and high-level Korean protests and demands for an official apology. Prime Minister Tomichi Murayama eventually did "apologize" for Japanese colonial rule in a letter to President Kim Young-sam.,53 Closer political and economic relations between Seoul and Tokyo thus are certainly conceivable; but a special relationship based on consistent coordination of policy is probably not.

Russia By the time the nuclear issue heated up, the tilt of Russia's Korea policy to the South had been made abundantly clear."4 Following Boris Yeltsin's visit to Seoul in November 1992, which led to agreement on regular consultations, Russia made several goodwill gestures, including delivery of the KAL-007 black box and of archival materials from the Korean War. Russia was evidently upset with the Pyongyang leadership's intransigent opposition to economic reform, and with its apparent pursuit of a nuclear-weapon option. At considerable economic sacrifice, Moscow in 1993 canceled delivery to North Korea of three light-water nuclear reactors valued at $4 billion that it had agreed to sell it in 1991.'" Yeltsin's government also vowed to end (and in 1995, did end) mutual defense commitments with North Korea under a 1961 treaty. In 1994, when President Kim made a trip to Moscow to discuss the nuclear standoff, Yeltsin is said to have assured the South Korean government that Russia no longer considered that it had a defense obligation to North Korea and that it would stop providing weapons to the DPRK. According to Kim's foreign policy adviser who was present at the talks, "the Russian President said that Article One of the [Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance] stipulating Moscow's military intervention 97

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can be regarded as dead now." The joint declaration at the end of the summit meeting reflected agreement on the need to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, though it said nothing about the 1961 treaty."6 In September 1995, however, Moscow announced it had scrapped the 1961 treaty and would propose a friendship and cooperation treaty instead, "similar to the 1992 treaty of basic relations between Seoul and Moscow."1" Even more boldly, Moscow reached agreement with South Korea to repay about one-half of its $3-billion debt to South Korea with tanks and other arms. The debt was incurred at the time the two countries established diplomatic relations. 158 When the Russian prime minister visited Seoul again in September 1995, the mutuality of interests advanced further. Official Russian support was promised for a nonpermanent ROK seat on the UN Security Council, and South Korea promised to support Russian membership in APEC. These moves did not spell the end of Russia's relationship with North Korea, however. Yeltsin had already indicated, during his visit to Seoul in November 1992, that while Russia looked to a unified, peaceful and nuclear-free Korea as a neighbor, it would meanwhile treat each Korea equally, favoring neither pressure (sanctions) nor discrimination ~ a "stable and healthy relationship" with each, as one Russian official later phrased it.'" When the Agreed Framework was put together in late 1994, Russian policy fully embraced an "equidistant diplomacy" that was designed to reestablish a measure of cordiality and influence in North Korea.160 Very likely responding to the more nationalistic elements among its policymakers, who still spoke fondly of Kim Il-sung, Moscow decided to show its dissatisfaction with what were regarded as U.S. efforts to ease it out of any role in Korean security or in the nuclear issue.

Russian policy toward Korea may also be motivated by longer-term considerations. Moscow, like Beijing and Tokyo, may regard a strong, unified Korea as a competitor, especially if Korea should seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

A divided (but peaceful) Korea may be regarded from Moscow as best serving Russian interests. The prosperous South can help develop the Russian Far East, as well as European Russia, mainly with heavy industrial equipment, technology, and consumer goods, while North Korea may one day again provide Russia with a strategic option (in bases, overflight privileges, and refueling rights) in case of conflict. At the moment, neither set of interests has been well satisfied. Moscow is unhappy with the slow pace of economic relations with South Korea, which has given the Russian defense ministry an opening for questioning the value of tilting too far toward the ROK. During an official visit to Seoul by Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, a ministry official is quoted as having said: "The Russian leadership's sentiment is that it has gained no particular advantages by opening ties with South Korea at a cost of distancing itself from its erstwhile staunch ally in the North."161 South Korean trade and investment in joint ventures with Russia are 98

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minuscule. Total trade (see Table 2) was under $1 billion in 1990, but only rose to $2.19 billion in 1994, far below expectations of $10 billion in trade by 1995.162 Korean direct investment in Russia is only $37 million in 51 joint ventures.163 One senior Russian official remarked that a number of large projects in the Russian Far East are under discussion, including two to produce gas and others in the Nahodka Free Enterprise Zone; but implementation awaits resolution of the Russian debt to South Korea.1" The United States As for the United States, the situation is quite complex. Its military presence in Korea has always stood in the way of unification: Without it, South Korea long ago would probably have been forced to negotiate more seriously with the North.

Yet the U.S. presence has also provided strategic stability and evidence of commitment to Asian allies, as much for Japan's defense as for South Korea's.

With few basing options left in East Asia, and with its long-standing concern about what an unstable Korea might mean to Japanese leaders, the United States is in no hurry to leave South Korea. Nor, after unification, may the Korean government want it to leave as it focuses on the numerous demands for reconstructing the North and uncertainties about China's and Japan's future direction.

Nor, just possibly, may North Korea be all that anxious to see the Americans go home at this time. North Korea's chief concerns, some analysts suggest, are that a U.S. withdrawal would increase Japanese involvement in Korean affairs and the possibility that South Korea would develop nuclear weapons.16' A more immediate reason may be that the U.S. presence in South Korea helps the North in its last-ditch effort to preserve legitimacy and prevent absorption by South Korea.

U.S. forces affirm Korea's division ~ which is what Pyongyang now seems intent on preserving. Its revival in April 1994 of a twenty-year old proposal for replacing the 1953 armistice agreement with a U.S.-DPRK peace treaty is consistent with the objective of using Washington as a deterrent to South Korean ambitions. The United States may be the greatest strategic threat to North Korea; but paradoxically, the North Koreans may need to keep U.S. forces around. Perhaps that was one consideration behind Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program.

Having, or seeming to have, such a program captured the Americans' attention and brought them around to the importance of negotiating directly with North Korea.

Such an important gain for Pyongyang was seen in Seoul as a loss for the ROK. The reliability of the United States was perceived in a far less favorable light by some policymakers in South Korea. The Agreed Framework's promises of a nuclear freeze and eventual dismantling of DPRK facilities were viewed positively;but they had to be weighed against immediate U.S. concessions to the North on diplomatic relations, energy assistance, and security assurances. Kim 99

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Young-sam was scathing in his criticism of U.S. haste in concluding such a generous package."16 Subsequently, in Geneva early in 1995, details of implementation were worked out that provided for the entry into North Korea of South Korean nuclear technology and technicians. Again, however, North Korea drove a hard bargain, for South Korea would have to pay most of the bill, around $4 billion. The nuclear issue thus raised questions about the durability of the U.S.ROK alliance, for Washington had chosen to place itself squarely in between the two Koreas and become, to some South Koreans, an interlocutor for the North.

Opportunities and Dilemmas In the wake of the nuclear standoff, the security dilemma for Korea seems to be much the same as it has always been: how to preserve Korean independence of action and promote national interests (unification above all others) while being significantly dependent on the military presence and separate interests of the four powers. Yet the nuclear issue also presents opportunities for advancing South Korean interests and regional peace. All four major powers are on record in favor of a stable, nuclear-free peninsula and, in one form or another, a security dialogue on Korea's future. Second, the nuclear issue offers a chance for nonproliferation under the NPT to work, notwithstanding the unique terms of the Agreed Framework to bring North Korea into compliance. Third, the Agreed Framework, if successfully implemented, may become the catapult to regional economic and even security cooperation, in which North Korea would share. A satisfactory conclusion of the nuclear issue will facilitate the normalization of DPRK relations with the United States and Japan.167 Beyond that, if North Korea actually freezes and dismantles its nuclear facilities, regional dialogue may be possible on such other issues as a new mechanism for assuring Korean security, a Korean or Northeast Asia nuclear-free zone (NFZ), Japan's future nuclear intentions, Japan's possible role in a Northeast Asia multilateral security regime, and CBMs to reduce North-South Korean tensions. These issues are further discussed in the concluding section.

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Korea's Economic Security and Regional Economic Cooperation Korea's approach to regional economic cooperation has been equally shaped by economic and political forces. Its outward-oriented development strategy, large and growing economic stake in East Asia, and constant concern to advance its competitive position regionally and globally are the economic factors. Belief in the political and security value of economic interdependence, determination to preserve Korean independence of action, and anxieties about Japanese economic power are the political factors. When Seoul first began addressing multilateral economic options in the 1980s, it incorporated both these sets of factors by specifically supporting regional initiatives characterized by broad membership and wide latitude for economic partnerships.

Chun Doo-hwan set the tone in a statement of July 31, 1983 in which he called for creation of a "consultative mechanism" of Pacific Rim countries interested in promoting "development, prosperity and cooperation." He called this venture Pacific Summitry.™ The idea anticipated APEC with respect to the group's proposed purposes, format, agenda, and openness to membership by the socialist states. Chun suggested a forum for exploration of economic, cultural and other issues of common concern outside the political field. The forum would be open to all states in the region; "principles of equality, mutual respect and reciprocity" would prevail; and leaders would seek agreement by consensus, not by a vote. Such a loose organization, Chun emphasized, was not intended to evolve into "an exclusive bloc of nations."

Under Roh Tae-woo, Chun's ideas on Korea's position on regional cooperation were sustained as elements of the cold war dissolved in Asia and economic interdependence increased. Roh also offered ways to build regional cooperation through intensified economic relationships.16' By then, his Northern Policy had borne fruit and unification seemed within reach. Roh extolled Korea's economic successes and proposed that it could play the roles of regional economic "catalyst" and "bridge" for diplomatic compromise. He fully endorsed APEC as the appropriate vehicle for promoting cooperation, arguing that "subregionalism tends to cause friction and rivalry and contributes to protectionist tendencies."

Thus, by the time Kim Young-sam took office, the key axioms of Korea's approach to regional cooperation were set. They have been elaborated in a large number of Korean official and academic sources as follows: • The post-cold war era provides unusual opportunities to promote economic growth and political stability at every level: subregional, regional, and global.

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• Economic cooperation between states can reduce political frictions and even overcome long-standing political rivalry. It can to a certain extent be a substitute for the receding U.S. military presence in Asia.

• Economic interdependence can create vested interests in regional stability.

States that threaten the peace will have to weigh the economic costs of lost relations with trade and investment partners. And strong bilateral economic ties may help resolve conflicts with third parties.

• Multilateral economic regionalism should not aim at integration or exclusiveness (as in the European Union), nor should it conflict with global efforts.

• Regional organizations should reflect, equally, the views of all the memberstates and should not be dominated by one power (read Japan) or by a subregional group.

• Regional economic and security cooperation should be organized separately. A region-wide organization is appropriate for dialogue on economic issues, but not for addressing Korea's security problems.

• Regional economic cooperation must help Korea to avoid structural problems, such as those in relations with China and ASEAN (as low-wage exporting countries) and with Japan (in terms of technological dependence).170 Not surprisingly in light of these principles and requirements, Korean specialists regard APEC as Korea's best multilateral vehicle to promote its economic interests.'" APEC seeks to harmonize the diverse economic interests and development levels of the entire region. It operates on a basis of equality, seeks to promote technology transfer, is non-exclusive in membership, and encompasses a large geographic area. APEC is also outward-looking—that is, its purpose is to promote the entire region's economic performance and global multilateralism, and not (like ASEAN) merely the trade interests of one subregion.

Given Korea's trade pattern of primary reliance on the U.S., Japanese, and other East Asian markets, its other choices would provide gains for Korea, but also significant losses. One choice would be to join the North America Free Trade Area (NAFTA). Another would be to support a Japan-led all-Asian economic bloc— namely, the East Asian Economic Group proposed by Malaysia in 1990. Since the EAEG would exclude the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, it has been roundly criticized by the United States and officially opposed by Japan. The "group" is now being proposed as a "caucus" within APEC. A third choice for South Korea is to be part of a smaller Asian group, such as one comprised of the Northeast Asia subregion, or of the Asian NICs. Korean preference for APEC also has important political dimensions.

Economic multilateralism enhances regional interdependence and is seen as a step toward regional stability, trust-building, and perhaps security dialogue. The large membership and consultative character of APEC, which to Westerners might make 102

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it unwieldy, lend themselves to cooperation. As one former Korean ambassador wrote, APEC can at the very least provide more amelioration and cultivated and harmonious discourse than that found in bilateral debates which often result in acrimonious and unproductive competition. Through sharing of experience and information, multilateral approaches allow for diffusion of inherent tensions and thus arrive at potential solutions. Multilateralism also allows for a broader agenda and balance of interests and concerns in the region, lessening overt nationalism and localism in various issues andproblems.'72 Since APEC is a consultative body and not a policy-making organization, Korea may find it a more culturally as well as politically congenial place in which to conduct business. "In contrast to other regional organizations," one Korean specialists has written, "[APEC] is not based on formal inter-governmental treaties and exchanges of obligations."173 A second political purpose served by APEC for Korea is that as an organization committed to trade liberalization in a multilateral order, it widens Korea's strategic options. Within APEC, Korea has more maneuvering room than it would in a restricted-membership bloc, especially one dominated by Japan.

Japan's trade predominance in East Asia, which is closely linked with its direct investments, underscores Korean concerns. In 1991 Japan was among the top four trading partners of every other major East Asian economy (as was the United States). Thirty-two percent of Japan's exports went to nine East Asian countries: the ASEAN-5 (less Brunei and Vietnam), Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong.

Japan accounted for 17 percent of Korean exports and 26 percent of imports."4 Along with other governments, Korea is anxious to break with the neocolonial pattern of Japan-oriented trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) - a pattern popularized by Japanese economists as the flying geese - which has forced it to rely too heavily on the U.S. and other non-Asian markets for Korean exports.

Regional and subregional economic activity provides greater policy-making flexibility for the Korean government than does security cooperation. Even so, Korea may not be as well situated as some of its competitor-neighbors to take advantage of all this activity. For one thing, Korea's economy, as the government well recognizes, needs to move in new directions if it is to maintain high growth rates in trade and GNP. Among the biggest concerns is the loss of international competitiveness to Chinese and ASEAN manufactured exports, such as electronic equipment, to Korea's traditional markets in Japan and the United States. South Korea's share of worldwide exports to Japan and the United States declined between 1988 and 1992 from 6.8 and 4.6 percent to 5.2 and 3.2 percent respectively. ASEAN' s share meanwhile increased from 11.4 and 4.7 percent to 103

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12.9 and 6.9 percent respectively. ASEAN's competitiveness is expected to increase even more once tariff reductions among its members (under the ASEAN Free Trade Area) are fully implemented around 2003."> Other Korean concerns are the "structural squeeze" between the competition with China and ASEAN, on one side, and large trade deficits with and technological dependence on Japan, on the other; Korea's low level of research and development (R&D) spending; the need to restructure the chaebol and significantly increase government support of small and middle-size businesses; and adaptation to the new GATT regime and its market-opening measures.

Additionally, Korea does not have strong regional linkages, particularly to the south. Its economic position in China and Southeast Asia cannot match that of Taiwan or Hong Kong, not to mention Japan. And APEC aside, Korea is not a member of any other regional governmental group.'76 Northeast Asia may offer offsetting advantages to South Korea. The reduction of cold-war tensions not only opened the way to lucrative business with China and, to a limited extent, with Russia. It also coincided with other structural changes in East Asia that are conducive to South Korea's outward-oriented development.

These changes include the considerable increase in Asia-Pacific intraregional trade, Japan's emphasis on trade, aid, and investment in Asia and the revival of U.S. investment interest in Asia.177 In keeping with a regionwide trend noted earlier, South Korea has positioned itself to make a major push into Northeast Asia by shifting more of its trade to East Asia. Between 1985 and 1990, Korean exports to East Asia rose from 26 percent to 34 percent of total exports, while exports to the United States declined from 36 percent to 30 percent of the total.171 Northeast Asia is particularly well suited to South Korean technology and industrial exports, to its increasing need of lessskilled workers (China, for example, has roughly 10,000 contract workers in South Korea179), and to Korean culture because of local Korean populations in Northeast China and Russia, not to mention the DPRK. For Korea, these new markets offer opportunities to reduce further its dependence on the U.S. market, which is subject to political pressures (Super 301) and potentially exclusionary practices (NAFTA); to try to offset the Japanese challenge, which shows up not merely in annual trade deficits with Japan, but also (see below) in competing Japanese-funded exports from ASEAN and China. The new markets promote regional political stability.

Table 2 gives recent figures on Korea's increasing trade with its neighbors.

The increasing importance to Korea ofNortheast Asia trade becomes apparent in two ways: first, in comparison with Korea's trade with the ASEAN-5 (Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysia); second, measured as a proportion of Korea's world trade. Korea's Northeast Asia trade is rising mainly because of the China factor. Total Korean trade with Northeast Asia in 1993 was about $42.4 billion, compared with $16.4 billion with the ASEAN 5. One can 104

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anticipate that as Korea-PRC and even Korea-Russia and inter-Korean trade continue to grow, the gap with ASEAN trade will increase even more. As a proportion of world trade, Korea's trade with the Northeast Asia-4 in 1993 was around 25 percent of its total world trade of $166 billion. (Combined, Northeast Asia and ASEAN trade represented about 35 percent of Korea's world trade in 1993 which, as pointed out earlier, surpasses Korea-U.S. trade.)

Korean FDI in Northeast Asia is also becoming an important feature of economic globalization. While Southeast Asia has become a principal locale of investment,"" Northeast Asian investment opportunities, in the limited time since diplomatic relations opened up with China and Russia, have grown rapidly. These increased from a mere $59 million cumulatively in all of Northeast Asia by 1989, to $641 million in 1993 alone, or about one-third of Korea's total outward FDI in that year. Again, China holds the key to the rise, accounting for over 90 percent of Korea's FDI in Northeast Asia since the 1992 establishment of relations.'81 Korean (and other) government and business leaders also note disincentives to subregional cooperation and weaknesses in the Northeast Asia region.182 As previously noted with reference to the Table 2, trade relationships there as the 1990s began were uneven, flourishing among China, Japan, and South Korea, but low with respect to North Korea, Russia - and especially the Russian Far East - and Northeast China. North Korea and the Russian Far East continue to have serious deficiencies, especially in transportation, capital availability, commercial networks and services (including banking, skilled labor, and even basic data bases). Russia, North Korea, and even China (despite its high growth rates) are further hampered by local-central government tensions, high inflation and unclear regulations that reduce their attractiveness to foreign investors and traders. Other weaknesses in Northeast Asia are the far greater trade and investment opportunities for the advanced economies of Northeast Asia in the global (GATT) system; the diversity of government commitment to market policies as opposed to regulation; fear of Japanese domination of the sub-region; the uncertain response of the United States to a Northeast Asian subregional mechanism; and insufficient international investment or attention to the region, except for the Tumen Project.

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Table 2 Korea's Trade with Northeast Asia, 1990-1993/94 (in $US millions) Year

Exports to

Imports from

Japan

1990 1992 1993

12,637 11,599 11,564

18,573 19,457 20,015

China

1990 1992 1993

2,653 5,150

3,724 3,928

Russia

1990 1992 1993

519 118 601

369 74 974

North Korea

1990 1992 1994

ASEAN-5

1 10 207 (total trade)

1990 1992 1993

7,048 8,659 9,419

Sources see note 183

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Political and cultural obstacles to economic cooperation are formidable too.

Not only is there a host of specific unresolved issues that impedes cooperation, such as North Korea's nuclear intentions, the Northern Islands controversy and the absence of diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and Washington and Tokyo.

For Korea, deep distrust of Japan, concerns about being out-competed by Chinese and Southeast Asian products, and pessimism (especially in trade-related bureaucracies) about future prospects for subregional cooperation are even bigger hindrances. To illustrate, in a survey of opinion among Korean career bureaucrats concerned with international trade, Chung Kil-chung found that while they generally foresaw continued expansion of economic ties with Northeast Asia, and regarded such cooperation as likely to help improve political relations, historical memories and emotions would be the most important obstacles to regional economic cooperation."4 Thus, although clearly there is great economic complementarity between the advanced and the underdeveloped economies of Northeast Asia, it is not self-evident that subregional multilateral economic cooperation can have the same payoffs, economically or politically, that bilateral trade has had among China, Japan, and South Korea.

Next, two intersecting issues are discussed that bear directly on prospects for cooperation in Northeast Asia: Korea's economic relations with China and Japan, and acquisition of technology.

Korean Trade with China and Japan Sino-Korean trade and investment ties have boomed since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992. In the 1990s Korea-China trade became the most dynamic element of the trend to East Asia in Korea's foreign trade: By 1994 China was South Korea's third most important trade partner and Korea ranked sixth among China's partners. A year later, the two countries were each other's fourth most important partner, with a total trade of nearly $12 billion. Korean businesses made China their top choice, investing around $1 billion by 1994, mostly in the Beijing-Shanghai-Liaoning area (called the Bohai Rim by Chinese). Negotiators for the two countries agreed during Kim Young-sam's March 1994 visit, that trade volume would increase by 1997 to $28 billion and Korean investment in China would seek to quadruple to $4 billion. Korean ministries set 2001 targets for $56 billion in two-way trade and $10 billion in investments.1" What emerged from Kim's Beijing-Tokyo trip, however, was a step up in bilateral and inter-industry cooperation, not in trilateral ties. No new institutional framework, such as an economic trade zone, was created, although a Korean economist observed that the aggregate GDP of the three countries, $4.4 trillion, put them in a league with NAFTA and EU. Instead, new levels of bilateral ties were 107

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achieved. ,M On the Japan side, agreements were reached to assist small and medium-sized firms in both countries and, by providing Japanese training of Koreans, improve Korean firms' ability to develop their own parts and components. On the China side, Korea received assurances on standardization of contracts and other steps to promote trade and facilitate investments. A new ChinaKorea industrial cooperation committee was formed. Korea identified electronics, digital telephone exchanges, autos, high-definition television, and aircraft as the key sectors for cooperation, with the type of cooperation to be determined case-bycase. Kim Young-sam said he expected that multilateral regional development projects such as Tumen would also be pushed forward once the nuclear issue was resolved.'"7 Obscured by these developments, however, is the fact that Korea is losing markets (especially the U.S. market) to cheaper, good-quality Chinese (and ASEAN) exports, which take advantage of lower labor costs and insufficient productivity gains among Korean chaebol. And behind them, notably in the ASEAN countries, are Japanese investors who, aided by a large dose of ODA from Tokyo, put their money into export-oriented ventures. 188 Hence, as is noted below, a central challenge to the Korean state will be how to use subregional economic cooperation to reverse the pattern of declining competitiveness with Asia's future NICs. Japan: Problems of Trade and Technology Transfer As Table 2 shows, Japan is Korea's dominant trade partner. In 1993, for instance, total ROK-Japan trade of about $31.5 billion was nearly triple Korea's combined trade with the other three countries. The key issue is Korea's trade deficit with Japan, which was $8.4 billion in 1993, compared with Korea's total trade deficit that year of about $1.5 billion. Since 1965 the cumulative trade deficit with Japan has amounted to some $82 billion, or about 3 percent of Korean GDP on an annual basis. By 1993, the cumulative figure was "13.7 times as large as Japan's total ODA and direct investment in Korea during the same period."1" The structural nature of the deficit is Korean manufacturers' dependence on Japanese equipment, parts, and technology for greater exports. Even the more favorable yen-to-won exchange value in the mid-1990s did not alter this structure, since higher Korean exports were offset by the dependence on Japanese imports, which for the past 15 years have hovered around 25 percent of import share. Nor has Korea been able to dramatically increase exports to Japan, which in the same period have been between 15 and 20 percent of total Korean exports, but were down to around 14 percent in 1993."° From the Korean point of view, two basic things must happen. One, obviously, is that the bilateral trade relationship needs to become more balanced!

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Beginning late in 1993, the Korean government took steps to smooth the way for increased Japanese capital and technological flows into Korea. The hope is that the Japanese government on its part will fulfill promises to assist in the development of key Korean industries."1 Secondly, and more fundamentally, the flying-geese model, which preserves Japanese trade dominance over Asia, must give way to a "horizontal structure conducive to the expansion of regional interdependence.""2 APEC and various subregional economic cooperation ideas are conducive to such a horizontal approach.

Technological leadership is crucial to Korean trade competitiveness. For Korea to move to the next rung of industrialized countries, it must do better at acquiring technology and at becoming more technologically self-sufficient. By some accounts, Korea is 20-25 years behind Japan in most high-technology categories. Thus far, Korea has faced three basic problems. The first is that it is "extremely technology import-oriented.""3 Second, while technology imports are increasing, foreign investment such as would enable Korea to acquire high technology has been falling. Third, Korea has been lax in upgrading R&D investments, which is the only sure way to reduce technology dependence."4 Whereas, in trade relations, Korea has steadily reduced its dependence on the United States and Japan, in technology transfers the country is still very closely tied to both. Korea's recurring large trade deficits with Japan are the result of such dependence; Korean automotive, electronics, and other high-tech exports use very high percentages of Japanese components."5 So long as technology components of key Korean exports are manufactured abroad, foreign patent holders (mostly in Japan) will be enriched and Korean profits will be lowered. This explains constant and generally unsuccessful efforts by Korean leaders to coax the Japanese government into more generous technology transfer policies.

