Selected Publications of the Asia Institute 2007-2012 Edited by Emanuel Pastreich

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Selected Publications of The Asia Institute 2007-2012

Edited by Emanuel Pastreich

Selected Publications of The Asia Institute 2007-2012

Edited by Emanuel Pastreich The Asia Institute Press

Selected Publications of The Asia Institute 2007-2012

ISBN-10: 978-89-969848-0-1

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Selected Publications of The Asia Institute should be addressed to The Asia Institute at the address below.

The Asia Institute GCS International Building 115-3 Gwonnong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul 82 (0) 2 741-2274 www.asia-institute.org

This book contains a selection of reports, seminar transcriptions, essays and articles produced by The Asia Institute between 2007, the year of our founding, and 2012. These publications reveal the diversity of our work and highlight our focus on contemporary Korea within the context of East Asia and at the same time, within a global context. The Asia Institute highlights issues that are critical in East Asia but have been overlooked: contemporary culture in East Asia, the research environment for technology, the impact of technology on society and the way forward in response to the environmental challenges of our age.

Our thanks go to Matthew Weigand, Yoojin Jung, Sujatha Venkatesh, Bellena Kim, Pamarthy Likith, Menglun Qian, Joa Lee and Sunyoung Lee for their assistance in the editorial work related to this publication. The number of contributors to these projects, however, is far, far, greater.

Emanuel Pastreich Director The Asia Institute

December 25, 2012

Table of Contents

Introducing The Asia Institute ...... 12

SEMINARS ...... 13 “What Youth can Do for the Future of Asia” ...... 14 Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology...... 14

“Korea’s Place in Comparative Literature” ...... 22 Haun Saussy University Professor of Comparative Literature University of Chicago

“Korea and Globalization” ...... 31 Nayan Chanda Editor, Yale Global Online Magazine Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

“China’s Future Role in East Asia” ...... 39 Richard Bush Director Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies Brookings Institution

“Korea’s Role in Science and Technology” ...... 48 Harold Varmus Director National Cancer Institute

“The Problem of the Media in Korea” ...... 56 Noam Chomsky Professor Department of Linguistics Massachusetes Institute of Technology

“The Conditions for Engaging North Korea” ...... 66 Jon Huntsman Former Governor of Utah

“Engaging North Korea” ...... 71 John Feffer

Co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus The Institute for Policy Studies

“The Outsider in Korean and American Politics” ...... 79 Francis Fukuyama Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Stanford University

“Free Trade and the Status of Small and Medium Enterprises in the Global Economy” ...... 89 Clyde Prestowitz Founder and President Economic Strategy Institute ...... 89

“Challenges in Korean Education”

Professor Bertram Chip Bruce

Department of Library & Information Science

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

“Korean Media in Comparative Perspective” ...... 110 Robert W. McChesney Gutgsell Endowed Professor Department of Communication University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

“Looking at Free Trade and Korea’s Position in a Globalized World” ...... 122 Mark Kingwell Professor Department of Philosophy University of Toronto

“Populism in Korea”...... 131 Benjamin R. Barber Senior Research Scholar

The Graduate Center The City University of New York

“The Future of Voice Recognition” ...... 139 Mark Hasegawa-Johnson Professor Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

“An Indian Perspective on the Korean Peninsula” ...... 145 7

Vyjayanti Raghavan Associate Professor Centre for Japanese, Korean and Northeast Asian Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

“Position of SMEs in Korea and in the World” ...... 150 N. R. Narayana Murthy Founder and Chairman Emeritus Infosys Technologies

“The Outsider in Korean Politics” ...... 155 Gregg A. Brazinsky Associate Professor Department of History and International Affairs George Washington University

“Korean Social Welfare in Comparative Perspective” ...... 167 Eckhard Schroeter Professor and Chair Department of Public Administration Zeppelin Universität, Germany

“The Real Issues on the Korean Peninsula” ...... 174 Larry Wilkerson Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy William & Mary College

“The Challenges of Korean Education in Historical Perspective” ...... 184 Michael Seth Professor Department of History James Madison University

“The Crisis in Education in Korea and the World” ...... 192 Peter Hershock Director Asian Studies Development Program East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Manoa

“The Challenges and Opportunities in Korean Education” ...... 203 Regina Murphy Senior Lecturer Department of Education St. Patrick’s College, Dublin City University ESSAYS ...... 210

“The Frankenstein Alliance” ...... 211 Emanuel Pastreich

“Daejeon: Environmental Capital of Asia” ...... 215 Jung Hoon Han & Emanuel Pastreich

“Wenchuan as Eco-City” ...... 217 John Feffer & Emanuel Pastreich

“The Language of Climate Change” ...... 219 Emanuel Pastreich

“The Eco-Currency: A Proposal” ...... 221 Emanuel Pastreich

“The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: New Thinking in Northeast Asia?” ...... 222 Markku Heiskanen & James Goodby

“To Take the Lead Globally Korea must build the Ferrari of Hand-held Devices” ...... 225 Emanuel Pastreich

“Korea as Number One in the Robot Revolution” ...... 227 Emanuel Pastreich

“The Fukushima Disaster Opens New Prospects for Cooperation in Northeast Asia” ...... 228 Markku Heiskanen & James Goodby

“Take Naver Global Today!” ...... 230 Emanuel Pastreich

“Is the United States a threat even if it is just minding its own business?” ...... 231 Emanuel Pastreich

“After Kimchi and Winter Sonata: The Intellectual Korean Wave” ...... 232 Emanuel Pastreich

“Key Factors for the Future Success of Scientific Research Institutes” ...... 234 Emanuel Pastreich

“Korean Technology Beyond Motherboards and Displays” ...... 238 Emanuel Pastreich

“Next president of KAIST should be a woman” ...... 240 Emanuel Pastreich

“Red Alert: Korean Language Instruction in the United States” ...... 241 Emanuel Pastreich

“The Importance of Women for the Future of Korea” ...... 242 Emanuel Pastreich

“Korea’s tradition of propriety: Godsend for network age” ...... 246 Emanuel Pastreich

“Raise Expectations of Korean Language Competency in International Students” ...... 247 Emanuel Pastreich

“Is the World Really Becoming Smaller?” ...... 248 Emanuel Pastreich

“The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: New Thinking in Northeast Asia?” ...... 251 James E. Goodby & Markku Heiskanen

“Every Practitioner of International Relations Should Major in Literature” ...... 254 Emanuel Pastreich

“Fifteen Steps to address the environmental crisis: Things you have already thought about!” ...... 258 Emanuel Pastreich

“How can you have a democracy if you do not know even who your neighbor is?” ...... 262 Emanuel Pastreich

“From Pacific Pivot to Green Revolution” ...... 264 Emanuel Pastriech & John Feffer

“Wise Words of Confucius on Shifts in Institutions” ...... 267 Emanuel Pastreich

“The Moral Equivalent of War: Joining with our Chinese Neighbors to Stop the Spread of Deserts in Northeast Asia” ...... 269 Kwon Byong Hyun

“Moving beyond Militarization: Northeast Asia needs collective security, not conflict” ...... 274 Honda Hirokuni

Chapter 3 ...... 277

REPORTS...... 277

“Approaches to International Collaboration in Korean Biotechnology: Section 6&7” Commissioned by the Korea Research Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology

“A Survey of the Nuclear Safety Infrastructure in Southeast Asia and Prospects for the Future” . 284 “Need for Convergence Technology Tools for Assessment of Toxicological Implications of Ionizing Radiation” Commissioned by the Korea Research Institute for Standards and Science ...... 284 Vince Rubino

Introducing The Asia Institute

The Asia Institute is the first truly pan-Asian think tank. A research institution that addresses global issues with a focus on Asia, The Asia Institute is committed to presenting a balanced perspective that takes into account the concerns of the entire region. The Asia Institute provides an objective space wherein a significant discussion on current trends in technology, international relations, the economy and the environment can be carried out.

In terms of trade, technology and finance, Asia is integrating at a remarkably quick pace these days. Although Asia is the intellectual, technological and financial hub of the world, the gap between the integration of Asia in terms of logistics, energy and finance and its slow emergence as a cultural and intellectual continuum is striking.

The amount of in-depth discussion between the citizens of Asia bound together by these changes remains insufficient. There is a desperate need for analysis and debate about trends in Asia that goes beyond national borders and includes all stakeholders. The Asia Institute has chosen to focus on the impact of technology on society, the environment, the concerns of youth and women and the implications for international relations of developments in education, communications and business. All these questions are critical for the future of Asia and deserve thoughtful analysis and discussion.

The Asia Institute represents the concerns of all of Asia, offering a neutral space wherein committed leaders from business, government, and academia can discuss issues in good faith and can combine their wisdom and their resources to find solutions.

Chapter 1 SEMINARS

“What Youth Can Do for the Future of Asia” 3 December 2011

Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Emanuel Pastreich Recently we have seen quite a bit reporting about a reengagement of the Obama Administration in East Asia and actions that are perceived as an effort to encircle and contain China. Most notable is the agreement to deploy 2,500 US Marines in Darwin announced during President Obama’s November visit to Australia. Well certainly reading through the New York Times you might think that the United States has surrounded China. But there is plenty of evidence that it is in fact the United States that is increasingly isolated from the world. We find increasingly that it is the United States that is difficult to get visas for entry and the United States that is isolated in the international community.

If anything, excessive spending on outdated weapons systems from an age before climate change was the primary threat seems to be weakening the United States, and perhaps even increasing its overall dependency on economically and technologically on China. Although we should never rule out the potential for conflict, there is reason to suspect that things are not exactly what they seem.

Noam Chomsky Well it’s claimed that the USA and China are engaged in a power struggle. There’s a small element of truth to that claim, but not much in my opinion. Notice that the power struggle such as it is, is off the coast of China, it’s not in the Caribbean, it’s not off the coast of the USA. If there is a conflict, it is a highly unequal one. I think the countries of Asia have good reason to be concerned about the China’s potential ambitions and potential actions but at the moment, China remains, despite spectacular growth in the past several decades, a very poor country, facing internal problems completely unknown to the West. China’s growth, which is spectacular, nevertheless is highly dependent. China is in an assembly, plant, mainly an assembly plant for a high technology parts and components, advanced software and so on, which are developed in the surrounding industrial countries. So there’s a lot of talk about US trade deficit with China, but the economists know well that the trade deficit is seriously overestimated. If you estimate the trade deficit in terms of value added, what’s actually contributed, it turns out that the deficit with China is overestimated by about 25%, and the deficit with South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore is about underes-

timated by the same amount. Because there is an Asian production system wherein high technology and R&D is located on the periphery of China, and China serves an assembly plant.

Emanuel Pastreich If anything, we can see remarkable economic integration between Chi- na and the United States. Although there are considerable restrictions for the movement of people from one country to the other, we find that products, raw materials, are moved from one country to the other with remarkable speed and efficiency. There are no barriers at all for raw materials to move from the United States to China or finished products to move from China to the United States. The level of economic integration between the two countries is perhaps unprecedented. No two economic systems have been so closely linked at such a distance. But the gap between people remains significant. Moreover, in terms of technology, we are finding extremes of outsourcing made possible by the decreasing significance of distance. The decreasing cost of transmitting information means that an American company can essentially be perfectly linked to Chinese factory and work as an integrated whole. But the countries themselves are not at all integrated. They barely know each other. Technology will continue improve in China, with serious implications for the world.

Noam Chomsky China will no doubt move up the technological ladder, but that’s not an easy path, and it faces extremely serious problems- demographic problems, ecological problems, problems of repression, political problems unknown in the West. The military budget in China is a fraction of that of the United States’. In fact, it’s a fraction of what the United States spends in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, let alone the whole budget. In fact, the US military budget is approximately the same as the rest of the world’s combined. So yes there’s a conflict of interest in the South China Sea for example, but to think of it as some kind of parody is I believe highly misleading. That’s not to say one should not be concerned about potential developments in China, there are plenty of points of conflict in the territorial water surrounding it, but we should recognize that it’s by no means a parallel system, as you can see simply from the fact that the conflicts are off the coast of China. The United States with South Korea is as I mentioned planning a major military base in Jeju Is- land, confronting China, about 300 miles away, the US has just announced that it is deploying marines in Australia, confronting China, that’s in addition to the many military bases it has there already. It’s inconceivable that China would be doing anything similar off the coasts of the United States. And it’s worth keeping that in mind.

Emanuel Pastreich China has quite a bit invested in the United States and oddly Chinese have a more positive impression of Americans than do many foreigners. The confrontation is driven in part by conflicts in national interests, but the two countries are so integrated that

such lines are not very clear. In fact the more critical question going forward will be the fragmentation within Chinese, and above all within American society. Those fault lines in the domestic social economic sphere are of course related to globalization and they are far more significant as a trend.

Noam Chomsky One of the very striking developments in the past several months, is the Occupy Movement: Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, where I am, all over the US, same in Spain, same in Greece, same in England. These are mostly young people, when they occupy a particular area, say the park near Wall Street, they’re forming associations, bonds, creating communities, exchanging ideas, discussing, proposing plans, reaching out to others, who form what they call the 99%. That’s an accurate description, the overwhelming majority of the population, who have been left out of recent so called Neo-liberal economic development, have been left to stagnate while the tiny fraction of the population has become extremely wealthy and the democratic systems have been significantly eroded and now they are confronting that- first major effort in 30 years, to confront these developments. Well that’s the kind of thing the youth can do and are doing, just as in Jeju Island, villagers are doing things. There’s no shortage of opportunities, if there’s a shortage of anything it’s will, will and dedi- cation.

Emanuel Pastreich We have a group of students with us here today who have actually made up their minds that they want to contribute to society, to break out of a consumer- dominated culture and have a real impact. When I speak to young people, they often express their frustration that there are these educated and capable people in positions of power, but they are doing nothing to address the issues of our age. Why is it, our youth ask, that these people so well educated and so well connected are just sitting there watching?

Noam Chomsky Well, that’s not true that they’re doing nothing. They’re doing very definite things. So for example, the government of South Korea and United States, right now are planning to destroy a substantial part of the Island of Peace, to develop a naval base, which could be a stepping stone towards a nuclear war. That’s doing something. In social and economic policies of the past 30 years, the leaders of much of the world, the Western world, have been pursuing policies that have led to an extremely sharp concentration of wealth, unprecedented in the US, it’s not the only case of such a trend. In the Unit- ed States about 1/10 of the population has maybe 40% of wealth. For the rest of the population, over the last 30 years it has been stagnation and decline. They are doing things. Take the case of Brazil and South Korea that I’ve mentioned. The big growth period of South Ko- rea has been since 1980, a very substantial period of economic growth. In Brazil, to repeat, in 1980, the economy of South Korea was about 2/3rds of Brazil’s per capita. Brazil stagnated for about 20 years. South Korea grew enormously, and now Brazil is starting to grow, and

South Korea is growing even faster. That’s why South Korea economy is now roughly 3 times Brazil. Now what happened during those 20 years? Well, those 20 years, Brazil was following policies of people in power who were doing something – mainly imposing so-called Neo- liberal principles and structural adjustment principles and others, which for all of Latin Amer- ica, not just Brazil, led to a period of stagnation and decline, very much the way they have for the majority of the population in the US, England, and to certain extent, elsewhere, during the same period. So yes, they are doing something. People in power quite typically, do things to extend and intensify their own power. Sure that’s what you expect them to do. The young people are in a position where they don’t have to do this. Young people are in the freest moment of their lives. People like you, youth, you’re out of parental control more or less, you do not yet have the burdens of trying to put food on the table for family, maybe under difficult conditions. You’re fairly free, more free than anyone ever is in their lives, to think, to plan, to consider alternatives, to develop new ideas, and so on, and that’s why over the years, a great deal of initiative towards progress has indeed come from young people.

Emanuel Pastreich Korea is an interesting case. When I first came to Korea in 1994, the campuses smelled constantly of tear gas and there were violent protests on a regular basis. That age was after the big student movements of the 1980s that forced real democratic change within the system. But now the situation is almost reversed. In the United States we see student activism, but in Korea less so. Many more students are focused on preparing their credentials to get a job. They do not seem to have that same drive, whereas in the United States students are becoming active on a scale we have not seen since the 1960s. Of course student movements can go in various directions and their ultimate impact can be minimal or even negative. The question is what is the long term goal. Global Peace Youth Corps is trying to make that activism positive and international. Therein lies the potential.

