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  김준길 동문 미국 미시간대학 Global korea Award 수상 [1]
  

김준길 동문의 미국 미시간대학 Global Korea Award 수상 장면
및 김준길 동문의 연설문(영문)입니다.
 



 

Prof. Vincent Hoffman, founding president of Council on Korean Studies at Michigan State University, Prof. Siddharth Chandra, Director of Asian Studies Center at MSU, Dr. Moo Young Han, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Duke University, Prof. Ki-Won Kang, Executive Vice-President of Council on Korean Studies at MSU, Mr. Peter Yoon, Senior Vice-President of Council on Korean Studies at MSU, Ladies & Gentlemen! Today, I have great honor to receive the Global Korea Award, a distinguished recognition of cross-cultural understanding and global education of the Korean studies. At this juncture, I would like to share my view on South Korea, A History.

 

In July, my 6-year-old grandson, who was born and grown up in North Carolina, moved to South Korea along his father. The boy was fascinated of the recent movie series , in which various vehicles transform into invincible robot monsters. To be a good grandpa, I had to buy some transformer character toys for him. Suddenly, my grandson’s transformer toys inspired me to think of the Great Transformation of South Korea which was foretold by a Korean prophet Kang Zungsan at the turn of the 20th century.

 

Zungsan Kang Ilsun (1871-1909) was one of the young followers of Tonghak, or Eastern Learning, the xenophobic religious cult in 19th-century Korea against Christianity, the Western Learning. Zungsan, however, opposed armed uprising of the radical Tonghak leader Chon Pongjun, but hid himself in the deep mountains in the southern Korea in order to contemplate for tao, or the “way” to save the world. When he came down to the streets from the mountains, he began to advocate people to reform the world and idealize with balanced social thought of Eastern and Western civilizations. Although his followers later formed such superstitious chauvinism cults as Pochon’gyo, Zungsando, Taesun chinligyo, etc., I would like to take note of his insightful prophesy on the Great Transformation developed in today’s South Korea.

 

Needless to say, nobody foresaw at his time the house divided on the Korean peninsula in the latter half of the 20th century. Zungsan, however, referred to the Great Transformation in South Korea. He might have thought of the southern part of Korea, not exactly South Korea. Poet Kim Chiha, who lived a fierce life in the 1970s, picked up Kang Zungsan’s idea of South Korea in his ballade entitled published in 1982. As a satire in his epic verse, he mentioned Chongup city located in Cholla province, South Korea, where “Zungsan came down from heaven to transform the world and liberate people.”

 

Although I am not saying that Zungsan was accurate in his prophesy, today’s South Korea is indeed a greatly transformed country if you remember yesterday. It has been transformed from underdeveloped agrarian country to developed industrial state, from authoritarian leadership to democratic politics, and from face-to-face communications to the most wired connections. Moreover, such an amazing transformation has happened only in a few decades. How was it possible? It is a good question for the Korean studies scholars in the world, in the developing countries like Philippines in particular.

 

To say in a paradoxical way, the great transformation of South Korea is largely attributed to two tragic experiences in its modern history: Japanese colonial rule and the house divided. If Choson Kingdom survived as an independent nation like Thailand, the Korean people would not be trained through such a harsh ordeal of the Japanese colonial rule which impelled people to struggle for advancement. In fact, the Korean people recalcitrantly overcame the colonial oppression by nurturing themselves. And, imagine if Korea was not divided after the World War II. Perhaps, it would be either communist or capitalist country during the Cold War era. As a communist country, Korea would be one of the Soviet satellites. As a capitalist country without impetus, Korea would be a sort of countries like today’s Philippines. Ironically, South Korea triumphantly transcended the house divided situation through its unprecedented prosperity and transformation.

 

How did they do? Let us first go back to the late 19th century. Korea’s place in the sun under the traditional East Asian world order ended with the appearance of Meiji Japan and the influences of the Western powers. After the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-5, Choson Kingdom, the shrimp between whales, eventually fell under the Japanese dominion which lasted 40 years thereafter. On the day of the 1905 Protectorate Treaty, Chang Chiyon, patriotic journalist, wrote the famous editorial, “Today, We Are Wailing.” He deplored: “Never in a thousand dreams would we have conceived this five-point treaty! Its articles will divide Korea, Japan, and China into conflict; is this Marquis Ito Hirobumi’s idea of keeping peace and stability in East Asia? Nonetheless, our Majesty has adamantly refused to sign it… Alas! Those so-called ministers of the cabinet, not unlike dogs or pigs, sold four-thousand-year-old territory with our five-hundred-year-long dynasty, and have thus made twenty million people slaves… My compatriots, shall we live or shall we die? Alas! What deep sorrow! My people, my people!” We can feel strong resentment in his memorable sentences.

 

At that time, the traditional Korean pride was abased because of the “barbarian” Japanese dominion over the Korean civilization. Elite yangban scholar-officials protested with suicides. Righteous Army, later Independence Army rose up with arms without success at home and abroad. Diplomatic campaigns in the international community were all ignored. At the moment, there was no other way to keep independence from the strong power of the Imperialist Japan. Finally, on March 1, 1919, the Korean people rose against the brutal Japanese military rule with a nationwide non-resistance demonstration, announcing the Independence Declaration.

 

The Korean people, however, could not achieve real independence through the March 1 Movement. Peaceful demonstrations were brutally cracked down. Neither military nor diplomatic campaigns for the Korean independence were successful at home and abroad thereafter. The Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai and later Chongqing, China, the spiritual backbone of the Korean independence though, shrank into a mere random group of exiled independence fighters without any international recognition or strong ties with domestic political forces. Even Soviet COMINTERN ended in 1928 its open support to the Korean Communist Party which was created in 1925.

