Sewol Ferry Protests, Four Years Strong, and Youth Protests

I was at Gwanghwamun Square to do some sight-seeing with family. As a researcher, however, I was quickly distracted by the large display in remembrance of the Sewol Ferry victims. The structures looked temporary, so my first question was how long the memorial would be up on Gwanghwamun Square? Then I wondered how long the memorial had been up. Wasn't the Sewol Ferry incident more than 4 years ago?

I found out the memorial, referred to as Sewol Plaza, has been on display since at least 2016, if not longer  It sounds like the memorial may not be up that much longer though with the possible establishment of two permanent memorials: the 416 Life Safety Park in Ansan, the city where many student victims were from, and the actual Sewol Ferry sitting in Mokpo. A good article in Korea Expose describes the memorial and people's reaction here. 

A recurring theme about the Sewol Ferry protests, and also the candlelight protests in 2016 against President Park Geunhye is the awakening of political activism among Korean youth. Here's an insightful first person account exploring this awakening across campuses. Apparently, there was a big student movement at Seoul National University (where I'm teaching for the summer) a couple years ago against the administration's decision to establish a new campus without student input. 

Not having conducted field research on social movements in Korea for over a decade, I feel out of touch with the latest issues. I also saw peace (or anti-US) protests across the street from the US Embassy. I know Korea had its own "me too" movement that lit on fire this spring. Relatedly, there's been protests against the use of women's spycacm porn.

Smaller conservative counter-protests led by groups like the Taeguki Citizens’ Revolutionary Movement and the Association of Patriotic Culture have also emerged. 

Controversy over School for Children with Disabilities in South Korea

My wife had mentioned this story to me last week as she watched a video with concern about local opposition against building a school for children with disabilities. This week, Sejong Society's news digest included a story on this. I'm pasting it below verbatim since it's a good summary. In essence,  parents pleading with other local residents to permit officials to build a school for their children with disabilities were shouted and jeered at. Allegedly, residents fear that building such a school would lower their property value. 

While such not-in-my-backyard protests are common occurrences, this one really struck a nerve (or the heart) as it involved children with disabilities. I watched the impassioned speech/presentation of one of the parents. It was heart-wrenching to hear her plead with the audience to permit her child to go to school. She asked if they too don't understand as a parent how important education is. After they started cursing at her, she responded by saying she would take their verbal abuse and beating, but she could never give up on the school. The video ends with parents on their knees (a common gesture of humility in Korea when begging/pleading) receiving more verbal abuse. 

This episode is probably not representative of Korea, which I think has made great strides in raising disability awareness and making their society more handicap accessible. But the episode does lead to some interesting questions about the disability rights movement in Korea?

- What is the history of disability rights in Korea?
- Has it been relatively easy or difficult to frame disability rights issues in the Korean context. 
- How advanced is Korea when it comes to disability access/awareness
- And in the specific episode in Gangseo district, why was there so much opposition against the school and how (a)typical is such a response? Would this have occurred in Kangnam (a much wealthier) district, and if so, what would it imply about the relationship between wealth/status and attitude towards 

 The Sejong Society news digest post is below:


Special Needs Education in South Korea

Andrew Jung

On Sept 13, 2017, South Korea’s Education Minister, Sang-kon Kim announced that 18 new special needs schools will be built over the next five years to accommodate children with disabilities. This is seen as a breakthrough for South Korean students with disabilities and their families as more special needs schools were urged to be built as many regular schools were inadequate in meeting their needs. 

The announcement came amid calls for more special needs schools becoming vocal after a viral video earlier in September showed parents kneeling before the residents in Gangseo District located in western Seoul, begging for a special needs school to be built while some of the residents jeered at them (See the full video here in Korean). The video came from a hearing by education officials on Sept 5, 2017, discussing a potential construction project. The parents of the special needs children wanted a special needs school built while other residents opposed it, pushing for a traditional medicine school. The residents were worried about their real estate value further declining and some accused the parents kneeling for “theatrics.”