Noam Chomsky Well, we can look at the Civil Rights movement, a major development of the past 50 years. The Civil Rights movement didn’t achieve all its ends by any means, but it brought about a very substantial progress. Well if you think about the Civil Rights movement, you perhaps think of Martin Luther King Jr., giving a speech in Washington, a big demonstration in 1963, the “I Have a Dream” speech, which I’m sure you know, which was a very important event, and Martin Luther King Jr. was an individual of great significance and honor, but he would have been the first to tell you that he was riding a wave that had been created by others, most of them young people, college students, young Black students who in, couple of years earlier, had decided to sit in lunch counters in the South, in Atlanta, where Blacks were forbidden to sit, but they went in and sat at the lunch counters where they were arrested, beat- en, and taken away. And then others began riding freedom buses, in the South to try to organize voters so that Black voters, who were heavily repressed and have been kept out of the political system

almost entirely throughout all of the history of the country, that wasn’t easy either. They were attacked and many were killed, some young people joined from the North, many of them were killed. They worked hard and they finally broke through, and it got to the point where there was a mass popular movement, there could be a major demonstration in Wash- ington, some important legislation was passed and so on. It’s not too different from what happened in Korea in the 1980s, when the dictatorship was overthrown. And in case after case, when you look, you find that the young people are often at the forefront, just as they are in the Occupy movements today, whether it’s in Spain or Wall Street or anywhere else. You have opportunities, the kind that you didn’t have when you were a child, and you may not have when you’re older. When you’re older, embedded in institutions with demands that leave less opportunity and less choice, so as in the past, I think it’s entirely natural that young people should be facing these burdens. I should say it’s the same in other domains. So I happen to be in a university that is devoted to the sciences, probably the leading science university in the world. In the university, students are not expected to sit, take notes, and repeat on a test what they’re told. They’re expected to challenge, to create, to invent, to come up with new proposals, to show that the conventional ideas that they are being taught are maybe incorrect and should be pursued in a different way. And in fact, very commonly, the best ideas and newest thinking comes out of the work of students, graduate students, in seminars, and in their own research. And it’s for similar reasons they can think in new ways and often make great breakthroughs. And it’s pretty much the same in political life. So I think that, it may seem to you unfair that the rich and the powerful aren’t doing the kinds of things that should be done, but you can understand why they’re not doing them, and you can also understand why people like you have the opportunity to change that, as has been done in the past.

Emanuel Pastreich I suppose one major challenge is how student activism can be linked to education. At Kyung Hee University, where I teach, we have embarked on a very ambitious project to establish a new liberal arts program, Humanitas College, that brings together education, civic education and public service. But can such an open system actually be established within the university? That is the major challenge for us today. Some students regard education as a paid-for service. They do not see any need to participate in anything. Then there are those who can only think in terms of getting their jobs. They have been lulled to sleep, thinking that the job interview is most important. Tragically, that job may not last very long and they may regret that they did not build friends for life at an earlier stage in their lives.

Student We now confront a radical neo-liberal system which seeks to turn everything into products and destroy our society and our environment. But if we want to move beyond this system, we must have a concept as to what can replace Neo-liberalism. What do you think is possible?

Noam Chomsky What system can replace the Neo-liberal system? Well just ask yourselves, why Korea developed from 1980 to the present, while Brazil went through 20 years of stagnation. One reason is that Korea never accepted the Neo-liberal policies, until the early 90s, and in the end it suffered from them. Through the 1980s, the big growth period for Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and in fact China, the East Asian economies, simply ignored the advice and demands imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the US Treasury, the leading Western Powers- they ignored all of that advice. They followed a policy of state-guided industrial development, which turned out to be highly successful. Latin America in contrast, followed the rules rigorously, and the economy stagnated and declined. So you know very well, at least one alternative, maybe not the best alternative. Later South Korea did come to accept these rules, and within a few years, fell into a terrible financial crisis in 1997-98, then it sort of pulled itself out. So there are plenty of alternatives, it’s not necessary to follow these rules. Further- more, we can move way beyond that, to a really functioning democratic society. That means one in which decisions about all issues are in the hands of the people who are subject to those decisions, that means communities, work forces, so on. So for example, why should an enterprise, say a manufacturing plant, why should it owned and run by banks and managers some remote place, or even right on the scene? Why should some be giving orders and others taking them? Work forces themselves, in the community in which they exist, can in principle, and I think should, ultimately get to the point where they can take over and run these enterprises democratically for themselves. And the same is true for every other institution. There’s a convention, and a history, that says we have to follow orders given to us from above. There was once a convention, and some extent there still is, that women have to follow the orders given by males, by their husband, or some other male. There were, not long ago, and still in much of the world are systems where slaves have to follow the orders of masters. Over history, these structures of hierarchy and domination have been gradually eroded, by no means far enough, but substantially so. So it’s a different world than it was 50 years ago. Korea is dramatically the case, United States also. And that history hasn’t ended. This process can go on. Anywhere that you see structure of authority and domination, whatever it is, whether it’s in a family, or in international affairs, or anywhere in between, wherever you find a structure of authority and domination, you should always be asking, “is it legitimate?” It isn’t self-justifying, it has to justify itself. Can it justify itself? Can this system of domination justify itself? Whether it’s a patriarchal family, management-run or owner-run enterprise, a world system in which a few great powers determine the rules, together with multinational corporations, of the World Trade Organization- are any these structures legitimate? Well they have to prove their legitimacy. They have a burden of proof. And if they can’t meet it, which is usually the case, then it’s our challenge to dismantle it and move on to a greater degree of freedom and justice. And I suppose that’s a process without end. So you can sketch out what the alternatives ought to be, but piece by piece, I think you can see how to approach, with particular kinds of repression, domination, authority, inequality that have no justification, and

therefore can be and should be dismantled, as in the cases that I’ve mentioned, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, control over one’s own work, many other things.

Emanuel Pastreich The problem is quite complex because a consumer society generates a population that is passive and expects to consume. We have had great activism in the past, although as we know in the case of Russia, activism can lead in the wrong direction. As long as the attitude is a consumers’ perspective, activism and the role of citizens in running institutions will be extremely limited. Let us take the case of Disney World. No one who goes to Disney World thinks that they have to help clean up, or help make up the displays, or cook the food. The customer assumes that once he or she has paid for the ticket, everything is included in that price. Well citizens make the same assumption. They think that they do not have to clean parks, or take away garbage, or think about their communities much. They are paying certain fees and that should cover everything. I have seen many young people in Ko- rea just throw garbage on the street. They assume someone else will pick it up and that they have no responsibility. We have to start by addressing this issue.

Student Let me ask you about the division of the Korean Peninsula today. Why is this still the case and how can we address it as young people?

Noam Chomsky In South and North Korea, the issues are quite different, than in India and Pakistan, for example. But here in Korea the problems are very severe, it goes back, far back to at least the end of the Second World War, where there was strong desire for unification throughout Korea. It never happened, you know reasons why, so I don’t have to run through them, it led to devastating conflict that practically destroyed the region. There’s been recovery of different kinds. By now the two societies are radically different. North Korea is a highly repressive, struggling society, while South Korea is vital, industrial, growing society. The only sensible proposal that I’ve heard is to how they can move towards some form of reconciliation, is one or another variety of Sunshine Policy. They’ve had small successes, a lot of failures, but if there’s an alternative, I’ve never heard it. And I think that those policies, or policies similar to those, have to be pursued, no matter how frustrating and difficult they are. I’ve never heard an alternative suggestion and if young people can come up with one, that would be great. But the worst thing to do is to engage in provocation, such as military maneuvers on the borders and so on, which are just bound to lead to retaliation, and increased tensions, and possibly even another war. Take a look at other parts of the world, the problems are different. Another major problem right on the international agenda is the Israel and Palestine conflict. Well in comparison with India and Pakistan, North and South Korea, that’s an easy one. In fact, there’s an overwhelming international consensus on how it should be resolved by two states settled on the internationally recognized border and that proposal actually reached the Security Council in 1976, 35 years ago, it was vetoed by the United States, and since that time, the US has along with Israel, have simply blocked it.

It’s not the only factor involved, but its’ the major one and remains so today. So Eu- rope can have a very positive role if it chooses to do so, by trying to mediate the conflict and move towards the international consensus, but Europe has chosen once again simply to follow obediently after the United States, abandoning a possible role in world affairs. It’s not a matter of logical necessity, but it’s a matter of choice, a choice of action, on the part of the people who have a fair degree of opportunity. The world opinion is overwhelmingly in support of this, but the governments are not implementing it. Well then, okay, that means we need more democracy, more responsiveness to the people’s will, and if that happens this could move forward. Let’s take another major issue in world affairs. It also has to do with nuclear weapons. One of the dominant topics of world affairs today is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear programs, which some believe may lead to nuclear weapons development. Well, it’s kind of interesting that in the region, in the Arab world nearby, Iran is not Arab, but in the Arab world nearby, majority opinion is -nobody wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, much too dangerous- but the majority opinion is that the region would be more secure if Iran did have nuclear weapons, which would balance, what Arab opinion sees as the major threat they face, mainly the United States and Israel. Is there a way out of this impasse? Yes, there’s a way and everyone knows what it is. It’s to move towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone, in the region, which would include Iran, Israel; it would include US, and British and probably French forces that deploy nuclear weapons that would all be excluded by a nuclear-weapons-free zone. Well, such efforts have been made in other parts of the world, partially, and it’s critically significant in this region, there’s very strong support for it. And interestingly just a few days ago, a poll in Israel found that the majority of Israe- lis are in favor of it, even if it would mean putting their own nuclear weapons under supervision. Why isn’t it proceeding? Well, the great powers, and I’m sorry to say in this case primarily the United States, are impeding the effort. And here domestic pressure inside the US, international pressure can make a difference.

Emanuel Pastreich I had the honor in Korea of working together with John Endicott, now president of Woosong University on his plan for a Limited Nuclear-Weapons Free Zone in Northeast Asia, a very significant track-two initiative focused on East Asia. If we can come up with a patchwork of nuclear-free zones around the world, we can set the stage for a nuclear free Earth and then, having put to bed that threat, we can concentrate our efforts on addressing the terrible challenges we face related to the degradation of the environment. It will stand as one of the great tragedies of our age that we failed to address the nuclear weapons issue effectively. But nuclear weapons are the result of a larger, equally problematic phenomenon that is not the fault of any one individual or any one country. As Albert Einstein so clearly grasped, nuclear weapons are a result of the unprecedented rate of technological evolution today. Many of the phenomenon we witness seem to be the result of greedy individuals, and that is to some degree true, but at the same time IT, biotechnology and the new systems en-

gendered by these technologies are also rapidly changing our societies and placing immense pressure on us. Young people need to grasp the role that technology plays in shaping our world. Above all citizens must retake agency. We cannot be passive consumers of this world. We must be active participants, using our own imagination to redefine what are society does and what it means.

“Korea’s Place in Comparative Literature” 29 December 2011

Haun Saussy University Professor of Comparative Literature University of Chicago

Emanuel Pastreich We both began in Nashville, Tennessee, and we both had fathers involved in music. Asia was not anywhere around us at the beginning. If anything, our families were very deeply committed to the Western classical tradition. And yet ultimately Asia would become central in both of our lives. In my case, there was a Chinese restaurant near our home in Saint Louis that we would go to regularly. It was quite intriguing to me even then as I wrestled with chopsticks, suggesting another tradition out there. More important was my move to San Francisco in high school. From that time forward I had a significant number of Chinese American friends. Alt- hough I did not actually learn Chinese, I did start to think about the culture. Interestingly, Robert Campbell, who now teaches at the department of comparative literature at University of Tokyo (where I received my M.A.), also went to Lowell High School. Robert Campbell is the only American I know who writes academic papers at a high level of sophistication in Japanese.

Haun Saussy Like you, I was always aware of the existence of Asia, which, for Americans of our generation, put us somewhat ahead of the game. I grew up in a town where the nearest thing to an Asian environment was the one Cantonese restaurant. I would stand near the kitchen door listening to the cooks argue: what was that, was that a language, I wondered. When I took Greek later, I noticed that, somehow, the Japanese phonetic inventory was

similar to the Greek, with its long “o” and “e” distinct from short “o” and “e,” but I did not have the time to follow up on that observation as an undergraduate. At one point I wrote an undergraduate essay comparing Lu Ji's "Wen fu" (which I read in the translation by E. R. Hughes) with the Greek literary critic Longinus’ writings on the sublime. So I was ready by then to take the plunge. The opportunity finally arose when I was in Paris studying linguistics and obsessed by François Cheng's book on Chinese poetic writing. It always seemed to me a good experimental method, to test concepts that were familiar to me by comparing them with concepts other people were using in other languages. It worked for Greek and English and it only got better when I added Chinese to the mix.

Emanuel Pastreich We both started out seeped in the Western tradition, and then plunged into the Chinese tradition. Of course you did a much more careful survey of the Western tradition than I did. We must admit that there were challenges from the beginning. Could we make a meaningful connection between East and West? Could the East Asian tradition be taken seriously by our peers in the United States when it lacks certain markers of high seriousness required by so many Western intellectuals? Now major geopolitical shifts have led many to rethink those points, but we are still in a world in which Newton or Darwin have a universal status that no one in China, Japan or Korea has. Why is that?

Haun Saussy It's hard to make any generalization from people so exceptional as Newton and Darwin. But they lived in a time when very few countries possessed much of a scientific establishment, and they were connected to most of their peers through the intellectual networks that existed at the time. Further, they were lucky to come along at a time when a great deal of information had been gathered in their fields, and the need for a big theory was felt but not satisfied. Both of them offered a few singularly valuable insights. We don't know who the next Newtons and Darwins will be, or which field will they work in. It seems that genetics, neurobiology, and physics are accumulating a lot of results that so far resist elegant analysis, and whoever in those fields finds a way to make the results cohere with a new pattern of thinking will be the new Newton. These three fields are being cultivated in all parts of the globe, with intense communication among researchers everywhere, so the likelihood of the next big figure in genetics, say, being a non-Euro-American is pretty high. Science has become a perfectly cosmopolitan domain. In most labs I know in the United States, you'll find more foreigners, at every level of authority, than you'll find in most foreign-language departments, proportionally speaking! In some ways, the natural sciences have built the world society that the rest of us have been dreaming about for centuries.

Emanuel Pastreich But the question for us would be, was there something in the Western tradition that was unique, say in establishing a universal structure for inquiry that will serve as the platform for all investigation from here on out? Or could it be that geopolitical shifts will revise our perception of the world, our basic schemata of inquiry to a degree to which the aspects of the Asian tradition which could serve as a universal standard will return to that position?

Haun Saussy I do think there are universal structures for inquiry: processes of testing the accuracy of statements, judging the fairness of social arrangements and so on. And if they work for most or all human beings, then it doesn't matter so much where they originated. Any tradition will have some parts that feel very provincial, mixed in with the parts that promise to extend more generally. And of course it's the interpreter who sifts out the universal (or promising-to-be-universal) from the rest. When I read, for example, the Mahabharata with my students, a text that I'm incapable of appreciating in the original, I spend a lot of time painting in the background, but I do this so that we can concentrate on the conflicts and issues that step out of the background and seem to address us more or less directly as human beings.

Emanuel Pastreich In a sense, we are led by our work on East Asia to understand something about ourselves. In a sense even the simplest forms of Asian studies are inherently comparative, even if they do not draw attention to that aspect. As T. S. Eliot once wrote, “And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”

Haun Saussy I often wonder whether the Western tradition looks very much like a tradition when seen from an Asian cultural point of view. Nobody in Western Europe could read Homer or Aeschylus for a millennium or so (between 500 - 1500 AD), and now those writers are among the central authors in any modern account of the "Western tradition"! You can't imagine such a massive blank space in the Chinese tradition. Texts were lost in China too, of course, and texts were forged—and sometimes forged texts took the place of more authentic texts. Yet in China, if a text was deemed important, it remained important for critics, writers and librarians, and was constantly reevaluated and renewed within the ongoing cultural conversation, through reference, reinterpretation, revision and adaptation. From that point of view, the Europeans look like cultural fumblers. The other useful thing about constantly thinking about the West from a non-Western perspective is that it reminds us how chancy everything is. There's an inbuilt tendency in people to think that the history of the world ineluctably leads to them. We tend to make the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement seem like inevitable products of the Western march of progress. That argument is powerful if you want to be a famous histori- an or critic, although it may not make you a good one. Reflecting on another historical tradition that took other pathways helps to break down that tendency.

Emanuel Pastreich If we talk about something like "world literature" we are assuming that there is a general phenomenon called "literature" that can be found everywhere. And yet, although we all started looking for that universal experience that ties all men together, in fact we find it extremely difficult to actually nail down such a universal. There certainly is nothing like the Second Law of Thermodynamics that pulls together all forms of “literature.”

Haun Saussy Our terms as literary scholars are mainly drawn from a narrow sampling of the world's traditions. One has to assume that "verbal art," if I can use that as a more general

term than "literature," is at least possible wherever people are using language. As far as I know, every human group has stories, tells jokes, sings songs and manipulates words to de- lineate out both public and private meanings. Whether or not every group has a set of texts that they treat in an equivalent way to our "literature" is less certain and also not very important. Having a broad category like "verbal art" is useful in that it allows us to see "literature" as a difference, as an internal exception, within the range of possible artistic uses of language, and no longer as a putative universal. I think that approach is helpful.

Emanuel Pastreich Certainly the introduction of such a term as “verbal art” serves to com- plicate the process and allow us as critics to identify more complex phenomena. Part of the problem is that there is some confusion as to whether as literary critics we are like entomolo- gists, studying literature objectively as one might study beetles, or whether we are connois- seurs, appreciating great works and giving our seal of approval to what embodies “high seriousness.”

