Newsletter

Politics in East Asia seem to be growing ever more unpredictable with new administrations already in power in the United States or about to come into power in South Korea. At times like these, Chairman Ha Young-sun of the East Asia Institute, based on his extensive experience in studying international politics and diplomacy, shares his ideas on how Korea can resolve diplomatic issues with China and Japan and offers advice on the direction South Korean diplomacy as well as the Northeast Asian History Foundation should head toward. _ Editor’s note

Interviewer: Kim Jong-hak (Research fellow, NAHF Institute of Japanese Studies)

Ha Young-sun (Chairman, East Asia Institute & Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University)

Dr. Ha Young-sun received his B.A. in diplomatic science and M.A. in political science from Seoul National University. After earning his doctoral degree in international politics from the University of Washington, he served as a professor at Seoul National University’s department of political science and international relations and was a visiting scholar at Princeton University’s Center of International Studies in the United States and at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. He also served as the director of the Center for International Studies as well as the American Studies Institute at Seoul National University, and as the president of the Korea Peace Studies Association. He currently serves as the chairman of the board of trustees at the East Asia Institute and as a member of the Presidential National Security Advisory Group and the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation. His major publications include “Trustpolitik 2.0 on the Korean Peninsula: Complex Policy of Deterrence, Engagement, and Trust” (2014), “Toward 2020: Ten Agendas for South Korea’s Foreign Policy” (2013), and “Young-Sun Ha on International Politics: A Collection of Columns from 1991 to 2011” (2012).

Q1. Since you retired from your professorship at Seoul National University in 2012, you've been involved in various research projects and educational activities as the chairman of the East Asia Institute's board of trustees. So, could you please briefly introduce what kind of research the East Asia Institute (hereinafter EAI) performs and how it is internationally received?

Ha Young-sun  I've been serving as EAI's chairman for quite some time, but the position isn't central to the research I personally conduct. There are three reasons for my serving EAI and one of them is because I believe there is a need to form a proper East Asian discourse regarding the rise of China in the twenty-first century. Another reason is the need for a domestic think tank independent from the influence of the government or private corporations. The final reason has to do with wanting to experiment with a new type of think tank that can better respond to the demands of a more complex world order.

The University of Pennsylvania evaluates and releases rankings of around 7,000 think tanks all over the world each year and for the last five years, EAI has been the only think tank in South Korea to be included within the top 100 that is not affiliated with the government or a conglomerate. Considering that the Brookings Institution has an annual budget of about one hundred million dollars and a staff of more than 700, I believe EAI has performed quite well with a budget of about two million dollars and a staff of 12.

Q2. You've organized a "Study Group on the History of Korean diplomacy" since 2003 to study traditional ideas of the world and the Sinocentric world order, particularly delving into the way our Korean ancestors understood China. What effect do you think traditional ideas have had on the pattern of how China thinks and acts today and what implications might the way Joseon missions to Imperial China understood China have on Korea's present policies toward China?

Ha Young-sun  China's recent understanding of international politics is based on a "new type of international relations," which is a combination of a "new order of powers" and a "new order of neighboring countries." Regarding the "new order of neighboring countries" where South Korea would belong, China has been stating three precepts: "qin, cheng, hui, rong" (親誠慧容), which refers to amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness that should be shared by a group bound to a common destiny, the "One Belt, One Road" (一帶一路) initiative that aims for mutual economic prosperity, and the pursuit of China's core national interests nonetheless. If you consider those three precepts in terms of traditional Chinese ideas, they are ultimately talking about righteousness (義), interest (利), and power (勢), traditional concepts that Xi Jinping or Wang Yi mix into their ideas whenever it seems appropriate. However, we in Korea have failed to gain a proper grasp of this connection because those who understand Chinese tradition and those who study modern international politics tend to only focus on their respective areas of academic interest.