According to disability advocates, the incident shows the difficulties of having special needs schools built in various areas in South Korea due to local residents fiercely opposing them and increasing pressure on their elected representatives to intervene. However, the recent incident increased public sympathy and support with over 80,000 people signing a petition for the special needs school to be built. Education Minister Sang-kon Kim in announcing the plan to build the new schools commented “there still seems to be a lot of prejudices and misunderstandings regarding not only disabled people in our society but other social minority groups such as multicultural families and North Korea defectors,” South Korean lawmaker, Seong-yep Yu who chairs the education committee said that providing the appropriate education services should be guaranteed as a human right. 

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Education, there are 174 special needs schools nationwide that serve less than 30 percent of over 89,000 children with physical and mental disabilities. Only 29 of those schools are located in Seoul. Over 2,300 of those students often have to commute more than a hour to those schools. Gangseo District from the video is considered to be has some of the highest numbers of students who need special education, aging from early childhood to their 20’s and has disabilities ranging from physical to intellectual disability.

Disability advocates said that many regular schools lack the resources to assist disabled students, such as physical therapy and counseling. The students can also be susceptible to bullying. According to Eun-ja Lee of Korean Parents’ Network for the People with Disabilities, special needs schools can help those students improve their livelihood and increase their independence by providing individualized vocational training.

South Korea Post-Impeachment Round-up

I haven't been able to keep up, much less write about the South Korean impeachment, but I'm posting some analysis and discussion for later reading written by friends and colleagues here.

I begin with the Asan Institute's biweekly newsletter, Asan Korea Perspective which gives us a barebones explanation of the grounds for impeachment and outcome of the South Korean Supreme Court's decision to impeach President Park Geunhye. There's also public opinion data related to the impeachment with 77% approving impeachment.

Charges and Court's Ruling. Source: Asan Korea Perspective Vol 2, no.6)

The Washington Post provided a video summary of the impeachment.

Celeste Arrington provides her thoughts at the Monkey Cage and the next steps for an election in which a progressive candidate is assumed to win.

Many praised the Court's ruling as a win for democracy and  South Korea's own democratic process. This included the editorial board of the Washington Post, but they also reminded us that the impeachment itself doesn't solve Korea's many domestic and foreign policy problems. Darcie Draudt also reminds us that several dimensions of South Korean democracy (most notably freedom of speech) the past few years have been in decline. She asks whether the impeachment will actually lead to longer reaching domestic institutional reforms to reduce corruption. And Kathy Moon weighs in with a provocative, but dead center quote in Quartz, "I find worrisome this glorification of South Korea’s protests. If governance structures were working properly then citizens normally would be channeling their concerns through institutional processes—reaching out to their elected leaders, going to the courts. Spilling out into the street is a sign of political dysfunction.”

Anna Fifield provided a barrage of reportage on the effects of the impeachment on everything from North Korea-China relations to the joy and images of celebration of Park's impeachment.

South Korea-China Relations and THAAD

Very briefly, this 38 North report is the best run-down of THAAD deployment and the tensions it has generated between the ROK and China. As the author states:

When the decision was originally made, the ROK government anticipated a negative Chinese reaction to THAAD deployment, but went ahead with it for several reasons. First, its anxiety about security and lack of missile defenses had increased significantly in response to the acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile development. Second, the ROK government needed to manage the risk of Washington abandoning the US-ROK alliance. In doing this, it considered THAAD to be one means of filling security gaps and securing conditions for the stable presence of US forces. Third, Seoul understood the system’s effective radar detection range to be limited to the Korean peninsula and is oriented solely to detect North Korean ballistic missiles. Fourth, Seoul needed to demonstrate that it would not permit China to exercise a veto over its right to deploy a system to defend its national security. Fifth, the ROK government dismissed the fear that a THAAD battery in its territory would become integrated into the US ballistic missile defense system as groundless.In addition to these factors, opponents of President Park Geun-hye’s conservative administration won a majority of National Assembly seats in the subsequent general election, raising the prospect that deploying THAAD would have become less politically feasible with further delay.