Haun Saussy An analogy would be how people talk about religion. So often when someone uses the term “religion,” he or she is referring to his or her religion. He or she will have considerable difficulty understanding that the religions of others are not just an impoverished, or distorted, versions of his or her own religion. An anthropological account of the process would need perforce to start from a broad category and then limn the idiomatic, culturally- specific, variants of that category with care. One would want to undertake this process in a hypothetical way-- that is to say, we should not assume that, just because an anthropologist is anthropologizing about a subject, the result will be objective necessarily. Naturally we are all bound to a cultural frame of some kind, though we may have the wish to be less completely trapped in it.

Emanuel Pastreich But some would say that this "literature" is merely a historically specific idea and that a "world literature" is just a twisted form of projecting the values of the Euro- peans on other cultures, domesticating the alien, as it were. At this point in history, such an argument is too simplistic, but you are most certainly aware of the risks involved in trying to find universals. Just look at the efforts made over the last 2000 years. Many look hopelessly dated and subjective. And yet, and yet we are compelled to look for universals that can bring us together.

Haun Saussy What you say is exactly why I'm skeptical about "world literature" as an academic field. It seems to hurry to its conclusion a little too quickly. Also, there's the danger of being understood to use "literature" as a reward term, as when we say, "Now THIS is really a work of world literature." I hear such pronouncements and I can already feel the next shift of taste coming, which will make it all seem outmoded, quaint and absurd. "A worldwide investigation of literatures"-- I'd be glad to be a part of that.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us look at the present and future. At present, the Holiday Inn in Beijing, or Seoul, or New York City features the same themes taken from Georgian interior design (playing on Greek and Roman motifs). One could argue that these motifs have reached around the world because of English imperialism, or larger geopolitical fault lines. But looking forward, could it be that some hotel will exist in these cities twenty or seventy years from now that will play on Song dynasty patterns? I must admit that when I started back in 1983, I honestly believed that within 20 years or so we would see Chinese reverting to traditional themes in their interiors, in their writings. But that did not happen. Of course it did in little pieces, but the particular cultural configuration that is perceived as "advanced culture" has been quite stable. It could also be that the die has been cast for eternity.

Haun Saussy As for the articulation of cultural prestige: it's true that the Western norm prevails in most contexts. But that's often not where the good conversations are found. The most interesting artists in China today are doing work that takes account of what's been done in Paris and New York over the last 50 years, but they're paying attention to the living world around them and using materials and ideas that wouldn't be recognizable, or wouldn't mean anything, to most Parisians or New Yorkers in the art world. However, you're onto an important question, having to do not with highly individual and reflective works of art (like those of, say, Xu Bing or Ai Weiwei, just to take the most prominent ones), but the anonymous, ordinary, taken-for-granted design of public spaces and the like. Ordinary, functional architecture and decoration: what does it say about the world and the people inhabiting it? Where are the windows, for example, how large are they, what do they look on, what about the sunlight? This sort of thing is probably more informative, sociologically speaking, than big setpieces of design. We must remember that modernity whether in literature, architecture, or in institutions, came to Asia fairly suddenly and took control quite completely. There weren't many pockets of resistance against Western-centric universal norms.

Emanuel Pastreich Let me give an example of the sorts of comparisons that can be made and that may lead to a richer dialog between East and West. I am writing a short essay about the adaptation of the concept of Li (礼, propriety) in the present age. I make the argument that Li is in fact much more appropriate for addressing and resolving many of the problems we encounter today, say in social networks, than constitutional law, criminal law, or common law. Li gives us a means of addressing differences in status that, although critical, are not covered by law in the West. Li uses similar terms to address issues at a personal, familial, and community level, and Li works in terms of models for behavior rather than punishment. I think it could be applied broadly today, not just in Asia, but around the world. That tradition is seen as something of the past: a tradition not that relevant to the future. I think it could be extremely relevant. In fact, in the case of social networks, we need desperately the concept of li. Let us give a minute to our students to ask directly a few questions to Professor Saussy.

Deokhwan Lee, Yongnam University What do you think are the strengths of the Asian literary tradition? What works of Asian literature have had real impact in the West? 26

Haun Saussy The funny thing about literary influence, or impact as you say, is that it often has more to do with the people receiving the influence than with those giving it. For example, Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa, whose understanding of Chinese poetry revolutionized the writing of poetry in the English language, thought Chinese poetry was terse and simple. It could be terse, in the sense that the poems are short, but in fact it was rarely simple. The apparent brevity included many allusions and references that were invisible to Pound and Fenollosa. The experience of a Chinese, Japanese or Korean reader who is presented with a poem by Du Fu or Wang Wei is utterly different from that of an English-language reader who lacks the background. Nonetheless, the bareness and simplicity that appeared (mistakenly) to be the essence of an Asian poem was exactly what English-language poetry needed just then. That historically specific need drew attention to Asian writing in the West. There are lots of these "lucky mishaps" in intercultural communication. I try to be grateful for them.

Emanuel Pastreich The contribution of China and Japan to Western modernity, whether the impact of Du Fu on the poems of Ezra Pound or the influence of Hokusai’s woodblock prints on the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, was real. It was not so much Asia coming to Europe. It was rather a part of an internal discourse, a search for alternatives outside the tradition. For that matter we can talk about how the civil service system of China gave the inspiration, the kick in the pants, Europe needed to develop the modern nation state. The dialog has been quite rich, if not always visible.

Haun Saussy The modernist movement in poetry, and the rationalization of the civil service, were both felt as needs before they were concrete movements or practices. Without the examples from Asia, the needs might have developed quite different solutions. Luckily there were those examples to (mis)appropriate.

Emanuel Pastreich Lucky for us. We were already encountering Asia even before we were aware of it.

Haun Saussy About the question of which Asian works have had impact: this problem has more than anything to do with the talent of translators. Pound's "Cathay" contains just 15 Chinese poems. But it had a huge influence and was widely imitated in obvious, and non- obvious, ways. Arthur Waley's translations made an impression too, especially his “Tale of Genji” version which makes that Japanese novel of the eleventh century a central part of the canon. David Hawkes's “Story of the Stone” is readable to a degree that few translations of Chinese fiction are. I grew up in a very provincial town, but we had on the shelves Lin Yutang's book “My Country and My People,” which inspired in me a sympathy for Chinese

humanism. All these are cases where the works from abroad satisfied a need, one which may not have resembled any need felt by the author's original audience.

Sangchul Oh, Sangmyung University Let us take the case of a Korean student who does not have the time to read all the great works of the Western tradition, but wants to know something about the Western tradition. What one or two books would you recommend?

Haun Saussy A short guide to the Western tradition? It's hard to choose, as with any tradition. But here are a couple of suggestions. I would have people read Plato-- not all the dia- logues but maybe the “Symposium,” which is both serious and funny, and the “Phaedrus,” which includes a theory of education and the soul. Then take a look at Aristotle with a focus on the “Nicomachean Ethics.” Plato and Aristotle are indispensable because they were appropriated into both the Christian and Islamic philosophical traditions, although the concepts were taken in different directions. Next, read Montaigne, and Diderot's "Jacques le Fataliste." Then move on to Charles Darwin's “The Origin of Species.” This isn't a list of my favorite reads—you will notice that there's no poetry and no fiction. I think these texts are useful, and probably raise the most provoking questions for people in any culture. And I think my suggestions are well under 600 pages.

Jiyeon Lee, Dankook University The Korean Poet Ko Un has been nominated repeatedly for the Nobel Literature Prize. There are several great novelists in Korea who deserve recognition. Do you think we are getting near a time when a Korean can win the Nobel Peace Prize? What thoughts do you have concerning the internationalization of Korean literature?

Haun Saussy I don't really know much about the procedure whereby the Nobel Committee decides on its awards. They certainly get a lot of nominations from everywhere! As for the Peace Prize, didn't Kim Dae-jung already receive it? If a really convincing translation of poetry or fiction into English or Swedish has been done, that seems to increase a writer's chances.

Emanuel Pastreich This question of what internationalization of Korean literature means is critical. Some see that process as a bit of global goodwill, but sometimes it is something interpreted as more an extension of neo-liberalism. Something like saying: Korean literature, culture, is now a high end product that we can sell for the luxury market. That issue, the commodification of literature, scholarship, education, deserves attention.

Haun Saussy The international reach of Korean writers has been growing. But it depends on translators and publishers who are willing to make some sacrifices: they must put in a lot of effort and capital in order to create a market that may not grow very fast. In France, for example, there have been two or three publishers who consistently produce fine, readable

translations of modern Korean authors, usually novelists. By "consistently," I mean there are at least two or three titles every year. That keeps something new always in front of the French readers' eyes, and keeps the image of modern Korean literature from being reduced to one figure (as happened for example to modern Chinese literature when for about 40 years the only author anyone knew about in other countries was Lu Xun). Culture as a luxury product-- this is a complicated issue that probably deserves another seminar.

Emanuel Pastreich Yes, the quality of the translation is critical, but how you get to a high quality translation is part of the problem. We have extremely sophisticated Korean novels like Chili san (Mount Chili) by Byungju Lee. The work is completely unknown outside of Korea, let alone being translated into English. Sadly, most American intellectuals still see Korea through the lens of MASH. Intel- lectuals in the United States are not drawn into Korean literature early on, I fear.

Haun Saussy "Through the lens of MASH"-- hilarious but unfortunately true. In the best case, readers might "know" Korea through the work of Teresa Cha, Chang-rae Lee or Myung-mi Kim, perhaps Younghill Kang for the older generation. They are all wonderful writers, especially the contemporary ones, but they use English as their medium and I think they would be hesitant to be categorized as "Korean writers." Maybe this is a stage or phase that has to be gone through, and eventually the Asian-American writers initiate the American readers into the Asian tradition to which they relate most closely. Or am I too optimistic?

Emanuel Pastreich We are seeing such interest in Korea here and there, but at the same time, the effort required to learn Korean language is a barrier. The problem is not just the difficulty of Korean syntax. Korean language courses tend to be run for Korean Americans, and the non Koreans, who might end up being the great translators, are discouraged and drop out. And oddly, although Korea is the hottest country in the world these days in terms of culture, Americans are not that drawn to it.

Haun Saussy On one hand, books are amazingly cheap today. What is expensive is the time to read them, and getting the education that you might need in order to be a really good reader of certain books. Modernist books in particular—think of the attention and knowledge required to be a good reader of Ulysses—require a major investment. The paradox is that our societies of incessantly increasing efficiency and productivity are not societies of plenty in this regard; we are always being interrupted by our jobs, by the marketplace, by bureaucracy, by media, and so forth. If I could introduce one social reform, it would be this: guaranteeing a decent if minimal subsistence to anyone who was ready to spend a few years reading books. Since there are a lot of unemployed people, this would seem to be a way to keep them from feeling that their lives are going to waste, and might be welcomed by some as a gift. But as long as we

see education as a luxury product or a stepladder to worldly success, ideas like this one won't go anywhere.

Emanuel Pastreich That is an excellent idea: time to read books as a form of public service. Probably needs to be combined with seminars to talk about what you read.

But let us go back to Korea and how it is perceived. At the University of Chicago, in the De- partment of Comparative Literature, for example, if you say we have to include some works of the Korean tradition in the World literature program, what would be the response? Proba- bly not a big problem. But then what if you said we need as many teachers of Korean literature as French literature? What would the response be then? And to top it off, what if we went to the Department of Classics and said, the department must offer courses in Chinese, Korean and Indian classics as well?

Haun Saussy Your suggestions are radical and interesting. One effect of such a questioning might be to make the departments in question define themselves less grandiosely and provin- cially. The Classics department might discover that their object of inquiry is not "what is classic" in a general sense, but "Mediterranean pre-imperial and imperial cultures." If they described themselves in those terms, perhaps they would find it easier to converse with specialists in other pre-imperial and imperial cultures. Some thoughtful classicists have been asking the question, "what is a classic?" in a less provincial way. We have a conference next April at the University of Chicago Center in Beijing on this topic.

Emanuel Pastreich It is one of those paradoxes of the US. In trade, in technology and increasingly in business, we are tied to Asia, even part of Asia. But in terms of cultural identity, there is a real hesitation to make that high level commitment to reimagining the culture itself in light of these massive geopolitical shifts. As many Korean studies professors as Italian studies professors? Well, that would be overkill, but the argument is still one that should be made.

Haun Saussy As for comparative literature, we are required to be open-minded. At the same time there has to be something that we can put in our “open minds.” I have served on numerous search committees. I learned that if you announce a search in a very broad way, say a position in fiction and the theory of fiction, 60% of the applications you receive will be from people working entirely in English (more than half of those in 20th century), 20% will be from those in English and French, 10% in English and German, and the last 10% from experts in all the other fields. It's really too bad; it's like the famous Steinberg illustration, where 10th Avenue is four times as wide as Japan: a truncated, limited view of the world.

I like to go back, mentally, to the beginning of the 20th century when the US was a young and curious country and there were plenty of cultural figures who looked over the Pa- cific, not over the Atlantic, to find our future spiritual companions. Ernest Fenollosa was the most enthusiastic and large-minded of these. His ideas were formed in the course of conversations with Okakura Tenshin, whose ideas later, alas, were used as a template for the ideology of those who enlarged the Japanese empire. But the basic idea, that a new country freeing itself from European dominance had a lot in common with the nations of Asia who were also seeking to resist that dominance, was good. Unfortunately, the US spent much of the 20th century trying to patch up those Euro- pean empires or replacing them. I think what we need very badly these days is an understanding of Asian literary traditions that leaves behind some of the stereotypes that identify Asia with everything an American is primed to resist. I mean the whole bit about Asian cultures as harmoniously integrated unities where the inferiors are grateful for the guidance of the supe- riors, and so on. If you can read an Asian book, that whole myth doesn't survive for long.

“Korea and Globalization” 3 February 2012

Nayan Chanda Editor YaleGlobal Online Magazine Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

Emanuel Pastreich It is an honor to have you here with us today for this seminar. You have had a chance to watch Korea evolve over the years as a journalist and writer. Can you reflect on recent political developments in Korea and put them in context for us?

Nayan Chanda I have watched Korea for decades and find the rapid evolution of that country quite remarkable. We have seen the emergence of a mature political system since the era of Kim Dae Jung, with a diverse political debate and concerns about certain issues that were not on the table previously. I think that the evolution up through President Lee Myung Bak is quite striking. One wonders what the implications will be for the presidential election this 31

year. Parallel to the political development of Korea has been its astonishing technological evolution. We find in Korea the most connected country in the world. Korea has moved ahead of many industrialized countries, and its technological prowess, from automobiles to computers, from silicon wafers to power plants and the latest tablet by Samsung now sets global standards.

Emanuel Pastreich How does the Korea you see today look in contrast to the Korea that you first encountered as a journalist and writer?

Nayan Chanda Korea was a very stiff place when I first arrived here. The environment was formal in terms of meetings, and it was aloof in terms of personal exchanges. Korea had had a strong military at the center of the political system and that culture made personal interactions and public events, quite stiff. The changes over the last fifteen years have been astonishing. President Lee went as far as to assure the citizens that he would consider all aspects of society in his policy. We have leaders who feel they need to respond to the needs of citizens, to be accessible and flexible. The recent mayoral election in Seoul was another indicator of increased political maturity. The election of Park Won Su confirms that voters clearly are interested in significant change and a more inclusive, more open, society. Such an attitude is a radical change from previous eras when the military set the style and rapid industrialization was the primary concern of most policy makers. I am very curious as to how Korea will handle the debate on the status of the middle class going forward. The challenges to the middle class posed by economic change are visible globally that have led to the Occupy Wall Street movement, and other forms of social resistance. So, the question remains, how will the Korean government address this gap in income and opportunity born of recent economic growth? I wonder how this more sophisticated political establishment in Korea will respond to more acute sociopolitical criticism and political activism.

Emanuel Pastreich Many of your writings treat globalization in a historical context. That perspective is most welcome, especially for someone like myself who studied pre-modern history and culture. In the last few waves of globalization, Korea was left out. In the seventeenth century, when Spain, Portugal and Holland put together their empires and trade networks, Korea were not even players. The only Western records of Korea are the notes of the Dutch Merchant Hendrick Hamel who wrote in the 17th century of a few miserable years he spent trapped in Korea after a shipwreck trying to escape. When the English and Russians and Japanese sought out opportunities in Asia in the late nineteenth century, Korea was known as the “Hermit Kingdom.” But this time we find Korea right in the middle. Korea is driving global trade and we see Korean companies springing up everywhere.