Sa-kong Il's study shows that Korea's imports of technology have been rapidly increasing: 46 percent of all cases of technology transfer between 1962 and 1991 occurred since 1987. Over the 30-year period, about 51 percent of the cases were with Japan and 27 percent with the United States; these percentages have hardly changed in more recent years."6 Over 60 percent of payments for technology imports have been in the electronics, electrical and machinery sectors since 1987; moreover, sectors where dependence has been on Japanese and U.S. imports is especially intense. In 1991, for example, 80 percent of technology import cases in those sectors were from Japan and the United States."7 Yet efforts to induce foreign investment that will transfer technology have been a dismal failure, with sharply lower FDI in high-tech manufacturing since 1989. As Sakong notes, "In 1988 56 percent of FDI (in value terms) was in the manufacturing sector in areas designated as high-tech. The proportion was drastically reduced to 25.1 percent in 1989 and down to only 6.6 percent in 1991.""8 And among

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Korea's career trade bureaucrats, the view is almost unanimous that in the future, Japanese technology transfers to Korea will be very minor.199 Government R&D investment has been low in comparison with the advanced economies, though not in comparison to other Asian NICs. In 1989, Korea's R&D was 2.12 percent of GNP, compared (in 1988) with 2.62 for Japan and 2.59 for the United States. Actual spending on R&D is 29 times higher in the United States and 18 times higher in Japan, than in Korea. Compared with other fast-developing Asian countries, however, Korea is far ahead in R&D spending and other categories of science and technology (S&T) investment. For example, Korea's R&D/GNP ratio is substantially higher than that of Singapore (0.87 in 1987) and Taiwan (1.22 in 1988). Korea's population also has a higher percentage of S&T personnel; it invests more in each researcher, and it has a far higher number of patent applications and registrations than Asian counterparts.200 All this suggests the regional strength and international lag in Korea's international economy. It also shows why "free trade" in a global system is preferred by Korean leaders, since truly free trade would facilitate market-based high-technology transfers from the advanced economies to Korea and middletechnology transfers from Korea to ASEAN and other less-developed economies.

In such an ideal arrangement, each economic level would benefit from advancement into higher-level, higher value-added production and trade.201 Korea and Multilateralism Subregional cooperation in Northeast Asia has advantages for South Korea, as it does for China and Russia. In contrast with Japan, whose economic interests are best served by region-wide multilateral cooperation, and secondarily by the China and ASEAN markets (where Japanese FDI is very large), South Korea has a major stake in the economic future of Northeast Asia. The question is whether it will continue to rely on bilateral approaches to economic cooperation, or will move with the tide of Asian affairs into different types of multilateral activity.

South Korea thus far has relied principally on bilateralism in foreign economic policy, as noted earlier in discussing its trade with Northeast Asian neighbors. Korea anticipates increasing trade surpluses as the China market surges, the Russian Far East stabilizes, and Korean unification moves closer. Regarding the North Korean market, Professor Yoon Young-kwan of Seoul National University has suggested that South Korea's best choice in post-NAFTA Asia is to focus on building an economic coalition with North Korea. This will increase its bargaining power vis a vis neighboring powers and also promote national unification.202 Even in the midst of the nuclear dispute, the South Korean press reported on efforts by Western banks and consulting firms, as well as Asian investors such as Thailand, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, to set up offices in North 110

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Korea. The China-North Korea border area, around the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone, was of particular interest to investors as they reportedly sought to get a step ahead of the expected competition.203 Not to be outdone, LuckyGoldstar indicated that it had reached agreement in principle during negotiations in Beijing for the conglomerate to take over management of North Korea's principal steel plant, Kim Chaek Steel Mill, which evidently was on the verge of shutting down. This breakthrough would enable Lucky-Goldstar to enter into a new field, steelmaking, that it had been unable to enter in the south, and to move into other new areas via additional North Korean takeovers, such as autos and shipbuilding.

Lucky-Goldstar also said the Chinese government had requested that it build a road from China to Chongjin. Samsung Business Group also announced a pending agreement with Pyongyang for a joint-venture container factory.204 Seoul officially cleared the way for joint-venture investments in North Korea in November 1994; and in July 1995, it gave permission for South Korean technicians to go North. Daewoo Corporation was the first to take advantage of the new measures, reaching agreement with North Korea to set up a clothing factory with technicians and machinery in a total package valued at over $5 million.20' The attraction of North Korea lies, of course, in its labor force. While labor might not be as cheap, plentiful, or skillful as is often assumed,20' it clearly motivates South Korean companies—at least until the same pattern of labor unrest that has unfolded in the ROK repeats itself.

Multilateralism is the direction Korea may have to pursue more determinedly in the future. This is especially so as Korea prepares to serve a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (which was voted it in 1995, and begins January 1, 1996), and to join the OECD. With these recognitions of higher status, Korea will have to act the part of a rich and influential country.

There are several ways Korea might expand its activities in multilateral settings.

Foreign investment presents opportunities for creating regional business networks in Northeast Asia. Such networks link local suppliers and final producers. Korea's increasing investments in China were previously mentioned.

China, with its vast market for consumer goods and low (but already rising) wages, already accounts for around 15 percent of total Korean foreign investment ($7.6 billion in 1994), mostly located in Shandong Province.207 Korean FDI in China also represents the largest number of investment projects: 1,043 at the end of 1993.208 Inasmuch as both Korean-invested projects and funds are heavily concentrated in China's North and Northeast regions, establishment of a Northeast Asia development bank, as some regional economists have discussed, might attract far more Korean FDI. One estimate is that the bank would require capitalization of about $15-20 billion.209 Lack of capital, infrastructure, a private sector and expertise in North Korea, Mongolia, and the Russian Far East limits what is possible on a regional basis.

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Japan and South Korea would have to make major capital commitments. Even then, some specialists suggest, many of the usual conventions for doing business are also missing in those countries, such as making decisions on alternative investments, legal protection, information, and credit to lubricate trade. Thus, financial reform is a prerequisite to trade and investment integration. For South Korea, the real appeal of a regional bank would have to be political: It would enable South Korea to move funds into North Korea and thus help open it up; and would contribute to integrating North Korea and Northeast China into the subregional economy in which South Korea would be pivotal.210 A second area of Korean multilateralization is international assistance. As noted earlier, Korea's ODA has not grown in step with its GNP. If Korea were contributing as little as 0.05 percent of GNP, its foreign aid would be several hundred million dollars today. Actually, the director of KOICA said Korean aid should increase to 0.15 percent of GNP.2" As a Korean international economist observed, Korea could do more within existing multilateral development groups, such as UNDP. Korean expertise lends itself to technology training abroad and in Korea, and to volunteers sent Peace Corps-style to Southeast Asia—programs Korea now has, but that could be greatly expanded. In return, Korea's voting power in the Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other international financial institutions should be made commensurate with its capital contributions.212 Third, Korea could step up its involvement in international peacekeeping. It has contributed personnel and money to several UN peacekeeping operations since the Gulf War, as mentioned. An official announcement was made in 1995 that Korea would contribute $10 million in 1996 to peacekeeping operations.213 As with ODA and technical assistance to developing countries, the ROK needs to be more generous with money and materiel. The United Nations has been a consistent guardian of Korean security; South Korea will need to demonstrate that it deserves to sit on the Security Council.

Fourth, Korea may facilitate increased subregional interactions in communications, transportation, and environmental cooperation. Korea has been involved in numerous bilateral talks on all these issues. These efforts may need to be expanded to multilateral inasmuch as increasing economic interdependence in Northeast Asia has, almost inevitably, intensified threats to several "common-pool resources," including air quality and biodiversity.214 Unresolved and potential issues among the three states that border the Yellow Sea (China and the two Koreas) further illustrate the necessity of multilateral cooperation. Conflicts might arise due to different legal principles that are applied to boundary claims, geographic problems of defining and determining ownership of territorial seas and small coastal islands, destruction of the marine environment and marine resources (such as by overfishing), overlapping claims to Exclusive Economic Zones under 112

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the Law of the Sea Convention, and restrictions on use of sea lanes of communication for commercial and naval vessels. Dealing with these issues is clearly a matter of conflict management and resolution in a shared environment, the semi-enclosed Yellow Sea.2" The most well-developed area of multilateral activity is the Tumen River Area Development Project.216 The project, which is under the auspices of the UNDP, centers on the regional triangle of Chongjin, North Korea; Yanji, PRC; and Vladivostok, Russia. Mongolia, South Korea, and Japan are the other participants.

When completed, TRADP promises to be a major spur to subregional economic cooperation and the development of several thus far neglected cities. Financing and organizational problems and disagreements about development priorities, have delayed implementation of TRADP. But equally noteworthy are the parties' continuing commitment to the idea (including North Korea), and the concrete steps each has taken (such as rail and road construction, port expansion, and investmentpromoting laws) to stimulate the project's realization.

Finally, Korea will have to go beyond its thus far very modest steps to open up its economy and liberalize trade if it expects to be a leader in APEC, remain internationally competitive, and continue finding the welcome mat out for its overseas investments. Korea will also have to avoid some of the negative features associated with the Japanese path of hierarchical trade, such as losing the competition with Japan in similar exports (e.g., to China), and facing similar intraregional (and U.S.) hostilities to trade and investment practices such as limited technology transfer and disregard for the environment.

Some steps toward liberalization, and multilateralization, have been taken by Korea in recent years. Banking and other sectors have been opened slightly to international competition. The number of sectors open to FDI and to outright foreign acquisition has been increased, and a "free investment zone" generally devoid of red tape has been created, all in attempts to reverse a recent pattern of reduced foreign investment in Korea. As the number of foreign workers in Korea, such as Vietnamese and Filipinos, has increased, some protections have been extended to them.

Nevertheless, Korea has a long way to go to improve domestic competition. It must also reverse its reputation as a poor place in which to invest; FDI is politically unpopular with the public, not to mention a number of bureaucracies.2" Government remains heavily involved in the economy at a time when many Koreans are calling for an end to the period of paternalism. For example: • Chaebol, in particular the top thirty, dominate the industrial economy in terms of access to bank loans, sales, profits and real estate holdings. Together, the top thirty owned 604 companies in 1993. Their net assets were about 29 trillion won, on total investments in their own corporations of about 8 trillion won (or 28 percent). Seven of these chaebol held stocks in other companies in excess of 10 113

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billion won each; and seven chaebol owned such stocks with a book value in excess of 40 percent of their net assets, which is the legal limit of stock ownership. Typical of their privileged position, the top thirty chaebol and their hundreds of affiliates have no credit limit.218 Small and medium-size businesses meanwhile languish, many of them desperate for credit and unable to break into the closed realm of government contracts.

• Although ordered to concentrate in only three areas, chaebol have yet to actually break up. Some have even moved into new industrial sectors. Chaebol also need management reform; they squandered their mid-1980s boom with real estate speculations instead of investments in innovative technologies.2" The fundamental problem is that the chaebol's size makes the government fearful to take needed action against them, lest the entire economic system be destabilized.220 This last point became apparent in the course of the "slush fund" scandal in late 1995, discussed below.

• A strong consumer lobby to pressure for improved products and service on them does not yet exist, though there are a few signs of its emergence. Take the huge automobile market, for example. Koreans are agitating for higher quality cars, which means more foreign imports. In 1994, however, only 3,900 cars of 1.1 million sold domestically were foreign-made.

• The role of foreign enterprises has been too restricted, allowing other economies in Asia, such as China's, to attract FDI (and acquire foreign technologies) that might otherwise have gone to Korea by virtue of more enlightened joint-venture regulations.221 While the Korean bureaucracy blames the high costs of land, labor and credit, foreign investors blame the regulatory hurdles that make investment cumbersome and the restriction of foreign ownership (equity) to below 50 percent.222 • Despite improvements in wages and workplace standards for organized workers, workers' rights in Korea (and in Korean-invested firms abroad) rate very poorly and are still subject to government restrictions, including violent suppression of strikes.

Domestic policy changes may consequently be just as important as regional cooperation in internationalizing the economy, as the European integration experience demonstrates. The Korean government has taken some forwardlooking steps in the 1990s to recover or sustain advantages it had built up in previous years. For example, in science and technology policy, Kim Young-sam in 1994 announced a 29 percent increase in the government's science budget, and said that by 2000, five percent of the central budget would be devoted to scientific and technological research and development. His government appealed to approximately 7,000 Korean scientists abroad, especially in the United States, to return home. A rash of new science and technology contracts were concluded that link government, major universities and the chaebol.

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For all that, the South Korean state and society exhibit many distortions often associated with rapid, state-sponsored, capitalist economic growth. With a freer press, it is now possible to read of these distortions nearly every day, though in articles that do not challenge the fundamentals of South Korean capitalism or political culture."3 Chief among the problems are the low quality of higher education, environmental degradation that is only beginning to be regulated, the centrality of corruption and centralization in political and everyday life, and numerous social inequities and polarizations. These problems, the resolution of which is just as crucial to Korea's globalization as are efforts to promote high technology, will require corrective action and substantial resources in the years ahead.

The 1995 Slush-Fund Scandal and Prosecutions The above words were barely written when the extraordinary events of November and December 1995 unfolded. Kim Young-sam decided to prosecute his two predecessors: Roh Tae-woo, upon discovery of a huge (approximately $650 million) slush fund that allegedly came from chaebol bribes; and Chun Doohwan, for also having a slush fund, as well as for his leading role in the military "mutiny," takeover of power and bloody suppression of dissent in Kwangju between December 1979 and May 1980. Both men were jailed, a first in Korean history. The chief question raised by Kim's action relates to his motives: Was he inspired to act in order to promote democracy and the rule of law, or—as many observers charged224—to revive the sagging popularity of the ruling party as it prepared for National Assembly elections in 1996? The fact that Kim twisted the law and reversed his public positions on the course of events (he had consistently resisted opposition demands to reopen the Kwangju case, for example) opened him to charges of playing politics. The renaming of the ruling party to New Korea Party did nothing to dispel such suspicions.

The Ron-Chun prosecutions, however they may end up, have important consequences for Korean politics and, therefore, foreign affairs. They reveal anew the systemic nature of Korea's political instability—the problems of a political system that is still struggling, as it was in 1987, to build democracy out of an authoritarian political structure and culture. As Man-woo Lee wrote: "Korea's problem has been that neither an authoritarian basis nor a democratic basis has been firmly rooted in Korean society. It is somewhere in the twilight zone." The challenge for Kim Young-sam, as for Roh before him, was not to restore democracy but to establish it for the first time.225 Three particular sources of instability were on display as a result of the 1995 scandal. First was the involvement of most of the largest chaebol in bribe-giving and favor-taking. This was no surprise: The symbiotic relationship between Blue 115

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House and corporate power has been crucial both to Korea's economic takeoff since the 1960s, and to the ruling party's ability to finance its large organization and election campaigns. Nor are the prosecutions expected to sever that relationship: Only eight of 26 chaebol chairmen accused of giving bribes to Roh had been indicted as of late December 1995. Since chaebol power is likely to remain intact, the ruling party's ability to dominate politics will probably continue.

Second, the corruption was not confined to the ruling party. It was revealed that Roh Tae-woo gave about $2 million to Kim Dae-jung and an undisclosed sum to Kim Young-sam's party in the 1992 election. Third, revisiting the Kwangju uprising is bound to open many old sores that have never healed. It may lead to punishment of a large number of army officers who sided with Chun Doo-hwan in the coup, the ensuing ban on all political activity, and the suppression. And the prosecution's probe is likely to embrace many ruling-party figures, forcing a cleavage in its ranks.

Given the multifaceted and multilayered character of the revelations, it is difficult to predict how deeply the prosecutions will cut to the core of Korea's political system. Clearly, the process will be painful for Korean democracy, since it will show just how far from a functioning, institutionalized pluralism and lawful order Korea still is. Meanwhile, South Korea will have to endure criticism from near and far as questions are raised anew about the openness and autonomy of its economy, the soundness of a financial system that seems only nominally to be run by the central bank,™ and the stability of its political system. In the short run, Korea's image will suffer and tensions between North and South will ratchet up again. Anti-Americanism, already on the rise among younger Koreans, may intensify with a reopening of the Kwangju events.227 Over the long run, however, the prosecutions may be the prelude to a housecleaning that will finally set the ROK on a course toward a firmly-rooted democracy.

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Korea's Future in Asia

Among South Korea's foreign-policy objectives under the Northern Policy and the New Diplomacy were to transcend cold-war confinements, "Koreanize" the unification issue, and acquire an influential voice in regional and global affairs.

Korean leaders seemed determined to get rid of the "small country, junior partner" label. By 1995, South Korea had become the eleventh or twelfth largest economy in the world; Korea's standing and participation rose steadily in Asian and international arenas. Yet "Koreanization" had not occurred, and unification seemed to be an even more distant possibility than in 1991. What accounts for this difference, and what are the implications for Korea's future foreign-policy course?

South Korea's progress toward achieving its foreign-policy objectives may be attributed mainly to the country's domestic economic and political accomplishments. These accomplishments generated self-confidence in a leadership to followership, strengthened the country's international respectability and enhanced the legitimacy of the political system. With popular support following the 1987 election, Roh Tae-woo was able to open the door to North Korea and the rest of the socialist world. To be sure, bold foreign-policy ventures such as Roh's also created domestic problems and, as noted below, had some negative external consequences. Overall, however, South Korea earned new respect in the Asia-Pacific community and gained an immeasurable edge over North Korea in pursuit of unification.

These outcomes suggest that South Korea's continued democratization, security self-reliance, and prosperity offer the surest foundation for achieving unification under its authority. That might mean waiting another 25 years. It might also mean planning, in close consultation with the United States, to phase out military forces and bases; reducing military spending, hopefully in tandem with North Korean conventional-force reductions, but in any case as one means of paying for needed social programs; and eliminating the 1959 National Security Law that is still used for arbitrary arrests. The gains from such self-assured policies are likely to be substantial, including the achievement of unification with international support—and without war. A strong Korea, in a word, is a crucial and desirable partner for other states, especially Japan and the United States.

On the other hand, a South Korea still convulsed by political factionalism, anti-communism (or anti-leftism), the "Korean disease" of corruption and political factionalism, and perhaps rising anti-Americanism will have opposite consequences. It will raise hopes in North Korea that the cold war is still worth 117

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pursuing. It will continue to divert a significant proportion of national wealth to military spending. It will weaken South Korea's voice in major international meetings on economic policy. And it will be easier for outside powers to continue assigning a low priority to Korean unification and following two-Korea policies.

Enhanced domestic legitimacy, self-confidence, and international respectability do carry a price. Since they tend to increase the North's isolation and fear of absorption, they may delay unification and certainly decrease the chances of direct North-South dialogue. A stronger, more assertive South Korea will also have to contend with the separate interests of the great powers. The United States, for all its political and material support of South Korean governments over the years, has regional objectives (such as nonproliferation, promotion of human rights, trade liberalization, and defense of Japan) with a higher priority than Korean unification.

As the years go on, moreover, differences between the two allies will probably mount over trade, the U.S. presence, military aid, and defense strategy.

All these were areas of dispute in 1995. In trade, the United States applied pressure to open up Korea's financial and automobile sectors, among others. Various violent incidents occurred involving U.S. service personnel and Korean civilians that led to calls in the National Assembly for revision of the Status-of-Forces Agreement. It is currently being reviewed by a binational committee. U.S. arms exports to the ROK (a total of $8 billion from 1988 to 1994) left Korea unhappy about the level of defense technology transfers."8 For example, some U.S. military officials contend that the South Koreans are neglecting defense preparedness against the North, including investment in advanced weapons, in favor of procuring or producing weapons for use against potential regional threats, specifically Japan. And some South Korean officials reportedly resent Pentagon arm-twisting to sell the ROK more weapons. They point to U.S. unwillingness to share the latest military technology and to U.S. efforts to limit South Korea's missile capabilities.™ Beyond any immediate significance of this reported rift lies a deeper issue: South Korean security planners may already looking well beyond North-South defense matters to a time when Japan will be the primary potential security threat—and when the U.S. "cork in the (Japanese) bottle" may be gone.230 China, Japan, and Russia have all adopted two-Korea policies that separate beneficial economic relations and a strong interest in preventing the outbreak of war on the peninsula from support of either Korea's political objectives.

Consequently, Seoul received far fewer political payoffs from its expanding economic relations with its neighbors than it had anticipated. Beijing and Moscow distanced themselves from North Korea in the early 1990s, and Japan rejected further talks with Pyongyang on normalization of relations until the DPRK accepted international inspections of all its nuclear facilities. But in the aftermath

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of the nuclear crisis, China, Russia and Japan all sought, in different degrees, to redress the balance of contacts with North Korea.

Some Chinese, Japanese, and other nearby observers see potential problems resulting from Korean unification, including a nuclear Korea, economic competition, and intensified nationalism among ethnic Koreans. On the last point, Bonnie Glaser reports the views of some PRC analysts that "a reunified Korea would seek to reclaim Chinese territory bordering Korea that both North and South view as the birthplace of the Korean nation."231 Problems have already begun to emerge in Northeast China as increasing numbers of South Koreans visit and invest there. During 1995, a South Korean singing group was barred from performing at an ethnic Korean festival in Harbin out of concern about arousing nationalistic feelings."1 The strengths, and especially the limitations, of Korean foreign policy, when placed beside trends in regional security and economic cooperation in East Asia, suggest directions for the future. Specifically, they point to a much greater Korean involvement in Asia-Pacific affairs than is today the case.

Korean Security and Multilateralism As noted at the outset of this writing, the positive side of security in Asia today consists of the following elements: • An "Asian way" of promoting cooperation between states that relies on dialogue and informality, a step-by-step approach to confidence-building, and inclusivity of participation; • A widely accepted concept of comprehensive security, based on economic achievements, that stands as an alternative to excessive military investments in strengthening national security; • Several well-established venues for multilateral dialogue, including discussion of political and security issues.

Assessments of Asia-Pacific security often point to a fairly widespread sense of strategic uncertainty. But uncertainty is not accompanied by a common threat or sense of urgency about the intentions of any particular state. Today, in fact, political, social, economic, and environmental problems may pose more significant dangers to internal and external security than any state's military capabilities.

Furthermore, the kinds of transnational threats to security previously mentioned— access to resources, environmental degradation, and various human-rights issues— are very unlikely to lead states to war. These problems are largely transactional: They are matters of legal, political, and economic interpretation, too small to be resolved by dispute-resolution mechanisms. Even the traditional issues of sovereignty (territory and national unification) that continue to plague Northeast Asia, no longer are likely to lead to fighting. Any state's use of force would 119

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probably encounter strong regional and international resistance in the form of sanctions and isolation. An aggressor would also have to calculate the probability of paying a higher price, due to lost wealth, than any gains could offset—killing the golden goose of regional trade and investment, as it were.

The point is that while East Asia has its share of security problems, and Northeast Asia is well behind the rest of East Asia in developing nonmilitary security-building approaches, the opportunities are at hand for initiatives in multilateral cooperation. Multilateral cooperation based strictly on common commercial interests are probably not sufficient to enhance security in Northeast Asia. Historical memories are too strong, multilateral cooperation is only in a beginning stage, and conventional and nuclear capabilities are growing.

Cooperative projects such as TRADP are essential tools for helping reduce the potential for conflict by building "habits of dialogue" and creating multiple pressures for peaceful settlement of disputes. In the meantime, it would seem important to create other mechanisms that can build politically on aspects of interdependence that create mutual reward and common ground. This is one aspect of the "common security" approach.

Several analysts of East Asian security have convincingly argued for combining bilateral and multilateral arrangements in order to create webs of interrelationships.23 Their building-block approach234 to strengthening common security is appropriately flexible: It is not insistent upon a particular pattern, level of activity, or sequence of action.2" The web image allows for overlapping memberships that can create personal, institutional, and other tie-ins to regional well-being and stability. Enmeshment in these webs decreases the likelihood of a sudden breakout through resorting to violence. It increases the likelihood of resorting to diplomacy to resolve problems.