However, China holds a very different view of the South Korean decision. First, Beijing believes that one THAAD battery can neither deter North Korea militarily nor compel Pyongyang to change its behavior. Second, it thinks the system’s detection range could later be changed to suit US needs, enabling THAAD to potentially target Chinese assets, including strategic missile systems and forcing Beijing to spend more on defenses for its coastal missile bases. Third, Beijing is aware that a long-term goal of the US rebalance to Asia is to check or block China through security cooperation with South Korea and Japan. Fourth, it expects an additional strategic burden from changes to the regional “power balance,” such as new Russian defenses against THAAD that Beijing will also have to take into account.

On a related note, CFR published a study on South Korea's option in Northeast Asia in response to the China factor.

Amid Scandal, Protests Force South Korean President to Resign

Rarely does one find a case of social movement protest so effective that they bring down the democratically elected leader of a country in a matter of months. Yet that's exactly what happened in South Korea. Following a bizarre scandal of corruption and extortion involving South Korean president Park Geun-Hye exposed in March, President Park announced yesterday that she would resign.

Source: Kim Jong-hi/Reuters

For a blog titled Social Movements and World Politics, and a scholar who writes about South Korean civil society, I've ignored this case for far too long. Rather than wade into the complexities of the scandal and the rise of protests myself, however, I'll take the easy road and link some of the best analysis in English I've found to date.

Deep ties between Choi Soon-sil, the figure at the center of the scandal, and President Park are explained in the blog Ask a Korean!

Stephan Haggard on the Witness to Transformation blog has thus far a 4 part analysis on "Park Geun-hye Unravelling". Part I focuses on her approval rating and decline in popularity. Part II, perhaps the most useful, spells out the players and issues involved in the scandal. Part III focuses on political options for Park, and leading candidates of other political parties should Park step down. Part IV provides text of the prosecutor's statement specifically outlining Park's illegal transgressions including: abuse of authority and coercion against specific companies and individuals; divulgence of state secrets; and attempted fraud.

An Asan Institute brief published on Nov. 21, 2016 provided a list of allegations against Choi Soon-Sil, weekly protest numbers, and approval ratings of political parties and potential presidential political candidates.

Asan Institute: Original sources in footnotes of briefing

Eunjung Lim at SAIS-Johns Hopkins has a short analysis on Park's resignation in historical context. The New York Times' Choe Sang-Hun explains the steps of impeachment, although this is now a moot point. 

To be updated...

Here's a video of the protests last weekend to give you a sense of the size and scope of protest, although I cringe at the misleading analysis of how protests actually mobilize and operate.

 

Update 12/9/16

 

Park was impeached. Here's analysis by Scott Snyder from Forbes, and a piece by Darcie Draudt at JHU (and Scott's former research assistant). And of course, Steph Haggard's post and a video interview with Marcus on the Witness to Transformation blog.

 

Update 12/19/16

 

Some guidance on what happens next. Most importantly, power is transferred to the Prime Minister

 

Update 12/22/16

 

Here's an EAI opinion brief from SNU sociologist Seokho Kim that places the recent anti-Park protests within the broader context of (the failure of ) South Korean civil society the past decade. Basically, civil society had been defunct since the 2008 anti-U.S. beef protests, and only with the sinking of the Sewol did we begin to see its revival. As the EAI summary states:

Seokho Kim of Seoul National University explores whether popular opinion that led to the protests against Park Geun-hye is a sure sign that civic space is undergoing a revival in South Korea. Kim emphasizes that these protests are not spontaneous outburst of anger, but rather a culmination of the condensed anger and frustration of the citizens fuelled by social inequality, intensified polarization, and declining opportunities for social mobility. In order for the protests in 2016 to not end up as a one-time eruption, Kim urges that the civil society must expand its outreach to the citizens

 

 

Donald Trump's Foreign Policy Views

I almost never sign on-line petitions, but recently put my name on an open letter penned by Ali Wyn. I rest my case with this recent interview between Donald Trump and the New York Times.