Nayan Chanda Of course I am not an expert in Korean history. But I think we can attribute some of the problems to the degree to which the whims of one individual decided the fate of a country previously. The Korean Joseon Kingdom’s decision to keep out all foreigners can be seen largely as the personal whim of the King. In Korea, and in China, the decision- making process for policy was limited to a small group in the palace that could not effectively evaluate the potential, and the challenges, to be found in the West. There was plenty of smuggling and informal trade even then, but the nation remained closed to open trade. One can see many examples of this autocratic response not only to external challenges, but also to internal innovation. Let us take the case of admiral Zheng He in the Ming Dynasty. Zheng He built the most impressive navy at the beginning of the 15th century. His innovations and his fearless efforts brought about tremendous advancements in marine sciences and navigation in just one generation. His seven voyages through Southeast Asia, all the way to Africa, established new potential trade routes and gave Chinese confidence in their ability to conduct long-distance expeditions. China was posed to become the major maritime power. But the advances of those twenty-five years were cast aside by an autocratic government and an ignorant emperor. China went back to being an empire facing inward. In the nineteenth century, when Europe was modernizing its navy, the Empress Dowager Cixi spent the navy’s budget to build a pa- vilion shaped like a boat at the summer palace. One should bear in mind that when Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World, he was sailing in a boat that was one fifth the size of one of the flagship of Admiral Zheng He’s fleet. The Chinese had the technological advantage, but it was the Spaniards and Portu- guese who expanded shipping and build a global trade system. China just walled itself in, and in the seventeenth century China closed all its ports. Korea also had impressive technology and know-how in the seventeenth century, but the interests of the king were domestic and internal. Agriculture and stability was the order of the day. Other opportunities were simply not followed up on. Korea’s opening to the world came in the late 19 th century. But that experience was bittersweet, tied to Japanese colonial domination. It was only in the 1990s that Korea’s opening to the world bore fruit and Korea took a central spot on the world stage.

Emanuel Pastreich Looking at the global roles of China and India today in historical context is also interesting. In a sense, we can say that although such dominant roles for China and India seem quite alien to many in the West, these countries have merely regained the role that they played previously, just a few centuries ago. But at the same time, it is a new world. China and India now have global interests, and global cultural reach, that they have never had before.

Nayan Chanda Well, it is a new world that we witness, but that world is still rooted in the past. China and India together produced nearly half the world’s gross domestic product in 1700. Both nations had substantial manufacturing bases far before anything in terms of sophistication or scale emerged in Europe. The Chinese were making cast iron in the fourteenth 33

century and they exported it to Europe where such technologies did not exist. The Indians were leaders in the development of 4high-quality steel. Both India and China focused on manufacturing technology, the process by which ceramics and silk are produced on a mass scale to high standards of quality. There was no such concept in feudal Europe. As a result, Indian textiles dominated the world until the Industrial Revolution. England has a chronic trade deficit with China through the middle of the nineteenth century. India and China had advantages. Their civilizations are ancient and strong scholarly traditions in mathematics, engineering and administration served as the foundations for such manufacturing know-how. And the large populations of these two nations, far beyond anything Europe was able to support before the second half of the 19th century, also offered distinct advantages. Since the 1990s, these two countries have managed to reclaim some of the economic dominance they had three hundred years ago. The scale that India and China work on is quite different than that which we find in the West and has its advantages.

Emanuel Pastreich You have mentioned technology and its role in the development of Asia. It is clear that the ability of, Koreans, Asians, to effectively apply technology has been a major factor in their rise. Increasingly we see Korea playing a leading role in the commercialization of new technologies. As Korea develops into a major center for technology, Korea’s influence may well expand in unexpected ways. Technology is linked to international relations, to culture and even to ideology. What do you think is Korea’s potential?

Nayan Chanda I think we find ourselves today on the threshold of a major technological revolution. The changes going on around us today are the equivalent of electrification in the 20th century. Of course electricity was discovered long before it had any practical impact on our lives. The potential for using electricity was there, but people had not figured out a way to design small electric generators, or to distribute electricity through a grid efficiently. We are reaching the point at which microprocessors will be an essential part of every device. The next generation of network technology requires not only that every machine have an IP address, but also that they can be controlled and function based on the digital signal that it received from the Internet. This development means that we are moving towards a stage at which every device will be controlled by a small handset. The expansion of the internet into everyday products will open up a new horizon for innovation. Korea has taken the right steps to position itself for a major role in this new technological revolution. I think the development of personal technology that can mesh seamlessly with the Internet is the way of the future. Korea is poised to be a major player.

Emanuel Pastreich I can certainly see that sort of potential in Korea these days. One of the most striking aspects of Seoul these days is the arrival of a significant swath of the global creative class in Seoul. They are coming in search of potential in this environment. Previous- 34

ly, internationals in Korea consisted of military personnel, missionaries, English teachers and a few representatives of major multi-national corporations. The range was limited and the interest was not so much in unlocking the potential of Korea, but rather in fulfilling a role for some institution in a foreign country, or simply making a little cash before going home. Now we find highly educated, sophisticated players coming over who want to build their own institutions and benefit from what Korea is doing, not represent foreign entities. This influx has revolutionized Korea and made it more international in some respects than the United States.

Nayan Chanda In India, I have been struck by similar scenes. I see many foreigners with advanced expertise coming to India in search of opportunities. They may be bringing expertise, but often they are seeking out Indian expertise.; And you can see a similar flow of the global creative class into Southeast Asia. The potential is now visible to the informed around the world and those seeking their fortunes can see that all roads lead to Asia. In terms of the circulation between East and West, it is clear that the tables have turned.

Emanuel Pastreich In education as well, Korea is emerging quite quickly as a player. Stu- dents who would obviously have gone to programs in the United States are now choosing programs in Korea. It is not merely about the rise in the overall rankings of Korean universities, but also about the reach that Korean universities now have globally as centers of excellence. I published two books with Seoul National University Press last year in English with a very positive result. No one took Seoul National University Press seriously as a publishing house ten years ago, but it is now connotes prestige. But there remain causes for concern. Some people comment that Northeast Asia today resembles Europe one hundred years ago. That was a period of tremendous integration in Eu- rope, but because essential rivalries could not be managed, and nationalism remained at the center of political discourse, it would take two world wars before effective integration was achieved. Do you have any ideas about how Asia can successfully move forward while avoiding what Europe went through?

Nayan Chanda Despite deep historical divisions, Europe managed create an effective system for economic and political integration over the last fifty years. Europe effectively moved beyond the conflicts of the twentieth century to realize its full potential. But the current crisis suggests that an economic union that is not under-girded by substantial political unity is fraught with peril. For example, we see today in Europe that there is a common monetary policy, but there is no common fiscal policy. The problems born of that discrepancy are now threatening the economic union of Europe itself. The need to coordinate the economic and the political aspects of integration that Europe demonstrates offers a substantial lesson for Asians going forward. There remain deep economic divisions in the region that need to be addressed; nationalistic agendas can get in the way of the regions development.

Emanuel Pastreich When I came to Korea in 2007, I saw many articles that suggested that Northeast Asia could achieve an economic integration along the lines of the European Union. But recent problems in the European Union have made such analogies rather unpopular. Asia will have to follow its own path.

Nayan Chanda I think history remains a major factor in efforts to promote greater integration. How history is interpreted and how it is used in the political discourse of each nation can impact progress. What I find encouraging in the case of East Asia is that young people across Asia are speaking the same language, using similar terms and assumptions and wrestling with the same issues in the discourse of pop culture. For the next generation there is the potential to create a new dialogue less confined by historical issues of the past. A new Asia can emerge from that new discursive space.

Emanuel Pastreich The Internet can be a double-edged sword. One sees discussions about Japanese colonial policy of the 1930s in Korea, disputes about territory between China and Korea dating back to the Tang Dynasty in Korea and China and sensitivity about national prestige magnified by the Internet and the media. So also arguments about whether the cultural innovations and technologies of the past are “Chinese” or “Korean” or “Japanese” in nature can have a lot of impact on contemporary relations. The Internet can bring together some young people, but it can also fan the flames concerning issues that people were not even thinking about before.

Nayan Chanda The Internet allows positive intercourse between individuals that builds consensus. But it also allows some people to speak without constraint as a way to vent their anger. Those who harbor bitter memories about past events can use the Internet as a mega- phone that allows them to take issues from the past and make them central problems today. Both aspects of the Internet are true, but I am encouraged overall to see quite constructive discussions going on among youth overall.

Emanuel Pastreich The new presence of India and Southeast Asia in the global economy is slowly restructuring East Asia as well. Let us take the example of Sichuan Province in China. Sichuan was something of a backwaters in China, far away from Beijing and not an economic powerhouse. But now Sichuan is benefiting immensely from its ties to India and Southeast Asia. Its geographical position has turned out to be a major asset, not a liability. In the case of Korea, I know some Koreans who studied languages like Thai and Malay in the previous generation. At the time their work was perceived as obscure subject for academic inquiry. Now they find that they have immense opportunities.

Nayan Chanda I find that this massive geopolitical shift is best summed up by the growth of the airline industry. When I first came to Southeast Asia in the 1970s, traveling from Bangkok to any place in China was a matter of around one or two days of travel. There were no direct flights and those flights that were available were more often than not much delayed. You had to travel through Hong Kong and there were hassles at every turn. Now, if you go to the airport in Singapore, or Hong Kong, or Bangkok, there are direct flights to just about every major city.

Emanuel Pastreich We see listed on the big board for departures at airports around Asia the names of cities in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, regional China and Russia that most people have not heard of ten years ago. It is a new landscape indeed.

Nayan Chanda For someone like me who has watched Southeast Asia develop over the last forty years, the current state is quite astonishing. In the case of China, issues like pollution are becoming quite serious concerns. At the moment of China’s rise to global power, the number of wealthy Chinese who migrate to the United States and Canada is remarkable. They give as their reason quality of life. They cite pollution as an important factor. They simply do not want their children to grow up in a polluted environment. Of course the poor do not have such opportunities. Globalization is changing the nature of the process of development in unexpected ways. And that process is different from that of previous waves of globalization.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us come back to Korea and its role in the process of globalization. How does Korea look when seen from an Indian perspective?

Nayan Chanda From Indian perspective, Korea is omnipresent in every city and region. When I am in India, I am struck by the visibility of Samsung and other Korean companies on every corner, in every building or public space. The visibility of Korean products, advertise- ments for Korean firms and images of Korea have increased dramatically. There is no equal to Samsung. You have Coca Cola and Pepsi, but they are not nearly as visible as Samsung. Korean products are now a part of Indian daily life.

Emanuel Pastreich If we look for the origins of Korea’s rise to global power, we come back to an odd feature of Korea: Korea has an institutional flexibility that we associate with developing nations. If Koreans want to start a big project tomorrow, they can do it. That sort of rapid mobilization we see happen in developing nations. On the other hand, developing nations lack individuals with advanced training in technology or finance to administer such projects. As a result the results are lackluster. Developing nations lack a class of administrators who are resistant to corruption and to pressure from personal friends and family. Ger- 37

mans and Japanese are highly competent, but they cannot make policy decisions quickly; they lack flexibility. Korea, however, has both the flexibility of a developing nation and the expertise, and high standards for government officials and corporate administration we associate with a developed nation. That is Korea’s secret.

Nayan Chanda The Korean War has had unexpected benefits for Korea. That terrible experience has not only created a more flexible system in government and industry, it has established a unique relationship with the United States. The Koreans had no hesitation about sending their best and their brightest to make the best of American education. There was none of the nationalist resistance one sees elsewhere. In the Japanese case, for example, there has been more suspicion of American approaches. Some Japanese have promoted American innovation strategies in Japan, but overall Japan has been far slower than Korea in accepting the full implementation of new approaches. That lag has been decisive.

Emanuel Pastreich The changes of the last ten years have been remarkably rapid, but, as you suggest, we need to look back over the last four centuries to keep these changes in perspective. There have been previous ages of rapid change as well. Korea is strong in technology. It has quite a strong foundation in education and in cultural production. You imply in your writings that it is trade, and openness to trade, that has been the determining factor historically.

Nayan Chanda The countries that have prospered economically over the last six hundred years have been those that were open to the world. That means intellectual and technical discourse, but above all trade has been a key element to success. Trade can open a country to ideas. It forces the country to compete globally and to produce products that will be appreci- ated by, and paid for, others. The Chinese were designing, manufacturing and exporting porcelain for the European market in the 17th century. Indian textile exporters too had the insight to employ European designs that would have appeal in Europe, and they did not limit themselves to Indian traditional designs. Selling products abroad not only allowed them to develop the idea of the customer as the king, it forced them to think from the perspective of a European, without even having visited. That is the perspective that trade encourages. That openness to other perspectives born of trade is perhaps even more important than direct economic impact.

“China’s Future Role in East Asia” 13 February 2012

Richard Bush Director of Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies Brookings Institution

Emanuel Pastreich Thank you for joining us this afternoon. We live in an age in which China’s impact on the world is growing daily, and yet many have only a very vague idea of how China actually works. Your insights are most valued. Tell us a little about your current research on China and Northeast Asia.

Richard Bush I spend most of my time conducting research on China-Taiwan relations these days. I am currently writing a book on contemporary Taiwan-China relations in which I trace the relationship and offer my views on prospects for the future. I also dabble in other aspects of East Asian Security issues from time to time. I have done a long report on North Korea and its nuclear programs. I have written about China-Japan security relations as well.

Emanuel Pastreich When will your current book be completed?

Richard Bush I hope that it will be published this summer.

Emanuel Pastreich What are your thoughts on the future of cross-straits relations?

Richard Bush Over the last four years we have seen a process of stabilization in cross-strait relations and a significant reduction in mutual fear and distrust between China and Taiwan. That said, we should not assume that a general warming of relations will lead to Taiwan’s unification with the mainland in the near future. The overall situation is more complex than most observers understand and there are a multitude of political obstacles, some subtle and some historical, that must be resolved before that possibility could be entertained. On the one hand, I hope that China does not become overly anxious about the rate of progress or have

unrealistic expectations. On the other hand, I hope that the United States does not simply conclude that the problem is solved and walk away.

Emanuel Pastreich There are a few parallels between the on-going dispute between Taiwan (Republic of China) and the mainland (People’s Republic of China) and that between South Korea (Republic of Korea) and North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) over the last sixty years: the ideological confrontation, the differences in approaches to economic development and the global tussle over legitimacy in front of the world. Of course things have changed utterly in the Taiwan-PRC relationship. What are the differences, and the similarities, between the Taiwan-PRC relationship and North-South relations on the Korean Pen- insula? How are the stakes different?

Richard Bush There’s a great difference in the size of the two parties. China is much larger, by virtue of population, than Taiwan. And the Chinese economy is a major force in the Tai- wanese economy. The People’s Republic of China has a large military and potential to project force. On the Korean peninsula, by contrast, South Korea is far more prosperous than N. Korea and South Korea has robust conventional forces, while North Korea does not. Another crucial difference is that China made the decision in 1979 that if the communist party was going to have any legitimacy it had to move away from a Stalinist-type economic system and engage in a large-scale reform effort. That effort required domestic changes to improve the environment for foreign investment and support other forms of private economic activity. Those policies also required a peaceful economic environment to be successful. Taiwan, in turn, saw an opportunity in this shift to expand their operations in mainland China and to increase their global competitiveness. The comparison with the Koreas is stark. North Korea, even at this late date, has yet to make any significant reforms in its economic or foreign policies. In spite of years of the “Sunshine Policy” on the part of South Korea, which was meant to open up greater cooperation between the two sides, we have not seen much progress. Another difference is that Taiwan now has a substantial investment in the People’s Republic of China, and has a stake in the status quo within the Chinese system as well. There is nothing approaching that sort of engagement between the Koreas. Of course, there remain substantial gaps with regards to issues involving the People’s Liberation Army and security with Taiwan, but the gaps in perception and in cooperation are far wider on the Korean Pen- insula.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us take a different comparison. What if we compared China in the 1970s, after the death of Mao Zedong, with North Korea today? In both cases you have countries that have been ruled by a strict socialist government and that were subject to an unrelent- ing cult of personality. If you were going to make a trans-historical comparison, to compare China then with North Korea today, what would be the similarities, and what would be the differences?

Richard Bush The North Korean regime is more stable and more secure than the Chinese regime was in the 1970s. Chairman Mao had waged war on his own party for a decade and created a level of social chaos that made the situation after his death dire. China’s economy was stagnant from years of isolationism. Of course, if we speak in terms of social and economic development, the problems of the North Korean economy are also pretty dire today. Over the last thirty years, Chinese efforts to open up to the world and reform have been quite impressive. The only way North Korea can find a way out of the trap it has set for itself is to open up in a similar manner.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us focus on South Korea. South Korea has risen in global prominence, economically, politically, and culturally, over the last ten years, and especially over the last five years. What do you feel is South Korea’s role in Northeast Asia and what thoughts do you have about the road ahead for South Korea?

Richard Bush If there is a success story for American foreign policy in the post World War II era, it is South Korea! South Korea was devastated by the Korean War and reduced to a sustenance economy by that brutal conflict. But through hard work at home, and the alliance with the United States, the South Korean people were able to build a very impressive country. Korea is now home to major corporations with global reach, a sophisticated military, and remarkable institutions for research and higher learning. Moreover, South Korea is increasingly playing an important role in international affairs. To a remarkable degree, South Korea has taken a stake in the international system and has committed itself to global institutions. South Korea has been willing to take significant responsibility as well in the global international economy. South Korea has taken a constructive path and is playing a leadership role; the successful hosting of the G20 summit in 2010 and the plans for the Nuclear Summit this year in Seoul are testimony to Korea’s new global role. At the same time, South Korea does face a few challenges. For example, South Korea has immense challenges in remaining competitive in an international economy that is marked by rapid technological change. South Korea also has to respond to the rapid rise of China and its implications for Korea’s economy and its foreign relations. Of course the challenges that South Korea faces are faced by all advanced economies. Nevertheless, South Korea’s geopolitical situation makes them more acute and the demands on Korean policymakers and the members of civil society are substantial. And then there is the dilemma of North Korea. Should South Korea take a soft line of accommodation with North Korea and risk that its efforts are cynically exploited? Or should it take a “tough love” approach and risk major destabilizing incidents that could hurt its economy? The choice depends on what North Korea is doing, and how South Korea assesses those moves. The relationship is far from simple, and it is often quite unpredictable.