Except for North Korea, all five other parties with interests in the Korean peninsula have endorsed a multilateral and multidimensional approach to security issues. Japan has taken a leading role in multilateral security dialogue in the AsiaPacific, mainly under the ASEAN-PMC. China, while consistently favoring bilateral and ad hoc dialogue on security, has endorsed a multilateral "mechanism" in Northeast Asia, so long as it does not attempt to imitate formal European approaches.236 The Russian proposal, stemming from Yeltsin's call while in Korea in 1992, is for a "crisis settlement system," that is, a mechanism for consistent dialogue on Northeast Asia security issues, both before and after crises occur.237 The United States, like China, recently has given support to multilateral initiatives even though Washington clearly favors bilateral channels, over which it has greater control.238 To partake fully of Asia-Pacific cooperation, Korea will need to balance its foreign-policy emphasis on bilateralism—an emphasis Korea shares with its Northeast Asia neighbors, including North Korea—with greater multilateral 120

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activism. Excessive bilateralism makes Korea too reliant on specific relationships, and therefore too vulnerable to disappointment and political conflicts. Korean leaders should persist in the course set at the outset of the Kim Young-sam administration by greatly expanding multilateral involvements, not only in regional economic cooperation (APEC), but also in subregional (Northeast Asia) economic and security cooperation.

South Korea's suggestion of a Northeast Asia security dialogue, so long as it allows for North Korean participation, is a useful starting point for nurturing the habit of open talks. South Korea can help promote its idea by endorsing full U.S. and Japan diplomatic ties with North Korea, even before Pyongyang fully complies with terms of the Agreed Framework; and by supporting North Korean participation in other regional groupings, such as APEC, ASEAN-PMC and ARF. Given the uneasy state of North-South Korean relations, the ROK may have better opportunities to engage North Korea in constructive dialogue indirectly, through regional and international organizations, non-governmental as well as governmental, than through bilateral channels. For example, North and South Koreans from their foreign affairs ministries have already appeared together in meetings of the UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific. The non-governmental Council for Security Cooperation in Asia and the Pacific (CSCAP) is another potential forum for dialogue. Dropping its insistence on direct North-South talks would make clear that South Korea does indeed believe the cold war is over and has nothing to fear from North Korea's international participation.

The standoff over North Korea's nuclear program, though dominated by U.S.DPRK negotiating, illustrates the potential for multilateral mechanisms that may promote mutual security. The Geneva accord that followed the Agreed Framework provides for establishment of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which is an international consortium for assisting in North Korea's energy program. Ironing out precise terms of the energy transaction will take some time; yet in the process of negotiating, which in December 1995 yielded a formal agreement between KEDO and the DPRK, the first steps toward full U.S.-DPRK diplomatic ties have been taken. Direct North-South contacts on technical matters seem likely to occur. The manner of resolution of the nuclear situation offers no model for future dispute resolution; but it shows that even so bitter and long-standing a rivalry as the two Koreas is now capable of being handled through subregional cooperation.

The Korean armistice is another such issue. Eventually, it will have to be replaced by a peace treaty, CBMs (as provided for under the Basic Agreement) will need to be put into place, and U.S. forces will need to be reduced, phased out, or replaced. The need will also arise for a security mechanism that can guarantee against external intervention in Korean affairs, and ensure implementation of the 121

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peace treaty and CBMs. For example, to maintain the denuclearization of the peninsula will require personnel and technologies that only outside powers can credibly provide. This might be accomplished under the oft-discussed "two-plusfour" arrangement, with the four major powers acting as co-guarantors of existing and future agreements arrived at by the two Koreas and by the six states together.239 Even though neither "two-plus-four" nor any other specific Northeast Asia multilateral security mechanism has been endorsed by China or North Korea, it could evolve from successful security dialogue and U.S. and Japanese normalization of relations with North Korea. Two PRC scholars have observed, for example, that U.S. and Japanese recognition of the DPRK is prerequisite to direct ROK-DPRK dialogue and thus to peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

Their implication seems to be that acceptance of the DPRK's legitimacy will clear the major roadblock to deeper security dialogue.24 North Korea's official view, however, is that so long as the United States and the DPRK sign a peace agreement to replace the 1953 armistice, no further negotiations are necessary, since mutual nonaggression is assured under the Basic Agreement241 Unresolved questions concerning nuclear weapons also point to the need for a multilateral accord. Notwithstanding U.S. withdrawal of nuclear weapons from South Korea, South Korea's unilateral nonnuclear declaration, and the denuclearization accord between the two Koreas, nuclear weapons remain a serious problem in Northeast Asia. By one count, with U.S. and Russian theater forces included, "the region either contains or could be targeted by more than 4,000 nuclear weapons."242 Japan, with a large plutonium stockpile, and South Korea, with a growing quantity of spent fuel, have the technical ability to "go nuclear" quickly; the United States has the capability to reintroduce nuclear weapons in the region from nearby bases and at sea; Russia and China are already nuclear powers; and North Korea still has a nuclear program whose scope will not be known for several years.243 A nuclear-weapon free zone in Northeast Asia would therefore seem to be a worthy goal, both in its own right—to enhance the "nuclear allergy" regionwide—and as a means of promoting intraregional political dialogue.244 A Northeast Asia NFZ would build on the requirements of the NPT, which all states in the subregion have signed, and the inter-Korean denuclearization accord, under which the parties agreed not to "test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons." The NFZ would, additionally, bar the parties from using nuclear threats against each other or non-nuclear states, acquiring fissionable materials, and deploying or stationing nuclear weapons on their territories. Geographically, the NFZ might have to be quite extensive to satisfy the security concerns of all the parties. For example, Northeast China, portions of the Russian Far East, and perhaps Taiwan might have to be included in the zone.

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Each of the six parties to the NFZ would have to give up important present or future strategic options in return for the added security the NFZ would provide.

South Korea would have to forego U.S. nuclear protection and the possibility of offshore processing of spent nuclear fuel. It would also mean not seeking to develop a nuclear deterrent after unification. As Richard Berts has suggested, South Korea would have three incentives to possess a nuclear deterrent: to replace departing U.S. forces; to back up its dealings with new neighboring states, China and Russia; and to counter Japan's presumed discomfort with a unified Korea.245 As for North Korea, it would be doubly bound to dismantle its nuclear facilities, including those used for storage of nuclear materials. The United States, which has always resisted the notion of a Korean NFZ, would have the most to yield: It would have to surrender the option of re-deploying nuclear weapons to the Korean theater, as North Korea has long insisted. The U.S. nuclear deterrent to a North Korean invasion of the South would be eroded, though not terminated. Practically speaking, a Korea or Northeast Asia NFZ would not prevent the United States from maintaining nuclear weapons at sea elsewhere in East Asia, or from going ahead with plans (which this writer would not support) to erect a theater missiledefense system.

One major consequence of the above multilateral steps is a fundamental change in the Korea-U.S. alliance. Korea would assume initial responsibility for its own defense, no longer under the U.S. umbrella but instead under four-power guarantorship. Such a change after so many years of clientalism will not be easy.

That is all the more reason to begin the process of separation soon, and to ensure that it is harmonious. A separation seems inevitable as South Korea continues to gain in self-confidence and international respectability. Almost as inevitable is anti-Americanism among younger Koreans, whose strong sense of national pride will have little room for explanations as to why their country is still home to so many foreign soldiers and bases, including one in the heart of Seoul that is worth billions of dollars at current real-estate prices. Better that the separation be quietly negotiated, for Korea and the United States will need each other's friendship on the long road to Korean reunification and a new order in East Asia.

Unification and After Reunification is both desperately sought by the South Korean government and is treated with foreboding: It represents a dream come true and a considerable burden. With the huge costs of German unification ever in mind, the Roh and Kim governments talked about step-by-step unification and dismissed the idea of absorbing the North. Korean leaders are acutely aware that reunifying with an underdeveloped economy that has experienced successive years of negative annual growth will be far more costly that West Germany's absorption of the 123

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industrialized East, which (unlike North Korea) has a highly educated population and a strong industrial base. Besides the predicted costs of reconstruction, which range from $200 to $400 billion, Seoul also has to consider the costs of eventually replacing U.S. forces, which the defense ministry said would amount to $26 billion.246 Yet South Koreans cannot help but look past the early stages of unification to a time when Korea will become a real force in Asian and world affairs. Hence, while many Korean economists focus on the probable costs of reviving the North's economy and demilitarizing it, others predict huge increases in GNP, world economic standing, and per capita income soon after unification.247 The statefunded Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET), for instance, predicted that by 2021, eleven years after the presumed unification, Korea would have a GNP of $2 trillion and per capita income of $25,000. This rosy forecast also assumed no major problems in the unification process.248 The manner of unification is likely to be a key factor in Korea's future security. For instance, a sudden breakdown of authority in the North, with the threat of its absorption, could be inducement for a military coup and renewed nuclear crisis. For example, key figures in the North Korean military might one day see the handwriting on the wall. Notwithstanding their hard-line convictions, they might decide to get the best possible deal for themselves while they still have bargaining power. These military officers might take their cue from their Chinese counterparts, many of whom have become prosperous entrepreneurs as investors in state-run exporting firms, hotels, and numerous other enterprises. North Korean generals might wind up dickering with chaebol heads for a share ofjoint ventures that would ensure them of a comfortable future. Such defections could touch off a struggle for power. China might even intervene rather than see North Korea absorbed in chaotic circumstances, since some PRC analysts have expressed concern that a unified Korea would be ripe for Japan's picking.24' Or, as happened in Yemen during 1994, unification could at some point erupt in a civil war, which to Kim Young-sam was "because [Yemen] was unified hastily and superficially without having gone through a process of reconciliation and cooperation."250 Midway through his administration, Kim Young-sam seemed to embrace Kim Dae-jung's long-standing strategy of unification in three stages, a formula more decisive than Roh Tae-woo's plan of 1989. The first stage, said Kim Young-sam, would be "reconciliation and cooperation"—confederation in Kim Dae-jung's concept. This stage would accept the "one state, two systems" formula favored by Kim Il-Sung (and the PRC in dealing with Hong Kong and Taiwan). The second stage would be "a Korean commonwealth" (Kim Dae-jung speaks of a "federation") in which the two states would become two parts of a "socio economic community." Only later would full-fledged unification (one Korean nation and government) based on "democracy and prosperity" occur.25' 124

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South Korea's seeming acceptance of a longer road to reunification than was initially calculated is quite sensible. Putting pressure on the North at a time when it is internationally isolated and domestically insecure has the potential of backfiring, and bringing the peninsula to the brink of war. A more secure North Korea in fact may be in South Korea's best interest; and common security may offer a surer road to national unification than traditional, militarized national-security programs.2" Some Koreans will surely say that the more secure North Korea is, the more lasting its authoritarian rule will be. But an alternative view is that the erosion of communist authority and legitimacy is inevitable under the combined weight of regional interdependence, poverty and mismanagement in the North, and continuing prosperity, democracy and demilitarization in the South. A more secure North Korean leadership is less likely to collapse suddenly, which could be disastrous for South Korea, and is more likely than a weak, isolated government to negotiate terms of confederation, which moves the country a large step closer to unification.

Seoul should not be so preoccupied with reunification that it loses sight of its own oft-stated point: It has won the cold-war battle, and the North's demise is only a matter of time no matter what policies it adopts. South Korean leaders should resist the election-time temptation to sound alarm bells about the "North Korean threat." Statements such as the president's, warning late in 1995 about North Korean provocations during the slush-fund scandal and the 1994-1995 Defense White Paper's, giving renewed emphasis to the military's mission to combat the danger from the North, seem politically motivated."3 Instead, Seoul should remove barriers to business, academic, and other non-governmental contacts with North Korea. Broader inter-Korean trade (which was a record $299 million in 1995), investment, and cultural relations can only help pry open the door to political dialogue. They can also be seen as serving national security. As some South Korean officials have suggested, such as then-deputy premier and minister for national reunification, Rha Woong-bae, greater efforts for North-South economic cooperation may counteract the two-Koreas policies of China, Japan, and Russia.254 Seoul also should show generosity in response to North Korea's problems, on humanitarian grounds and without seeking to make North Korean leaders lose face. Seoul's tendency has been to await formal requests from Pyongyang for help in responding to emergencies, as a means of gaining a propaganda advantage and a measure of grudging recognition. Pyongyang has therefore looked anywhere except to Seoul for assistance. The real losers in such circumstances are the North Korean people. In the summer of 1995, for instance, North Korea was struck by floods that left about 500,000 people homeless, caused estimated damage of $15 billion (equal to three-quarters of North Korea's GDP), and created a huge food deficit.2" Seoul finally agreed to make a small contribution, but through voluntary 125

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agencies rather than through the UN. It made additional aid contingent on a host of political conditions, such as resumption of North-South dialogue and assurances that the aid would not be siphoned off by the DPRK military. Food aid handled by the World Food Program of the UN quickly ran out of money, just as its field representatives in North Korea reported widespread famine and malnutrition."6 When the United States responded with a contribution of $2 million, the South Korean government was not only unhappy but was made to appear petty.

Conclusion Northeast Asia has immense potential for economic and environmental cooperation. But it remains a politically volatile region, rife with suspicions about other governments' intentions, heavily invested in conventional arms, and faced with nuclear-proliferation dilemmas. The prospects of war have greatly diminished since the end of the cold war; but they have not entirely passed. Korea remains at the center of what is hopeful and troubling about the region: the realization of unification, new national pride, and an era of shared prosperity on one side; on the other, the resurgence of security threats amidst militarized national competition and tumultuous politics on the other. It is in Korea that the clash between a bilateral and tense past clashes with a multilateral and potentially stable future.

How well Koreans, and interested others, handle these divergent trends will significantly determine Asia's direction as the new century unfolds.

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Part Three

Korea Enters the Information Age

James F. Larson

Overview

Today, it is computers and communication that are quickly changing the style and substance of our lives. People around the world are obtaining new knowledge and information faster and more easily through the highly developed means of communications. Moreover, ways are being opened for more people to exchange their information more practically and effectively.

Congratulatory Message from President Kim Young-sam to the Internet 1996 World Exposition.

Http://seoul.park.org The decades of the 1970s and 80s marked the beginning, at least in public awareness, of the information age. In industrialized economies around the world, personal computers became widely marketed and used consumer and business products. New technologies such as satellites and electronic news gathering transformed television, bringing new networks like CNN or Star television and adding a new, public aspect to politics, blurring the formerly clear distinction between foreign and domestic affairs. Other technologies, such as fiber optics and electronic switching systems played their role in transforming the scope and means of modern telecommunications.

The foregoing developments are often referred to by such terms as the "information revolution," or "communications revolution." As we approach the turn of the century, the Internet, with its burgeoning World Wide Web, has caught the imagination of many as a precursor of a worldwide information superhighway of the future.

South Korea was an eager and active participant in such developments. By 1996, surfing the World Wide Web had become the new rage among a small but rapidly growing segment of the population. Many major corporate and government groups, including the Blue House, were improving and expanding their home pages on the Web. The government and private sector also devoted significant resources to participation, along with more than 60 other nations, in the Internet 1996 World Exposition, a virtual world fair on the World Wide

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Web, supplemented by conferences and a host of other activities in the participating nations.

The preceding parts of this book have documented the importance of the Korea- United States relationship and of the end of the Cold War. As with the division of Korea following World War II, there is a strong tendency for many to view these topics purely in strategic, military or political terms. Of course, such a perspective is partly justified on the basis of historical reality. The other perspective from which South Korea is conventionally approached is economic.

Conventionally, South Korea has been viewed as one of the "tiger" or "dragon" economies of East Asia and looked to as an example of highly successful government- led development. However, beginning in the 1980s, the nation also experienced the new realities of the information revolution.2" Efforts to explain Korea's economic transformation from an agrarian to an industrialized society, as with the sweeping political and social changes, and its new regional and global role, require an understanding of those realities.

In 1996, South Korea possessed the eleventh largest economy in the world and was poised to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a move that will further certify its status as an industrialized economy. Its nationwide network and international linkages for such basic telecommunications services as phone, fax and data transmission are complete and advanced by world standards. An effort at similar progress in mobile communications and various advanced telecommunications services had become a national priority for the 1990s, with even more ambitious goals looming beyond.

This writing augments the discussions by Swartout and Gurtov as it addresses the significance of telecommunications and information society development for the recent transformation of South Korea. The purpose is to better understand those changes and also the nation's future from the perspective of another powerful secular trend, the dawning of the information age.

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The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea South Korea made epochal strides in telecommunications and informationrelated development during the 1980s. Although certain of them caught the attention of industry and government experts around the world, some are still less well known than they ought to be, owing to the lag of image behind reality that has plagued Korea in North America and most other parts of the world. In condensed fashion, the key accomplishments of the 80s were as follows: • The fastest increase in teledensity, a measure of telephone lines per 100 population, of any comparable country in the world. Teledensity is the standard used by the International Telecommunications Union and widely throughout the industry to gauge a nation's level of advancement in basic telecommunications services.

• Technological advances, including the domestic manufacture of the TDX electronic switching system and the 4 mebagit DRAM semiconductor.

Electronic switching systems are a key component of modern telephone and communications networks, while semiconductors are the building blocks of all modern computers and electronics products.

• Continued rapid progress in the manufacture and export of consumer electronics products. For example, by the early 1990s, the nation was the world's leading manufacturer of semiconductor memory chips, color television sets and satellite television receivers.

• Successful hosting of the Seoul Olympics. By 1988 the Olympics had become a major, television-centered, communication phenomenon that required both a sophisticated communications infrastructure and considerable expertise in management and program production. 258 • Extraordinarily high national levels of investment in education, with a growing emphasis on information culture and the skills or training required in an information society.

• Maturation and growth of the broadcasting sector, with television reaching virtually one hundred percent penetration of Korean households by 1985, up from only 30 percent in the mid-1970s. Not only the broadcasting infrastructure, but also the range of programming, increased dramatically, especially during the years preceding the Seoul Olympics.

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The Social, Economic and Political Context The uniqueness of South Korea's advances in communications, if not their underlying significance, can only be appreciated as part of the broader political, economic and cultural context in which they occurred. Some of that context is well known and has been treated earlier in this volume.

The country experienced continued rapid urbanization, with the proportion of rural families in the population dropping to about 14 percent by 1991. Along with urbanization came a breakdown in the nation's traditional, Confucian sense of community and a large demographic shift toward a younger median age in the population, a consequence of the post-Korean war baby boom. With these changes, the country also experienced a phenomenal growth of the Christian religion.

The overall media environment and popular culture in South Korea also changed dramatically. The proportion of households owning a television set increased from about 87 percent in 1980 to more than 99 percent by the mid1990s. There were great changes in the amount and nature of programming available on television, exemplified by a great increase in the amount and variety of sports coverage. One factor behind the increase of sports coverage was the decision of the International Olympic Committee in 1981 to award the 1988 Olympic Games to Seoul. The following year, the Korean government established a Ministry of Sports and embarked on a massive effort to identify and train athletes, establishing a pension system to reward their success. It was also necessary to acquaint the populace with Olympic sports, some of which were unfamiliar in South Korea. A second complementary factor accounting for increased television coverage of sports was the introduction of such new professional sports as baseball, which began in 1982 with six teams. Given the underlying political opposition to the Chun government, the strong emphasis on sports in the 1980s led the Fifth Republic to become widely and derisively known as the "sports republic."

Over the same time period, small satellite dishes proliferated on apartment balconies throughout Seoul and all major cities of South Korea, as citizens in increasing numbers tuned in to Star TV or the offerings of Japanese directbroadcast satellite channels. This trend appeared at the same time Korea was planning for the introduction of its own cable television systems and satellite television by the mid-1990s.

This constellation of changes in the infrastructure and programming available to the Korean public carried with it a strong cultural impact. Studies of the impact of the Seoul Olympics on the nation, including one conducted by prominent Korean scholars for the Korea Development Institute, concluded that 132

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one of the most profound and far-reaching effects was to broaden international horizons, especially among the youth of the nation. The media, especially television, were undoubtedly the principal vehicle for this influence, reinforced among some sections of the population by direct contact with foreign visitors who came to Korea to participate in the Olympics and related events.

The influence of the Seoul Olympics was strongly reinforced five years later by the Taejon International Exposition, which ran for three months from August through early November of 1993. The Expo, with the overall theme of "The Challenge of a New Road to Development," was officially sanctioned by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) and attracted the participation of more than 120 nations and a large number of international organizations. It was held in Taedok Science Town, Korea's first technopolis or "science city," on a site occupying more than 220 acres, more than half of which was devoted to the permanent pavilions later converted into today's Expo Theme Park.

The Taejon International Exposition was emphatically not a global media event, but in Korea it was a mega-media event.

Only an estimated 500,000 of the ten million visitors to the Expo came from outside Korea. Nevertheless, its importance for Korea should not be underestimated and stems from both the personal experiences of the millions who attended, as well as from the extensive media attention it received. Media coverage of the event was extensive throughout the run of the exposition with daily radio and television programs by all of the major networks. Visitors to the Expo were predominantly schoolchildren, grade school through high school age, and older citizens, since the working population was largely prevented from visiting the Expo for five and one-half days each week.

The Taejon International Exposition had a festive atmosphere, with activities on almost every day devoted to the culture and background of one of the participating nations. The sub-themes of the Expo encompassed the use of both traditional and modern science and technology for the developing world, the environment, and improvement in the use and recycling of resources. There was considerable emphasis on the latest developments in information and communications technologies.

The Expo generated considerable excitement within the many schoolchildren of all ages as they explored the pavilions, rode through space in the dynamic theater of the Samsung Starquest pavilion, built through technology transfer with the Disney Corporation, or tested the computers and many other hands-on displays. The young visitors appeared to equally enjoy their exploration of the international pavilions, where they could see and talk firsthand with the international hosts and the myriad of new products, cultural exhibits and other artifacts they had brought with them.

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The Taejon Expo served as a powerful "booster shot" to the earlier influence of the Seoul Olympics in at least three related ways. First, it helped to promote continued informatization of the country by reinforcing the ongoing efforts of telecommunications service providers, other industry groups and the government to educate the public about the importance of information technology and other high-tech industries. Second, as noted above, it reinforced the expansion of cultural and national horizons among the young people of Korea by offering them another opportunity for contact with people and cultures from around the world. Finally, served as a targeted and influential aid to South Korea's export industries which, it increasingly centered on the electronics and communications industries. The majority of "national day" celebrations, which occurred almost continuously throughout the exposition, involved visits by high level trade or diplomatic officials from abroad.

The political transformation of Korea in the 1980s is not only important as a context for the communications revolution but is also, in important respects, part and parcel of that revolution. In political terms, the two most profound changes were the end of the Cold War, allowing a successful "Northern Policy" to open up relations with many socialist nations, and a turbulent domestic political transition from military to civilian government. Television and the media played an important role for Korea in both international diplomacy and its domestic politics, and in June of 1987, led to a situation in which foreign and domestic political considerations clearly merged. These were sure signs that South Korea was entering the information age. Television and the media had become a central arena for politics, as in virtually all other industrialized countries of the world.

Domestic political instability arose in South Korea following the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in October 1979 and reached a tragic zenith in the Kwangju uprising of May 1980. Although Kwangju bears many surface similarities to the subsequent crisis in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, and involved far more bloodshed in proportion to the populations of China and Korea, it did not become a focus of either domestic media coverage in Korea or global television attention. Domestically, the military leadership had placed a draconian lid on the media, so that a public information vacuum existed within South Korea around the time of Kwangju. Internationally, the crisis in Korea coincided with other major international events and tended to fit with longerterm patterns of attention to the nation, rather than stand out as a highly important news event. "' Despite the early lack of domestic and international media attention to Kwangju, the uprising became a central reality of Korean politics through the 1980s to the present, shaping in important ways the process of political liberalization in South Korea. .The Chun government, from 1980 onward, 134

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continued its policy of control of the press, particularly with respect to news about the Kwangju uprising. However, as the decade proceeded and the Seoul Olympics approached, printed materials and videotapes about Kwangju circulated rather widely underground in South Korea. The Kwangju uprising became a central political symbol tied to the question of democratization, which in the Korean context meant ridding the government of military influence.

Students, labor, intellectuals and opposition political parties for the most part agreed that an important step in democratization would be a return to the direct, popular election of the president—the norm in Korea before imposition of the Yushin system by President Park Chung-hee in 1972.

President Chun staunchly resisted such a constitutional reform until the Spring of 1987, but the political crisis deepened, sparking weeks of protests in which a growing number of middle class citizens joined students and other opposition forces in the streets. By that point, the attention of the international media was attracted, because of concerns over whether South Korea could resolve the crisis in a way that would allow successful hosting of the Seoul Olympics. This set of circumstances led to the June 29 declaration, a nationally televised speech by Roh, in which he accepted point-by-point all of the opposition demands, including direct presidential elections and political amnesty for opposition leader Kim Dae-jung.

