CIAO DATE: 01/2009
Volume: 6, Issue: 1
Spring/Summer 2002
Full Issue (PDF)
The Korean Independence Movement in the United States: Sygnman Rhee, An Ch'ang-Ho, and Pak Yong-Man
Han-Kyo Kim
The purpose of this paper is to describe the national independence movement of the Korean residents in the United States and Hawaii before 1945, with emphasis on the roles played by its three most prominent leaders, Syngman Rhee, An Ch'ang-ho and Pak Yong-man. The first shipload of Korean immigrants came to Hawaii in 1903, largely for economic reasons. In the ensuing years, as Japan steadily made inroads into Korea, however, patriotic sentiments seized the Korean community. With the formal installation of the Japanese colonial regime in 1910, the restoration of sovereignty in their homeland became the primary political agenda of the Korea immigrants.
China and the United States in the Korean Reunification Process (PDF)
Samuel S. Kim
The Reunification-cum-Collapse Scenario Revisited
For the first time since the Korean War, and particularly in the wake of German reunification, the question of Korean reunification has generated a flurry of debate both inside and outside Korea, but usually with more heat than light. With North Korea constantly back in the news as East Asia's time-bomb, seemingly ripe for implosion or explosion, prospects for Korean reunification have quickly become conflated with the question of the future of North Korea—whether it will survive or will collapse, slowly or suddenly.
The popularity of this reunification-cum-collapse scenario has been evident not only in academic circles but also in the policy communities of some neighboring states. When North Korean Leader Kim II Sung died in July 1994, many predicted that the hermit kingdom would collapse within six months or in no more than three years, accompanied by a German-style reunification by absorption. South Korean President Kim Young Sam jumped on the collapsist bandwagon when he depicted North Korea as a "broken airplane" headed for a crash landing that would be followed by a quick reunification. The specter of collapse has even prompted behind-the-scenes efforts by the U.S. Department of Defense to coordinate contingency planning with South Korean and Japanese allies. At a summit meeting held on Cheju Island in April 1996, leaders of South Korea and the United States jointly agreed to promote a two-plus-two formula—the Four-Party Peace Talks, with the two Koreas, China, and the United States—even as they privately predicted that the collapse in the North could come as soon as two or three years.1 Indeed, such a dichotomist endism debate, with many pundits selecting "soft" or "hard" landings and "collapse" or "muddling through" as quick and easy choices in the forum on the future of North Korea, has become a favorite sport that almost anyone, including North Korea's elite defectors in South Korea, can play.2
South Korea-U.S. Economic Relations: Cooperation, Friction, and Future Prospects (PDF)
Mark E. Manyin
Over the past decade, South Korea has emerged as a major economic partner for the United States. Korea is the U.S.'s seventhlargest trading partner, its sixth-largest export market, and has also become a significant investment site for American companies. The U.S. is Korea's largest export market, second-largest source of imports, and largest supplier of foreign direct investment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main issues and trends in U.S.-South Korean economic relations.
Increased economic interaction has been accompanied by disagreements over trade policies. The level of bilateral friction is principally affected by four factors: the size of the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea; the state of the U.S. economy; the progress of Korea's economic reforms; and the question of whether or not bilateral political or security issues override bilateral trade considerations.
Korean Population in the United States, 2000: Demographic Characteristics and Socio-Economic Status (PDF)
Eui-Young Yu, Peter Choe, Sang II Han
The U.S. Census Bureau reported 1,076,872 Koreans residing in the United States as of April 1, 2000 (http://www.census.gov). These are the respondents who identified themselves as "Korean alone." If those who reported themselves as "Korean in combination with other Asian or other race" are added, the total amounts to 1,228,427. The figures for mixed-heritage persons belonging to two or more ethnic and/or racial groups should be used with caution, especially for comparative analysis, because categories containing these individuals are not mutually exclusive. For this reason, in this analysis the "Korean alone" population figure was mainly used.
Of the 1.08 million Koreans, approximately 379,000 (35.2%) are U.S. born and 698,000 (64.8%) are foreign bom. Of the 698,000 foreign born, 341,000 (48.9%) are naturalized U.S. citizens. The U.S. born together with naturalized citizens (720,000) now comprise twothirds of the total Korean population in the United States.2 "Koreans in America" may have been an appropriate term for the 1990s and before, but now the more appropriate term would be "Korean Americans." This change in designation also reflects the transformation of their identity.
The An Ch'angho Controversy: Gradualist-Pacifism, Cultural Nationalism, or Revolutionary-Democracy? (PDF)
Jacqueline Pak
With the advent of civil democracy in Korea, the grand epic of the Korean independence struggle began to be more systematically mined in the 1990s with newly discovered sources from the leading revolutionaries, albeit with mixed outcomes.1 In the past decade, the most spirited controversy in the international arena of Korean Studies has been "the An Ch'angho Controversy" which created spirited debates on the interpretation of An Ch'angho (1878-1938) and the Korean nationalist movement, including the nature of his philosophy, vision and strategy. Since An Ch'angho was arguably the foremost leader of the Korean independence quest, it was not only a controversy about An Ch'angho as a man and leader but also about getting at the truth of the shape and course of the Korean nationalist struggle as a whole.
Interim Development Assistance for North Korea: A Multilateral Approach (PDF)
Suchan Chae, Hyoungsoo Zang
North Korea has been such a closed country that it is impossible to accurately assess the state of her economy. However, all measures available to outsiders indicate that the North Korean economy is functioning below subsistence level. It seems to have lost not only the ability to sustain itself without outside assistance but also the ability to recover by itself. Thus, it is now incumbent upon the international community to find a long-term solution for developing North Korea backed by appropriate resources. The purpose of this article is to propose a multilateral framework through which resources can be effectively and sensibly channeled into North Korea, satisfying current political constraints both donors and the recipient face.
Neither Mountain Nor Marketplace: Placing the Buddhist Nun in Contemporary Korean Literature (PDF)
Hyangsoon Yi
Despite its distinct presence in Korean society for nearly one and a half millennia, the world of Buddhist nuns has remained closed to the "gaze" of outsiders.1 Even the hagiographies on renowned nuns are available to the public only in snippets and mostly as legends.2 The dearth of serious treatments of Buddhist nuns in Korean literature thus reflects and at the same time perpetuates the sense of mystery with which the life of a female renunciant is veiled in popular perception. In modern poetry, there is a tendency to lyricize the mystique of the nun, as is illustrated by two well-known poems from the 1930s: Paek Sok's "Yosung" (The Nun); and Cho Chi-hun's "Sungmu" (The Nun's Dance). From the late 1980s, however, the female monastic community has come under increasing scrutiny by a handful of writers and filmmakers, most notably represented by Han Sung-won, Nam Chisim, and Im Kwon-taek.