Emanuel Pastreich We hear much about Korea’s cultural role in the world these days. What do you think is the potential for Korea’s culture globally?

Richard Bush Traditionally, Korea was a great civilization with a remarkable tradition of learning. Korea was impressive, both intellectually and artistically, for a thousand years. It appears that the full potential of that Korean civilization is being revived these days. We see such vitality in Korean music, art, literature, and film. Its impact in the region and the world is growing. North Korea, however, is not contributing to that process at all. If anything, North Korea is distorting - hampering - Korea’s full potential. The effort to restore and transform North Korea will be a major, major headache. That said, if the two were together, the combination could be quite impressive.

Emanuel Pastreich I’ve lived in Korea for five years, and during that time I’ve seen all sorts of practices, approaches, in Korea where I thought, “That’s not how I would do things.” Koreans seem to be so poorly organized, without the sort of planning that I take for granted. On the other hand, I’ve seen Korea grow increasingly sophisticated in business, in government, in research over that time—they are clearly doing something right even if foreigners cannot understand it. The expertise of foreigners who come to Korea is on a different level now than it was five years ago. We see people from the global creative class flocking to Ko- rea in search of opportunities these days. Actually, this evening, our Asia Institute hosted the Indian ambassador right here in Seoul. The dinner featured a very lively discussion about the potential for Korea to expand its horizons. Countries like India, Mongolia, and Malaysia are becoming much more visible in Korea these days. At the same time, China remains the largest player in the region and a focus of attention for Korea.

Richard Bush The main dynamic is one in which a more powerful China acts in ways that are not surprising, from a cold analytic point of view, but still worrisome. A more powerful China asserts itself, and will assert itself, in ways that can sometimes be disturbing if you are on the receiving end. That is a challenge both Koreas will have to deal with going forward. Then there’s the issue of how those affected by China’s actions respond. That is where South Korea has some choice, and some flexibility. In 2010, at different places on China’s periphery, China acted in ways that disturbed the neighbors, taking actions that were perceived as aggressive or expansionist. Not all of those cases of assertiveness proved to reflect decisions by China’s top leadership; sometimes conflicts or misunderstandings resulted from the autonomous implementation of a general policy by PRC agencies that pursue their own agendas. In the South China Sea and the East China Sea, there are a variety of Chinese actors involved and each has a certain, somewhat parochial, vision of their mission that they act on. In many cases, the confrontations are certainly not what leaders in Beijing would have ap- proved of, if they had been consulted, but they nonetheless have to clean up the mess. We

have seen a series of these events in the South China Sea, in the East China Sea and in an incident near the Senkaku Islands. We’ve also seen such ambiguous Chinese actions in the case of the Korean Peninsula as well, in the Chinese response to the sinking of the ROK Navy corvette Cheonan and the shelling of Yeongpyong Island. In these two cases, the Chinese decided to support the North Korean regime more strongly and assure the succession by not restraining North Korea as much as before. In just about all of these cases, the parties concerned, and the United States, chose to push back a bit, to signal to China that these actions were inconsistent with those of a good neighbor, and that there was an expectation that China would show greater restraint. It appears that, because of South Korea’s protests to the North Korean acts of war and the United States response, China is restraining Pyongyang more today in 2012 than it did in 2010, and that is a good thing. But relations with China form an ongoing process. We will see new man- ifestations of assertiveness in the future, and those affected will have to decide whether, and how, to accommodate or to push back.

Emanuel Pastreich Regarding Kim Jong Il’s funeral, what developments have you observed since then? What are the prospects for the future?

Richard Bush Nobody on the outside has any clue what is going on in North Korea with regards to the power shifts resulting from the succession. We can only watch surface mani- festations, which can be misleading. What has happened was what was expected. Beginning in 2009, the regime began preparing the transfer of leadership from Kim Jung Il to Kim Jung Eun. This transfer of power, which is still going on, took place quite smoothly in spite of Kim Jung Il’s unexpected death. This appears to be a well-scripted event.

The events and commentaries that have followed were well-scripted. We might say this was Kim Jung Il’s last directorial role. One gets the impression that North Korea is working very hard to prove to everyone that everything is normal and that continuity is the order of the day. One suspects that perhaps stability is not as assured as they might like us to think. This is a transition process that does not occur over the span of a few weeks, but rather a couple of years. Most likely it will be contested at various points along the way. Whether Kim Jung-Eun will only have titles and no substantial power, or whether he actually will gain the authority that goes with those titles, remains an open question, with implications for all of us.

Kyung-seon Lee, Sungkyunkwan University With the passage of time, it seems that the interest of Korean youth in reunification (once a rallying cry for the student movement) is decreasing. Government policies are lackadaisical and unimpressive. What hope, what meaning, do you think the possibility of unification offers for young Koreans?

Richard Bush When we imagine a future about unification, it is essential that we consider the terms and conditions under which it might take place. Who will the agreement for unification favor and what are its implications for North Korea and South Korea? Young people in South Korea should take a keen interest in this issue because they will have to live with the consequences of reunification. If the terms of unification are good for South Korea, the future will be better. But in any scenario, unification will be a burden on the South, and on the international community. Young Koreans may end up paying for reunification throughout their working lives. Finally, I would say that to the extent that division has kept Korea from realizing its full national potential, reunification will remove that obstacle.

Emanuel Pastreich The year 2012 is a year of major changes in the political leadership of the region. There will be a new President in Russia, a new president in South Korea and possibility a new president in the United States (or certainly changes in the administration in a second Obama term). At the same time, Xi Jinping is preparing to take over from Hu Jintao as well. So the transition in North Korea comes at a moment of multiple transitions.

Richard Bush Yes, you do make an important point with direct implications for the Korean Peninsula. The fact there will be leadership transitions in all those countries could prove to be a test of North Korean restraint. Some speculate that such transitions in the region might lead North Korea to sense this is the time to test a nuclear weapon again, to assert itself through other provocations. If, however, North Korea chooses to not to take advantage of this coinci- dence of timing, that would also suggest something about the new regime. On the other hand, it may remain restrained, if only to increase the possibility that a progressive president is elected in the ROK.

Emanuel Pastreich As we look towards the transition in China, especially in terms of the relationship of Hu Jintao with Xi Jinping, what do you anticipate?

Richard Bush Hu Jintao will have no positions in government after he gives up his posts. The process is phased. Xi Jinping will become the General Secretary of the Communist Party whenever the 18th Party congress is held. It could be September, October, or November. It could be the case that he will be named the chairman of the party central military commission. In that case he would also be replacing Hu Jintao. Then there is the National People’s Con- gress in March of next year. At that point, if all goes according to plan, Xi Jinping will be named president of the People’s Republic of China and Li Keqiang will be named premier. The most likely deviation from that script would be for Hu Jintao to retain the position of chairman of the central military commission. Hu Jintao had to wait for two years until Jiang Zemin was willing to give up that chairmanship. No one knows the probability, but it could

create a division of command within the system. The transition should be quite straightfor- ward. The question of who will be on the politburo and who will be on the politburo standing committee is less clear.

Choi Seung-Hun, Ajoo University, Korea There has been a renewed interest in the possibility of reunification of the Korean peninsula since the death of Kim Jong Il. As the new Kim Jeong Eun administration tries to quickly establish its authority and assure social stability, what are the surrounding countries most concerned about? What changes in policy in those four countries can we detect?

Richard Bush In the short term, the four surrounding countries and the United States are worried about stability, especially on the Korean Peninsula. That concern seems to have been allayed for the moment. In the United States, however, there is the opinion that this state of affairs in North Korea cannot last forever. Either North Korea will need to test another nuclear device, particularly a device with highly enriched uranium or engage in some other form of provocation. For the medium and long term the question for us is whether the new leadership in North Korea will conduct an assessment of Kim Jong Il’s policies and their effects on North Korea, and then proceed to make policy changes. With regards to real reform, I don’t think anyone holds out any huge hopes. China would like to see real changes in North Korea, a move towards the Chinese economic model that would make North Korea less of a basket case. The United States and South Korea would certainly like to see changes in North Ko- rea’s defense policies, especially its nuclear policies. I think it is too early to tell whether those sorts of changes will occur, but they are not a complete impossibility. It would be a mistake to assume they will happen. The countries involved in the Six Party Talks are sticking to their past policies and not making any big changes at this point. Russia would very much like to be more involved in the game in Northeast Asia, and they are pushing their trans-Korean pipeline. It could be that when Vladimir Putin is president again there will be more emphasis on North Korea. But Russia is the least significant player in the Six Party Talks.

Emanuel Pastreich So you don’t imagine there to be a risk of a Putin-esque relationship in which the former president retains his political influence?

Richard Bush I think that scenario is unlikely. When Hu Jintao gives up his positions in government, he will no longer play that role in government. There may still be opportunities for him to influence personnel position and maybe policy. It appears that Jiang Zemin, even though he gave up his last post in 2004, has influenced matters behind the scenes. For Hu Jintao that will be a personal choice, however. 45

Emanuel Pastreich It’s a very impressive change in China that we now have such a predictable and transparent turnover of power. Certainly China was not run that way before, if we look at the case of Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping.

Richard Bush Yes. This is one of Deng Xiaoping’s greatest legacies: The transfer of power at the highest levels in China has been institutionalized.

Emanuel Pastreich Coming back to Korea. In the economic realm, Korea has been a leader in efforts to promote free trade via major trade agreements with the United States and India, to name just two. Korea is putting forth a series of new proposals as well. I have watched Ko- rea become a major trade center for the region and the world. What is your assessment of Ko- rea’s importance in economics and trade?

Richard Bush Korea has been a leader promoting the liberalization of the international economic system and trade system. Such efforts have had very positive results as the countries of the world, and the companies within them are encouraged to maximize the use of their resources in a rational way and exploit comparative advantage. The distortion of economic activity promoted by protectionism creates waste. The KORUS FTA legacy, which was carried on from President Bush to President Obama, has helped President Obama to position himself where he ought to be, more in the direction of free trade. I hope that as Korea pursues trade liberalization going forward that it pushes for high-quality agreements, like that with the United States. This is an issue in East Asia, where many countries are reluctant to open up only certain sectors because of economic and political issues. South Korea, like the United States, must protect its most precious economic assets, including intellectual property. If a country like South Korea is going to base itself on a growth strategy of innovation, it needs to protect those assets. In that respect China presents a huge challenge for Korea because some of its growth is fueled by theft. This is an area in which Korea and the US should work together to exert more pressure on China to end this theft of intellectual property rights.

Jae-hyuk Lee, Youngnam University I don’t think that reunification of the Korean peninsula is just a matter for North and South Korea to decide. As the unification of the Korean peninsula is delayed, what are the implications of this continued “divided state” for the rest of Northeast Asia? and for the world?

Richard Bush As long as North Korea pursues the policies it pursues now, we will find ourselves stuck in a status quo that has some risks. We are accustomed to that status quo, but it creates real divisions within South Korea, but also within China. There are risks related to continuing this situation. Above all, a continued divided peninsula means that the people of North Korea will continue to be miserable. That is a true tragedy. In part it is a national tragedy of a divided nation that cannot fulfill its true potential. But it is also a human tragedy that is saddening for everyone.

Emanuel Pastreich The total number of patents in China exceeded those of the US this year. China might be in the intellectual property protection business soon.

Richard Bush This figure regarding patents is only a rough indicator of the ability to innovate. Some of these patents are really more a matter of national pride. Others are a way com- plicating matters for the true patent holder. That is, Chinese entities will copy technology and then patent their technology domestically. When the foreign firm tries to assert its rights, the Chinese courts claim that the company has already filed a patent. The conventional wisdom is that by and large intellectual property theft remains a serious problem. It will only be when China recognizes its own interests lie with the protection of intellectual property that it will push for a system that benefits all.

Ji-young Byun, Bukyung University It seems as if all through Northeast Asia and the world, leaders uniformly say that unification “must happen.” But we need only look at the Six Party Talks to notice that, in fact, each country approaches the issue of reunification with primary interest in possible benefits for itself. What do you think China is most concerned with? Moreover, what do you think the larger geopolitical significance for the region will be of a reunification of the Korean peninsula?

Richard Bush China wants stability above all. China would also like to avoid a situation in which there is a unified Korea that is hostile to China. That is a potential threat. Currently, for all the problems that North Korea causes China, it serves a valuable purpose today as a buffer that keeps the forces of the United States and of South Korea away from the border with Chi- na. Now, I happen to believe that this is an exaggerated fear on the part of the Chinese who hold it. There are assurances that Korea and the United States could provide to China that could allay its concerns. In any case, China wants any unification to be a peaceful unification that cannot be interpreted as a threat to China. With regards to the geopolitical significance of reunification for the region, that also depends quite a bit on the terms of reunification. If one assumes that unification takes place under the aegis of the Republic of Korea, and that the entire peninsula will not only be united,

but also wholly democratic, and prosperous, and more inventive, then that would be a positive for the United States. I have suggested that China might still be concerned about such a scenario, but the United States, Japan, and the international community would welcome such an outcome.

Emanuel Pastreich If North and South Korea were united, and that united Korea shared a border with a unified China, that would be a geopolitical situation that has not existed for a long time, since the 1650s when the Manchus took over the border with Korea.

Richard Bush Yes, that would be a very new world. I think that South Korea has the maturity to respond to such a new world and I certainly hope that China will.

“Korea’s Role in Science and Technology” 20 March 2012

Harold Varmus Director National Cancer Institute

Emanuel Pastreich I remember we spoke some time ago about your proposal for a “Global Science Corps” that would encourage a tradition of volunteerism in medicine and lead to a greater spirit of service. Tell us what progress you have made in that project.

Harold Varmus I had great hopes for the proposal for a “Global Science Corps” for volunteer service in the sciences. Although the initial proposal received a very positive response, the process since then has been rather frustrating because the program has never come to frui- tion, despite strong interest. As it turns out, setting up such a global program is not an easy endeavor. We were able to find people who were interested in becoming members of the corps. There were many who offered emotional and intellectual support that was most helpful. And there were also a number of institutions around the world that wanted to participate in terms of sending and receiving people. What was difficult was raising funds on a sufficient scale to do the project effectively. After all, we were talking about sending experienced people, people who have advanced degrees and happened to find themselves perhaps between their academic training and a job with their own lab. Or alternatively, we were talking about people who were quite advanced in their career, people who were looking for new opportunities, or even on the verge of retirement. All these kinds of people might want to contribute, but it would not be easy for them to just get up and fly to the far corners of the earth. These people often have families, they expect decent salaries, and the resulting total expenses could add up to $100,000 or $200,000 a year for a more senior person. And then there was insurance and other issues added on top. If you are to start anything like this at a reasonable scale you would need a budget of at least a couple of million dollars a year. So you are really talking about a project that needs the support of a state, or of the Federal Government or a major foundation, for long- term success. There has been much discussion about other proposals resembling the Global Science Corps and there has been an effort to implement a similar proposal with medical personnel. Some parts of the concept are also manifest in the U.S. Science Envoy program that was recently launched by the White House. (The U.S. Science Envoy program was set up by the Department of State a few years ago in response to President Obama’s speech in Cairo in which he spoke eloquently about the need to approach the Islamic world with technical and scientific assistance.) Envoys for the U.S. Science Envoy Program are very senior people who go abroad to predominantly Muslim countries for relatively short periods of time, say a week or two. The- se individuals are not actually working abroad in laboratories. Although such science envoys are thus a bit different than the Global Science Corps we conceived of, the general idea has come up in important writings by a variety of people, including the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs Bob Hormats and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her speech about science diplomacy. The U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Frank Ricciardone, has put great stress on promoting scientific exchange, and scientists play an important role at his embassy. To come back to our theme of Korea’s global role, I think that science diplomacy is one place where Korean scientists can play a central role, especially in Asia. China has made major investments recently in science diplomacy, dispatching numerous scientists to Africa where they are having significant impact. We are also in the midst of setting up a new Center for Global Health at the National Cancer Institute here in Washington D.C. As part of that effort we are building our own net- 49

work with partners in Asia, Central and South America, and Africa so that we can promote better approaches to cancer research and the use of new clinical tools to improve detection, prevention and care in those countries. As we look for partners around the world, we find that there are some people already there. Sometimes they are American, but increasingly they are Chinese. Korea is starting to play a role, and overall Korea is well positioned, with its trained scientists and its strong scientific base, to play an important role in promoting international cooperation and in breaking down barriers between nations. In fact, promoting the understanding of science in North Korea could be an excellent way to find common ground and set the stage for further cooperation. Scientists have an advantage that many other citizens don’t have. Because most scientific journals are in English, scientists have the basic ability in most countries to communicate effectively with their counterparts from other countries. Using the English language and building on a solid foundation of scientific principles can help in moving away from ideology or rhetoric. We should take advantage of the common ethos in science: the commitment to objective and accurate research, the sharing of information and cooperation in research. , We can work together, globally, to find new applications for research results. It has been shown consistently that international cooperation in the sciences is particularly amenable to improving relations between countries that have had difficulties in the past.