The preponderance of available evidence suggests that the threat to the Seoul Olympics, conveyed largely through television and the international media, was a principal factor behind the political resolution that began in June of 1987.260 Television had come to play a central role in South Korean politics and would become even more important with political liberalization. A single example vividly underscores the point. The most widely viewed television spectacle of the 1980s in South Korea was not, as many might expect, the Seoul Olympic opening ceremony, but rather the nationally televised hearings on Kwangju in November of 1988, following successful hosting of the Olympics.

The hearings featured a succession of former ministers and confidants being questioned by opposition lawmakers about abuses of power during the eightyear long presidency of Chun Doo-hwan. The hearings attracted the largest television audience ratings ever, peaking at 62 percent during the daytime, exceeding the 60 percent rating for the Olympic opening ceremony less than two months earlier.

The political vicissitudes in Korea from 1979 through 1981 not only influenced the overall political evolution of the country, but also the process of telecommunications policy more specifically. For one thing, they ensured strong government leadership at a time when such was needed for the massive project to develop a modern telecommunications infrastructure. They also boosted that project in an indirect, but definite manner. When the Chun government assumed 135

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power in 1980, it possessed a plentiful supply of skilled bureaucrats and technocrats, but lacked any political legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of the Korean public. The economic situation was desperate, as indicated by the nation's negative economic growth rate in 1981. Major projects that could be understood and appreciated by the public appeared the only route toward political legitimacy. The Chun government emphasized two in particular—the hosting of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and an aggressive policy to build up technological capability and infrastructure in telecommunications.

In retrospect, it is clear that the government of President Chun Doo-hwan sought to implement two communications policies that would ultimately clash.

On the one hand, the government attempted to control the content reported by the press through a basic press law, passed in August of 1980. On the other hand, it made policy decisions at about the same time that would lead toward the building of a modern nationwide telecommunications infrastructure and gradual deregulation and opening of its telecommunications market. This pursuit of apparently contradictory policies can be understood in terms of the traditional government distinction in Korea between content and infrastructure regulation, the former handled by the Ministry of Information and the latter under the Ministry of Communications. However, the contradiction was real and it appears that the traditional bureaucratic and regulatory approaches failed to account for a fundamental characteristic of modern communication networks and infrastructures. They make it much more difficult to control the flow or content, in this case political messages, of information.

Korea's political transformation in the 1980s had important international dimensions as well. Roh Tae-woo's June 29th declaration was at once an act of domestic political necessity and a statement aimed, through television and other international media, at a broad international constituency. It illustrated how the new global scope of television and the media frequently blurs the distinction between domestic and international affairs. Roh's declaration elicited a reassuring wave of favorable media commentary around the world and was a decisive influence in ensuring the successful hosting of the Seoul Olympics.

It is well to remember that his statement also coincided with a fervent effort by the Korean government to open up relations with socialist nations. In 1980, South Korea was not only a divided nation, but had no diplomatic relations with 24 socialist nations, including China, the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries and others. Consequently, the government saw the Seoul Olympics as a unique opportunity to bolster its "Northern Policy" of re-establishing relations with those nations. The Northern Policy was a multi-faceted effort that included academic and cultural exchanges, along with meetings directly related to planning for the Seoul Olympics. With the growing importance of television in

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Korea and around the world, it also entailed a large measure of media and image diplomacy.

South Korea faced an enormous problem with its national image around the world. In the United States, for example, the consistent pattern in mainstream media coverage of Korea from the 1970s into the 1980s was one of low and intermittent levels of attention in which certain themes predominated. Student demonstrations were a dominant symbol of protest in both television and the print media. There was also attention to assassinations, bombings and other forms of political violence, as well as presidential visits to Korea. Occasionally, as in the downing of KAL flight 007 in 1983, Korea made the news mostly because of U.S.-Soviet superpower confrontations.

Against this backdrop, the world news media began slowly increasing their attention to South Korea in the 1980s. The increased attention was not solely because of the approaching Olympic Games. An analysis of U.S. news media showed considerable attention to the political struggle within South Korea that eventually culminated in Roh's June 29,h declaration of 1987 and an agreement between opposition and government forces to postpone further political debate and acrimony until after the Olympics.261 Continued growth and expansion of the Korean economy was also another measurable theme, at least for print media.

The Olympic Games themselves brought unprecedented media attention to Korea, primarily through the medium of television. On balance, all evidence suggests that the television coverage and viewing around the world, including the United States, had a very positive effect, helping to update the nation's image. NBC television's coverage of the Olympics for the United States audience became a matter of great controversy within South Korea itself, primarily because of public perceptions of the "boxing incident" and a series of related events involving U.S. athletes and NBC employees. The boxing incident involved a bout in which the losing Korean boxer, Byun Jong-il, was penalized by a referee from New Zealand. After the bout, several Korean boxing officials entered the ring and punched the referee. Chairs were thrown into the ring and the boxer subsequently staged a 67-minute sit-in in the ring to protest the decision. NBC's television coverage followed the entire sit-in rather consistently, using split-screens to show the boxer in the ring while following other scheduled athletic events. It included discussion and analysis of the events, including a replay of the melee following the decision against Byun Jong-il.

The entire boxing incident became a major subject of press coverage and some official commentary in South Korea, where many, if not most, interpreted the attention excessive. However, it did not occur in isolation. A number of other events occurred during the Olympics that exacerbated public reaction.

They included the relatively disorderly behavior of U.S. athletes in the opening

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ceremony and the arrest of two U.S. swimmers who allegedly took a stone lion mask from the Seoul Hyatt Hotel disco during a night of celebrating.

Although television and media coverage was certainly not the only factor in making the Olympics a bittersweet episode in Korean-American relations, it was certainly one of the principal ones. The developments confirmed the central role of the media in the political process within Korea as well as its relations with the United States and the rest of the world.

"One Telephone, One Household": The Infrastructure Accomplishments During the 1970s, the attention of communication scholars and policymakers focused on two broad international problems. In the realm of broadcasting, there was an international debate focusing on the "one-way flow of information" from the developed nations such as the United States and Britain, to the developing nations of the world. The decade of the 70s also witnessed the building of an international infrastructure for satellite broadcasting called Intelsat, along with related developments in technologies for gathering and disseminating news. The influence of television waxed while the role of print and other media waned.

The second international issue that emerged in the 70s concerned telecommunications, which was then viewed in terms of telephone service and point-to-point communication networks. The International Telecommunications Union and leading industry experts called attention to the vast gap between developed and developing nations in terms of telephone service. The key measure used to identify this gap was teledensity, a measure of telephone main lines per 100 people in a nation.

South Korea's situation with respect to these two major communications issues in 1980 was clear. At that time, 87 percent of all households in the country possessed television sets, while only 24 percent had telephones. The manufacture of television sets and the creation of a basic broadcast infrastructure was accomplished mainly by private corporations, with the provision of television service, while the Ministry of Communications having a government monopoly on the provision of telephone service through the 1970s.

The shortage of telephones created a social crisis of considerable proportions during the 1970s, as the nation experienced a chronic and growing backlog of households and organizations who wanted to subscribe to telephone service. One interesting government response to the situation was the manufacture and distribution of "white" telephones. In Korea during the 70s, as in the U.S. during the days of the AT&T monopoly, the vast majority of telephones were black in color. The original concept was that white telephones would be given to government officials and VIPs, and also that they could be re 138

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sold to another user, unlike normal black phones. Gradually, however, the white phones spread as they were sold to relatives of government officials or others, and the market price of a white telephone rose to a point that it was far out of reach of the general public.

South Korea's low teledensity in 1980 was due to several factors. They included earlier government industrial policies that stressed investment in other sectors, the large cost of constructing a public switched network at a time when foreign loans were becoming more difficult to obtain, and the nation's reluctance to becoming dependent on foreign technology by having such companies as GTE or AT&T build the network infrastructure.

Against the backdrop of the lack of a modern nationwide telephone network and the political turmoil of 1979-1980, the nation's top policy makers announced the goal in 1981 of achieving "one telephone, one household" in South Korea. That policy decision was extremely ambitious—far more so than might be immediately apparent to an outside observer. It posed the economic question of how to finance the infrastructure buildup, technology questions which primarily centered on electronic switching systems, and questions of confidence and leadership.

Consider first the confidence question. In 1971 the Ministry of Communications had directed the Korea Institute for Science and Technology to conduct a project to develop electronic switching technology. That effort failed for lack of adequate technological know-how. A decade later, faced with the possibility of a new effort to develop the technology, engineers at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) estimated that the project would cost U.S. $30 million. At that time, the largest prior R&D project in South Korea had cost only U.S. $12.5 million.

It is noteworthy, although not surprising, that virtually all of the key policymakers involved in the decision to emphasize electronic switching technology and the buildup of telecommunications infrastructure were U.S.trained. The individual widely credited with making electronic switching technology a national priority was Dr. Kim Jae-ik, a Stanford University-trained economist who served as chief economic secretary to President Park Chung-hee, a position that carried over into the government of Chun Doo-hwan. In addition to Dr. Kim, who later was killed with seventeen other government officials in the 1983 Burma bombing, there were several other key leaders. They included Dr. Oh Myung and Dr. Kyong Sang-hyon, both of whom would lead the Ministry of Communications (as of 1994, Ministry of Information and Communication). Dr. Oh is widely referred to as the "godfather" of South Korea's telecommunications revolution. Others, such as Dr. Yang Seungtaik, Dr. Hong Sung-won, and Dr. Seo Jung-uck also played key leadership roles.

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their Ph.D.s were granted by leading U.S. universities. Several had also worked at Bell Labs in New Jersey, which was viewed as the world's leading institution with respect to electronic switching technology.

The economic question of how to finance the building of a modern telephone infrastructure was answered by two complementary policy decisions implemented in 1982. First, the government separated the business of providing telephone service from that of telecommunications policy-making and regulation by establishing the Korea Telecommunications Authority (KTA, later re-named Korea Telecom) as an entity separate from the Ministry of Communications. This change was clearly aimed at two major goals of the fifth national economic development plan: expanding the phone line capacity to one line per family, and the transition to electronic switching. The intent was to allow KTA to provide service in a more businesslike and competitive fashion, and to eliminate a host of bureaucratic inefficiencies associated with the old ministry structure. Significantly, the move also created a situation where profits from the provision of telephone service could be used as a source of capital.

Also in 1982, as a move away from the old monopoly structure, the government founded DACOM Corporation, giving it a mandate to develop the rapidly growing data communications field. From the beginning, DACOM was intended to operate as much as possible like a private corporation.

The second policy decision that opened the way to the massive infrastructure buildup of the 1980s was to allow KTA to raise telephone service fees in order to accumulate funds in a short period of time. This decision met with a strong social consensus on the part of Korean consumers, who had long since tired of the chronic backlog of telephone subscriptions and very poor service.

The technological challenge of building a modern telephone system had economic implications as well. The TDX project was not only critical in meeting the infrastructure challenge, but also assumed a far larger importance in relation to subsequent technology transfer programs and South Korea's overall evolution into an information economy. For these reasons, it is treated at some length in the following section.

Research and Technology Development No thorough understanding of South Korea's telecommunications revolution can be attained without addressing the significance of the TDX electronic switching project. In a real sense, these digital switching systems form the heart of the current worldwide transformation of communications, characterized by the convergence of computers and communication networks to form so-called "intelligent networks." As noted above, Korea's progress toward 140

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this critical technology had proceeded in fits and starts during the 1970s. The project which ultimately succeeded in the 1980s became a prototype for new forms of collaboration among government R&D institutes, telecommunications equipment manufacturers and telecommunications service providers. By overcoming doubts and skepticism, both domestically and internationally, the TDX project built confidence and paved the way for future large-scale research and development projects. Finally, the TDX project offered several economic benefits. It would save Korea the cost of importing all of its switching systems, help to drive down the global cost of such systems, and enable the nation's own manufacturers to export the underlying technology.

The TDX project was a joint five year effort involving Korea Telecom, four manufacturers, and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), which was the principal technical R&D Institute under the Ministry of Communications. Much of the initiative for the project came from Korea Telecom, which recognized that the TDX switches could be used as a vehicle for modernizing its network and eventually introducing a variety of advanced, digital telecommunications services. The actual technology transfer and development work was carried out by the four industry groups, under ETRI's management, while overall coordination of the project was carried out by Korea Telecom, which would also be the first big customer for the switches.

The nature of the organizational linkages in the TDX project was one important key to its success. It brought together in a close working relationship, the developer of the technology, ETRI, the four companies that would manufacture and supply the switches, and the customer, Korea Telecom.

Another element critical to success was government support, through inclusion of the program in its five-year economic plan. Without that assurance of stable and consistent support over a period of time, the program might well have faltered as did the first attempts a decade earlier. The government support allowed industry leaders to make realistic judgments about the likely success of the program as it unfolded.

It is difficult to describe, in non-technical terms, the actual work and character of a project like TDX. It entailed such interrelated tasks as network planning and engineering at Korea Telecom, dimensioning and purchasing of switches by Korea Telecom, testing and qualification of the system, transfer of technology from LM Ericsson to the four manufacturers, and quality engineering and control. The development work at ETRI focused on such areas as the workability and reliability of software systems incorporated into the switches. As already noted, the top level leaders of the effort were largely U.S. trained Ph.D.s. However, the majority of the staff were locally trained engineers.

At the time TDX was placed in the five-year economic plan in October of 1981, ETRI had only about twenty staff members working on electronic 141

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switching technologies. By 1982 that number had grown to 100 people, working in three divisions dealing with switching, network and transmission areas. By 1984 ETRI employed some 250 people for the TDX project.

The domestic success of the TDX program is now a matter of historical record. The switches form the backbone of the nation's basic telecommunications network and were instrumental in the great strides made during the 1980s, although Korea continues to purchase switching systems from international vendors.

Internationally, the success of Korean manufacturers in exporting TDX presents more of a mixed picture. As of the early 1990s the system had been exported to such countries as Vietnam, Iran, the Philippines and Nicaragua, but the overall volume of exports was not yet large enough to constitute a real or unqualified success. The global market for electronic switches continues to develop, with rapid advances in the products being offered by such companies as AT&T, Ericsson or Nortel. However, it is not a simple matter of whether the Korean manufacturers can catch up to the level of industry leaders, since there are many segments and requirements in the international market. Not every country or purchaser of a switching system requires a large and advanced product. As with the purchase of a personal computer and similar informationprocessing products, the purchase decision is most frequently a trade-off between price, power, features, and the like. In similar fashion, the sale of a switch for use in a telecommunications network is not a simple one-time transaction, but a sale followed by various servicing and upgrade options.

The overall success of the TDX project engendered confidence among Korea's government and industry leaders and in important respects led to another collaborative effort aimed at development of technology for the manufacture of semiconductors. The 4 megabit DRAM, a memory chip, was chosen as the test vehicle for this project and involved the upgrading of submicron level process technology.

Although a collaborative effort, the internal organization for the memory chip project differed in crucial respects from that of the TDX project. ETRI did not take overall responsibility for the technology development. Instead, development teams were formed, consisting of people drawn from three private sector firms, Samsung, Goldstar and Hyundai, along with representatives of universities and ETRI. Once the firms were able to produce a prototype, as certified by ETRI, each company worked separately to produce engineering samples and commercial products. In other words, the three companies involved acted as both developers and suppliers of the semiconductor technology.

The most crucial difference between the 4 megabit DRAM project and TDX was that there was no assured, well-defined customer for the former.

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markets. At the time the project began in 1986, it appeared that there would be strong worldwide demand for the product. This meant that the major uncertainties, a matter of life or death for the companies involved, were whether the product could be offered at the right price and right time.

The semiconductor project was a resounding success, enabling the companies involved to ride a wave of surging memory-chip sales on the global market. By the mid 1990s, Samsung Electronics had become South Korea's largest exporter and its largest single export item was subsequent generations of memory chips. In certain categories of these memory chips, Korea now leads the world in manufacturing and export.

The successful and sustained development of information age products and services increasingly depends on the fruits of research and development. In the early 1980s, South Korea invested less than 1 percent of its Gross National Product on research and development, compared with 2.5 percent for the U.S. Consequently, the government instituted plans to increase such investment to a target of 5 percent of GNP by the year 2000.

R&D activities in South Korea during the 1980s generally fell into one of three major categories. First, there were the activities of private research and development centers, at home and abroad. These included centers such as the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and the Goldstar Central Research Institute. Second, there were the collaborative public and private sector initiatives such as the TDX switching system or the 4 megabit DRAM semiconductor projects. Finally, there was a growing number of projects that involved strategic partnerships with foreign firms.

During the 1980s, the number of research and development organizations in South Korea more than tripled, from 647 to 2,105, with a corresponding increase in the number of personnel. This growth was primarily do to expansion in the private sector, not large increases in university or government-based activities.

Although, on a national basis, the private sector was driving the overall increase in research and development, the government continued to play a key role in establishing priorities. In the telecommunications field specifically, the Ministry of Communications announced plans to increase the R&D investments of Korea Telecom from 4.2 percent of its turnover in 1992 to 6 percent by the year 2001. An increasing proportion of this investment would go toward software technologies.

Telecommunications Policy, Deregulation and Market Liberalization As nations and their economies move into the information age, telecommunications policy becomes one of the most crucial arenas of public 143

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policy-making. For more than two decades, the dominant worldwide trend in telecommunications policy has been toward deregulation, the dismantling of government monopolies, and market liberalization. That trend contrasts rather sharply with South Korea's legacy of a strong government role in industrial policy. The following review of institutional, policy and regulatory approaches to telecommunications in the 1980s provides a background framework for later consideration of the challenge Korea faces as it approaches the turn of the century.

Any catalogue of major institutions involved in the making of Korean telecommunications policy must begin with the Blue House and the office of the President. South Korea's president wields great power in shaping both the tone and substance of national policy. Within that broad mandate, telecommunications and information issues have assumed steadily increasing importance over the years.

The institutional structure for telecommunications policy changed somewhat with the government reorganization and streamlining introduced by President Kim Young-sam in December 1994, but its overall character and hierarchy remain familiar. The Blue House and presidential advisors work closely with both the Board of Finance and Economy and certain key ministries to formulate and carry out the overall national economic policy, including that for telecommunications.

Several Ministries have a direct and continuous impact on South Korea's communications sector. The Ministry of Information and Communications is the main administrative, policy-making and regulatory body with responsibilities for approval of telecommunications rates, approval of lines of business, agreements for interconnection of service providers and so forth. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy oversees the industry groups that manufacture both industrial and consumer electronics for the information highway. The Ministry of Science and Technology's purview extends to many areas of computer software and technology development, while the Ministry of Information controls the content and licensing of broadcasting and cable operations.

With convergence of communications technologies and their increasingly pervasive influence, most other Korean government ministries also have responsibilities with respect to modern communications. Two in particular deserve mention along with the above listing. The Ministry of Construction and Transportation must deal with the large role of information technology and value-added services inherent in contemporary transportation systems. Finally, the Ministry of Education has major oversight responsibility for distance learning and use of the whole array of new communications technologies to enhance education and lifelong learning.

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South Korea's approach to regulatory policy in telecommunications has gone through three historical stages. During the government monopoly era which lasted until 1982, the Ministry of Communications acted as policymaker, regulator and service supplier in the telecommunications field. Under this system, there were bureaucratic inefficiencies and the development of information infrastructure proceeded at a slow pace, unable to keep up with social demands.

The second historical stage of South Korea's regulatory policy lasted from 1982 through 1989 and can is referred to as the segmented monopoly era.

During this period, although the provision of telecommunications services had been separated from the Ministry, basic services were still monopolized on a vertically segmented basis, according to service type. The Korea Telecommunications Authority monopolized basic voice communication services, while the newly established DACOM Corporation monopolized data communication services. Korea Mobile Telecommunications Corporation, later renamed Korea Mobile Telecom, was established in 1984 as a 65 percent-owned subsidiary of Korea Telecom. It was designated as a public monopoly carrier in the mobile telecommunications area in 1988. Likewise, in 1985, Korea Port Telephone Corporation was established and given a monopoly on the provision of services for marine transportation and ports.

The foregoing vertical segmentation structure, in which the Ministry of Communications designated only one monopoly carrier per service area, continued through 1989. However, during the latter half of the decade it came under severe pressure by way of both the bilateral talks with the U.S. and the Uruguay Round multilateral trade talks. Also contributing to the pressure were fundamental changes in the technologies and economics of telecommunications industries worldwide.

The Uruguay Round negotiations began in 1986, with the goal of overall modernization and liberalization of the international trade order. The talks were divided into one group dealing with goods and another, called the Group of Negotiations on Services (GNS), for services which included telecommunications. These negotiations, which were successfully completed in 1994, proceeded at a slower pace on certain key issues than did the bilateral talks with the U.S. Consequently, the bilateral negotiations exerted a stronger influence on Korean government policy during the late 1980s.

From 1986 on, the United States entered into a series of agreements with South Korea designed to increase access to the Korean market and to rectify the trade imbalance, which at that time favored Korea in such areas as telecommunications equipment trade. The 1988 omnibus trade act passed by the U.S. congress contained a telecommunications-specific "Super 301" provision that required the executive branch to take action against nations that were 145

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deemed to be engaged in unfair trading practices. Subsequently, in February of 1989, South Korea was designated a "Priority Foreign Country" (unfair trading country) as required by law. Negotiations between the two countries ensued, covering the entire spectrum of the telecommunications field. Major subjects included market access in telecommunications service, standards for telecommunications equipment, type approval, tariffs and government procurement. In 1991, the two nations signed an International Value-Added Network Agreement under which foreign operators became eligible to compete in the Korean market. A more comprehensive agreement covering other issues was signed in early 1992.

In addition to the pressures from multilateral and bilateral trade talks with other nations, South Korea's telecommunications sector was also under pressure for liberalization from the private sector, including its own large and rapidly expanding industry groups. Multinational corporations require state-of-the-art communications to link their operations around the world. Their dependence on modern services increases as they adopt such practices as twenty-four hour research and development, inventory management, or financial accounting.

Korea's large industries were no exception to this global trend. Furthermore, the country's rapid economic growth meant a corresponding increase in the influence of these private sector groups on the policy process, including telecommunications policy.

The third historical stage in Korea's regulation of telecommunications began in 1990 with reforms aimed at introducing competition into the domestic marketplace. The trend toward privatization of telecommunications services was a worldwide phenomenon, familiar to citizens of the U.S. from the breakup of the Bell system in the 1970s. However, the process of privatization takes very different forms in different national contexts. South Korea's approach bore some resemblance to the process in Japan, an Asian political culture which also features a close relationship between government and industry.

The 1990s reforms introduced competition in stages, beginning a process that would continue throughout the decade. The initial step allowed limited competition within existing regulations by introducing a duopoly system for provision of international voice telephone service. DACOM Corporation was allowed to compete in this area and officially launched its international service in December of 1 99 1 .

A second stage of restructuring, also put into effect at the end of 1991, provided a new three-way classification scheme for telecommunications service providers, similar to one introduced in Japan in 1985. General service providers were those with nationwide communication facilities who engaged in providing a broad range of telecommunications and information services on a national scale. The law defined specific service providers as those with their own 146

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facilities, but providing service of more limited scope, such as mobile and paging service, trunked radio communications or port communications. Finally, value-added service providers were those companies that offered various services, but leased the necessary circuits or other facilities.

Under the new tripartite classification for telecommunications service providers, the value added services sector was completely opened up to foreign ownership and investment. Such investment and ownership was permitted up to one-third for specific service providers. For general service providers, such investment and ownership remained severely restricted.

The rationale given by the Korean government for opening up the value added services sector quickly and completely to foreign ownership and competition was, that such competition was needed to invigorate this sector, in which the nation lagged behind world standards. It was also a sector in which there was considerable international pressure, particularly through the bilateral trade talks with the United States, whose value added industries were very competitive internationally.

What the restructuring meant in practice can be seen by looking at the establishment of a second mobile telecommunications company, Shinsegi, in 1994. The second mobile franchise was granted by the government to a consortium of Korean and foreign companies, including POSCO, Kolon and Korea Electric Power Company Air Touch Communications was the leading foreign participant in the consortium along with Southwestern Bell and Qualcomm. Together those foreign firms held a total of 22.5% of shares. 2" Since the 1990 reforms there has been an extremely high rate of growth in various value added network services in South Korea, with the overall local market growing at an annual rate of 45 percent as of 1994. The services include, among others, database, data processing, electronic mail, electronic data interchange, and computer reservation systems. As of 1996, the Internet, personal computers and networks had spread to an extent that the Internet and World Wide Web were attracting considerable attention in Korea as a vehicle for provision of various value added services.

Until 1980, although the Ministry of Communications was the principal government authority in the telecommunications field, it was considered a "second class" ministry in relation to those, such as the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which were more directly responsible for the nation's economic growth in the 60s and 70s.