I sometimes ask well-known Korean experts on China on whether they've tried reading Yeolhailgi [The Jehol Diary], and almost none of them seems to have read it unless they have specialized in the Korean language or history. When I set out to analyze current issues with China, I often start by consulting the writings of Hong Dae-yong or Bak Ji-won. Yeolhailgi in particular contains a very sharp analysis by Bak Ji-won on what happened between the envoys of Joseon, Mongolia, and Tibet when they gathered to celebrate the seventieth birthday of the Qianlong Emperor, a Manchu ruler of the Qing dynasty. I wonder whether there is anyone with a spectrum wide enough to consider both the domestic and international aspects of Xi Jinping's diplomatic response toward the THAAD missile system's deployment. The THAAD deployment is actually not just an issue between the two Koreas, but an issue between South Korea, the United States, and Japan, and is also an issue between South Korea and China, and at the same time a domestic issue for Korean politics. Compared to Bak Ji-won, I think we are more far away from gaining the insight necessary for finding a balance and coming up with a resolution to this multi-layered issue.

Q3. As an alternative to juxtaposing the so-called sunshine policy and imposing sanctions upon North Korea, you suggested a "coevolutionary strategy" of pursuing simultaneous change among the two Koreas as well as the powers surrounding them. Where did your critical approach originate from and in what respect should South Korea and other countries "evolve" in order to induce change in North Korea's attitude?

Ha Young-sun  North Korea's nuclear weapons program is likely to resurface as a huge issue before and after the presidential election here in South Korea, but unfortunately, the sunshine policy and imposing sanctions have both failed to lead us to the solution we had hoped for. So, what I'm suggesting is to search for a way to make evolution happen to all the nations mainly involved. EAI has meanwhile been doing research on "ways to advance North Korea," but it seems unlikely for North Korea to give up the parallel development (byeongjin) of its economy and nuclear weapons. If so, North Korea needs to begin to realize from the inside that it must be responsible for helping itself, while we in South Korea exercise diplomacy to support North Korean efforts to help itself. In the meantime, economic sanctions and military restraints imposed by neighboring countries should be maintained because they can help narrow the range of options North Korea can choose from to sustain the parallel development of its economy and nuclear weapons. As for negotiations, they seem to be at a standstill because of the disparate terms each suggested by North Korea, South Korea, the United States, Japan, and China. Talks can of course go on to reduce such disparities, but I think the ultimate goal of negotiations should be to encourage North Korea to formulate a new policy and choose of its own accord to evolve toward a course of denuclearization and economic development.

Q4. You've long been saying that international politics in the twenty-first century will operate in a complex era in which the actors, their patterns of behavior, and the stage they act upon changes altogether. The most recent change in East Asia seems to be one of regression to the "modern" or "premodern" times when exclusive nationalism used to prevail. For example, the Japanese ambassador to South Korea has not returned from Japan for more than two months due to the disagreement between the two countries over the installation of the "statue of peace." What do you think should be done to dissipate the strain in the relations between South Korea and Japan?

Ha Young-sun  Japan's Prime Minister Abe, U.S. President Trump, and Brexit seem to be causing concerns that international politics has run into a stumbling block or is falling into regression on its way to growing increasingly complex. My discourse about growing complex takes place within the context of a massive transformation in the history of civilization, so I believe Trump or Abe will eventually pay a hefty price for the policies they are now employing. Although diplomatic relations under South Korea and Japan's incumbent administrations have become strained over the "comfort women" issue, there are still areas where the mutual benefit between two countries can be maximized. Areas like the economy, cutting-edge science and technology, environment, and energy are where there's definitely room for both countries to win. That is why it is necessary to make persistent efforts to secure such room. I personally believe the matters of righteousness over which South Korea and Japan are now experiencing conflicts are ones that require more than a century for both sides to reach an agreement. If so, both countries' leadership should be more frank about how long it will take, pursue their respective interests in the meantime, and become more far-sighted in terms of achieving righteousness. Meanwhile, they must not let political or military forces drive their pursuit of domestic or international interests. Today's leaders may not heed such advice, but someone must still keep on voicing such advice because it all comes down to a struggle with history.