Emanuel Pastreich One of the challenges with North Korea is that, because it is so milita- rized as a society, it is hard to do anything which somehow doesn’t involve something related to the military. There may be opportunities to use science to promote better relations, but there is always a concern that any new technology introduced can be then find a military application.

Harold Varmus I don’t know North Korea well and I’ve never been there, so I cannot describe the research infrastructure that exists in Pyongyang. Nevertheless, I would suggest that we start collaboration at the university level and ask people at Seoul National University and KAIST to invite peers from North Korea for visits that will build up closer personal relations. I don’t know how easy it is to cross the border, but I know it can be done. Especially if we start with fields that do not have direct military applications, there is much potential for effective cooperation. I have found that collaboration in science is an excellent means to build closer relations and it provides its own platform for objective discussions and long-term exchanges.

Emanuel Pastreich Let me ask you a question about Korea’s new economic role in the world. Korea has risen to a position of prominence in Asia, especially over the last 5-6 years. In business and in technology, Korea is becoming more and more of a role model for developing countries in Asia and around the world. Koreans did not anticipate that they would be playing this role so early in their development. They thought they had other twenty years to

develop before they played a leadership role. Do you have any advice for Korea going forward?

Harold Varmus I’ve only been to Korea once---I think it was early 1994. I was deeply impressed by the commitment Korea had made to basic science and to scientific education. Al- ready there were a number of Korean firms like Samsung and LG that were producing excellent automotive and electronic products. I was just in my first year as director of the National Institute of Health at the time. I remember vividly that on the first night we were hosted by a group of National Institute of Health alumni in Seoul. There were several hundred people there who had trained at the NIH at one time or the other and were doing research in the biomedical field in Korea. There was a pretty impressive contingent of expertise, and some people I had known before but most I hadn’t. That was an extremely promising time, and their facilities were well funded and well equipped. In the nineteen years since, Korea faced any number of challenges, including financial ups and downs. But throughout all that, Korea’s determination to be a leader in science and technology has been solid.

Emanuel Pastreich What has changed recently is the range of people who visit Korea. They come for training, they come to benchmark Korean institutions and they come to find opportunities. 20 years ago, it was not that obvious that you should go to Korea to learn how to run a waste water treatment plant or how to design a laboratory. But now many from the Middle East or Africa or other Asian countries favor Korea. Korea seems to be more accessible, more relevant to their needs.

Harold Varmus I wonder if the change is one in Korea itself, or rather the emergence of a large number of developing countries that are in a position to learn from Korea. Previously many of these countries were not ready for advanced manufacturing or water treatment plants. 20 years ago, Samsung was already a giant in electronics from which one could learn a lot. But few could make use of that know how. I think what happened is that many African countries, and the more challenged countries of Asia, find that they are in a position to improve the economy and move on to the next step in development. For India, for example, Korea is interesting now because their fundamental production base has evolved dramatically. The amount of money invested, and the sophistication of production has increased. One sees similar changes in China. Programs like student exchanges and mentoring are tremendous opportunities for Korea today.

Emanuel Pastreich As South Korea plays an increasing central role in training the next generation of specialists, as the model that others are benchmarking, do you have any thoughts or advice as to how Korea should handle this opportunity?

Harold Varmus This is not my field of expertise, industrial benchmarking. Nevertheless, I do think that Korea, with its outstanding accomplishments in science and technology has been given a rare opportunity to enhance relations with other countries around the world in a manner that is conducive to better international relations. Korea’s expertise also offers an opportunity to bring in talented people from other countries for training and for absorbing some of those qualities that have made Korea successful. In America we have found throughout our history, and especially in the post-World War II era, that maintaining an open door for scholars to come here as graduate students and postgraduate researchers, has been of immense value. There are several reasons why such exchanges have profound significance. First of all, having smart people come to the United States to train makes our own laboratories more stimulating and makes us more productive. Secondly, many of the best researchers who come to the United States stay here. And that’s a good thing for our own economy and for our own scientific establishment. And thirdly, I think it is very much to our advantage to create that sort of global soft power that comes from a mature network of talented people who train here and take our values back home with them to create other cultures of science that are compatible with our own. The American way of doing science has changed the way science is done internationally. Our approach is very different from the way science is done in Europe. Europe was the dominant force in science for the first half of the 20th century, but it was culturally stiff and hierarchy was dominant. The American culture of science is much less hierarchical; it gives more authority to students and post docs and the laboratory is simply more democratic. We think that it is important to have a level playing field in science because researchers often have their best ideas when they are in their 20s and 30s—while still in their training programs. That American way of science has permeated significant parts of the world with huge benefits for research. However, there are still places in Asia where science is run more like it was in the early days of the 20th century in Europe. The senior researcher has all the power and all others are regulated to secondary tasks and just doing what the boss tells them. But there is a significant group of scientists in Korea who had seen the way science is conducted in America and adopted it for themselves. Korea can take the initiative, and is taking the initiative, in helping to pass on what is best in science to the rest of the world.

Emanuel Pastreich You mentioned science diplomacy and America’s role over the last fifty years. In this age of limited budgets, what do you think is the focus today for the United States in terms of science diplomacy?

Harold Varmus That is a good question. The Federal government does face significant economic challenges in funding that limit the scale of what we can do globally. You might think that researchers would just want to focus on research that can be done easily in the United States and put off international collaboration until there is sufficient funding, but in fact we find that there is always a real interest, and a real need, to explore scientific issues internationally. At the National Cancer Institute, we have set up a new Center

for Global Health and we are aggressively engaged in building a wide range of international collaborative activities related to many aspects of cancer research. I am finding no resistance among my colleagues to such international work. We continue to encounter tremendous enthusiasm for such collaboration. Part of that support comes from self interest. There is much to be learned from the study of cancer in different parts of the world. There is much we can gain from such collaboration. And such exchanges assure that the United States is attractive to researchers around the world, who are a source of talent for the US scientific community. So international collaboration is certainly not foolish altruism. We can all agree on the benefits for the world, and the advantages of the United States, to be gained through international engagement in Science and Technology.

Emanuel Pastreich As of this month a free trade agreement between the United States and Korea goes into effect. The agreement concerns trade and investment, but it does have potential impact in the sciences as well. in terms of encouraging cooperation between United States and Korea. What are your thoughts about this development?

Harold Varmus It depends on the kind of science we are talking about. I don’t think you need free trade in order to establish scientific exchange. There are issues in trade that can affect science, however, and to the extent we are not fighting over tariffs the environment will be better. There are probably issues about applications of science and certain kinds of technologies that are a little more complicated. I don’t know what the implications are for the pharmaceutical industries and the information technology industry.

Emanuel Pastreich The general perception of Korea among scientists is that Korea tends to be very focused on the applied sciences based as opposed to basic research. Have you found this to be the case?

Harold Varmus My experience is limited to one trip, but I know several Korean scientists working in basic research, and many of them are quite distinguished. But I do think it is true that Korea’s international reputation is strongest in applied sciences---in IT, electronics and other sectors where Korean industry leads. That technological prowess has helped Korean research immensely.

Choi Won-jun, an undergraduate student, Konkuk University My understanding is that while you have been at NHI there has been much debate about whether funding for stem cells and other such research that employs human embryos is unethical or potentially degrading to humans. In Korean society, we have seen the pros and cons of medical ethics much manipulated for political gain. What are your thoughts and what do you think the proper limits should be on research?

Harold Varmus The issue of working with cells from human embryos is rather complex and we have been struggling with its implications for almost twenty years. At the moment, direct research on human embryos cannot be carried out with federal money in the United States. That’s the law on the books. Personally I think that law should be overturned. We do allow use of Federal funds for research on cells after they have been derived from embryos, but the research derived those cells from embryos must be carried out with other sources of money, such as funds from states, foundations, corporations, and individual donors. This research is not prohibited—it just cannot be carried out with federal money. The most important result of that work on human embryos is the derivation of embryonic stem cells. It is permitted to use federal funds to support research that employs human embryonic stem cells. There is a great deal of such research being funded the by the NIH, both on the NIH campus and universities and research institutions in this country and around the world. I strongly believe as long as there is an appropriate ethical oversight of such work, the research is potentially very valuable and should be continued. The work is done with embryos that have been donated for research by people who created those embryos in an effort to have children. When there are embryos that are not going to be used and that would otherwise be discarded, they are donated to the research as a source from which to derive stem cells. I think it would be a mistake not to do use such embryos; to discard those embryos that could be useful in an effort to understand the development of the embryo and possibly for the development of medical therapies is not a wise decision. There is wide support for the current policy in the US. There are some people who are opposed, but in general the public supports that research. We still have not had the hoped-for advances in clinical therapies through stem cell research. But we now have a new approach to generating stem cell lines, pioneered largely by Kyoto University Professor Shinya Kamanaka, that may lead to a revolution. Professor Kamanaka has created “pluripotential precursors” from ordinary cells that can serve as an alternative to embryonic stem cells in some settings.You take a normal cell from a mouse or a human being and introduce genetic information that allows the cell to behave more or less the way an embryonic stem cell would behave—not exactly the same way but in a similar fashion. Those cells can be derived from the patient who needs treatment and it is possible to generate cells that would differentiate into a variety of more specialized cells that could be used therapeutically. Moreover these cells can provide a tremendous opportunity to understand how you get from a very primitive stem cell state to a higher degree of differentiation. That, in some ways is still the most powerful thing that has come out stem cell research. Peo- ple are hoping to treat diseases with such cells, and that may well happen, but right now the important thing is to increase our understanding of a deep mystery: how does one fertilized cell become a complex individual? How does a stem cell in a certain tissue become all the different cell types that make that tissue or organ function properly? These are big deep medical and biological issues.

Emanuel Pastreich It is not easy to understand Korea in terms of education. One of the most interesting parts of Korea is its educational system. One of the great criticisms made of Korean education, especially by Koreans themselves, is that the educational system is so much reliant on rote memorization and preparation for tests and is not sufficiently creative to produce leaders. Yet I find students in my class that are remarkably creative and thoughtful. They manage to get through that educational system. How do you get students to learn the basics, which are not always fun to learn, and at the same time cultivate the creativity that is necessary in science?

Harold Varmus The question of how to teach science effectively is a serious issue in the United States as well. There several new interesting programs for teaching children in elementary school how to approach a scientific question. These programs strive to capture their imagination and give them inspiration. We need to teach youth about the experimental method from early on in a comprehensive manner. We have many reports, such as those from the National Academy of Sciences, the President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology, and from the Carnegie Institu- tion that present plans for teaching science more effectively at every level including college. We find that college teaching is so often geared toward rote learning to a degree that undermines the creative process required for experimentation.

My advice to Korean educators is that they should learn as much as possible from the experiences of other countries. The United States and Great Britain have produced some of the more enlightening thinking on this topic, but many others are also experimenting with promising approaches to teaching science that strive to make science not just a bank of knowledge, but a mode of inquiry. I would contend that science in its basic nature is not different from the thinking one should apply in an investigation of history or literature, or any other subject. The issue is how you systematically question assumptions, make decisions and draw conclu- sions on the basis of evidence. Once you are committed to evidence-based learning and decision making, you start to think in a more analytical manner, no longer simply accepting what you are told.

Emanuel Pastreich What is the level of awareness of Asia in American science today?

Harold Varmus At this moment in the United States, when most budgets for science are essentially flat, we find a strong argument made that in order to fight the current economic downturn we need to invest heavily in science and technology and in the training of scientists. That investment makes sense in a domestic context, but that argument is even more persua- sive in light of the dramatic rise of science and technology in Asia. Of course Americans are far more aware of China than they are of Korea in this respect. The growth rate in science and technology for China is extremely steep. That is in-

creasingly the case for India as well. China is emerging as a player in medical and genetic research and in information technology and India is strong in information technology. There is general agreement on the strength of researchers and infrastructure for science in Japan and Korea, and there have been considerable advances in Thailand and Singapore as well, though they are still not at the highest level. It is the combination of the amazing rates of growth in science and technology with large populations that is making everybody take note of what happens in China and India.

“The Problem of the Media in Korea” 9 April 2012

Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics Massachusetes Institute of Technology

Emanuel Pastreich You may remember that in a seminar we held a few months ago there were a series of questions from the Korean students concerning a individual by the name of Jeong Bongju who had not been able to obtain a visa to come visit the United States. His story is quite significant with regards to the question of the media, specifically the decay that some of us perceive in the quality of media in Korea and around the world. Jeong Bongju, a former politician, has become immensely famous in Korea through his television comedy show "Na num Ggomsu" (translates as something like "I am a small-minded jerk"). This show is essentially comedy, but it treats serious political issues more accurately and more directly than anything you will find on network television. His willingness to talk so frankly, and explicitly, about issues that most powerful people would like to have disappear is one reason that he has caused so much trouble. But even if we appreciate that the show brings up topics otherwise not treated, the trend is disturbing. There is something so dysfunctional about media environment in which the comedy show becomes the only medium in which the truth is accurately conveyed. There is of course a long history of "the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" –but we find the use of comedy to convey real news increasingly pervasive. In the United States we have similar programs like "The Daily Show" with Jon Stew- art that mix comedy with truth. Perhaps such programs are an indication of the decay of me- 56

dia institutions, or perhaps it is a natural product of the info-tainment revolution. Or perhaps such mixtures of comedy and truth have a new significance. What do you think?

Noam Chomsky You're right that the court jester was the one figure who was allowed to tell the truth. That is a tradition that extended until the present, in totalitarian states as well. Yes, the situation is dysfunctional. But I'm not sure it's a matter of the decay of media institutions, because I don't think they were better in the past.

Emanuel Pastreich In the Korean case, the media ecosystem is complex. On the one hand, there is much repetition of near identical stories among different media sources and I would not say that the sources used are all that accurate. But even if the quality of any one newspaper is limited, there are some fifteen or more reasonably good newspapers out there in Korea and there are hundreds of blogs that are at times quite brave in reporting the truth. That is a lot of media for a country of just 48 million people. Korea is, if anything, super saturated in media and that state is not always a positive. Nevertheless, there are more choices for Kore- ans on a daily basis. In the United States, people end up reading the New York Times simply because there is no other equivalent, not because the New York Times is that great. As for media in the United States, I was not aware of changes in media until recently, but I will say that it certainly seems to be that there was significant decay in the media between 1990 and 2005. Stories that would have been carried back in 1980s by the New York Times are not any longer. And the New York Times often features these rhetorical traps in which a rather reactionary concept is presented using the vocabulary and tone associated with a more progressive essay.

Noam Chomsky I've been following the media closely for 70 years. In the 1940s, there were some small newspapers like PM that broke from the Party Line. They have all disappeared. And now even the local quality press has largely disappeared. Thus the Boston Globe used to be a fairly serious newspaper, sometimes somewhat independent (they even let me write for them), but now it's useful only for those who want to keep up with local events. Nevertheless, overall I don't see a change for the worse in terms of what does appear in the media. In the 1980s, the crimes committed by the United States all over the world were largely suppressed or marginalized. The deceit regarding Reagan's domestic programs was remarkable. The same was true for the 1990s. I've been writing about this issue regularly. In some ways the media today is better than it was in the 1960s. The experiences of the 1960s had a civilizing effect on journalism and had a significant impact on journalists and editors. I've seen that clearly in my direct personal experience, and I think it's clear from following the content in the media as well.

Emanuel Pastreich I am curious as to how the media might be better now than in the 1960s. The question of suppression of news about immoral or even criminal activity overseas is nothing new, of course. And it could be that more recently things are improving with such campaigns as Wikileaks. Nevertheless, there are clear waves in the media quality in the United States. I can state with considerable confidence that the period from July 2000 until September 2003 was a low point from my perspective and that many newspapers in the United States were reduced to unmitigated propaganda machines during that period. Things have improved a bit since then. But do you really believe there is a gradual improvement? That would fly in the face of what is said about the slashing of overseas reporting, editing staff and the increasing reliance on outsourcing to Bloomberg for much of the news.

Noam Chomsky As I said, there have been serious cutbacks, which have reduced options for reporting. But the belief that there was once a "golden age" of the media which is now lost, is an illusion. The 1960s had a major civilizing effect on the whole society, and that affected the media too: concern with minority rights, with women's rights, concern for the environment and opposition to aggression. One finds positive changes all over the place. Just as one indication of how awful the media were in the 1960s, take the fact that we are now NOT commemorating the 50th anniversary of President John Kennedy’s launch of direct aggression against South Vietnam, with its horrendous consequences. It's not that the information is being suppressed. The facts were reported, but only drew a yawn from most, and were quickly forgotten. Years later, when mild protests finally began, they were bitterly denounced by the most liberal press. When Martin Luther King dared to object to the war in 1966-7, he was virtually destroyed by the liberal media. That all changed by the 1980s, and even more today. The years 2000-2003 were far better than the 1960s. The media permitted a great deal of objection to the Iraq War of a kind that would have been inconceivable 40 years earlier. In fact, the Iraq War was unusual in that strong objections to the war were presented before it was officially launched even in establishment sources (Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, American Academy of Arts and Sciences). Nothing like that happened 40 years earlier with regards to the Vietnam War. And when the huge anti-war demonstrations took place right before the war was launched, they were treated in the media far differently than the vicious attacks on the (far fewer) protestors in late 1965, when South Vietnam had been virtually destroyed and the war had spread to all of Indochina. In fact Bloomberg is far better now than the business press was 40 years ago. In some respects, they've even gone beyond the Occupy movement in their reporting. No reason to have illusions about the press now—it's pretty bad—but it is considerably improved over the past. The 1960s did have an impact on the society, even if that progress is now taken for granted.