I've pasted part of the transcript below, and two things strike me which are worth bringing up the next time I teach Intro to Int'l Relations, and also for research on the politics of peace. First, Trump fails to realize that maintaining alliances and troops abroad are in our own interest, not just that of allies. Even if allies aren't paying their full share in dollar terms, by hosting U.S. troops, they are contributing to the liberal international order advanced by all previous U.S. administrations since WWII. It's the free-rider problem that Trump is concerned with, but even then, we permit a degree of free-riding b/c to not supply military power in certain parts of the world would in the long-run hurt our interests.

Second, his comments on Korea evokes arguments raised by the political left: reunification may have happened without U.S. presence. He also questions notions of peace. For instance, we claim that U.S. presence brought about peace, yet we see a hostile, nuclear North. Maybe Trump is right. But this is all counterfactual thinking, and we could equally plausibly argue that the absence of U.S. forces may have resulted in a second Korean War (started by either the North or South), or have led to greater provocations from North Korea.

Here's a portion of the transcript with relevant parts highlights.

SANGER: So what we want to do is pick up where we left off in March

. We were listening to Speaker Ryan last night, and he presented a much more traditional Republican, engaged internationalist view of the world. One in which he said that the United States would never lead from behind. In our conversation a few months ago, you were discussing pulling back from commitments we can no longer afford unless others pay for them. You were discussing a set of alliances that you were happy to participate in.

TRUMP:

And I think, by the way, David, I think they will be able to afford them.

SANGER:

They may be.

TRUMP:

We can't.

SANGER: But I guess the question is, If we can't, do you think that your presidency, let's assume for a moment that they contribute what they are contributing today, or what they have contributed historically, your presidency would be one of pulling back and saying, "You know, we're not going to invest in these alliances with NATO

, we are not going to invest as much as we have in Asia since the end of the Korean War because we can't afford it and it's really not in our interest to do so."

TRUMP:

If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I'm talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, "Oh, Trump doesn't want to protect you." I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth - you have the tape going on?

SANGER:

We do.

HABERMAN:

We both do.

TRUMP:

With massive wealth. Massive wealth. We're talking about countries that are doing very well. Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, "Congratulations, you will be defending yourself."

SANGER:

That suggests that our forward deployments around the world are based on their interests - they're not really based on our interests. And yet I think many in your party would say that the reason that we have troops in Europe, the reason that we keep 60,000 troops in Asia, is that it's in our interest to keep open trading lines, it's in our interest to keep the North Koreans in check, you do that much better out away from the United States.

TRUMP:

I think it's a mutual interest, but we're being reimbursed like it's only in our interest. I think it's a mutual interest. ...

SANGER:

We were talking about alliances, and the fundamental problem that you hear many Republicans, traditional Republicans, have with the statement that you've made is that it would seem to them that you would believe that the interests of the United States being out with both our troops and our diplomacy abroad is less than our economic interests in having somebody else support that. In other words, even if they didn't pay a cent toward it, many have believed that the way we've kept our postwar leadership since World War II has been our ability to project power around the world. That's why we got this many diplomats --

TRUMP:

How is it helping us? How has it helped us? We have massive trade deficits. I could see that, if instead of having a trade deficit worldwide of $800 billion, we had a trade positive of $100 billion, $200 billion, $800 billion. So how has it helped us?

SANGER:

Well, keeping the peace. We didn't have a presence in places like Korea in 1950, or not as great a presence, and you saw what happened.

TRUMP:

There's no guarantee that we'll have peace in Korea.

SANGER:

Even with our troops, no, there's no guarantee.

TRUMP:

No, there's no guarantee. We have 28,000 soldiers on the line.