In retrospect, the Ministry of Communications dramatically increased its influence within the Korean government during the 1980s, providing a concrete illustration of Toffler's 2M argument about the expanding functions that flow to agencies that regulate information. There were several related factors that

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explain this rise in influence, culminating in the expansion and re-naming to the Ministry of Information and Communications in December of 1994.

First, the government's decision to build a modern telephone network enlarged the total budget of the Ministry of Communications in terms of both government funding and the revenues generated by increased telephone rates.

The size of a Ministry's budget is generally a sure indicator of its influence.

A second factor was the establishment of several new organizations under the Ministry of Communications. The decision to pursue electronic switching technology allowed the Ministry to develop ETRI as a major technical research and development center under its control. In an important sense, the TDX project gave shape to ETRI as it exists today. Another institute, the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI), was established in 1988 to pursue telecommunications policy research. Staffed by an array of economists and other social-science trained Ph.D.s, many trained in the U.S. as well as Korea, the institute grew rapidly and filled a void for the Korean government.

This was just as the new field of telecommunications policy was emerging in importance all around the world. KISDI researchers came to play a key role in advising the government in its bilateral talks with the United States on trade issues in telecommunications services, as well as in the multilateral Uruguay round GATT talks that led to formation of the World Trade Organization.

(WTO). In the arena of promotional policy, the Ministry established in 1988 the Information Culture Center of Korea (ICC), with broad responsibilities for promoting public education, especially in the rural areas of the country.

A third factor that clearly enhanced the position of the Ministry of Communications through the 1980s was leadership. Although less tangible, it was certainly no less important, especially when the particular character of Korea's political culture is considered. As already noted above in connection with the TDX project, Korea was blessed with a large number of highly trained technocrats, many of them who had completed Ph.D.s in the U.S. One of these individuals, Dr. Oh Myung, is widely regarded in Korea as the architect of the nation's telecommunications revolution. His career offers an illustration of certain patterns that have been at least partly replicated by many others in Korea and thus offers one window on how personal leadership affected the nation's economic—in this case—telecommunications development.

As a young man, Dr. Oh chose to attend the military academy because it offered one of the only sure routes toward positions of leadership and responsibility. He later served as an instructor there, and completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1980 when the military government of Chun Doo-hwan took power, he was asked to join the Blue House Staff, where he helped to formulate a long-term plan for the electronics and telecommunications industries.

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In May of 1981 Dr. Oh was appointed Vice Minister of Communications, later becoming Minister in 1987. His appointment to both posts broke a pattern in which previous high officials had been political appointees. During the 1980s, he put his substantive knowledge of telecommunications to good use, as an early and staunch advocate of the information society and many of the specific policy and regulatory changes discussed here.

Following his term as Minister, Dr. Oh turned his attention to another large endeavor, spearheading the 1993 Taejon International Exposition. He secured official approval by the Bureau of International Expositions in Europe and became Chairman of the Taejon Expo Organizing Committee. In late 1994, he was tapped by President Kim Young-sam to become Minister of Construction and Transportation, one of the so-called "super-ministries" in the newly reorganized government.

Dr. Oh's appointment to the cabinet in 1994 was somewhat surprising but made an emphatic statement about the broad public respect for his skills, vision and leadership capabilities. The surprise came because he was the only member of the new cabinet to have served at a high level in the prior military governments, and this at a time when public sensitivities about activities during the Fifth Republic of Chun Doo-hwan were at a heightened level.

Education and Promotion ofInformation Culture Virtually all attempts to explain South Korea's phenomenal economic success over recent decades have noted the important role of the nation's investment in education. The country has near universal enrollment of students from elementary school through high school. The annual budget of the Ministry of Education as a percentage of the total national budget has increased annually for the past two decades or more and the average family in Korea spends approximately 8-10 percent of its disposable income on education. Horace G. Underwood, an educator and lifelong Western resident of Korea, has called the eagerness of the Korean people to have an education perhaps the greatest strength of the nation's educational system. 2" In the 1970s the government relaxed limits on college and university enrollment capacity in response to an earlier shortage of skilled workers, contributing to a boom in tertiary education, as measured both by the number of colleges and overall enrollment. In recent years, the growth in education has extended to a wide range of training institutes and industry-based training programs as well.

However, quantitative growth in education does not necessarily reflect quality. Considered in light of Korea's pre-modem Confucian educational system, much of the Korean people's eagerness for education may reflect an 149

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eagerness for status, rather than content, or membership in an elite university rather than interest in a particular field of study. Frequently, students who have focused intense effort for years toward success in the university entrance examination, find themselves without any clear purpose once admitted to the university. 26!

Another salient pattern in South Korea's higher education is the flow of students overseas, mostly to the United States, for advanced degrees. This trend began after the Korean war, with approximately three-quarters of the roughly 5,000 students per year studying in the United States. Japan was bypassed as a reaction to suppressions that had occurred during Japan's colonization of Korea.

Demand for study overseas was so high that the government placed limits on the number of students allowed to go and made selections by examination. The numbers approximately tripled when a new "open door" policy was announced in 1981, and by the 1994-95 academic year there were 31,053 Korean students in the U.S., over half enrolled in graduate programs.

South Korea's effort to educate citizens for the new information age has been a broad-based effort involving not only the education sector, but also government, the media and private sector organizations. As in other countries, the government is involved not only in legislative and regulatory aspects of telecommunications policy, but also in the important arena of promotional policy.

In an effort to accelerate the growth of computer literacy and usage in South Korea, the government in 1988 established the aforementioned Information Culture Center of Korea. The ICC promotes information culture with some emphasis on human resource development and regional informatization. It disseminates a range of publications, videotapes and television materials. To carry out its mandate, the ICC works with a broad range of citizen organizations and is establishing linkages with similar organizations in other countries.

The training and promotional activities of the ICC correspond to significant parallel efforts by the Korea Productivity Center (KPC) under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the System Engineering Research Institute(SERI) which operates under auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Since 1988 the government has designated June as "Information Culture Month," in Korea, designed to help people better appreciate the role of information and new communication technologies in everyday life. During that month, the Prime Minister gives a public award to one individual in recognition of that person's contributions to the spread of information culture.

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information culture and build its information society. Nevertheless, by far the largest influence on the character of the nation's information culture comes from activities of the private sector, including those of all the major media organizations and large industry groups.

Private sector efforts to promote the spread of information culture are generally of two types. First there are a class of activities that are directly encouraged and in some cases supervised by the government. These amount to an extension of the close government-industry relationship that has developed since the early economic development of the 1960s. They include, for example, many activities of Korea Telecom, the country's major common carrier, and other government owned corporations. Another example would be the Taejon International Exposition, which was sanctioned and encouraged by the government, but the success of which depended heavily on industry commitments to build pavilions and otherwise actively participate.

By the mid-1990s, it was apparent that a second category of promotional efforts had eclipsed those of the government, or government-guided industry activities. These are the day-to-day and ongoing marketing activities of Korean and international companies. A visit to Seoul or any other major city in Korea provides ample evidence of this phenomenon.

The marketing of consumer electronics and a growing array of telecommunications equipment and services is a ubiquitous phenomenon in South Korea in the 1990s. It has become more highly visible with advances in the field of graphic design, as the chaebol groups, led by the LG-Group, Samsung, Daewoo and others have begun to standardize storefront appearance and place retail outlets and service centers in neighborhoods throughout the country.

While such traditional open-air markets as Namdaemun or Tongdaemun in Seoul have retained some of their character and persist, partly as tourist attractions amid the encroaching modernization of the city, there is a new excitement surrounding such computer and software markets as Saewoon Sanga or the Yongsan electronics market. More pervasively, computer and software businesses have spread to locations in all large or small cities in South Korea.

In addition to the retail or market-based sale of information products and services, the visitor to contemporary Korea will be greeted by a media barrage of television, radio, print and outdoor advertising that contains a similar emphasis. In 1995, the nation's four electronics giants, Samsung, LG, Daewoo and Hyundai all ranked among the top ten companies in advertising expenditures, while Sejin Computerland, a personal computer retailer, ranked in 1 1th place. 266The message is clear: computers, multi-media, and the information highway represent the future for South Korea.

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Taken together, all of the education, promotion and marketing efforts have had an impact. Various public opinion surveys document both changing patterns of public media use and change in pubic views and understanding of the information society. As already noted, television had achieved near universal penetration by the mid 1980s. By 1992, in a survey by Seoul National University's Graduate School of Management267, over 90 percent of Korea's highly literate public reported reading a daily newspaper, 97 percent listening to the radio, and 64 percent subscribing to magazines. By that date, telephone service was universally available, leading to rapid growth in the use of fax machines, which quickly became a necessity in businesses of any size. Personal computers also spread rapidly. In 1992 more than 27 percent of survey respondents reported owning a PC. Home video also became a growth industry in the 1980s. A separate 1992 survey by KBS™ showed that about 70 percent of the population, nationwide, had access to home video. Video rental stores, as in other countries around the world, were simply everywhere.

In line with the growth and proliferation of new media, there was a discernible increase in television viewing by South Korean audiences during the 1980s. The average number of viewing hours per week increased from about 14 to more than 16 per week, and did so quite uniformly across all demographic categories. This amounted to an average of about two hours of viewing on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekend days.

The increase in overall amount of television viewing was accompanied by certain shifts in program preferences. One of the most interesting changes comparing survey data from 1983 and 1990, was an increased interest hi television news. The shift occurred across the entire population, but was slightly more pronounced for men. Although part of this change might be attributable to growing public reliance on television versus print news, as had occurred in the U.S. and other countries somewhat earlier, the available evidence would appear to suggest that the principal factor was political liberalization and removal of press controls.

In 1983 and throughout much of that decade, the public understood that television and the press news content were controlled and directed by a military government. Two other developments in the 80s underscore that point. One was a widespread boycott in during which citizens refused to pay KBS license fees.

The other was the founding of the Hangyoreh Shinmun, a new newspaper staffed almost entirely by reporters who had been dismissed in the Chun government's consolidation of the press in 1980. The new paper was initially financed through the sale of shares of stock, which became quite popular among ordinary citizens and the middle class, as a way of making a personal statement about dissatisfaction with government press control.

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By the time of the 1990 survey, not only had television and the other media achieved their freedom from government control, but television news and documentary programming following the Seoul Olympics had gripped the nation. In the fall of 1988 alone, in addition to televising the National Assembly hearings on Kwangju, both KBS and MBC aired thorough documentary programs or series on the topic that included interviews with citizens and television news videotape from Japan, Germany and the U.S. that had never before been broadcast in South Korea.

Along with the proliferation of new media and changes in the media usage patterns of the Korean public came a growing awareness of what was meant by "information culture" or the information society. The Seoul National University survey in 1992 showed that over half of the public was familiar with the notion of the information society, but the actual degree of familiarity with the idea was much higher in the largest cities and among the young (those with a high school or greater education) and people in higher income brackets.

Just as television played a growing role in Korea's domestic and international politics during the 80s, there is evidence that the new communications technologies will play an important role in the strengthening of local government. Survey studies show that a large part of the public wants the government to use the technologies to open up and share more information with the public, and that the public favors guiding involvement by non-governmental citizens groups, regional committees and governing bodies over heavy involvement by the central government.

Industry Growth and Exports The rapid growth of South Korea's economy following the Korean war and especially during the 1980s has been a broad theme of earlier sections of this book. During that decade the character of the Korean economy changed in important ways, and this was an underlying factor in what we have termed the nation's telecommunications revolution. Here it will suffice to note and underscore two broad shifts and patterns.

First, the information and communication sector of the economy grew 28.6 percent annually during the decade, more than twice the rate of overall economic growth. As a consequence, in 1986 the electronics and telecommunications sector caught and surpassed the textile industry as South Korea's leading export industry. Exports of color television sets, semiconductors, satellite receivers and many other products surged. Revenues for services such as the international long-distance telephone service offered by Korea Telecom also experienced rapid growth, but in general the economy continued to center on manufacturing industries. However one might aggregate 153

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the economic statistics and trade figures, there could be little doubt by the end of the decade the country's economy revolved around the manufacture and sale, both domestically and in export markets, of communications-related products.

Second, the 1980s and early 1990s saw a large scale move overseas on the part of Korean industry. By early 1993 there were a total of 83 Korean electronics factories outside South Korea, operated by 54 companies in 24 different nations. The initial reasons for this surge in offshore production was to reduce production costs by obtaining cheaper labor. With political liberalization inside South Korea, wages in certain key industries saw several years of doubledigit increases.

In more recent years, the need to reduce labor costs for manufactured products has been supplanted by a broader concern on the part of large industry groups with globalization. That concern includes the imperative to engage in technology transfer in order to manufacture higher value-added goods and services, and to achieve marketing success in such markets as North America and Europe.

Toward the Millennium and the Information Society By the mid-1990s, South Korea could add a truly remarkable revolution in communications to its already impressive list of economic accomplishments.

The telecommunications revolution in Korea gave the nation a basic telecommunications infrastructure that was world-class. At the same time, the telecommunications, electronics and information industries became the driving force of South Korea's economy, although the country maintained a heavy emphasis on manufacturing and export. Even such industries as steel, shipbuilding and automobiles depended, as in all industrialized nations, on the effective use of new computer and information technologies in order to remain competitive in world markets.

In the immediate future South Korea will join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an elite group of the world's most highly industrialized economies. Yet despite all these unmistakable strides, a series of nagging questions continue to be posed, by Korean as well as international analysts, about how quickly the nation will be able to make the leap to full-fledged participation in a global, information-based economy. The following sections address some of those questions and look to Korea's future and the hurdles it must surmount to be a leader in the global information era.

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Confronting Communications Convergence One of the most pervasive and widely discussed communications phenomena of this decade is that of convergence. On a technological level, it can be viewed or thought of in terms of the digital revolution in which telecommunications and computing have rapidly merged. The World Wide Web has emerged in recent years as a powerful symbol of this development, catching the imagination of many. The evolution of electronic switching systems, digital compression, fiber optics and satellite technologies are some of the important technologies contributing to convergence.

Conceptually, the convergence phenomenon can be thought of in terms of three basic elements. First, there are the communication networks themselves, which are converging in the sense of being increasingly interconnected with other networks. Second, there are the computers connecting those highways, including electronic switching systems, that shape and control the traffic flow.

Finally and not least, there is the information or "intelligence," including layers of software that flows through networks for the purposes of individual and organizational users.

The technological or communications convergence also leads to industry convergence, as noted by Pelton.269 He refers to convergence among the "five Cs industries," as follows: • Content, • Communications carriers and suppliers, • Computer hardware and software providers, • Consumer electronics, and • Cable television.

As industries converge, along with technologies, they pose a daunting challenge for telecommunications policy—the legislative and regulatory aspects of the information era that must be dealt with by governments. It would appear that convergence in the communications field requires a corresponding convergence in policy thinking, if not the organizations and processes of policy making.

The government of President Kim Young-sam publicly recognized the pressures created by convergence early in his administration. In early 1993 his Minister of Communications argued publicly for creation of a smaller and more efficient government, with greater reliance on the private sector and increased emphasis on information and communications industries. Those industries are energy saving, high value-added and environmentally friendly, making them ideal for a country with few natural resources. Furthermore, their strong indirect impact on technology development and production in all the other industrial 155

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sectors meant that superiority in those industries would be needed in order to modernize the overall industrial structure.

In terms of telecommunications policy, the Minister of Communications acknowledged that the existing administrative structure and industrial policies were facing difficulty in coping with the transition necessitated by technological convergence in communications. More specifically, government responsibility for information services on the one hand, and telecommunications and information equipment on the other, continued to fall under different ministries, causing discord in the policy-making process.

In December of 1994, President Kim announced a sweeping government reorganization plan, aimed at making South Korea's central government smaller, more effective and more competitive in global markets. Part of the plan involved a transfer of responsibility for all software and information service industries from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to a newly enlarged Ministry of Information and Communications. This move added an important increment to the relative power of the Ministry of Information and Communications within the central government, probably a harbinger of its influence in future policy debates. It also fulfilled the Ministry of Communciations goal for a more integrated, "systems industry" approach to the telecommunications sector. However, it did not completely erase the policy making tensions created by convergence. The Ministry of Information retained responsibilities for licensing and content of broadcasting and cable television.

Thus, Korea continued to maintain a "content-conduit" distinction in its approach to regulation of the communications sector in the face of accelerating convergence.

Building the Korea Information Infrastructure (KII) In recent years, a great deal of discussion within telecommunications industry and related government circles has focused on the questions of National Information Infrastructure (Nil) and global information infrastructure (Gil).

These terms are roughly synonymous with the "information highway or superhighway" at national and international levels. South Korea is actively engaged in both. Its national effort is called the Korea Information Infrastructure (KII) project. As of the mid 1990s, South Korea's approach to building the information highway resembled its initiatives of the prior decade in at least two respects. There was strong government leadership along with a relatively stronger emphasis on hardware infrastructure than on software and content.

In May of 1993, the Korean government announced the KII plan, with a goal of building an ultra-high speed information network by the year 2015, at a projected cost of U.S. $55 billion.270 The plan represented a recognition by the 156

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government that advanced information networks were the only way to strengthen national competitiveness and to expand research and development capacity in the information era. As part and parcel of the plan, the government identified the multimedia industry as a large opportunity for growth.

The proposed KII consists of two networks. One, New Korea NetGovernment, is to connect public institutes, universities, colleges and major industrial groups. It is funded by the government with some funding to come from proceeds of planned privatization of state-run companies. Full implementation of the government network is intended by the year 2010.

The second network within KII, the New Korea Net-Public, will be used by public institutes, private firms and public users. Communications carriers are taking the lead in establishing this network, to be completed by the year 2015. It is by far the largest component of the entire KII project, accounting for 94 percent of the total projected budget.

The construction of KII was organized on a regional basis and in three major phases, each devoted to specific goals and network capabilities. The entire project is managed by a committee chaired by the Prime Minister. Such leadership is similar to the situation in the United States where Vice President Al Gore has spearheaded information highway-related efforts. The other membership of the committee includes the Minister of the Board of Finance and Economy, 17 ministers of the cabinet, the Secretary of the National Security Planning Agency, the Chief Economic Secretary to the President, and 25 representatives from industry, academic and research centers. On an implementation level, the major communications carriers, ETRI, the National Computerization Agency (NCA), private industry groups and a funding institute are all involved.

The KII plan has a number of strengths, including that of strong government leadership and financial commitment. In countries such as the United States, many industry leaders feel that the lack of coherent governmental or private sector leadership is one of the main barriers to building the information highway. South Korea's tradition of cooperative efforts involving government, research institutes, the education sector and private corporations is also a plus, as is the nation's small geographical size, which may shorten the time required to expand necessary physical networks.

Against these strengths, Korea also possesses two major liabilities.27' One of them is the imbalance of emphasis between physical aspects of the KII project and the software and content related components. The total portion of the budget to be devoted to development of applications and technologies through the year 2015 was only U.S. $2.3 billion, or about 4 percent of the overall budget. This figure contrasts with estimates of the cost of building a national information infrastructure in the United States, where Bellcore projected a $400 157

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billion investment in hardware and other analysts indicated that twice that amount would be spent on software. A recent survey of corporate CEOs in the U.S. showed widespread agreement that the true economic return and key valueadded in the Nil would be in applications and software."2 A second weakness of the original KII proposal was that it overemphasized fiber optics and did not adequately integrate other core technologies of modern telecommunications. These other core technologies include an array of both wire and wireless, terrestrial and space-based to get on and off the information highway. They also encompass the use of computers of all sizes as data servers and a diverse set of devices through which people can connect to the highway, including conventional PCs, personal digital assistants, set-top boxes and television sets.

The Spread of Computers Informatization of the public sector in South Korea began in 1987 under the National Basic Information System (NBIS) Plan, to be completed in 1996. By the end of 1994, nearly 4,000 host computers and over 400,000 PCs and other terminals had been distributed to various government agencies under the plan.

The majority of the computers and the NBIS budget went toward the banking network, securities network, insurance network, national administrative information system, and national defense information system, in that order.2" The spread of computers and computer networks in South Korean industry began to take off in the early 1980s. In the initial stages, most companies computerized such areas as personnel and payroll. That quickly expanded to include the areas of purchasing, resources, production, export-import, domestic sales, costing and finance. As management information systems (MIS) became fashionable, companies began to link PCs with local area networks or LANs. More recently, companies have begun to place more emphasis on office automation, customized production control, logistics information systems and computer assisted design and engineering (CAD/CAE). By 1994, more than 84 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises in South Korea had acquired computer equipment. However, the installation of information networks in the nation's industry is still in its infant stage.

The Ministry of Education has also been promoting the use of computers and computer-related education. From 1989-1984 it placed more nearly 230,000 computers in over 10,000 schools nationwide at elementary, middle and high school levels. At the university level, as of 1994, there were 195 computerrelated departments at 1 3 1 universities around the country.2'4

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Cable and Satellite Television Despite the growing popularity of satellite dishes, as already noted, both cable and satellite television services were only formally introduced in Korea in 1995. In the case of direct-broadcast satellite service, 1995 marked the launch of Koreasat, rather than actual initiation of service.

The government's regulatory approach to cable television divided the industry into three basic types of industry: the companies that construct the cable networks, operators (which operate like television stations) and program producers and providers. Industry conglomerates and the media, including newspaper and broadcasting companies, were prohibited from operating cable television stations, leaving this part of the industry to consortia of small and medium-sized companies. The large industry groups concentrated primarily on program distribution, with several of them forming joint ventures in North America and Europe.

The government plan envisioned an eventual system of 116 cable stations across the country, each operating within an exclusive zone containing a population of at least 100,000 households. The initial introduction of cable television was in the high density zones of Seoul and other large cities.

Cable service was launched on March 1, 1995, with 21 channels and just under 100,000 total subscribers. One year later, the total number of subscribers had increased to approximately 700,000. However, all of the cable channels suffered losses during their initial year of operation, due to a time lag in the building of cable network infrastructure, a consequent waiting list for cable subscriptions, and lack of public awareness of what cable had to offer. Notably, there were also viewer complaints about excessive repeat broadcasting during the first full year of cable service.27' This latter fact calls attention to a policy dilemma that Korea faces with the near simultaneous introduction of cable and satellite television channels. The new media channels will greatly increase the demand for television programming, perhaps placing unbearable strain on the capacity of the nation's own production companies. Yet at the same time, the Korean government maintains continued limits on the proportion of foreignproduced programming that may be shown on domestic television, enforcing those limits through the Ministry of Information.

Korea's Presence on the World Wide Web The explosive growth and commercialization of the World Wide Web in the mid 1990s is seen by many observers as a precursor of the global information highway. In the United States, the greatest proliferation of web home pages (the means to establish a personal or institutional presence on the global network) is 159

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concentrated around existing Internet connections, especially in such high-tech areas as California's Silicon Valley, or the "Telecom Valley" area along the Rocky Mountain front range stretching from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs.

Korea has not escaped the World Wide Web phenomenon, and a growing number of government organizations, industry groups and individuals maintain home pages. However, the nation clearly lags in comparison with countries in North America, where not only use of the Internet, but also development of the software industry generally is more internationally competitive.

An informal survey of Korea-related home pages in early 1995 showed that they consisted largely of Korean government organizations including the Blue House, major corporations, media and individuals. In early 1996, Presidential Press Secretary Park Jin reported a large increase in electronic mail being received by President Kim Young-sam through the Blue House home page on the World Wide Web. The letters came from around the world and dealt with such topics as politics, administrative affairs, foreign policy, education, science and the environment.276 A number of Korean newspapers or magazines were on-line in hangul, and a few of the English publications such as the Korea Herald, The Korea Economic Weekly and The Korea Times had recently inaugurated web-based services. There were a number of home pages maintained by church groups or other non-profit organizations, including several that deal with Buddhism in Korea. The latter included a rather extensively developed link put up and maintained by monks at Hainsa, one of the major temples in South Korea. The Korean Studies program at Harvard University maintained a web site with quite a large number of useful Korea-related links, and a number of Korean Student Association groups at major U.S. universities had their own home pages.

Overall, Korea's growing presence on the World Wide Web showed several characteristics. For one thing, it was a very recent phenomenon, with many of the home pages appearing only in 1995 or later. It is also not surprising that the majority of home pages developed and maintained in Korea were far more completely constructed in hangul than in English, while the reverse was true for many of the pages developed by Korean-Americans. This new electronic information highway offers no easy substitute for basic language skills. Just as, de facto, the language of international business is English, it is also the prevailing language for textual communication on the World Wide Web. Korea's lag behind the U.S. and some other countries in Web site development is hardly surprising in view of the software and content intensive character of Web development. The creation and maintenance of a web site has spawned a whole new category of employment in which companies around the world are now advertising to hire "webmasters." Such a job requires familiarity with the hypertext markup language (HTML) or the newer Java programming 160

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language used to write material for publication on the Web. An even more fundamental hurdle for would-be Korean webmasters is the need for an ability to program materials and browse the Web using both hangul and English characters. Once a programming language is developed in North America or elsewhere in the world, there has characteristically been some lag before the easy availability of a hangul version of the software. For purposes of browsing the web in Korean, Chinese or Japanese languages, software is now readily available that will display those alphabets on a Web browser by mapping their characters into so-called true-type fonts, but it has only become widely available in recent months.