Emanuel Pastreich When we talk about the media being better or worse, we need to come back to that fundamental principle of the scientific method: the distinction between precision and accuracy. Just as one can have a device that measures objects with great precision, but is completely inaccurate, you can have a media that provides considerable mimetic detail, but is false. Not entirely false, of course, because of course the mimetic detail is borrowed from some aspect of human experience, but it is merely borrowed to make the particular scene more convincing. Perhaps the greatest study of such a process of literary creativity (it is no longer de- ceptive once we look at the work as fiction) is Erich Auerbach’s masterpiece Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Auerbach wrote this careful study of how the appearance of reality is generated through literature while in exile in Istanbul after being removed from his job at University of Marburg. What Auerbach argues is that the appearance of being “real” in writing is not related to the world as it is in any direct manner, but rather is a product of how close it follows cultural conventions concerning how reality should be represented. So we get literary masterpieces like the New York Times Magazine that describe in the most convincing, most literary and most evocative manner their story. But whether the story related is accurate is an entirely different issue. One interesting thing about Korean media, or media in many Asian countries, is that they report about new bridges, new plants, infrastructure, meetings of the committees of local legislature and many other aspects of how the country is actually run. For the American TV watcher, this reporting would be intolerable, but it is in fact quite healthy. It allows the thoughtful viewer to actually see what is happening in the world and draw his own conclusion as to its significance. That is one aspect that I think is far weaker about US media today. No details. Non- ideological details: they built a bridge, they cut down some trees, the budget increased by so much, are essential to a healthy media. They are helpful regardless of the ideology of the media. And in fact the greatest weakness is the lack of detail, in both conservative and liberal media, in the United States.

Noam Chomsky What I mean by saying that Bloomberg has sometimes gone beyond the Occupy movement is that Bloomberg’s demand that the Security and Exchange Commission not only be reformed but dismantled and constructed on a new and much more equitable basis goes beyond anything proposed by the Occupy Wall Street movement. The rest for what you mention is interesting, but doesn’t bear on the question we were discussing: relative evaluation.

Emanuel Pastreich "Relative evaluation" I assume refers to an accurate evaluation of how the media works in different historical periods. The topic is incredibly complex, if we start to think about it, for we would have to consider how people get their information. The fact that there were no "newspapers" 200 years ago, does not mean that people had no means of get-

ting information. Today as well there is a wide range of specialized journals, and when I do read them I find myself wondering why I read things like newspapers at all. For example, I think one is better off reading the website of the Brookings Institution than reading the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post--hands down. But it is a rare bird who does so. I cannot really engage in a comparative analysis as I did not seriously start reading the media until I was in my mid 20s, and interestingly enough I was reading primarily Japanese media at that time. So I simply do not have your historical perspective. I have read bits from past media sources, and I have observed how journals like the New York Review of Books has become increasingly narcissistic and self-involved, how the New York Times has become more concerned with visual impact and less with content. These all seem like significant neg- atives.

But it is also true that there is a new breed of rather brave blogs out there that go even further. But their audience is extremely limited, of course. Maybe we read them and our friends read them, but that is a limited audience. As for my previous note. I suppose it reveals something of my own training in literature. But then again, I would say that aesthetics (covering literature) is at the crux. What are the internal standards by which we decide what seems "real." If the standards by which we evaluate what seems real shift, then everything else will shift as well. The declining interest in the details, which runs across the entire political spectrum, has deep implications.

Noam Chomsky Everything in the real world is complex, but this question is one of the easier questions. Your question didn’t have to do with the world 200 years ago, or with different ways of getting information, but with the media now and in the recent past – say the 1950s-60s. That doesn’t take too much research. I told you what I think, from extensive immersion and inquiry.

Emanuel Pastreich That makes sense. I have a slightly different question. Do you think that the primary solution to the problem of media comes from the efforts of organized citizens, or do you feel we need increased government regulation? Or some combination of both? Citizen action I think we can easily imagine, but in the case of government, what sort of a regulatory body would work, especially in this age of agency capture?

Noam Chomsky I'm very skeptical about regulation of the media. A very dangerous instrument, I think.

Emanuel Pastreich I agree, but at the same time the process is problematic. The best response to the challenge would be to have an active citizenship who are deeply involved in creating the media and establishing alternative sources that keep the mainstream media in check. But what if citizens are not interested? What if the vast majority do not make such an effort? You cannot force them to be activists, can you? And yet to leave it up to the interested parties to set the rules is quite dangerous as well. So it is dangerous to have government step in, that is clear, but some would say it is the only way, and most everyone interested in reducing pornography, or misinformation, in the media turns to the government.

Noam Chomsky If that’s what some would say, they’re wrong. Some cures are worse than the disease. Having the government block “misinformation” would make Orwell’s 1984 look like a utopian democracy.

Emanuel Pastreich One distinct aspect of Korean media is the frequent use of labor and strikes as a means of effecting media. Korean media goes out on strike frequently, and in the case of YTN News, the political appointee president was forced to step down as a result of agitation. Do you think that organized labor within media can serve as a major protector of freedom of speech? There is of course the risk that labor disputes can distort. But it is hard to imagine CNN going out on strike. In Korea, such strikes happen on occasion. Not necessarily because of content, as opposed to benefits, but there can be links.

Noam Chomsky Depends on what they do and what the reasons are.

Emanuel Pastreich So when we try to imagine a healthier ecosystem for media, for the production of reliable information about critical issues for average citizens, where do we start and how do we maintain that ecosystem? Is there some optimal balance in the control of information, the range of individuals involved in the production and consumption of news, that promotes such a positive ecosystem? The implication of your last email is that the 1960s led to a more civilized culture for journalism. I would speculate that perhaps the conflicts and the seriousness of the crisis led to a general healthy skepticism among educated readers that changed the general process of news production, and perhaps encouraged some to enter into the field who might not otherwise have done so. But perhaps the process is something quite different from that. The danger today is that actions like the creation of blogs and newspapers that only educated people, and people who have access to the internet, can use will give the false sense of organization and protest.

Noam Chomsky I think your speculation is correct. The activist movements had a general civilizing effect on large parts of the society and culture, and it had its impact on the media. That’s the main way to develop a healthier ecosystem, or any other social system. Other options are independent media, which don’t have to be limited to the educated and often aren’t. Community newspapers for example. Or labor papers.

Emanuel Pastreich So that leads back to the "constant gardener" question. Granted that we cannot legislate a health media environment, is there not some manner in which government, or perhaps large organizations, can serve as a gardener, pruning and pulling up weeds, to make sure that the plants grow up appropriately without being smothered, or overshadowed. That role of gardener does not consist of telling plants what to be.

At some level I assume you would agree with the need for some form of gardening. The question would be what is the actor, if not the government? Or perhaps there is something out there akin to "emergent complexity" in society that we should rely upon. That is to say, that things are organized and regulated not by a single group, or bureaucracy, but rather through a complex set of factors. Just as the individual polyp does not understand the full complexity of a coral reef, so also there is no one group of either bureaucrats, or activists for that matter, who is in charge of setting out, or even proposing, policies. The whole question by which decisions are made, norms are established, is one of the great mysteries of human experience, I believe. It is easy to say that decisions are made by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, but these are individuals who are constantly responding to pressures from below. So also to say that the subject is the corporation seems unconvincing since these organizations are also profoundly conformist and follow perceived imperatives. Sometimes it seems there is an opaque "system of things" that transcends the efforts of individuals and groups, but at other times it does seem that the individual and group effort can have very real impact, granted its ultimate form remains uncertain.

Noam Chomsky It does not seem to me particularly opaque. I’ve written about the nuts and bolts, as have others. And there’s plenty of work on democratic media systems (Robert McChesney, for example), with no “gardeners” necessary – and they would be a very bad idea, in my opinion.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us talk a bit about the case of humor and news. The case of “I am a Selfish Prick,” the biting socials satire that has been so popular in Korea. This show seems a bit different than what we encounter in the United States. Most Americans see the media issue in terms of commercialization, the manner in which media is increasingly run for profit by large corporations. Of course the media for profit trend does impact Korea as well, and the overwhelming amount of TV about people eating food, making stupid jokes and singing

songs that have nothing to do with the lives of people testifies to the power of markets. Nev- ertheless, the appeal of “I am a Selfish Prick” comes from its political context. How the central government under the current administration has worked to suppress journalism, to make it subject to the office of the president. This approach does strike Koreans as fundamentally different from what is going on in the United States. “I am a Selfish Prick” is a response to the overt control of media, through appointment of the heads of major broadcast networks of political figures with close relations to the president.

Noam Chomsky The case of “I am a Selfish Prick” in Korea is quite different from what we find in American media today. I am not suggesting that the American media is free, of course. Nevertheless, the explicit coercion of the media, including sending people to jail, seems more similar to what we find in more authoritarian regimes. The problems in the Unit- ed States are very serious, but different in nature.

Of course we need to see the status of the media in society on a spectrum across the globe, with many variations in the nature of media and its role in society, and its relationship to government and the private sector. In the United States, the actual power of the state to coerce the media is slight. Such explicit intimation by the state itself is rare. On the other hand, voluntary subordination to state doctrine by the media is overwhelming on major issues. That voluntary subordination serves essentially to block out reporting on sensitive topics in the mainstream media. The effect is equivalent to censorship.

Emanuel Pastreich So let us imagine that Korea is something of a political hybrid. In some respects Korea is closer to an authoritarian system in its decision making process, and the state itself is stronger than is the case in other countries. But before we leap to the conclusion that Korea is not an “advanced nation,” its media is not as advanced as other countries, we should realize that Korea has some strengths. Let us take the power of labor and protest. Well, I would not say I agree with all protests, but compared with the United States where the Oc- cupy Wall Street Movement has lacked focus, here we have in Korea real organized labor, of such a nature as has been lost completely in the United States over the last forty years. And that labor has a focus beyond pay raises. In the case of Korean media, People are willing to go out on strike against government appointed CEOs and interference in the editorial process. This is remarkable. In the United States people strike over pay. I cannot think of an example of people in the media, or elsewhere striking over accurate reporting, or over ethical issues. Perhaps you might have suggestions about how Korea can move forward beyond the authoritarian model, but you might at the same time suggest that the US can learn from Ko- rea. I am reminded of the recent book by Ann Lee "What the US can Learn from China." She argues that the United States should learn from the good policies used in China. Could this apply to Korea as well?

Noam Chomsky I completely agree. The United States has much to learn from Korea and issues in the media and in democracy are among them. The courageous fight for democracy in Korea has much to teach Americans. Koreans were willing to take tremendous risks to assure that they had a living and functioning democracy. As the same time, the dictatorship that those Koreans fought against was supported by the United States. Korea deserves our attention as we rebuild our democracy.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us come back to the issue of labor. Labor means, I think, having individuals within organizations who see their role as more than just a tool. There was once a powerful labor movement in the United States, but it has been reduced to a force that resists cuts in pensions or reductions in pay. It really does not fight for a free media or for fundamental changes. If anything, it has to be careful not to do so. What happened to labor in the United States?

Noam Chomsky The war against labor has been waged for a long time and it has been so successful that strikes are quite rare in the United States, and even more rarely successful. Labor does not serve as a counterweight against corporate decisions here, and contributes little to policy. But before we become overly pessimistic, we should remember that this state of labor has been true before. In the 1920s, labor was virtually crushed by industry in the US and around the world. But it rose again to great power in the 1930s. Since that peak, however, labor has been subject to unremitting attack by a highly class-conscious business world. The result of the decline of labor and its influence in the United States has been so serious that the business world is able to dominate society, dominate the issues discussed in the media and the structure of power to an unusual extent. Korea offers a potential for something different.

Emanuel Pastreich An interesting point about the role of labor. Nonetheless, the global battle for access to reliable information is something even larger than labor, or than Korea and the United States. I think we can see the efforts of Koreans to assure accurate media by protesting against interference in the editorial process as courageous. But in the Korean case it has been primarily the reporters themselves who lead the effort.

Noam Chomsky That sort of an effort by the reporters themselves is laudable and the absence of such engagement in the United States by organized labor can only be understood in the context of the unusually violent and repressive labor history of the United States. The United States is to an unusual extent a business-run society and in this respect is different than Korea—in which labor and government are significant in their influence. Business in the United States is constantly fighting a bitter class war against labor. Nor is this new. There was a powerful labor movement in the United States more than a century ago that was

crushed by violence. There was also the “red scare” over communism after the Russian revolution that was used as a pretext to shut down labor. Then labor rose again in its influence in the United States in the 1930s, terrifying business. Business immediately sought to counter labor at every layer. That effort to completely suppress labor were put on hold for the duration of the Second World War, but the campaign was launched in full as soon as the war ended, on an extraordinary scale. Since then business has eviscerated the private sector unions. Public sector unions are now under attack on a large scale. For the most part, both democrats and republicans are involved in this effort to suppress labor. So yes, Korea has had a strong labor movement with a commitment towards democracy and social justice over the last thirty years. In the United States strong labor like that has vanished, and was in decline already in the 1960s.

Emanuel Pastreich So you feel that labor has a real role to play in the media ecosystem. One does not hear that sort of suggestion much in the discussion about media going on in the United States, I must say.

Noam Chomsky What is unique in the Korean case is the long series of strikes against major broadcast companies over the last two years based on objections to bias in the media and control of content by the government. To be honest, I cannot think of anything quite like that effort elsewhere. There may have been such cases that I do not know about. Perhaps Robert McChesney would know better than I do.

“The Conditions for Engaging North Korea” 9 April 2012

Jon Huntsman Former Governor of Utah

Emanuel Pastreich I wanted to ask you about the prospects for engagement with North Ko- rea from your perspective as someone who has been intimately involved in the diplomatic debate concerning the future of North Korea. The question is not so much about the latest misdeed of North Korea, but rather about what the long-term prospects are. After all, if we want to solve the problem, we must move beyond the latest news cycle. Many Koreans are confused because, on one hand there has been times of great efforts to engage with North Korea and these have been generally frustrated, and on the other hand there have been efforts to take a harder line towards North Korea at other times, and these efforts also, although they have been successful in some respects, haven’t resolved the problem either. The question of what to do about North Korea has become a major issue in Korea today. What do you think is the long term solution to this problem?

Jon Huntsman I am not sure we can find an easy answer when we are working with regime that is willing to put everything on the line in maintaining the status quo, in repressing its people with unprecedented cruelty and in saber rattling that sends tremors through the whole region. I am one person who feels that nothing is going to happen in the short term with North Korea because we find ourselves in the middle of a transition right now and such political transitions always bring out unpredictable behavior from those in power. And I believe that much of what we are seeing now, the attempted missile launch, the possible detonation of a nuclear device underground, all these actions are intimately tied to the domestic process of power transition going on within North Korea. It may be tied to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung this year. So there is not much we are going to be able to achieve at the negotiating table. If you do make a breakthrough, the chances are it will be short lived as many have been in recent history with North Korea. So I don’t think there should me much effort wasted on North Korea today because anything they agree to is likely to be short lived. And that then leaves it to South Korea to maintain whatever dialogue or confidence building steps that they feel are important, but in terms of the US role or the 6th party process, I’m not sure it’s going to gain any traction for some time. For young Kim Jong Un, it is going to be many months before he can consolidate fully his power base whether it’s the North Korean military or his party and once he is in power, we might find that he sees North Korea’s interests as being slightly different and in terms of what their needs are in the

long term. That may then present an opening at the negotiating table. But I don’t anticipate that happening in quite some time.

Emanuel Pastreich In the specific case of say the rocket launch or the nuclear tests, what would be the proper response?

Jon Huntsman If they are in abrogation of certain UN Security Council measures then the full force of the UN Security Council ought to be brought to bring straight sanctions, isolating them further, but again, what leverage does North Korea have? North Korea has limited leverage, military activity is one of them. They push the international community to the point of negotiating as they have a lever called missile testing and they have a lever called underground nuclear testing. They use it and play the international community like a Stradivarius, and so you have got to identify the points of leverage that North Korea has. As long as they have the missile and the bomb, they have a voice and I believe that all of those are contained to some degree by the UN Security Council, if they abrogate those UN Security Council agreements than the full weight of the region and indeed the world should fall upon them.

Emanuel Pastreich It’s one of those issues which is always in the background out here in Korea and as this is an election year, I am sure it will once again be debated. The problem is, if you take for example the shelling of Yeonpyeong island there would be some in Korea who would say that this is a result of Korea not taking a hard enough stance. But there are also those in Korea who would say something like, it is precisely because South Korea took a strong stance that this incident took place. Would do you make out of this strange argument?