Q5. You've been giving lectures to a small number of undergraduate and graduate students through an educational program called "EAI Sarangbang" since 2013. Could you please share with us what you've been teaching the future pillars of Korean diplomacy?

Ha Young-sun  The term "Sarangbang" was inspired by the study room of Hwanjae (瓛齋) Bak Gyu-su (朴珪壽) where he used to teach ideas of enlightenment to the young gentry such as Kim Ok-gyun, Bak Yeong-hyo, and Yu Gil-jun after retiring from his position as Right State Councilor Uuijeong in 1874. If you think about it, it's pretty interesting to imagine that a great scholar past the age of seventy read classics and literature from the West with men more than half a century younger than himself. Bak Gyu-su must have wanted to enlighten the young gentry in both the classics and current affairs. The EAI Sarangbang likewise aims at having its students browse through past and present material from the East and West. Students tend to have more trouble reading past material from the East as opposed to present material from the West. Nevertheless, rather than those in their forties or fifties who have already lost the capacity to think flexibly, it seems more worthwhile to teach those in their twenties who have the potential to become young leaders capable of thinking more deeply and broadly.

Q6. There seems to be great expectations and interest over "A Diplomatic History of the Republic of Korea" (working title) you're currently writing with ten Korean junior scholars through support from the Northeast Asian History Foundation since it's supposed to be the first textbook on the history of Korean diplomacy to be published in South Korea. Could you please share any thoughts that occurred or anything you particularly paid attention to while working on the book?

Ha Young-sun Instead of aiming to present an introductory textbook, I started the project to conduct case studies on about thirty major incidents that occurred in the modern history of Korean diplomacy between 1945 and the late 1990s. That is because I believe disputes over textbooks have been triggered by a lack of proper case studies done on the contemporary diplomacy we are now a part of.

We paid attention to two things while working on the manuscript. One is for the description of diplomatic history to be strictly based on primary sources so that it cannot be influenced by a spectrum of ideologies. The other is to engage in a brief self-reflection on how relevant sources have been domestically and internationally reviewed as we conduct our case studies. The project's participants were arranged to be a mix of scholars specializing in either history or international relations who were willing to delve into monthly discussions like seminars in graduate school. After going through a year of it, I think we've made some rather satisfactory progress. If I were to point out a shortcoming, it would be that Korean academia seems to be stuck in the past in terms of the way sources are studied. I sometimes feel that we're still somewhere around phase 2.5 in researching the Cold War when the rest of the world is actively involved in phase 4. We've been talking among ourselves about taking advantage of the project as an opportunity to self-reflect as scholars, so I suspect that by the third year of this project, specialists in Korean history and international relations will be able to partially accept one another's opinions. I sincerely hope "A Diplomatic History of the Republic of Korea" will be able to serve as a book used to properly educate diplomats at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy and contribute to formulating descriptions about the contemporary history of the Republic of Korea in future textbooks.

Q7. Finally, we would appreciate it if you could offer any advice you might have for the Northeast Asian History Foundation.

Ha Young-sun  The matter of what kind of perspective will be applied to understanding and describing historical sources is bound to be a major concern for an organization like the Northeast Asian History Foundation that covers a broad range of history from ancient to contemporary. In China, the government defines Chinese history as a history of unification of multiple ethnicities from twenty-five dynasties, whereas Japan applies perspectives from the nineteenth to twentieth century to understand matters of history. For Korea, I think it's time for some frank, serious interdisciplinary discussions to take place between history and social science. To do so, experts in international relations need to study history and experts in the Korean language and history need to study international relations. If the Northeast Asian History Foundation offers more support for such joint, interdisciplinary research, that could bring some completely different discussions to the table.

The United States, China, and Japan are now in a three-way race when it comes to research on Asian history. I think Korea should be able to advance itself by putting out discourses based on primary sources in Korea and overseas that can be recognized as original and convincing to the global audience. And if the Northeast Asian History Foundation intends to be a part of that, I think it must ultimately internationalize all its activities.