The government has been a major force encouraging use of the Internet and its World Wide Web in Korea, through efforts of the National Computerization Agency. An interesting aspect of this effort is the nation's participation in the 1996 Internet World Exposition, a sort of virtual world's fair in which an estimated 60 nations from around the world are creating a large cluster of home sites on the Web. The Korean Organizing Committee for its participation in Internet World Expo was chaired by Dr. Lee Yong-teh, chairman of Trigem Computer and the Korean Federation of Information Industries, while the National Computerization Agency took primary organizational responsibility for developing Korea's presence at the expo.277 The task consisted largely of convincing Korean government agencies and corporations to establish "pavilions" at the virtual expo through home pages on the web.

The choice of Dr. Lee to head Korea's Internet Expo organizing committee was a logical one. A man of decidedly entrepreneurial spirit, in 1980 he founded TriGem Computer, now the nation's leading PC company. In 1982 he was tapped by the government to become the founding president of DACOM Corporation, precisely because his entrepreneurial tendencies coincided with the government's desire to build DACOM in the mold of a successful private enterprise. During his term of office there, he helped to build South Korea's first nationwide data network.

Education for the 2V Century Education was a key factor in South Korea's past economic growth and will certainly play a central role in the emergence of a full-fledged Korean information society. The very definition of an information society has to do with the creation, dissemination and consumption of knowledge and information.

The information age poses challenges for the educational establishment in all countries of the world. One aspect of that challenge is created by the nature of communication and information technology itself. The new media are capable 161

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of extending the learning process over large distances—hence the term distance education. But the technology itself is also changing so rapidly that it creates a need to extend the learning process over the working lifetime of individuals rather than simply concentrating it, as in the past, on several years of undergraduate or graduate education.

Although South Korea has undeniably led the world in its devotion to all forms of education, the transitional challenge, as argued above, is to make yet another leap toward more global and mediated structures in education and toward a more global mindset. Past educational achievements came under the rubric of self-reliance, much in the same vein as the nation's industrial and technological strides. Future educational efforts will have much more to do with exchange and transfer of ideas, methods and technologies.

Korea's universities, as with those around the world, face a crucial test in how well they are able to absorb and utilize the tools of the new information highway. Institutions such as the British Open University or, in the U.S. the Mind Extension University (MEU), represent responses to this situation. For example, MEU uses a wide variety of available media, including cable television, videotape and the World Wide Web, to offer university degrees from leading institutions around the country. Liberalization of the education market in South Korea, along with the expanding efforts of networks and institutions in other parts of the world, suggests some emergent directions.

The National Technological University (NTU) in Fort Collins, Colorado holds the distinction of being the world's largest degree-granting institution. It distributes engineering and technically oriented-management courses from nearly fifty top U.S. universities via satellite to students around the country. In 1995 it began a new Pacific Rim service, offering the same coursework via satellite and videotape to Asian nations. Motorola was the first company in South Korea to subscribe to the NTU service and the university intends to broaden its student base throughout the country.

In similar fashion, also in 1995, Jones International established the International University College, an effort that will seek to expand the successful model of Mind Extension University to a global level. Both of the Jones efforts are innovative, degree granting institutions that operate in the private rather than the public sector, as was the tradition for much of U.S. higher education. Moreover, Korea constitutes a very attractive East Asian market for the Jones organization, given its high level of investment in education and history of educational ties with the U.S. As with higher education in general, such new entrants into the Korean education market are the epitome of content-based services. The President of the National Technological University unabashedly admits that its success is founded on the strength of the many top faculty from schools such as U.C. 162

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Berkeley, the University of Michigan, Stanford and a host of others, who teach the courses that are distributed.

The Institute for Advanced Engineering (IAE), established by the Daewoo Group in 1992, may offer a promising model for multimedia and distance learning in Korea, similar to that provided by the National Technological University. The IAE is a private institute affiliated with Ajou University in Suwon. It has established a Systems Engineering Department that offers masters level degree programs. Once accepted into the program, students become fulltime employees of Daewoo and receive complete financial support for their graduate education. The IAE was actively seeking international partners and its areas of curriculum and research emphasis included both information management and electronic signal processing relating to the information superhighway.

Presently the Educational Broadcasting System airs a variety of educational programs, including university courses, but does not grant degrees. Given the patterns of emphasis on the college entrance examination and student interest in the status of the university noted above, there may be some built-in cultural resistance to electronic and media based education, at least among certain parts of the population.

Another imperative for Korea in the information age will be to more thoroughly internationalize or globalize its education system. The historical flow of students to the United States for higher education has, until now, been a largely one-way educational exchange. In quantitative terms, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that since the Korean war, the U.S. has sent Korea its soldiers and Korea has sent the U.S. its students. In recent years, there are some encouraging signs of change with establishment of programs such as the Division of International Education and the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University, along with similar efforts at other universities.

However, the flow of students and faculty into Korea is still dwarfed by the outward flow. From a slightly different perspective, this pattern helps to explain why South Korea does not possess a single university with the sort of diverse, international faculty possessed by a number of universities in Singapore and Hong Kong, which for years have actively recruited expatriate faculty members.

The intent here is not to suggest any direct comparison with those nations, but rather that such institutions may become a valuable resource in the coming information age. Indeed, in 1995 the Korean government announced plans to form a new international university which would recruit and employ large numbers of expatriate and Korean faculty and staff.

Another important aspect of globalization of education is the state of Korean studies in North America and around the world. Until recently, the field has been characterized by relatively slow growth and predominant attention to 163

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the study of Korean history, culture and language. While the growth of executive training programs for Korean industry is a promising sign, the field of Korean studies needs an expansion and redefinition to incorporate many of the applied social sciences and the daunting multi-disciplinary territory implied by contemporary discussions of the "information superhighway" and global information infrastructure.

Research and Development South Korea's overall industrial policy has been directed at high value added industries since the early 1980s. Arguably, the telecommunications and information industries have been at the center of this shift in emphasis, given their pervasive role in the new information age. The nation's successful development of key technologies for these industries was that of licensing and transferring technology from abroad in order to develop an indigenous manufacturing capability.

Korea's technology successes came in the face of worldwide acceleration of technological change, stiffer price competition and increased costs for importing technology. Beginning in the late 1980s, the number of technologies licensed from U.S. firms steadily decreased each year, while the total dollar amount paid for them continued to climb. By 1994, South Korea made annual royalty payments for foreign technological expertise of nearly 1.3 billion dollars. About half that total was paid to U.S. firms and over 30 percent to Japanese companies.

More significantly, in terms of the present focus, 63 percent of all the royalty payments were for electric and electronics products."8 As already discussed, the growth of research and development activities in Korea during the 1980s was on the shoulders of the private sector. To put this in perspective, in the 1970s, approximately 80 percent of R&D expenditure originated from the government and public sector, compared with 20 percent in the private sector. As of the mid 1995 those proportions were reversed, with 83 percent of R&D activities taking place in private organizations.

The reversal of public versus private sector research and development expenditure is significant, in and of itself. However, it is important also to note the heavy focus on semiconductor and other communications technologies, along with biotechnology. These are viewed as among the highest value-added industry sectors of the future.

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"Segeywha" and A New Government-Market Relationship The relationship between governments and the telecommunications sector of national economies has changed greatly over the past quarter century. The court-ordered breakup of the Bell system in the United States in the early 1970s is one way to identify the start of the process, but it has been driven all along by changes in the technologies and economics of the information industries.

Governments around the world have engaged in both deregulation of the telecommunications sector and privatization of the telecommunications service providers that, for the most part, had been government-controlled monopolies.

These global changes in the government-market relationship had an early impact on policy-level thinking in Korea, no doubt because of its close relationship with the United States and the number of U.S.-trained individuals who held senior policy-making positions. Beginning in 1981, South Korea made significant moves toward both privatization and deregulation of its telecommunications sector. On a domestic level, at least, these moves helped provide the impetus to build a nationwide network for basic telecommunications services.

In the 1980s, pressures to further deregulate, privatize and open the Korean telecommunications market continued unabated. They came primarily through the bilateral trade talks with the U.S., and to a lesser extent from the multilateral Uruguay Round of GATT talks. In the 1990s, with the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round and formation of the World Trade Organization, the information and communication industries have again emerged at the center of discussions about proper procedures for international trade.

In line with these international trends, the government of President Kim Young-sam established an early policy priority to reduce the centralized management of Korea's economy by bureaucrats and politicians, giving greater play to market forces to increase the nation's industrial competitiveness. One of the most important reforms was undertaken in 1993 when, in a nationally televised address, President Kim announced the mandatory use of real names in all financial transactions.

Prior to President Kim's decree, the use of aliases in financial dealings had been widespread in South Korea. Individuals could open bank accounts by using the names of immediate family members, distant relatives, friends or associates.

This served useful purposes under the military governments from the 1960s through the 1980s. However, it posed an obstacle to full integration of Korea's financial sector into the global marketplace. Thanks to this change, in 1996 the nation's financial sector passed the scrutiny of representatives of OECD, helping to pave the way for entry into that organization.

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One of the hallmarks of President Kim Young-sam's government is certainly its emphasis on segeywha or globalization. His administration has consistently urged the nation's government and industry leaders, and its citizens to pursue globalization.

As already discussed, Korean companies began a significant move toward more overseas production in the 1980s. That movement increased dramatically during the mid-1990s. Although still far smaller than investments by Japan, the outflow of foreign investment doubled in 1994 and, according to the ExportImport Bank of Korea was estimated at an annual level of about $4 billion in 1995.2" The Korean investments overseas covered a range of industries, including footwear, textile and automobile manufacturing. However, the electronics and communications industries were an extremely important part of the trend.

Hyundai, Samsung and LG all purchased stakes in American companies to bolster their computer and consumer-electronics arms. Hyundai Electronics, for example, now owns Maxtor Corporation, a manufacturer of hard disk drives, as well as controlling interest in NCR's semiconductor manufacturing plant in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

As when the overseas investment trend gathered speed in the 1980s, the current industry investments are partly intended to deal with rising labor costs, high land prices, steep interest rates in Korea, and competition from Asian neighbors. However, the chaebol groups are also focusing on "globalization" and the need to succeed against Japanese and Western rivals in selling more sophisticated goods in Europe, North America and other parts of the world.

Achievement of that goal will require more thoroughly internationalized managerial and marketing practices. To date, there is considerable anecdotal evidence of frictions between Korean managers in such locations as China, Indonesia and the U.S., and their local management staff. A better understanding of international business cultures and practices is an overarching goal of the international training efforts undertaken by many of Korea's large industry groups. They are being expanded under strong and direct encouragement from the Kim Young-sam government.

For example, in 1995 Korea Mobile Telecom sent 66 of its executives to universities in the United States for training modules of four months or longer in a pilot phase of what it called the Korea Mobile Telecom Global Training Program. Lest there be any doubt about the broad intent of that program, the "global" does translate into "segeywha" The curriculum for that program focused heavily on global markets, strategic marketing and marketing management issues, with lesser emphasis on the engineering and the technical side of telecommunications. In inaugurating the program, KMT's president announced that its goal was to "link people together" and to help KMT 166

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management to act and think globally in service of the company's ambitious goals for expansion. At their most ambitious, such programs are aiming at changing the mindset and some of the operating assumptions of Korean managers.

Whether such massive investments in training will succeed and pay dividends for Korean corporations is an important question for which only time will provide part of the answer. However, it should be noted that very few U.S. corporations invest even a fraction of the resources to training that are presently being allocated by large numbers of Korea's companies.

Since 1980, leading Korean corporations have become global in the scope of their manufacturing and research operations, but largely through their own investment and a "localization" approach that is a mirror image of how many foreign companies approach the Korean market. Few Korean companies have hired foreign employees on a regular basis. Samsung became one of the first to do so, hiring six foreigners as permanent employees in 1994. The short term business solution for a Korean company can be to hire American or British staff, while U.S. companies have tended to rely almost exclusively on Korean staff in' that market. However, a closer and longer-term look at the situation suggests that localization is no panacea for those information industries that would be successful in the next century.

The rapid convergence of communications technologies and industries that characterize this information age underscore the need for a more truly global perspective on the part of information workers and more completely multmational organizations. As one concrete example, a multicultural team of workers is likely far better equipped to create and market bilingual information services over the Internet and its World Wide Web than a team composed exclusively of either Koreans or Westerners.

The whole arena of technology transfer and development also highlights the imperative for businesses to develop and encourage multicultural and multmational staffing arrangements. Speculation abounds as to the role of individual creativity, a trait of Western business cultures, in the creation and successful marketing of information products. However, the cooperative and more hierarchical patterns of the East Asian economies have also demonstrated their strengths. The pace of technology change and the costs of its development have led to the present emphasis on cooperative arrangements and the transfer of technology. This central emphasis on exchange or transfer poses a great challenge not only for Korean companies, but for those from around the world who would do business with them as well.

The transition to a full-fledged information society and economy poses an immense challenge for a nation like Korea because it entails the transition from simple to complex dimensions in society, politics and economics. With 167

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increasing frequency, younger Korean analysts of the situation are noting that the economic development policies of the 60s and 70s are unsuited for the information age.280 Although those models worked astoundingly well, they lack an adequate conceptual basis for dealing with the high-technology, information industries.

The overwhelming emphasis on manufacturing industries and the manufacture of products for export has carried over into the present-day Korean economy. Such an emphasis runs counter to the software and content-driven character of the information revolution. On a worldwide level, as well as for every information-based economy, industry analysts unanimously project that the largest portion of future growth will be in software and content areas.

Another way of understanding this is to see that a complete information infrastructure, call it the multimedia information highway toward which Korea strives, consists of a multitude of hardware and software layers and elements.

Today, technological change tends to inexorably relegate hardware sectors into lower value-added areas compared with the software systems and content that more critically determine the value of a service to end-users.

Even within the software industry itself, the present battle for market control between Netscape Communications Corporation and Microsoft Corporation shows the layered characteristics of the market and the possibility of major shifts as technologies for the information superhighway era emerge.

Microsoft has long dominated the personal computer operating system layer of the market and to a lesser extent the market for applications software, such as word-processing, spreadsheet or graphics programs. Within both of these layers, its major competitor has been Apple Computer.

With the recent explosive growth of the World Wide Web, an intermediate market layer formed forbrowsers.As of early 1996, Netscape had about 85 percent of the market for these browsers, that allow users to find and manipulate data on the Internet. The broad, underlying issue with this emergence of the Web is whether future computer users will opt for network-centric computing, in which their computer desktop is essentially a browser, while nearly all of the information, including applications software programs will exist on the network, or "out in cyberspace." As the Internet becomes easier to access, preference for network computing is intuitively obvious to computer users who have experienced the increasing size of software programs that they load onto their PCs, usually measured in terms number of diskettes that come with the program and length of time it takes to install it on the hard drive.

With this sort of technology development, the dilemma for South Korea is clear. Simple continuation of past development policies with their emphasis on hardware production and export, will not allow the nation to move into the

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higher value-added, higher technology areas which are, by definition, software focused.™ A 1995 report on the state of informatization in South Korea concluded that the level of domestic software technologies was 5 to 10 years behind those of the most advanced countries.282 With less than a one percent share of the world market for software products, Korea lagged far behind the United States, with nearly half of the world market, Europe and Japan. Establishment of the expanded Ministry of Information and Communication in December of 1994 was intended in part to provide national level support for development of the software industry.

The central importance of software as intellectual property and a key driver in many communications industries only began to receive widespread recognition in Korea during the 1980s. To date, one of the greatest barriers to growth of domestic applications software firms has been the lack of a Korean language processing system. To remedy this deficiency, the government has targeted language engineering technology and the development of Korean Language Information Processing Technology through the year 2003. An ultimate goal of this project is to encourage the utilization, distribution and globalization of Korean language computers that incorporate a standard Korean language-human interface.

Two interesting goals during the first stage of Korean language information processing project (1994-1996) are the development of a base and basic training tool for foreigners, and the integration and computerization of South and North Korean dictionaries.283 In a telling reaction to the probably impact of liberalization of South Korea's market for value-added services, analysts in Seoul noted in the late 1980s that "language and culture" would help to ensure that foreign companies could not easily dominate the market over their Korean competitors. However, in the age of the World Wide Web and Internet information highway, a similar argument pertains to South Korea's prospects, but with different implications.

The effective marketing of advanced services, utilizing home pages on the Web and other similar means, requires maximum effectiveness in international languages, primarily English. In this arena, despite recent explosive growth in the availability of English instruction in South Korea, there is still a lag vis-a-vis competitors from North America, Europe or even Singapore, Hong Kong and India. Moreover, it may not be a simple problem of early English proficiency, but instead a deeper problem of mindset that pervades business cultures and ways of thinking about how 'to approach business problems.

South Korea's overall emphasis on manufacturing versus content can also be seen in the semiconductor industry. By 1994 semiconductors had become the nation's single largest export item and it ranked third in the world, behind the 169

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U.S. and Japan, in semiconductor production. However, as of 1995, memory chips accounted for fully 91 percent of all semiconductors produced in Korea, leading to concern on the part of the government, and the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association.284 With the continued worldwide evolution of consumer electronics, the semiconductor market is rapidly being reorganized into one centered on nonmemory chips, which Korea presently has to import. While such non-memory chips must still be manufactured, they are higher value added products that require more highly skilled and specialized labor. In other words, their manufacture has a higher input of information content.

To increase the ratio of non-memory to memory chips produced, the Korean government is increasing its R&D investments in the non-memory chip sector. Individual companies, such as LG and Hyundai are attacking the problem through joint ventures with U.S. companies. In both cases, the attempt is to develop a capacity for higher value-added content or information as an input into the manufacture of semiconductors.

Completing the Korean Transformation A glance backward reveals that Korea has undergone two major transformations, at least in economic terms. It began the century as a basically agrarian society, then became by the 1970s one of East Asia's prominent examples of a newly industrialized economy. Beginning in the 1980s its has undergone yet another transformation, one moving toward an information and communications based economy.

These economic transformations of Korea, with all their social implications, took place in a largely turbulent and tragic political context. For most of the first half of the century, the Korean people endured the indignities and repressions of the Japanese colonial period, which is not to deny the industrial and organizational infrastructure created during that period.

The Korean-American relationship as presented by Swartout earlier, had important origins in the nineteenth century. However, the United States became heavily involved in Korea's affairs near the middle of the present century when it, along with the Soviet Union, played the key role in partitioning Korea following Japan's World War II surrender in August 1945. From that point forward, because of its military, strategic, cultural and later trade relationship with Korea, the United States would be an important influence on Korea's future role within the Asia-Pacific Community and globally. In the second segment of this book, Gurtov suggested what that role might be from the perspective of foreign and international policy.

170

Information Age

James Larson

This concluding part of the book introduced a different, communicationcentered perspective on Korea and focused heavily on the period from 1980 to the present. More specifically, it looked at the opening phase of South Korea's transformation into an information society and economy.

The Major Accomplishments The specific accomplishments by Korea during the latter half of this century are a matter of record as well as a thematic emphasis of this book. They include the following: • Sustained economic development, beginning in the 1960s, initiated with heavy industry and then moving into successively higher value-added areas of light industry. The economic development was driven by a policy that included strong government initiation and intervention, sectoral targeting, import substitution to expand exports, a strong production orientation, and increased capital investment.

• The achievement of a decade-long increase in teledensity during the 1980s that was virtually unprecedented around the world. The country moved from relatively primitive telephone service to having a modern, comprehensive, nationwide network for all basic services.

• A successful transition in the 1980s to an economy built around electronics, telecommunications and information industries, still with an emphasis on manufacturing, production and export. The transition entailed major technology transfer projects, including the TDX electronic switching effort and the 4 Megabit DRAM memory chip. By 1995, electric and electronics products accounted for over one-third of South Korea's exports, more than double the proportion for textiles, the next leading export category.

• The extension of its industrial base overseas through large-scale offshore investment in factories and other facilities.

• An extremely high and sustained level of national investment in education that extended beyond the formal education sector to encompass a broadlybased campaign to promote information culture and training for the information society.

• A transition from years of autocratic military governments that lacked broad popular support, to the nation's first civilian government in more than three decades.

171

Part Four

An Eye to the Future

It is difficult to predict the future of a country like Korea. The tragedy of continuing national division makes it the world's most prominent vestige of the Co d War that so profoundly shaped the development of the entire Northeast Asian region. However, it is likely that the past holds the key to the future, and that realization can serve as a guide to suggest some likely future prospects.

J With respect to the overarching political question of national reunification it must be assumed that economic, if not military, developments will inexorably force the issue. In purely economic terms, the North Korean economy was shrinking rather than growing in the early 1990s. Although the Cold War had ended around the world, the military confrontation across the demilitarized zone in Korea continued as a painful reminder of the past. South Korea's new and expanding; relationship with both China and Russia has created a situation which, while it does not rule out the possibility of war in Korea, drastically

EST*%£££* either Russia or China would become involved « In short, the question of national reunification hovers near any effort to project the future role of Korea in the region and the world and it certainly bears f Powerful relationship to questions about the future of U.S.-Korea relations As hat unification occurs, Korea as we have know it for the past half century will suddenly become a much different place. But, national unification may come at a very high price should North Korea collapse or convulse in civil war The workmg assumption here, is that the information revolution with its dramatic reshaping.of he South Korean economy as well as that of its neighbors wu increase the hkehhood of peaceful reunification of Korea. The same forces, * s assumed, will tend to shift the locus of U.S.-Korea relations away from the military and strategic dimension, and toward trade, joint technology development and information exchange.

SY Korea's future role in Northeast Asia will depend, rather decisively on relaions with ,ts two immediate neighbors, China and Japan. Both of those relationships have significantly shaped Korea's development for the pas century and are equally likely to influence its shape as an information economy and society during the next. »»"*»y Since the Seoul Olympics and subsequent opening of ties with her Asian neighbors South Korea's bilateral trade «JI^ ^^Z£^> nfToi "erAeC°n0miC Presence is al™dy felt throughout almost every corner llT t * 3 C°Un?y Wh0SC gr0Wth is lar^y dependent upon international trade, this mfluence will only increase in the years ahead. In a broad political

An Eye to the Future

economic and cultural policy, Korea continues to encourage investment, joint ventures and other involvement in her region and globally.

However, Korea's influence will not be limited to economics. Already, we have seen how Korea has gained growing clout in certain political and social arenas. The hosting of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the co-hosting of the upcoming World Cup in soccer, are important examples of this trend.

In some respects, Korea's political changes have been more startling than its economic "miracle." The degree to which democratic practices have been implemented, at the local as well as the national level, and the establishment of relations with China, Russia and Vietnam could hardly have been imagined thirty years ago. In those days, few would have expected that in the mid-1990s you could walk through the Eastgate market hearing Russian spoken or seeing signs in that language. However, democratization may falter unless some inroads are made in the power of money (and, therefore, chaebol power) in politics.

Another issue that is bound to grow in importance as the years unfold is the effort to protect Korea's fragile environment. As Norman Eder has graphically shown in his recent book, Poisoned Prosperity: Development, Modernization, and the Environment in Korea, Korea has paid a high price environmentally for a good part of its industrial growth over the past three decades. It may be that environmental degradation is too advanced for citizen groups and dedicated bureaucrats to bring under control. Yet, these problems are not limited to developments within the peninsula. Korea is likely to be seriously affected by pollution and environmental problems originating elsewhere, particularly in China.

Another important issue is what we might call public confidence. To some outsiders, it would appear ironic that at the same time many Koreans are enjoying the greatest degree of political freedom and economic abundance in the history of the country, there is also a high degree of public cynicism especially among the younger generation - toward various political, economic and even social institutions. This cynicism is perhaps a natural byproduct, at least to some degree, of the authoritarian style of rule that often governed the country through most of the twentieth century. In addition, the spectacular economic growth that has occurred has been distributed unevenly throughout Korean society. The gap that exists between the well-to-do and the working class, coupled with the problem of rising expectations, has produced a rather volatile social environment.

There are, of course, grounds for concern about the stability off this social environment. Human rights are still subject to governmental whim and ideology (the old "communist threat"), as the police handling of the August 1996 student

176

An Eye to the Future

demonstrations on the Yonsei University campus again showed. Moreover, the trial of ex-presidents was hardly a triumph of legal processes.