SANGER:

But we've had them there since 1953 and --

TRUMP:

Sure, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be something going on right now. Maybe you would have had a unified Korea. Who knows what would have happened? In the meantime, what have we done? So we've kept peace, but in the meantime we've let North Korea get stronger and stronger and more nuclear and more nuclear, and you are really saying, "Well, how is that a good thing?" You understand? North Korea now is almost like a boiler. You say we've had peace, but that part of Korea, North Korea, is getting more and more crazy. And more and more nuclear. And they are testing missiles all the time.

SANGER:

They are.

TRUMP:

And we've got our soldiers sitting there watching missiles go up. And you say to yourself, "Oh, that's interesting." Now we're protecting Japan because Japan is a natural location for North Korea. So we are protecting them, and you say to yourself, "Well, what are we getting out of this?"

SANGER:

Well, we keep our missile defenses out there. And those missile defenses help prevent the day when North Korea can reach the United States with one of its missiles. It's a lot easier to shoot down from there --

TRUMP:

We've had them there for a long time, and now they're practically obsolete, in all fairness.

SANGER:

Relatively new missile defenses would allow us --

Japan-South Korea Relations and Geopolitical Implications

EAI and Genron NPO hosted a workshop in Seoul a couple months ago and released results of a survey which provide interesting insights into the recent deterioration of bilateral relations. Stephan Haggard takes an early crack at interpreting the data. Although the overwhelming majority of Koreans and Japans still believe in the importance of ROK-Japan relations (well above 50%), only roughly 15% of the population in both countries believe relations will improve. Now that's depressing.

Also interesting are the geopolitical implications of the survey related to relations with China. Take a look at the graphs below:

Clearly the Koreans see the Chinese taking on a global leadership role, whereas the Japanese do not. Also, Koreans see relations with China as important  than relation with Japan. What does this mean for U.S. bilateral alliances? Public opinion is fickle and can shift overnight, but if these results mean anything, one might conclude that Japan will remain faithful to the alliance. South Korea may not: Seoul may hedge, or the voice of China supporters may grow stronger.

Interestingly, more Japanesefeel greater affinity towards Korea than China. We might say this affinity is unrequited since the Koreans feel more affinity towards China than Japan. Again, we can't put much weight on a single public opinion poll, but this does suggest that Seoul may face more domestic constraints on US-Japan-Korea trilateralism than Tokyo.

The complete report, including the figures which I copied on this post, can be found here.

News Roundup: Asia Pivot; Philippine Disaster; Kony 2013; Korean Politics and More...

There's so much news and so little time to post these days that I've decided to adopt something similar to the Duck's "Morning Linkage" news updates. These are basically news, academic research, and reports which revolve around my research & teaching interests.

Disaster and Relief Effort in the Philippines

• Typhoon Haiyan  has crippled the middle islands of the Philippines. The U.S. military is once again playing a leading role in disaster relief efforts in Asia. Foreign Policy published this article interestingly titled, "Everyone Hate U.S. Bases in Asia - Until Disaster Strikes." Goodwill efforts go far for the military as was the case in Indonesia in 2004 and Japan in 2011. This is in comparison to China's alleged $100,000 pledge (yes, that's correct, 100K). Diplomatic reasons for the paltry sum are given here. Reuters may be exaggerating to make the Chinese look really bad, but the general point about aid and goodwill still stands.
• I'm sure it's been done already, but it might be interesting to conduct a study on the role of the U.S. military and overseas U.S. military presence following foreign disasters? How does U.S. military participation in relief efforts affect local and regional opinion of the U.S. and U.S. military? Does "goodwill" have longer term regional effects? Does disaster relief draw the U.S. military far from its traditional mandate/mission and to what extent can/should the U.S. military be involved in providing humanitarian assistance.
•  Josh Busby had a good  post on thinking about natural disasters and insecurity. We often lump such studies under the rubric of "human security," but Busby, reflecting on his own work on climate change and security in Africa, suggests ways to think about natural hazards and "harder" security issues (i.e. bringing back guns, bombs, bullets). One interesting aspect noted by Busby (via Max Fisher) is the importance of governance and its relationship to disaster response. Looting, violence, and a general breakdown in order is very well a function of governance, state capacity, and perhaps civil-military relations.Jennifer Keister makes excellent points on governance and disaster response here.  The aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan certainly brings interesting comparisons to disaster response in Japan after the 2011 tsunami or the United States after Hurricane Katrina in 2005