 

Thanks to the March 1 Movement, however, Japanese rulers had to change their colonial policies from rude intimidation of the military rule to soft appeasement of the cultural rule. The Korean people were discriminately though allowed more opportunity for education in secondary schools and for public education through vernacular daily newspapers. They never missed this opportunity. Despite various disfavors in higher education and social treatment in the colonial society, the Korean people challenged to compete with their Japanese rulers in individual competency. Thus, the Korean people were preparing the future transformation during this dark, agonizing colonial period.

 

The more tragic destiny was waiting for the Korean people when Korea was liberated from the Japanese colonial rule on August 15, 1945. A House was divided on the 38th parallel when the two allied forces, Soviet Union and United States, occupied respectively northern and southern parts of the Korean peninsula.

 

The Korean division was consolidated with the Moscow Agreement in December 1945, the first serious meeting among the allies on Korea question after the World War II. The four allied nation trusteeship was often misunderstood as if it would be exposed upon the undivided Korea. But, according to the Agreement, the separate military occupation in North and South still divided the Korean peninsula and only controlled by the US-USSR Commission. In Moscow, US state department secretary James Byrnes first suggested the four Allied nation ten-year trusteeship over one Korea under one commissioner chosen from the four allied nations. Soviet Union, however, did not satisfy to remain as one of the four partners in the allied trusteeship over one Korea. Rather, it wanted an absolute influence in one part of the divided Korea according to Stalin’s “socialism in one zone” policy. Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, therefore, answered with the modified agreement of the five-year trusteeship over two Koreas under the US-USSR Commission. The Moscow Agreement could not reach the free, independent Korea, but, eventually created the two contradistinctive nations: communist North and capitalist South.

 

The division of Korea changed au fond geopolitical condition of the two Koreas. Due to the impasse to north of DMZ, South Korea remained as an island nation. Given its overpopulation in a small territory of about 100,000 km2 without rich resources, South Korea joined in the ocean power sphere through overseas trade. Only with the underdeveloped agricultural rice production, the chronic rural hunger of poritkoge, or barley hump, which means to eke out with barley crops during the food short spring time, could be never solved. Consequently, industrialization was indispensable not only for solution of the endemic rural poverty but also for the nation’s socio-economic development.

 

Emergence of the authoritarian political leadership of Park Chung Hee in 1960s South Korea was not coincident. Political freedom after fall of the ten-year-old Syngman Rhee regime threatened not only national security against North Korea but also vision for the nation’s economic development. The military coup d’état led by General Park Chung Hee in 1961 was welcomed by the people who preferred more affluent economic life to democratic political voice. Through the labor-intensive and heavy-chemical industries during the four consecutive Five-Year Economic Development Plans, Park Chung Hee achieved basic industrialization in South Korea. Thus, the Park Chung Hee development model has been admired by authoritarian political leaders in 20th-century Asia, such as Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore, Deng Xiaoping in China, Mahathir in Malaysia, Doi Moi policymakers in Vietnam, and so on.

 

Paradoxically, South Korea’s democracy has developed when the affluent middle class grew in size thanks to the economic growth under the authoritarian military leadership of Park Chung Hee in the 1970s and Chun Doo Hwan in the 1980s. Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung, the two democratization movement leaders during the authoritarian period, were elected by the popular vote one after another as the nation’s presidents in 1992 and 1997 respectively. Among those newly independent countries since 1946, South Korea is the first nation which achieved both industrialization and democratization.

 

Mr. Jeffrey Jones, an American Korea hand in a Seoul law firm, who commands Korean language like a native Korean, posed a question to a group of Korean people in the early 2000s: Do you think South Korea was the advanced country? More than 90 per cent of the respondents said no. Mr. Jones, however, argued that South Korea was absolutely an advanced country. Why? South Korea produced four out of the five civilization products, such as automobiles, ships, electronics, and transistors. Moreover, two of them, shipbuilding and transistors, ranked respectively number one in the world production. Why not such a country belonged to the advanced group? Thus, South Korea transformed into an advanced country in terms of economy and politics.

 

In 1999, some Chinese journalists based in Beijing noticed seriously the growing popularity of South Korean people and goods in Chinese market. They coined the term hallyu, or the Korean Wave, for the increasing popularity of Korean pop music and television dramas in Asian and global markets. Asian and global audience enthused in hallyu, the Korean hybrid pop music in particular. Today, K-pop rap music with traditional shaman rhythm, for example, appealed to the global audience not only in Asia but also in Europe. South Korea transformed its American popular culture into Korean-made cultural hybridism.

 

Moreover, South Korea has transformed into the most wired country in the world since the communication technology developed in the 21st century. Given its small territory and highly-educated mass population, high-tech social media communications, such as Twitter or Facebook, thrive in South Korea today. Consequently, the social media audience through internet emerges as a new type of political power in South Korea.

 

In the 2002 presidential election, Roh Moo Hyun, then a maverick opposition leader, beat the stronger rival candidate thanks to social media networks. Today, Mr. Ahn Chulsoo, the medical doctor turned computer guru, who provided the antivirus vaccine freeware of his own invention, led Ms. Park Geun Hye, the most promising government party candidate in a recent poll for the next 2012 presidential election. Given that the world faces the global financial crisis in Europe and North America due largely to political populism of the excessive social welfare programs in the government, the South Korean experience of social media power may find a certain solution for the global institutional crisis of democracy by creating a new type of political institution.

 

South Korea, the transformer, continues to transform in the 21st century. Thank you.
[인쇄하기] 2011-10-19 00:00:00

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