If Korea is to take full advantage of its economic expansion and its growing status on the international stage, then it will have to find effective means for combating the negative consequences of public cynicism. The post Cold War world is likely to offer Korea opportunities that may be unprecedented in the nation's history — but with these opportunities will also come challenges to test the resources and imagination of this proud and ancient land.

Globalization - Toward a New Mindset A final major hurtle for Korea is to change the mindset of its people. This is, perhaps, the most difficult aspect of globalization because in all societies underlying central attitudes and "ways of seeing the world" run very deep.

One difficulty is that a change in mindset is partly, but not exclusively, a generational problem for Korea, as for all nations. To illustrate this point, a poll of U.S. trained Ph.D.s at the Korea Information Society Development Institute would probably show a strong majority in favor of rapid movement away from government guidance and an immediate effort to embrace an open, competitive, information-based economy. However, the political culture of the nation and its tradition of top-down, government-guided policy processes mitigate against such a move. A sufficient number of those from older generations hold high level administrative and policy positions, along with views that tend to slow down any speedy progress.

Nevertheless, Korea's recent history suggests grounds for optimism that it will succeed in jumping this final hurdle to become a major player in the global economy and information networks of the next century. The country has taken on an active role in the new World Trade Organization, which will shape the ground-rules for trade in information and communications services into the next century. South Korea has also successfully instituted reforms of its financial sector and will become a member of the OECD shortly after this book is published.

Another reason for optimism is the continually increasing size and scope of private-sector activity in relation to government. The overall size of South Korea's industrial machine continues to increase. It is now anchored around electronics and poised to take on the challenge of providing advanced services and content. Perhaps most importantly, the major industry groups have all moved overseas in a major way, offering increased opportunity for their executive and managerial staff to live and work in other cultures around the

177

An Eye to the Future

world. In the final analysis, that may be the only and the surest way to bring about a change in mindset.

South Korea's success in late industrialization involved a significant amount of learning, whether at the shop-floor level of factories as in Amsden's analysis, ™ or in the telecommunications-related technology transfer projects of the 1980s. In the epilogue to her study of Korean industrialization, Amsden noted both the successful political transformation in South Korea and its beginning of the transition from learner and borrower of foreign technology to creator of new products and processes. The nation has a continued strong commitment to education, along with the sustained increase in research and development efforts that spans both public and private sectors. These efforts all point increasingly toward high technology areas which, almost by definition, are information and content intensive. All these factors belie the facile characterization of East Asian cultures as imitative rather than creative and suggest that at the turn of the 21st century, Korea's next transformation may be at hand.

Ultimately - Optimism We can be optimistic about Korea, perhaps moreso than many Koreans are about their country. Several developments, as have been discussed, form the basis of that optimism. These developments mark a country apart from the Third World norm, with reasonably stable politics and a strong record of economic accomplishment.

The human side of the Korea story may be what is the most impressive and gives the greatest cause for optimism. South Korea is looked upon worldwide as a model of a small country that has made good. Such admiration tends, however, to be based on economic statistics rather than on the quality and courage of ordinary South Koreans. Their story is what makes for an optimistic future. They have weathered a terrible war, a long period of jackboot authoritarianism, great poverty, a history of being manipulated and trod upon by neighboring countries, and have been a pawn in the international games of world powers. Not all traces of these heritages are gone, of course, but the ability of the Korean people to surmount their ordeals when other peoples have succumbed to them is remarkable.

Koreans are prone to portraying themselves as victims of a tragic history; they might take more pride in what they have accomplished and what the future holds.

178

Selected Bibliography

Notes and References

179

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

Selected Biblography Amsden, Alice H. Asia 's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.)

Appleman, Roy E., South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1 96 1 ).

Baldwin, Frank, ed., Without Parallel: The Korean-American Relationship Since 1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973).

Bergsten C. Fred and Marcus Noland, eds., Pacific Dynamism and the International Economic System (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1993).

Boettcher, Robert, with Gordon L. Freedman, Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Par, and the Korean Scandal (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1980).

Bohm, Fred C. and Robert R. Swartout, Jr., eds., Naval Surgeon in Yi Korea: The Journal ofGeorge W. Woods (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1984) Chul, Koh Byung, The Foreign Policy Systems ofNorth and South Korea (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984).

Clark, Donald N., ed., Korea Briefing, 1993 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).

Clark, Donald N., ed., The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), Clifford, Mark, Troubled Tiger: Businessmen, Bureaucrats and Generals in South Korea (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994).

Cohen, Warren I., America '$ Response to China: A History ofSino-American Relations, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

Cook, Harold F., Pioneer American Businessman in Korea: The Life and Times of Walter Davis Townsend (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1 98 1 ).

Cumings, Bruce, The Origins ofthe Korea War. Vol. 2: The Roaring ofthe Cataract, 1947-1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

Cumings, Bruce, The Origins ofthe Korean War, Vol. I: Liberation and the Emergence ofSeparate Regimes. 1945-1947 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).

Esthus, Raymond A, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1966).

Goncharov, Sergei N., John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).

Goulden, Joseph C, Korea: The Untold Story ofthe War (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982).

181

Selected Bibliography-Notes-ReferencesHarrington, Fred Harvey, God, Mammon, and the Japanese: Dr. Horace N. Allen and Korean-American Relations, 1884-1905 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1944).

Hart-Landsberg, Martin, The Rush to Development: Economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993).

Jian, Chen, China 's Road to the Korean War: The Making ofthe Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).

Kihl, Young-whan, ed., Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).

Kihl, Young-whan, Politics and Policies in Divided Korea: Regimes in Contest (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984).

Kim, Quee-young, The Fall ofSyngman Rhee Rhee (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1983).

Koo, Young-nok and Dae-sook Suh, eds., Korea and the United States: A Century of Cooperation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984).

Koo, Youngnok and Sung-joo Han, eds., The Foreign Policy ofthe Republic ofKorea (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).

Larson, James F. and Heung-soo Park. Global Television and the Politics ofthe Seoul Olympics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).

Larson, James F. The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Lee, Man-woo and Richard W. Mansbach, eds., The Changing Order in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula (Westview, Boulder, CO., 1993).

Lee, Manwoo, Ronald D. McLaurin, and Chung-in Moon, Alliance Under Tension: The Evolution ofSouth Korea-U.S. Relations (Seoul and Boulder, CO: Kyungnam University Press and Westview Press, 1988).

Matray, James Irving, The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 19411950 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985).

McCullough, David, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).

McCune, George M. and John A. Harrison, eds., Korean-American Relations: Documents Pertaining to the Far Eastern Diplomacy ofthe United States, Volume I, The Initial Period, 1883-1886 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951).

Morrison Elting E., ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951-54).

Nahm, Andrew C, ed., The United States and Korea: American-Korean Relations, 18661976 (Kalamazoo, MI: The Center for Korean Studies, Western Michigan University, 1979).

Paterson, Thomas G., ed., Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Volume II: Since 1914, 3rd ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1989).

Paterson, Thomas G., J. Garry Clifford, and Kenneth J. Hagen, American Foreign Policy: A History Since 1900, 3rd ed., Revised (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company).

Patterson, Wayne, The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896-1910 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988).

182

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

Scalapino, Robert A. and Han Sung-joo, eds., United States-Korean Relations (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1986).

Simon, Sheldon, ed., East Asian Security in the Post-Cold War Era (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1993).

Stueck, William, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Swartout Jr., Robert R., ed., An American Adviser in Late Yi Korea: The Letters ofOwen Nickerson Denny (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984).

Swartout Jr., Robert R., Mandarins, Gunboats, and Power Politics: Owen Nickerson Denny and the International Rivalries in Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980).

Toffler, Alvin. Powershift (New York: Bantam Books, 1991).

Trani, Eugene P., The Treaty ofPortsmouth: An Adventure in American Diplomacy (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1969).

Truman, Harry S., Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1956).

183

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

Notes & References 1 Quoted in Robert R Swartout, Jr., Mandarins, Gunboats, and Power Politics: Owen Nickerson Denny and the International Rivalries in Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980), 24.

2 United States, Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1867, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1868), 2:414-16.

3 The title "Taewon'gun," which may be translated as "Prince Regent," was given to Yi Ha-ung, the father of King Kojong, when his young son was selected to sit on the throne following the death of King Ch'oljong in 1864. For the next nine years, the Taewon'gun would be the driving force in Korean politics.

4 Fish to Low, April 20, 1870, No. 9, United States, Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1870 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1871), 334.

5 Drew to local Korean official, June 5, 1871, enclosure 2 in Low to Fish, June 20, 1871, No. 74, United States, Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1871 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1 87 1 ), 1 3 1 ; hereafter cited as FRUS, 1871.

6 Chong to Low, June 6, 1871, enclosure 4 in Low to Fish, June 20, 1871, No. 74, FRUS, 1871, 132 7 Li to Low, June 12, 1871, enclosure 12 in Low to Fish, June 20, 1871, No. 74, FRUS, 1871, 136.

8 George H. Jones, "The Taiwon Kun," The Korean Repository 5 (July 1898):247; Yi Hong-jik, ed., Kuksa taesajon [Encyclopedia of Korean History] (Seoul: Paekmansa, 1975), 1628.

9 Henry Chung, comp., Korean Treaties (New York: H. S. Nichols, 1919); 205. For copies of the treaty in Chinese and Japanese, see KuHanmal choyak hwich'an [Treaties of the late Choson dynasty] (Seoul: Kukhoe tosogwan, 1965), 18:12-16.

10 KuHanmal choyak hwich'an, 26:295.

The Chinese characters used for the Korean version of the Shufedlt treaty translated "Good Offices" as p'ilsu sangjo ("shall surely render mutual aid"). As the late Hahm Pyong-choon pointed out, this was a "much more emphatic" term, and "the Koreans took this as a firm commitment on the part of the United States to come to Korea's assistance if Korean sovereignty and independence were threatened."

Pyong-choon Hahm, "The Korean Perception of the United States," in Youngnok Koo and Dae-Sook Suh, eds., Korea and the United States: A Century of Cooperation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), 30.

185

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

1'^2 For an example of the close relationship between King Kojong and Foote, see the

observations of George W. Woods in Fred C. Bohm and Robert R. Swartout, Jr., eds., Naval Surgeon in Yi Korea: The Journal of George W. Woods (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1984), 55-57.

13 Foote to Frelinghuysen, October 19, 1883, No. 32, in George M. McCune and John A. Harrison, eds., Korean-American Relations: Documents Pertaining to the Far Eastern Diplomacy of the United States, Volume 1, The Initial Period, 1883-1886 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951), 54.

14 Foote to Frelinghuysen, September 17, 1884, No. 1 12, in McCune and Harrison, eds., Korean-American Relations, 37.

15 See especially Donald M. Bishop, "Policy and Personality in Early Korean-American Relations: The Case of George Clayton Foulk," in Andrew C. Nahm, ed., The United States and Korea: American-Korean Relations, 1866-1976 (Kalamazoo, MI: The Center for Korean Studies, Western Michigan University, 1979), 27-63. lb See Swartout, Mandarins, Gunboats, and Power Politics.

17 Denny to Eldridge, July 13, 1888, in Robert R. Swartout, Jr., ed., An American Adviser in Late Yi Korea: The Letters of Owen Nickerson Denny (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984), 71-72. lgIbid.

19 See Harold F. Cook, Pioneer American Businessman in Korea: The Life and Times of Walter Davis Townsend (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1981). z" For the premier study on Allen, see Fred Harvey Harrington, God, Mammon, and the Japanese: Dr. Horace N. Allen and Korean-American Relations, 1884-1905 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1944).

Spencer J. Palmer, "American Gold Mining in Korea's Unsan District," Pacific Historical Review 31 (Fall 1962):379-91.

22 Jongsuk Chay, Diplomacy of Asymmetry: Korean-American Relations to 1910 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), 1-4.

J In some of the more recent Korean studies done on the movement, it is referred to as the Tonghak Revolution.

24 Heard to Gresham, April 4, 1893, No. 1, United States, Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1895), 5; hereafter cited as FRUS, 1894.

25 Sill to Gresham, May 17, 1894, No. 9, FRUS. 1894, 17.

26 Olney to Sill, November 11, 1895, in United States, Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1895-96 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896), 973.

27 Olney to Sill, January 10, 1896, in ibid., 975-76.

186

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

2% Quoted in Raymond A. Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1966), 104.

2^ Roosevelt to Hay,. January 28, 1905, in Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951-54), 4:1112.

30 Eugene P. Trani, The Treaty of Portsmouth: An Adventure in American Diplomacy (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1969), 162. For the entire text of the Treaty of Portsmouth, see ibid., 161-70.

3 1 The most important study on this topic is Wayne Patterson, The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896-1910 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988).

32 For copies of Wilson's War Message of April 1917 and his Fourteen Points Speech, see Thomas G. Paterson, ed., Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Volume II: Since 1914, 3rd ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1989), 51-55, 74-76.

33 Quoted in Dae-yeol Ku, Korea under Colonialism: The March First Movement and Anglo-Japanese Relations (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1985), 177-78.

34 Letter from Mrs. W. L. Swallen in Pyongyang, quoted in Samuel H. Moffett, "The Independence Movement and the Missionaries." Transactions of the Korea Branch ofthe Royal Asiatic Society 54 (1979):22.

3-> Quoted in Moffett, "The Independence Movement and the Missionaries," 26.

36 Ibid., 27-28.

37 Ibid., 29.

3° For studies on America's evolving policy toward Korea in the 1940s, see Bruce Cumings, "American Policy and Korean Liberation," in Frank Baldwin, ed., Without Parallel: The Korean-American Relationship Since 1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973), 39-108; Hong-Kyu Park, "From Pearl Harbor to Cairo: America's Korean Diplomacy, 1941-43, Diplomatic History 13 (Summer 1989):343-58; James Irving Matray, The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941-1950 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985).

3" For changes occurring within Korea during this period, see especially Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. I: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes. 1945-1947 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 3-131. Also consult Cumings, The Origins ofthe Korea War. Vol. 2: The Roaring ofthe Cataract, 1947-1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

187

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

See Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993); Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).

41 Acheson Speech in United States, Department of State, Bulletin 22 (January 23 1950), 116 ' Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1961), 18.

43 Ibid, 331.

44 David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 782-83.

45Ibid.,78l.

For the best account covering the international aspects of the war, including ways in which the United Nations and America's allies attempted to check some of Washington's more risky efforts, see William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

47 McCullough, Truman, 799.

48 Quote from Joseph C. Goulden, Korea: The Untold Story of the War (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Compnay, 1982), 325.

49 Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 919-20.

For a detailed student of the collapse of the Rhee government, see Quee-young Kim, The Fall ofSyngman Rhee (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies University of California, 1983).

Young Whan Kihl, Politics and Policies in Divided Korea: Regimes in Contest (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984), 49.

52 Lincoln White, quoted in Bae-Ho Hahn, "Major Issues in the American-Korean Alliance," in Koo and Suh, eds., Korea and the United States 103 53 Hahn, "Major Issues in the American-Korean Alliance," 103. Some recent South Korean press reports have downplayed the Kennedy administration's apparent objection to Park Chung-hee's military rule. See, for example, Korea Newsreview January 20, 1996, 10.

See Frank Baldwin, "Introduction," in Baldwin, ed., Without Parallel, 28-29.

55 Ibid., 29-30.

56 Ibid., 30.

57 Hahn, "Major Issues in the American-Korean Alliance," in Koo and Suh, eds., Korea and the United States, 105.

58 Yu Yong-ik [Lew Young-ick], et al., Han'guhn ui taeMi insik: Yoksa chokuro bon hyongsong kwajong [Korean Perceptions of the United States: A History of Its Formation] (Seoul: Minumsa, 1994), 236-44.

188

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

5^ For a sample of this experience, see James T. Shon, "A School House Dog": Notes of a Peace Corps Worker in Korea, Illinois Papers in Asian Studies, Vol. 6 (Urbana: University of Illinois, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 1985).

60 Kim Kyong-Dong, "Sociocultural Relations between Korea and the United States," in Robert A. Scalapino and Han Sung-joo, eds., United States-Korean Relations (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1986), 9.

61 Quoted in Thomas G. Paterson, J. Garry Clifford, and Kenneth J. Hagen, American Foreign Policy: A History Since 1900, 3rd ed., Revised (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company), 583.

62 Warren I. Cohen, America's Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 177-209.

"3 Kihl, Politics and Policies in Divided Korea, 61.

64 Ibid., 63-64.

65 Ibid., p. 65.

66 Quoted in Paterson, ed., Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, 677. "' Robert Boettcher, with Gordon L. Freedman, Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park, and the Korean Scandal (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980). "° Manwoo Lee, Ronald D. McLaurin, and Chung-in Moon, Alliance Under Tension: The Evolution of South Korea-US. Relations (Seoul and Boulder, CO: Kyungnam University Press and Westview Press, 1988), 30. "^ Quoted in Chae-Jin Lee, "The United States and Korea: Dynamics of Changing Relations," in Young Whan Kihl, ed., Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 70-71.

70 Quoted in ibid., 80.

71 Korea Newsreview, April 20, 1996, 6-7.

72 Quoted in Manwoo Lee, Ronald D. MacLaurin, and Chung-in Moon, Alliance Under Tension, 19.

73 Although the CFC, which retained an American Commander-in-Chief, had "operational control" over ROK combat forces in Korea in 1979-80, it did not exercise actual command and control authority over those troops. According to the 1978 agreement, each government was free to assert operational control over its respective forces at any time. Moreover, the Korean Twentieth Infantry Division, which was sent to Kwangju, had been released from the Combined Forces Command. On this controversial issue, see Donald N. Clark, ed., The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), especially pp. 70-75.

189

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

74 ^ £,?£? f th6Se "a!i0!,aIiStiC f°rCeS at work' « Jame* Larson points out later in

76 "7iJl29£i"j 3- Tn° T* essays that deal with the *»» of CdTrw -A Ky°n8-D°ng, "Korean Perceptions of America," and Donald N. Clark American Attitudes Toward Korea," both in Donald N Clark ifoM Bne^ 1993 (boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 163-84, IS 77 Korea Newsreview, January 13, 1996 21.

Korea Newsreview, March 2, 1996, 16.

79 Wa raw* August 7, 1995, 8; *0«fl ASnw,^, October 7, 1995 15 Concernine wo co^eT „e ifo;^whkh had caused considerabie «-- £3; two countries in the 1980s, a compromise has been worked out that both 8Q governments seem to support. See Korea Newsreview, September 2 1995 1 1 K°rseae als'o Sl^00"5"1^0.";" ^ "**" 3 ^^ber-Dccember 1995): 137; see also Korea Newsreview, November 1 1 1995 10

^ D°nFebCtl99Nr5h K°rea C°ntinUeS " DCad Kim'S F°°tStePS" *"» »««4 See, for example, Korea Herald, June 14, 1995, 1.

83 Although basic understandings were reached at Kuala Lumpur in the summer of 1995 « was not unt.1 December 1995 that a detailed accord was signed by 2 executive director and Ho Jong, ambassador-at-large for North forea See SI Newsreview, December 23, 1 995, 11-12.

M ^ mW0LS- 0VeitUreS ^^ Py°n8yang•" K°rea F«*> 4 (January-February

SeVwl CXamPi\ the remarkS °f US- Ambassador James Laney in Korea Newsreview, February 17, 1996, 8. ^orea ^ ^aS SjESSS ^ Shfd°"Sim0n' "^onal Security Structures in J i ?Uef!°n of ^'evance," in Simon, ed., toAto Security in the PostCold War Era (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1 993), 24-25.

See Desmond Ball, "Arms and Affluence: Military Acquisitions in the Asia-Pacific Region International Security, vol. XVIII, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94 78 \ 7

fS^w5S7Mfltoy Build-up in Asia-Pacific" ^ ^,?A:8no 3'

190

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

88 Andrew Mack and Pauline Kerr, "The Evolving Security Discourse in the AsiaPacific." The Washington Quarterly, vol. XVIII, No. 1 (Winter, 1995), 130; Hadi Soesastro, "Implications of the Post-Cold War Politico-Security Environment for the Pacific Economy," in C. Fred Bergsten and Marcus Noland, eds., Pacific Dynamism and the International Economic System (Washington, D.C., Institute for International Economics, 1993), 373.

Choong Yong Anh, "Search for New Approaches and Methods for Economic Cooperation in Northeast Asia," The Korean Journal of International Studies, vol. XXIV, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), table 3, 350.

Suck Kyo Anh, "Prospects for Economic Integration of Socialist Economies in Northeast Asia," in Chung II Yung, ed., The Asian-Pacific Community in the Year 2000: Challenges and Prospects, Seoul, Sejong Institute, 1991, table 1, 207.

See Jai-Seong Lee, "Regional Economic Cooperation in Asia: Empirical Evidence and Prospects," in Bak-Soo Kim, ed., The Asian Dimension of EC Integration: Problems and Prospects, (Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, Seoul: 1993), 46-48.

See Lyuba Zarsky, "The Prospects for Multilateral Environmental Cooperation in Northeast Asia," Asian Perspective, vol. XIX, No. 2 (Fall-Winter, 1995), 103-30.

93 Korea Herald, June 26, 1993.

94 See Park Choon-ho et al., eds. The Regime of the Yellow Sea: Issues and Policy Options in the Changing Environment, (Seoul, Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University, 1990.)

Jang-Won Suh, ed., Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation: Perspectives and Challenges, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, Seoul, 1991, table 1, 222; Un Chul Yang, "Coordinating Intra-Regional Trade and Investment," and Suck Kyo Anh, "Prospects for Economic Integration of Socialist Economies in Northeast Asia," in Chung II Yung, ed., The Asian-Pacific Community, tables 7-A and 7-B, 154-55, and table 1, 207; ROK, National Statistical Office, Statistical Yearbook 1994, Seoul, 1994, table 3, 282-83; P.A. Minakir, "Composition of Russian Far East Foreign Trade," trans, in Xiboliya yanjiu (Siberian Studies), vol.

XXII, No. 1 (1995), table 15, 55; Tsuneo Akaha, "The Economy and Environment of the Russian Far East: Implications for International Cooperation," tables 1, 2, and 3, 91-93, in Akaha, ed., Seminar Proceedings: Integrating the Russian Far East Into the Asia-Pacific Economy (Monterey: Monterey Institute of International Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, 1995); Sung Tae Ro and Ku Hyuk Kwon, "A Basic Direction of Economic Cooperation Between Korea and Russia," in Jehoon Park, ed., Russia's Reform and Economic Cooperation Between Korea and Russia, Korea Institute for International

191

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

Economic Policy, Seoul, 1992, table 2, 54; Rhee Tai-wook, "Pyongyang's Foreign Trade Policy," Korea Focus, vol. Ill, No. 6 (November-December, 1995), 67.

96 See, for example, Edward A. Olsen, "The Diplomatic Dimensions of the Korean Confrontation," in Simon, ed., East Asian Security, 89-96; Youngnok Koo and Sung-joo Han, eds., The Foreign Policy of the Republic of Korea (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Koh Byung Chul, The Foreign Policy Systems ofNorth and South Korea (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984); Brian Bridges, "South Korea and the Gulf Crisis," The Pacific Review, vol. V, No. 2 (1992), 141-48.

97 Koh, Foreign Policy Systems, ch. 2.

98 Koh points out (ibid., p. 230) that each Korea could only pursue legitimacy and national security at the other's expense, making it a "cutthroat zero-sum game."

99 Koh, "A Comparison of Unification Policies," in Young Whan Kihl, ed., Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 155.

100 Olsen, "The Diplomatic Dimensions," in Simon, ed., East Asian Security, 102; Jae Ho Chung, "United States-China Relations from a Regional Perspective," In Depth, vol. IV, No. 3 (Fall, 1994), 41-58; Byung-Joon Ahn, "Korea: A Rising Middle Power in World Politics," Korea and World Affairs, vol. XI, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), 7-17. On bureaucratic conformism in earlier periods, see Youngnok Koo, "Foreign Policy Decision-Making," in Koo and Han, eds., 35-36.

101 Koh, Foreign Policy Systems, 232.

102 Chalmers Johnson, "South Korean Democratization: The Role of Economic Development," The Pacific Review, vol. II, No. 1 (1989), 1-10.

103 Dan C. Sanford, "ROK's Nordpolitik: Revisited," The Journal ofEast Asian Affairs, vol. VII, No. 1 (Winter/Spring, 1993), 1-31; Tae Dong Chung, "Korea's Nordpolitik: Achievements and Prospects," Asian Perspective, vol. XV, No. 2 (Fall-Winter, 1991), 149-78.

104 Manwoo Lee, "Domestic Politics and Unification: Seoul's Perspective," in Kihl, ed., Korea and the World, 172-74.

105 Kihwan Kim, "Korea in the 1990s: Making the Transition to a Developed Economy," World Development, vol. XVI, No. 1 (January, 1988), 14-15.

