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Opinion

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Letting go of unification

This will seem odd, but last Friday's extraordinary summit in Panmunjeom, which produced a formal “Declaration for Peace, Prosperity, and Unification of the Korean Peninsula,” showed that unification is actually not a goal, nor perhaps should it be. Unification, considered a moral imperative by Koreans on both sides for generations, remains a pipe dream.

2018-04-30 17:22

Comfort women agreement was always political maneuver

The findings of the South Korean government task force on the December 2015 “comfort women” agreement with Japan confirmed what observers like me suspected all along: the accord was first and foremost an expedient political move, not a sincerely thorough effort to resolve a complicated historical conflict.

Bahk Eun-ji | 2018-01-01 10:51

Roh Moo-hyun's ultimate victory

Fifteen years ago this week, in mid-December of 2002, I came to Seoul for an academic conference and witnessed a remarkable event, the election of Roh Moo-hyun as president of South Korea.

2017-12-13 15:51

Recycling names for Korea

A country’s name naturally reflects its history. For example, there are about a half-dozen official monikers for Germany in different regions and languages, a sign of Germany’s long and fractured existence before it became a unified state in the 19th century.

2017-11-15 21:14

Looking back at Great Korean Empire

Last week marked the 120th anniversary of the ceremony that founded the Great Korean Empire, or “Daehan Jeguk.” For this occasion the Seoul city government sponsored a re-enactment of the ritual, centered on the monarch Gojong, who proclaimed his territory an empire and himself its emperor in mid-October of 1897. Over the past couple of decades the common perspective on the Korean Empire, which ended when Japan annexed Korea as its colony in 1910, has changed almost completely. Historians, followed by the public at large, have revived the reputation of the Empire, which had long been derided...

2017-10-18 17:40

Toppling tyrants

We know things have gotten really bad in inter-Korean relations when the South’s government very openly reveals the formation of a special “decapitation” squadron targeting the North Korean leader. Such units have always existed in some form, probably, but the point now is to make an impression on such a mercurial, absolutist dictator, as every other approach appears to have failed. How to shake some sense into, or better, get rid of a tyrant whose behavior seems not just unpredictable or bizarre, but frightening, has been a universal problem throughout human history. In hindsight, a well-ti...

2017-09-20 16:41

Monuments are not untouchable

Made of stone or metal, and often larger than life, monuments are meant to be permanent. The most celebrated ones are public memorials, built by governments and placed in communal spaces such as parks or in front of courthouses, presidential mansions, or other official buildings. Indeed the most massive, elaborate, or decorative government buildings act as monuments themselves. This should not mean, however, that monuments are held as eternally sacred symbols. They reflect the particular historical circumstances of their creation, and their meanings can change over time. In the U.S., this th...

2017-08-30 17:36

Korea, US and General Sherman incident

Sensible people around the world these days are wondering which of the two political leaders of North Korea and the United States, respectively, is more bombastic, juvenile, unpredictable and dangerous. It used to be that the inflammatory wild rhetoric, straight out of an elementary school playground, was exclusive to the North Korean leadership, but the Kims have met their match in Donald Trump. The great fear is that this man’s behavior will be as appalling as his words and set off an unspeakable catastrophe on the Korean Peninsula. Readers might object to this comparison as facile, given ...

2017-08-16 17:41

Great Labor Uprising of summer 1987

Starting last October South Koreans demonstrated the power of collective action in protecting the principles of democracy and the rule of law, and fittingly the culmination of this movement came in the 30th anniversary year of Korean democratization. Many commemorations recently have celebrated the remarkable events of June 1987 in which millions filled the streets to end authoritarian rule. What is often overlooked, however, is that the process did not stop with, or was limited to, political liberalization, but included an equally extraordinary mass movement for economic democratization. St...

2017-08-02 17:35

Yun Isang and the East Berlin Case of fifty years ago

A deep sadness spread around the world last week with the death of Liu Xiaobo, the longtime Chinese dissident who had been incarcerated since 2008, when he helped draft an online statement calling for basic democratic reforms. He was widely admired for his courage in the face of oppression and in 2009 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was not allowed to accept in person.

2017-07-19 17:29

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