Asia pivot related content

• Bob Kelly at the Duck had a long, but insightful piece on ROK-Japan relations, an issue I've also blogged about in the past. What was more interesting was his sweeping overview of East Asian security, the Asia Pivot, and US-Sino relations and where ROK and Japan fit in the broader strategic landscape. This makes a good read for undergrads interested in Asian security.
• Here's a recent CNAS report from Ely Ratner on the Asian Pivot and U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia. I'd like to take very small credit for suggesting a few ideas to Ely in the early phase of this project.

South Korean Politics

• The ROK government is seeking a ban on the United Progressive Party (UPP), South Korea's far left party for being pro-North Korea. I've had some interaction with UPP party members since they've been a key supporter of anti-U.S. base protests. Anyway, the article falls in line with a recent paper I read by UCSD professor's Steph Haggard and Jong-Sung You about a decline (or at least lower levels relative to other OECD countries) in civil liberties in South Korea. This is supported by several indexes which measure civil liberties, media openness, and democracy (i.e. Freedom House scores). It also falls in line with my argument about a strong security consensus held by foreign policy and security elites in South Korea.

Kony 2013

• I assigned this piece for my undergrads: a follow-up to the viral Kony 2012 video. The article highlights the unique and unusual interesection of interests between civil society/human rights activists and the U.S. military. As the article states, Invisible Children and other young activists were instrumental in pushing the U.S. government to take action against Kony. This comes despite the fact that Kony “is not targeting U.S. citizens. He’s not targeting U.S. embassies. He’s not al-Qaeda.” Despite the lack of threat to the US, the U.S. military may find other reasons for getting involved in the Kony hunt: 1) it gives them a reason for military presence in sub-Sahara Africa; 2) strengthens relations between U.S. and African countries; 3) allows the US to train African militaries.  So a win-win situation for activists and the U.S. miltiary. Would love to see a research article about the rise of Kony 2012, the convergence of political interests, and perhaps long term consequences of such action beyond Kony's future capture. 

Base Politics

• One of the anti-base protest cases I examined in my book was the protest against base expansion in Vicenza, Italy. The U.S. Army wanted to consolidate the 173rd Airborne Brigade, split between Germany and Italy, to northern Italy. Base construction is now complete, but David Vine just emailed me asking if I knew why the U.S. decided to keep two brigades in Germany. This was news to me so didn't have a clear answer.  But here was my educated guess: 

"The military states strategic reasons for keeping a batallion in Germany. Recent departures at Grafenwoehr have left more space with better training facilities for the 173rd. Of course, this defeats the earlier idea of consolidating the 173rd in one location.  This is purely speculation on my part, but is it possible that the Germans wanted to retain some US presence? When the DoD (and CBO) made its early recommendations for base realignment, Germany faced the largest reductions and closures. Not that there's much love for Washington these days from Berlin, but among foreign policy circles, I thought I read or heard somewhere that a few Germans believed the reductions were too much and too fast.

The question which I'm afraid I don't have an answer to, is how the US and Germany decided to retain some of the 173rd in Germany. Did the US ask Germany (likely with Germany willing to oblige); did Germany ask the US (less likely, but possible as a way of reinvigorating strategic ties); and finally, our milliion dollar question, if the  US asked Germany was it b/c of the newfound opportunity to use a large training facilitiy (although hard to believe the US wouldn't have thought of this earlier) or b/c of political opposition either in Vicenza locally, or from Rome, which left the US seeking some last minute basing solution." 

On this last point, if anti-base movements were a part of the decision to keep parts of the 173rd in Germany, I'm curious to know if Vicenza activists celebrated this announcement as a  a partial victory in blocking some US troops.