106 Ibid, 15-16.

107 II SaKong, Korea in the World Economy, p. 178; tables A.4 and A.5, 226-29.

108 See Brian Bridges, "South Korea and the Gulf Crisis."

109 See in particular Han Sung-joo's speeches of May and August 1993 in Han, Korean Diplomacy in an Era of Globalization: Speeches ofForeign Minister Han SungJoo, March 1993-December 1994 (Seoul: Chisik Publishing House, 1995), 73103 and 112-123.

192

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

H° Speech at the Leaders Forum of the 26th International General Meeting of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC), Seoul, May 24, 1993, in Korea and World Affairs, vol. XVII, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), 343-47.

1 ! 1 Youngnok Koo, "Korea's Global Economic Interests With Reference to Northeast Asia," paper presented at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, October 1521, 1990, 1-4 and 11-12.

112 Speech, "Fundamentals of Korea's New Diplomacy," in Han, Korean Diplomacy, 230.

113 Korea Herald, July 8, 1995 and Korea Times, July 8, 1995, both in NAPSNet on line, July 10, 1995. * " "Korea's New Diplomacy," in Han, Korean Diplomacy, 236.

1 15 Korea Herald, March 17, 1994.

116 Korea Herald, May 5, 1994.

117 Chung Choo-nyun, "Vitalization of Overseas Assistance," Chosun Ilbo, April 13, 1995; trans, in Korea Focus, vol. Ill, No. 3 (May-June, 1995), 146-48.

1 1" Song Young Son, "The Prospects of Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia: The ROK's Perspectives," in Multilateral Security Cooperation Organization in Northeast Asia (in Korean), Korea Research Institute for Strategy, Paper No. 1 1 ( 1 994), 11-34.

H9 Quotations are from Han Sung-joo's speech, in Han, Korean Diplomacy, 73-103, 214-15,314-15,334. l2^ See Song, "The Prospects of Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia," and a news report concerning Korea's Twenty-first Century Commission, a group of around fifty experts appointed by Roh Tae-Woo to study Korean security that submitted its findings in 1994. Korea Herald, May 11, 1994.

121 Lee Hong Pyo, "Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation and Regional Security," in Multilateral Security Cooperation Organization in Northeast Asia, 41-59, and Song, "The Prospects of Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia."

1 22 Han Sung-joo, Korean Diplomacy, 1 20-2 1 .

123 Republic of Korea, Ministry of National Defense, Defense White Paper, 1993-1994, 18.

124 Korea Herald, March 4, 1995. On the commitment of infantry forces and equipment to the UN for possible future peacekeeping operations, see ibid., 2.

125 Korea Herald, March 11, 1994. n6 Defense White Paper, 1993-1994, 134-35.

193

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

<â&#x2013; ' Based on SIPR1 Yearbook 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), table 13 E. 5, 560, and U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1993-1994, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 1995), table I, 70.

128 Defense White Paper, 1993-1994, 181-84.

1 99

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Global Arms Trade, OTA-ISC460, June 1991 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), 132-33; Richard A. Bitzinger, "South Korea's Defense Industry at the Crossroads," Korean Journal ofDefense Analyses, vol. VII, No. 1 (Summer, 1995), 233-50. '

130 U.S. Congress, Global Arms Trade, 134.

131 Korea Herald, May 13, 1994.

132 Commersant Daily (Moscow), September 29, 1995 and Izvestiya (Moscow) September 30, 1995; NAPSNet on-line, October 3, 1995.

133 Korea Times, February 25, 1995.

134 The proposals were contained in his July 7, 1988 "declaration for national unification," and his speech before the UN General Assembly on October 18, 1988. Texts in Korean Journal of International Studies, vol 19 No 4 (1988^ 608-22. ' h Text in Youngnok Koo, "Foreign Policy Decision-Making," in Koo and Han, eds., Foreign Policy ofthe Republic ofKorea, 36-37.

136 Suh Dae-sook, "North Korea: The Present and the Future," The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. V, No. 1 (Summer, 1993), 73-74.

137 See Sanford, "ROK's Nordpolitik," 14.

138 Research Institute for National Unification, "Opinion Survey on Unification Issues," July 1993, in Korea Focus, vol. I, No. 4 (1993), 47-52.

139 See Kim's May 24, 1993 address to PBEC, cited above.

140 Korea Times, June 1 1, 1994.

1 Chung-Min Lee, "What Security Regime in North-East Asia?" Adelphi Paper No 276 (April, 1993), 16-17.

Many of the observations that follow were gleaned from interviews during the first half of 1994 with Korean scholars, journalists, and government officials specializing in international affairs. The interviews reflect deep-seated suspicions about the real intentions of the major outside powers.

1 3 Tian Zhongqing, "China-ROK Relations in the New Asian-Pacific Context," Korean Journal of International Studies, vol. XXV, No. 1 (1994), pp. 65-74; Ilpyong J. Kim and Hong Pyo Lee, eds., Korea and China in a New World: Beyond Normalization (Seoul: Sejong Institute, 1993).

144 Yoo Se-hee, "Security Dimension of Sino-Korean Relations," Korea Focus vol II No. 4 (July-August, 1994), 60.

194

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

145 Washington Times, September 29, 1995; NAPSNet on-line, same date.

146 Bonnie S. Glaser, "China's Security Perceptions: Interests and Ambitions," Asian Survey, vol. XXXIII, No. 3 (March, 1993), 261-62. Glaser's conversations with PRC specialists also brought out reasons why a unified Korea would be in China's interests. These included assisting the development of Northeast China and providing a buffer against Japan.

147 See, e.g., Shin, "Japan's Regional Role in Asia," 289.

148 Interview in Seoul with a foreign ministry specialist, April 1994.

149 See Hong Nack Kim, "Japanese-Korean Relations in the 1990s," Woodrow Wilson Center Occasional Paper No. 59 (March 29, 1994), 12.

150 Shin Kak-Soo, "A New Paradigm for Changing Korea-Japan Relations: A Regional Partnership," IFANS Review, vol. II, No. 5 (July, 1994), 9-12. Shin is director of Northeast Asia Division I in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

151 Shin, "A New Paradigm," 17-19.

152 Shin, "Japan's Regional Role in Asia," 286.

153 See New York Times, November 15, 1995, A7.

154 See Peggy Falkenheim Meyer, "Russia's Post-Cold War Security Policy in Northeast Asia," Pacific Affairs, vol. LXVII, No. 4 (Winter, 1994-95), 506-508.

155 Shim Jae Hoon, "Silent Partner," Far Eastern Economic Review, December 29, 1994-January 5, 1995, 14-15.

156 Korea Herald, June 3, 1994.

157 Korea Times, September 8, 1995.

158 Financial Times, July 13, 1995; NAPSNet on-line, July 19, 1995. See also Shim Jae Hoon, "Silent Partner," 15.

159 Comments of Oleg V. Davydov, then first secretary of the Russian Embassy in Seoul, at the Forum of the Kim Dae Jung Asia-Pacific Peace Research Institute, Seoul, January 26, 1994. Davydov later became a vice-premier.

160 Alexander Zhebin, "Russia and Korean Unification," Asian Perspective vol. XIX, No. 2 (Fall-Winter, 1995), 175-90.

161 Korea Times, May 20, 1995; NAPSNet, May 22, 1995.

162 Ilpyong J. Kim, "The Soviet Union/Russia and Korea: Dynamics of 'New Thinking,'" in Kihl, ed., Korea and the World, 88-89.

195

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

Figures from Choong Yong Ahn, "Search for New Approaches and Methods for Economic Cooperation in Northeast Asia," Korean Journal of International Studies, vol. XXIV, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), table 4, p. 351 and p. 354; and Segodnya, Moscow, September 26, 1995 (NAPSNet on-line, October 3, 1995).

On Russian dissatisfaction, see the press reports on Korea in NAPSNet on-line July 10 and October 3, 1995.

4 Remarks of Deputy Premier Oleg Davydov; see NAPSNet on-line, October 3, 1995.

165 On fear of Japan, see James Wendt, "Conventional Arms Control for Korea: A Proposed Approach," Survival, vol. XXXIV, No. 4 (Winter, 1992-93), 118-19.

On the South Korean nuclear option, see Andrew Mack, "North Korea's Nuclear Program: The Options are Shrinking," Working Paper No. 5, Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra ( 1 994).

166 New York Times, October 8, 1994, 3.

167 Thomas L. McNaugher, "Major Power Relations and the Prospects for Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia," in Evolving Multilateral Security Regime in Northeast Asia (Seoul: Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security 1994) 139-41. " " '' 168 Text in Chung II Yung, ed., The Asia-Pacific Community, 409-412.

In the speech, "Korea's Emerging Role in a New Pacific Order," June 29 1991 ibid, 412-26.

170 Gi-Wook Shin and Jeong-Sik Ko, "A Troubled Little Dragon: Competition and Dependence in Korea's International Economic Relations," n d n d 171 This paragraph is based mainly on the report of the government-financed Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) by Roh Jae Pong, Deepening ofRegionalism and Korea's Choice, No. 93-12 (December, 1993), in Korean. See also Ha Jong Yoon, "Regional and Sub-Regional Economic and Political Cooperation: An Organizational Approach," in Chung Il-yung, ed., The AsiaPacific Community, 72-78; and SaKong, Korea in the World Economy, 158.

Ha Jong Yoon, "Regional and Sub-Regional Economic Cooperation," 80. Yoon is a former diplomat long involved in European affairs 173 Jai-Seong Lee, "Regional Economic Cooperation in Asia," 61.

See Shinichi Ichimura, "Regional Integration Issues in Asia," in AFTA After NAFTA, Joint Korea-U.S. Academic Symposium, vol. 4, Princeton, N J 1994 tables 5 and 6, 118 and 120.

175 Park Chin Keun, "The ASEAN Free Trade Area: Concepts, Problems and Prospects," in AFTA After NAFTA, 141, n. 5.

Linda Yuen-Ching Lim, "Engines of Regional Integration in Asia," in AFTA After NAFTA (1994), 157. South Korea is represented in non-governmental regional organizations, such as the Pacific Basin Economic Council, which is a business group.

196

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

177 Un Chul Yang, "Coordination of Intra-Regional Trade and Investment: Implications for Growth and Development," in Chung, ed., The Asian-Pacific Community, 104.

178 Gerrit W. Gong, "Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation: Implications for the U.S. and U.S. Policy," in Suh, ed., Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation, 196-97 and chart 2, 207.

179 Korea Herald, June 7, 1994.

180 Jai-Won Ryou and Byung-Nak Song, Korea's Foreign Direct Investment in Southeast Asia, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy Working Paper No. 93-02 (March, 1993).

181 Si Joong Kim, "Intra-regional Foreign Direct Investment in Northeast Asia," in JangHee Yoo and Chang-Jae Lee, eds., Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation: Progress in Conceptualization and in Practice, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, Seoul, Paper 94-08, 1994, table 2, 180.

182 These are gleaned from Suh, ed., Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, Seoul, 1991.

183 The primary source is ROK, National Statistical Office, Korea Statistical Yearbook 1994, Seoul, 1994, table 3, 282-83, for all statistics except: Russia (1990), Ilpyong J. Kim, "The Soviet Union/Russia and Korea," table 5.1, 88; and, North Korea: for 1990, Chang Young Jung, "Economic Transactions and Cooperation between North and South Korea," Korean Journal of International Studies, table 1, 23; for 1992, Korea Economic Weekly, June 21, 1993, 14; for 1994, People's Daily (Beijing), January 19, 1996, in NAPSNet on-line, January 26, 1996.

1 84.

Chung Kil Chung, "Attitudes of Korean Bureaucrats Towards Economic Cooperation Among East Asian Countries," The Korean Journal ofInternational Studies, vol. XXIV, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), 331-44.

185 Korea Herald, March 27, 1994 (supplement) and March 30, 1994.

186 "Seoul-Tokyo-Beijing Ties Seen to Strengthen," Korea Herald, March 30, 1994.

187 Korea Herald, March 29, 1994.

188 Shin and Ko, "A Troubled Little Dragon," 3-4.

1 89 Shin, "A New Paradigm," 12-13.

190 ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs statistics in IFANS Review, "New Dimension of Korea-Japan Relations," vol. II, No. 5 (July, 1994), 35.

191 Shin, "A New Paradigm," 14.

192 Ibid., 1.

193 Myung Jai Kong, "The Future of Technology Transfer in the Asian-Pacific Region," in Chung, ed., The Asian-Pacific Community, 196, where comparisons are made with the United States and Japan.

197

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

194 Shin and Ko, "A Troubled Little Dragon," 12. '"5 On the "structural squeeze" and technological dependence, see Bello and Rosenfeld, Dragons in Distress, 6, 114; SaKong, Korea in the World Economy, 190-91; and Shin and Ko, "A Troubled Little Dragon."

196 SaKong, Korea in the World Economy, 126 and table A.48, 276.

197 Ibid., tables A.49 and A51, 277, 279 and SaKong's discussion, 126-27.

198 Ibid., 190.

199 Chung Kil Chung, "Attitudes of Korean Bureaucrats," 339.

200 Based on Myung Jai Kong, "Future of Technology Transfer," 192-95 and accompanying tables.

201 Ibid., 197-99.

202 Yoon, "The Emerging Economic Order in East Asia in the 1990s: A Political Economic Perspective," in Manwoo Lee and Richard W. Mansbach, eds., The Changing Order in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula, (Seoul: Institute for Far Eastern Studies, 1993), 105.

203 Korea Times, April 26, 1994.

204 Korea Herald, May 4 and 19, 1994.

205 Korea Herald, July 7, 1995; Jiefang ribao (Liberation Army Daily, Beijing), July 7, 1995; and China Daily (Beijing), June 27, 1995: NAPSNet on-line, July 7 and 14, 1995.

206 See essays in KIEP 1991 report ed. by Suh. 207 Shim Jae Hoon, "Going Global," Far Eastern Economic Review, November 2, 1995, 46-49.

208 Si Joong Kim, "Intra-regional Foreign Direct Investment," 182.

209 Hiroshi Kakazu, "The Possible Organizational Structure and Funding Sources of a Northeast Asian Development Bank" (paper prepared for the Third Northeast Asia Economic Forum on Regional Economic Cooperation in Northeast Asia, "The Future of Northeast Asia and the Path Toward Cooperation," Yongpyong, ROK, September 26-28, 1993), 12, estimate of initial subscribed capital based on the national income formula used to fund the Asian Development Bank.

2'0 Burnham Campbell, "Financial Cooperation in Northeast Asia: An Overview of the Case for a Northeast Asian Development Bank," paper prepared for the Third Northeast Asia Economic Forum on Regional Economic Cooperation in Northeast Asia, "The Future of Northeast Asia and the Path Toward Cooperation," Yongpyong, ROK, September 26-28, 1993.

21 ' Korea Herald, September 23, 1995; NAPSNet on-line, September 25, 1995.

2'2 SaKong II, "Korea's New Role in the World Economy," Korea Economic Weekly, June 21, 1993, p. 11. See also the same author's Korea in the World Economy, 148-50.

213 Korea Herald, September 29, 1995; in NAPSNet on-line, same date.

198

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

214 See Zarsky, "Prospects for Multilateral Environmental Cooperation."

215 See Choon-ho Park, "Current Legal and Political Disputes in the Yellow Sea," and Joseph R. Morgan, "Maritime Zones in the Yellow Sea and Their Effects on SLOC Security," both in Choon-ho Park et al., eds., The Regime of the Yellow Sea: Issues and Policy Options in the Changing Environment, Seoul: Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University, 1990, 39-48 and 51-69, respectively.

Anh Choong Yong, "Search for New Approaches and Methods for Economic Cooperation in Northeast Asia," The Korean Journal of International Studies, vol. XXIV, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), 355 ff; Iksoo Kim, "Tumen River Area Development Program and the Prospects for Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation," Asian Perspective, vol. XX, No. 1 (Spring-Summer, 1996), 75102; Un-Chul Yang, "Inter-Korean Economic Relations: Possible Directions," in Chung II Yung, ed., Korea in a Turbulent World: Challenges of the New International Political Economic Order and Policy Responses (Seoul: Sejong Institute, 1992); Andrew Marton, Terry McGee, and Donald G. Paterson, "Northeast Asian Economic Cooperation and the Tumen River Area Development Project," Pacific Affairs, vol. LXVIII, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), 9-33.

217 Korea Times, April 26, 1994.

218 Korea Herald, June 24, 1993. For critiques of chaebol, see Mark Clifford, Troubled Tiger: Businessmen, Bureaucrats and Generals in South Korea (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994) and Martin Hart-Landsberg, The Rush to Development: Economic Change and Political Struggle in South Korea (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993).

219 Shin and Ko, 17.

990 See the special supplement on the South Korean economy by The Economist, June 3, zzu 1995. â&#x2013; "' On the need for these reforms, see Alice H. Amsden's essay in Korea Briefing; Bong H. Kay, "Suggestions for New Economic Initiatives: A New Economic Five-Year Plan," Korea University Economics Newsletter, No. 42 (August, 1993), pp. 17-23 (in Korean); Korea Herald, May 15, 1993, 8.

999 z"" Far Eastern Economic Review, December 23, 1993, 5 1 .

223 Among the many excellent critiques of South Korea's domestic problems and the "contradictions" of growth, see Hart-Landsberg, Rush to Development.

224 For example, Chong Un-bung, "President Kim's Tuesday Statement Off the Mark," Korea Times, December 15, 1995, and authors' interviews in Seoul.

225 Lee, The Odyssey of Korean Democracy: Korean Politics, 1987-1990 (New York: Praeger, 1990), 5.

226 Lee Phil-sang, "Reinforcement of Full-Scale Reforms Urged," Korea Times, December 17, 1995.

199

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

22 ' A poll conducted in late 1995 for the Kim Dae Jung Peace Foundation found that a majority of people under 40 do not want U.S. troops to remain in South Korea. {Korea Times, November 25, 1995; NAPSNet on-line, November 28, 1995.) My own conversations with Korean scholars support the widespread belief, if not the fact, that younger Koreans are to one degree or another anti-American.

228 See the comments of defense minister Lee Yang-ho in Korea Herald, September 27, 1995; in NAPSNet on-line, same date.

229 See Steve Glain, "U.S. Officials Question South Korea Readiness To Fight Off the North," Wall Street Journal, January 17, 1995, 1.

2->0 As a senior Korean defense ministry official reportedly said, "We have to draw the line somewhere and start immediately to lay the groundwork for defending our country by ourselves and gaining control over our military operations." Korea Times, December 1, 1995; NAPSNet on-line, December 5, 1995.

23 1 Glaser, "China's Security Perceptions," 262.

232 Korea Herald, June 4, 1995 and Korea Times, June 5, 1995; in NAPSNet on-line, June 6, 1995.

233 See, for example, Robert A. Scalapino, "A Framework for Regional Security Cooperation in Asia," The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. V, No. 2 (Winter, 1993), 7-32.

234 See Desmond Ball, "The Most Promising CSBMs for the Asia/Pacific Region," paper prepared for the conference on "The Asia-Pacific Region: Links Between Economic and Security Relations," Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, May 13-15, 1993, 59 ff.

23 ' Note Patrick Cronin, "Pacific Rim Security: Beyond Bilateralism?" Pacific Review, vol. V, No. 3 (1992), 217-20 on the pitfalls of multilateralism and the desirability of a "multifaceted approach."

23" See, for example, Lu Zhongwei, "Security of Northeast Asia and Prospects for Multilateral Consultation," Contemporary International Relations (Beijing), vol.

II, No. 11 (November, 1992), 12-20.

23' Vladimir Petrovsky, "Cooperation-Based Security in Northeast Asia: Russia's Potential Role," Far Eastern Affairs (Moscow), Nos. 2-3 (1994), pp. 15-26.

238 See, e.g., Washington Post, February 28, 1995, A10.

239 See Melvin Gurtov, "Prospects for Korea-U.S.-Japan Trilateral Security Relations," in Manwoo Lee and Richard W. Mansbach, eds., The Changing Order in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula (Westview: Boulder, CO., 1 993), 1 2628; James A. Baker III, "America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a Pacific Community," Foreign Affairs, vol. LXX, No. 5 (Winter, 1991/92), 13.

200

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

240 Han Zhenshe and Xu Kui, "Some Views on Future Security of Northeast Asia," paper presented at a conference on "Major Powers and Future Security in Northeast Asia," Seoul, May 25-26, 1995.

241 See So Chang Sik, "A Perspective from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Disarmament, vol. XVIII, No. 2 (1995), 1 12-13.

242 Peter Hayes and Dana Fisher, "Vertical Nuclear Proliferation in Asia," Nautilus Bulletin, vol. II, No. 1 (June, 1995), 4-5.

243 For a brief review of nuclear capabilities, see Andrew Mack, "A Nuclear Free Zone for Northeast Asia," Journal ofEast Asian Affairs, vol. IX, No. 2 (Summer-Fall, 1995), 288-322.

244 fhjs paragraph relies heavily on ibid., 308-13.

245 Richard Berts, "Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States After the Cold War," International Security, vol. XVIII, No. 3 (Winter, 1993/94), 3477.

246 Defense White Paper, 1993-1994, 188.

247 For a careful study that assumes tremendous difficulties of economic and social integration upon Korean unification, see Lee-Jay Cho and Yoon Hyung Kim, eds., Economic Systems in South and North Korea: The Agenda for Economic Integration, Korea Development Institute, Seoul, 1995.

248 Korea Herald, February 25, 1994.

249 See Glaser, "China's Security Perceptions," 262.

250 Speech of August 15, 1994, "Three-Phase Unification Formula for Building Korean National Community," in Korea Focus, vol. II, No. 4 (July-August, 1994), 174.

251 Ibid.

252 The linkage between South Korea's security and the North's has also been made by Manwoo Lee, "Pyongyang and Washington: Dynamics of Changing Relations," Asian Perspective, vol. XIX, No. 2 (Fall-Winter, 1995), 131-52. Concerning the "common-security" approach, see Samuel S. Kim, "The Two Koreas and World Order," in Kihl, ed., Korea and the World, 29-65.

253 Defense White Paper, 1994-1995, Seoul, Ministry of National Defense, 19-22.

254 Korea Herald, July 20, 1995; in NAPSNet on-line, July 21, 1995.

255 Korea Times, September 14, 1995, based on a preliminary UN fact finding mission's report.

256 Korea Times, December 15, 1995.

2^7 Larson, James F. The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995).

201

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References-

1CO

Larson, James F. and Heung-Soo Park. Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993.)

259 Larson, James F. and Jiande Chen. "Television and Foreign Policy: U.S. Response to the Beijing and Kwangju Pro-Democracy Movements," Asian Journal of Communication, vol. 2, no. 2 ("1992). 78-104.

260 Larson, James F. and Heung-Soo Park. Ibid.

261 Ibid.

Jang, Byoung-sik. "Development of a National Information Infrastructure for the Information Society: The Challenge to Korea's Telecommunications and Information Technology Policy." Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Boulder, 1995.

263 Toffler, Alvin. Powershift (New York: Bantam Book, 1991).

Underwood, Horace G. "Merits and Demerits of Korean Education," Koreana Vol 5, no. 2(1991), 63-68.

265 Underwood, Horace G. Ibid.

266 The Korea Economic Weekly, Feburary 24, 1996.

"The Social Consequences of Information Culture and the Role of the Information Industries," Korea Management Research Institute, Graduate School of Management, Seoul National University, January 13, 1993.

1992 National Viewership Study, KBS Broadcasting Research Institute, January 1993 Pelton, Joseph N. "CEO Survey on the National Information Highway," Telecommunications, November 1994.

270 Jang, Byoung-sik. Ibid.

271 Jang, Byoung-sik. Ibid.

272 Pelton, Joseph N. Ibid.

973

National Computerization Agency, Republic of Korea. Informatization White Paper 1995.

274 National Computerization Agency. Ibid.

275 Cho, Yoon-jung. "Confidence Swells on Cable TV's Future; One Year After Launch, Popularity Rising as Public Awareness Improves," Korea Herald, March 1, 1996.

276 The Korea Herald, March 16, 1996.

977 The Korea Economic Weekly, February 28, 1996.

A/ ^978 /0 The Korea Economic Weekly, March 4, 1996.

97Q iy The Far Eastern Economic Review, November 2, 1995.

280 Jang, Byoung-sik. Ibid.

281 Jang, Byoung-sik. Ibid.

202

Selected Bibliography-Notes-References

282 National Computerization Agency. Ibid.

283 National Computerization Agency. Ibid.

284 Hangukllbo, February 1, 1996.

285 Amsden, Alice H. Asia 's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

203