Civil Society, Civil Nuclear Cooperation, and Nuclear Disarmament

Back in June during the Mansfield Foundation's U.S.-Korea Scholar-Policy program, Charles Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists and Mary Beth Niikitin led an interesting discussion about the 123 Agreement and US-ROK civilian nuclear energy cooperation. I expected a boring talk, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting panels. Civilian nuclear diplomacy seemed to touch on every aspect of IR theory relevant to me: international security, two-level games, foreign policy, transnational activism, civil
society etc..

In a nutshell, Korea wants to expand its civilian nuclear energy capabilities and become a global supplier. However, Korea is prohibited from taking these steps under the U.S.-ROK "123" Agreement (following section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act agreement). As Mark Holt argues, U.S. consent is required for any reprocessing or enrichment activities related to U.S.-supplied materials and technology. Unable to come to an agreement, the U.S. and Korea decided to extend the current terms of the 123 Agreement and return to negotiations in 2014. The issue is complicated because

1. South Korea has growing energy demands and as their deal with the UAE suggests, a lot of money can be made from exporting the technological know-how. 
2. At the international level, the U.S.has to consider non-proliferation norms without appearing as if it carries double-standards. If  Korea is granted permission to expand its civilian nuclear program, why not North Korea? Why not Iran? These were some of the criticisms faced by the Bush Administration over the U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement in 2005. South Korea must also consider global non-proliferation norms, as well as its alliance partnership with the U.S.
3. At the domestic level, we might see three reactions: a) From the right: This is a matter of national sovereignty, Korea has the right to develop its nukes; b) From the left: nuclear energy is a dangerous option; c) From businesses: nuclear energy export leads to profit.

The issue of civilian nuclear cooperation can get technical very quickly, but it does seem like a great case for political scientists to explore, especially those who are into two-level games type research.

And although not related to civil nuclear cooperation, the role of civil society and nuclear disarmament has again come to my attention. The research conducted by the Nautilus Institute reminds me that it is not just left-wing peace activists who support disarmament, but those in the policy world as well. Another link on transnational civil society and disarmament is here.

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How Korean-Pop Conquered Japan....and Then the World

My TA informed me about the article on John Mearsheimer published in this month's Atlantic since my students recently read his take on realism and liberalism. However, my eyes wandered over to a photo and an article about K-pop breaking into the U.S. market. Apparently the group Girl's Generation (SNSD) is getting a gig on Letterman tomorrow night



From that article, I spotted another link to a related headline in the Atlantic: How Korean-Pop Conquered Japan. The headline is catchy because it a) it speaks of all sorts of ironies about Japan's colonial (or Korea's colonized) past; b) it takes the idea of Japan and "network power" - particularly in the domain of pop culture - and turns it on its head; c) it means the indignation I've felt about all the media hype in Korea about K-pop spreading globally (France and UK most recently) has been misplaced.

What's really interesting is how K-pop has "innovated" much faster than J-pop, and in doing so, has built its own latitude of soft power in Asia. Korea may actually be beating out Japan in its own game. Is the future with Samsung, Hyundai, LG rather than Sony, Toyota, and Panasonic? And will the transmission of Asian pop-culture outside its own region diffuse out of Seoul rather than Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai?

ROK Naval Base Protest Comes to DC

Interesting to see the naval base protest come to my home in DC....right when I'm away for a conference.



Good to see an exercising of Freedom of Speech. But seeing President Lee M.B. referred to as a dictator on one of the signs, I wonder if protestors are aware of Lee M.B.'s own rags-to-riches story.

Jeju Protestors Arrested

I predicted this about a month ago, but the ROK government has steadily increased the level of coercion the past two months to end protests against the construction of the ROK naval facility in Jeju.

NY Times reports 25 activists were detained today. Activists and residents have a valid point about environmental consequences. Who wants a giant military base on a beautiful island known best for honeymooning? On the other hand, the ROK government's heightened sensitivy to security threats following a turn of events the past couple of years (read Chinese assertiveness and DPRK aggression) have made them adamant about this base. One way or another, the ROK government will have its base.