Jon Huntsman I take both the island shelling incident and the sinking of the Cheonan as part of the early transitional politics in North Korea. I think it was an attempt by young Kim Jong Un to flex his muscle. I think much of those decisions can be traced right back to him wanting to prove to the military and to the party that he had the strength when the transition was just beginning and what better way to show strength than to use your military levers, which he did. I am not sure that you can necessarily answer both those incidents based on South Koreas approach at the time, it had more to do with transitional politics going on than anything else. And that transition I believe will continue for many months to come and therefore there is not much that we can do unless you want to be pulled into the negotiating table for yet another round of fictitious negotiations with North Korea. They have got to have a leader who will solemnly and confidently be in place before any talks that can occur that are meaningful. If even then you can trust the talks. There is not much that can be done in the short term in the 6th party process, or even in terms of China’s ability to impact change in North Korea. I think both the island incident and the sinking of the Cheonan are evidence of China’s limited ability to move against in the North when you have something as important

as a leadership transition. This is something you have to wait out and find a solution based upon where new leadership might see their interest lies.

Emanuel Pastreich You have a very valuable perspective, although in Korea, which as a country is always in an enormous rush, it is very difficult for people to take that perspective. They want to see an immediate response or resolution to these difficult challenges.

Jon Huntsman But South Korea is on the border and the reality is different when you are minutes away as opposed to the regional perspective or even the international perspective. The local South Korean perspective is going to have to be driven first and foremost by security concerns and secondly by longer term policies that will settle out the peninsula and leave a more stable environment and economic growth. Those have got to be the two over arching priorities and they will obviously see the issue based on more immediacy than the region or the international community. So I would be hard pressed to answer this question on what South Korea should be doing at this moment, other than first and foremost, looking out for its people’s security.

Emanuel Pastreich Maybe I could ask you in a slightly broader sense about America’s role. Obviously America plays a very important role in North East Asia, and in a certain sense all the players want America to be there, but America’s role is also evolving over time. How do you see America’s role in all aspects like in terms of security, diplomacy, economic development. How is it evolving in North East Asia?

Jon Huntsman I think that is one region in the world where you will see a stepped up American role. I say that because our trade and investment pattern suggest that North East Asia is one of the premiere economic centers of the world, I think over the next 20-25 years, 20-25% of the world’s GDP will reside in North East Asia. It is a region of upgaining influence and because of that America’s forward deployed presence, which is how we spend our presence as a stabilizing force, will continue. If anything the region, from a security standpoint and from a military standpoint, will see stepped up attention. As Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the rest of the 21st century will actually be focused on the Asia-Pacific region because that’s where two thirds of the economy will be and that’s where our trade patterns will reside. It’s true to all of Asia and specifically North East Asia. It’s also where problematic potential disputes might lie. So America’s presence in the region has always been a significant center piece from a security stand point and I don’t see any reason to think that will change. If anything it will be stepped up.

Emanuel Pastreich When you say stepped up, that doesn’t necessarily imply that the tensions would increase, or does it? Do you think it is inevitable that tensions will increase in the region?

Jon Huntsman No. When I say stepped up I am not only talking about the military stand point, I am talking from a trade, commercial and diplomatic stand point. You would have to see which regions of the world are likely to be part of your future from an economic development point. With so much of our focus on the United States on economic downtrend, where is that going to come from? Much of it is going to come from stronger alliances with North East Asia. When you look at Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan and the role that these economies are likely to play over the next 25 – 50 years. By stepped up, I would suggest a stepped up posture in all areas of power and influence that the United States projects.

Emanuel Pastreich As you know there is a new free trade agreement with South Korea and it certainly has created a greater awareness of the United states over the last few months and a large part of it I would say is positive. There was much dispute about the Free Trade agreement and what that would mean, but I have seen a positive response so far.

Jon Huntsman Trade is a currency of peace typically and as you are brought closer together by an economic stand point it generally yields dividends from a diplomatic stand point as well. Whether you look at Singapore, Australia, Jordan, Israel, two or three nation states in Central and South America, you can see where closer economic links have brought diplomatic dividends as well. I had every belief that it would occur with South Korea as well.

Emanuel Pastreich At the same time, there are people in South Korea who are very concerned about things like agriculture, protecting smaller businesses and other issues like this and there is some piece of this which is not totally baseless. How would you address these issues the citizens in Korea express in terms of their concerns about this increased trade?

Jon Huntsman Even in our closest diplomatic relationships, whether that be with Canada or Mexico or South Korea, these are massively, significant and complicated trading relationships. I haven’t seen trade issues as emotionally difficult and technically thorny as the Soft- wood lumber with Canada for example or subsidies for air parts in Europe, yet these are our closest friends. You work out issues over time, that’s the way it is, but you also have a foundation of trust going into these discussions based upon a level of trade and investment and diplomatic cooperation. That allows for problem solving, as opposed to ongoing conflict, which are typically as a result of relationships that are honest and sure, as you would find between the United states and South Korea for example.

Emanuel Pastreich Korea is playing a remarkably broad role in terms of trade these days. They are pursuing trade agreements and free trade agreements on a large scale in terms of the number of negotiations that are going on at present. Overall they have embraced this as a foundation of a Korean policy. It’s been an interesting experience. I work for a Korean university here and in some ways that is part of the process to actually have Americans as faculty members and engaged not just in English teaching but in administration and planning of things. It is evolving quite quickly in Korea.

Jon Huntsman That must be a valuable experience for you.

Emanuel Pastreich It has been and I thank you for saying that. There is a lot to do in Asia and I feel very strongly as you do for the importance of America to be engaged in East Asia and in the very specifics of what’s happening on the ground here. I really appreciate the time you have taken for this interview and wish you the best for your future activities.

“Engaging North Korea” 21 April 2012

John Feffer Co-director Foreign Policy in Focus The Institute for Policy Studies

Emanuel Pastreich So the conflict between North Korea and South Korea just seems to go on and on. We can blame this president or that administration on the Northern side, or the Southern side, or we can even blame the United States or China, but clearly the problem goes beyond the capacity of one individual, or even a group, to change. What might be a new way of tackling this problem?

John Feffer What has worked in the past in the relationship between North and South Ko- rea is identifying overlapping interests. Obviously that approach worked with respect to the Kaesong industrial complex. That project worked reasonably well and it survived the downtrend in North-South relations over the past 4-5 years precisely because it offered something of substance to the South Koreans as well as the North Koreans. For the North, the Kaesong Industrial Complex was an incredible employment opportunity and it also provides them with hard cash for their rather cash-strapped economy. For the South, Kaesong offers their small and medium enterprises a competitive advantage against China, which has been hitting South Korea hard in the area of production costs. Korean small and medium enterprises simply cannot compete internationally as they don’t have the economies of scale that the larger South Korean enterprises have. We can look at Kaesong as a very successful North-South venture that can be used as a model going forward. But there are other areas where North and South Korean interests overlap, such as the IT sector, and specifically animation. North Korea has demonstrated a significant competitive/comparative advantage in this sector. IT is also a field in which South Korea excels and North and South strengths are complementary. South Korean programmers readily acknowledge that despite their institutional handicaps, North Korean programmers are quite good. The fact that North Korean programmers have participated in the production of animations that we see in the West is an important point in understanding North Korea’s role in the global economy. Many people do not even realize just how big the role of North Kore- an animators has been in mainstream productions. That ability to compete globally testifies to their quality of their work as well.

Emanuel Pastreich I was not aware of North Korea’s role in animation globally. What is an example of a well-known animation in which North Korean animators played a significant role?

John Feffer The most famous animation work produced with the help of North Korean animators is “The Lion King.”

Emanuel Pastreich Any other significant opportunities for such confidence-building cooperation?

John Feffer There has also been considerable effort made in the tourism sector, There has been a long-time program for the development of tourism in the Kumgang Mountain range run by Hyundai Asan together with North Korea. The Kumgang Mountain range tourist development included hotels and other facilities aimed at South Korean tourists, and it was successful for quite a long period of time and brought over an enormous number of South Kore- ans. I think there is still a great demand there for tours to the Kumgang Mountain range as well as the famous crater lake at Paektusan Mountain and other sites in North Korea. Alt- hough the tourism program has been frozen, it would not be difficult to start it up again quickly. The other overlapping interest between North and South Korea is less economic and more ethnic and nationalist. Imagining Korea’s shared cultural past is a way to start meaningful dialog. There are some examples, and there could be more, of representatives of both sides sitting down to consider important archeological sites in North Korea from long before the Korean War and the division. Those discussions about Korea’s past provide a space in which both sides can say to each other, “Hey we share a common history and we have a common interest in recovering that lost tradition.” Such a discourse is ethnic nationalist in the sense that it appeals to blood kinship as a unifying force. Let us look at how North Korea has appropriated the Tangun mythology (the arch ancestor of the Korean race) as a central part of its self-legitimation. There you have a situation in which a regime whose central ideology, namely communism, has lost focus and influence and therefore has retreated to an earlier cultural reference point. So that constellation of archeological, historical and mythological layers that make up the murky ancient Korean history form a fecund primordial soil for sprouting nationalist sentiment. There is some good in this mythology in that it allows North and South Korea to develop a shared myth of origins that can be useful as we look ahead toward national reunification. When reunification actually takes place, it is not going to be a reunification based on archeology or mythology alone. North and South Korean cultures have diverged substantially in the last decades and are not likely to suddenly merge because of the promotion of a mythical common ancestor. But that sense of ethnic unity might play an important role.

Emanuel Pastreich The common culture linking North and South Korea remains quite strong despite the ideological divides. I had a chance to speak with the North Korean Ambas- sador to Mongolia last year at a dinner for about an hour and I must say, he seemed pretty much like the Koreans I have come to know and love. The institutional differences are significant, and we know about the cases of North Koreans who have so much trouble adapting to South Korean society, but the cultural continuity remains unchanged despite fifty years of separation.

John Feffer I don’t sense any absolute break between the two. If you sit down in Seoul today with someone in their early twenties who has recently arrived from North Korea and a similar individual who grew up in Seoul, the degree of shared habits and culture will be most striking—even if there are a few minor differences in terms of pronunciation and mannerisms. So at one level the differences may seem minor. At the same time, however, a longer conversation reveals divergence that is much more profound, although of a different order. We are talking about a culture in South Korea that has been globalized to a such a degree that aspects of American or Japanese language, food, thinking have been completely domesticated. In the case of North Korea, by contrast, there has been a systematic resistance to that degree of globalization and it has been labeled negatively. I think the understanding of the role of the individual in society, the functioning of the community and of the family, as well as the Confucian traditions that undergird them, all these points serve as reference points in common between North and South Koreans, even if there are differences in degree. A focus on divergences between North and South in terms of current habits and assumptions presents a challenge to reunification, rather than something that would facilitate it. By contrast, if you are inspired by an all-encompassing mythic nationalism, one which speaks of one nation, one blood, one people with 5000 years of common history, and that nationalist sentiment makes clear that Korea is distinct from Japan, China and the world, that nationalism can generate the energy and enthusiasm necessary for national reunification. For that reason I think that any projects which tap into that deeper national sentiment can be useful.

Emanuel Pastreich What you suggest is that nationalism can serve as the solution to the separation of the Korean Peninsula. That is very true. But at the same time, we have to bear in mind that nationalism was the very source of the problem—Korea was not originally split geographically into North and South, but rather split ideologically. Those ideological splits were already there long before 1951. The radically different interpretations of what national identity should be is one of the major issues that split the country apart.

John Feffer In many respects that point is true, and obviously in order for nationalism to serve the purpose of reunification, it would have to be reinterpreted for, or tailored to, that new purpose. That process is not going to be easy, but I think North Korea has proven itself

to be quite flexible in this regard. If you looked at North Korea twenty or thirty years ago and predicted that country would start to stress the deity of Tangun, the mythological founder of Korea, everyone would have dismissed what you said. Such a move would have seemed so completely counter to the Communist ideology that underlay everything that happened in North Korea. After all, everything in North Korean culture seemed to be written on a blank slate, as if there was no Korea before Kim Il-Sung leveled the preexisting political institutions, as if there were no Korean economy before all economic systems were leveled by the forces of collectivization. If we see this growth of nationalist identity, as opposed to communist ideology or dei- fication of Kim Jung Il, increasing in North Korea, we should anticipate that this could be the favorable direction in which the two countries should go. After all, in spite of all of the transformations of South Korea’s political culture, despite the impact of globalization, it remains a tremendously nationalist country. Korea finds itself as a small country pitted against considerably larger economic powers like China, Japan. For this reason, nationalism has proven to be a very effective survival tool for South Korea.

Emanuel Pastreich But at the same time, one could say that South Korea is a nationalistic country precisely because of the problematic situation with North Korea. If South Korea had not been confronted with the powerful North Korean nationalist ideology, would have probably been less nationalistic itself. If you had come to Korea in 1948, you would have found that a country that was not that nationalistic. In fact, there was deep profound confusion as to what it meant to be Korean. The nationalism we see today was created in the 1960s as part of the Park Chung Hee administration effort to establish a consensus for, and motivation for, industrialization.

John Feffer I think there is much truth to that argument. Of course modern Korean nationalism already emerged in the teens and the twenties under Japanese colonialism. We can see the initial movement to identify a distinct and modern Korean nationalism that went beyond old concepts of the nation and embraced a Wilsonian “self-determination” form of nationalism. There were already a number of movements that started in the 1920s, like the “Buy Ko- rea” movements, which were recapitulated in Korea during the Park Chung Hi administration. And we see new variations on that theme today. But modern South Korean nationalism was definitely formed in the crucible of the Korean War and it is shaped in large part by an understanding of what North Korea represented in terms of Communism and authoritarianism. Modern South Korean nationalism is hard to imagine without the existence of North Korea. And in common is a certain anti- Japanese sentiment located somewhere deep down and a suspicion of the reemergence of a Sino-centric universe. North Korea remains a reference point for so many South Koreans in terms of their identity, even if they never mention it explicitly. They are “South Korean” and not necessarily Korean as a whole because in their interactions with the world at large, they have to con-

stantly identify themselves as being distinct from North Koreans. But the situation is evolving because the rivalry with North Korea for world attention is no longer so intense. If you look back at 1970 – 1971, the two countries were vying vigorously for recognition internationally and the economies were roughly comparable. It was not clear which country had the more promising future and the political systems even seemed roughly comparable. That sort of rivalry is a thing of the past today.

Emanuel Pastreich The political economies of North and South have diverged completely. The South Korean Economy has clearly won in terms of GDP growth, interaction with the world economy and so the need to identify oneself as a South Korean as part of a critical economic struggle with North Korea for “who is the better Korea,” has past. That’s not to say North Korea doesn’t represent a challenge to South Korea in some respects. South Korea is still struggling to redefine its identity in the world. Some have embraced a “global Korea” as their identity, but others are not so sure about that position. But let us come back to the specifics of South Korea’s engagement with North Korea. Let us consider the Sunshine Policy launched by President Kim Dae-Jung. What happened to that policy of engagement, and why has it almost disappeared over the last four years?

John Feffer There was a certain belief with the launch of the initial sunshine policy that North and South Korea could handle the process of engagement and reconciliation by themselves; that outside forces could be held at bay. As we look back, we can see that was ultimately a naïve assumption. Both South and North Korea were operating in a regional and international environment and external factors made the implementation of these projects rather challenging. There were forces pushing President Kim Dae Jung and later Roh Moo Hyun in South Korea, to accelerate engagement with North Korea, and to be less stringent concerning how much was paid to North Korea and in what manner because they needed to demonstrate clearly that their policies were working. Kim Dae Jung had only a five-year window of opportunity to show that his approach was right and he faced considerable opposition from within the Korean political establishment which pushed him to overreach. North Korea’s leader Kim Jung Il also encountered his own form of push back from within the North Korean establishment, although the nature of that process remains obscure. There were two established political systems that had long identified themselves in opposition to each another and here came along two leaders who suddenly declared they were going to change this dynamic. That shift ran into considerable vested interests at home, and around the world. There were internal challenges and then regional and international challenges as well. The United States was on South Korea’s side during the first efforts to implement the Sunshine Policy, but not all that enthusiastic about a possible altering of the balance of power in Northeast Asia. The most important thing for the United States in terms of policy is being able to predict what is going to happen one year, two years and five years into the future. If there is any potential instability, that possibility throws people into great confusion in Washington. The

idea that the two Koreas are going to sit down and just talk to one another opens up all sorts of potential instability: What is going to happen to the U.S. troops stationed on the Korean peninsula? What is going to happen to US – Chinese relations? How is the US-Japan alliance going to change? Etc. So there was naturally also push back from the US side, saying “don’t move too quickly, we want to make sure that our interests are secure on the peninsula.” There was also concern from Japan’s side, especially in light of the 1997 Taepodong missile launch over Japan. Japanese public opinion towards North Korea changed dramatically, and the ab- duction issue became a primary issue as well. Japan weighed in saying that the regime in North Korea is one we cannot be comfortable with. On North Korea’s side China and Russia also had plenty to say about its engagement with South Korea, although the data is less accessible. Everything was at stake: economics, security and political interests. There was support for the North and South Korean dialog coming from Beijing and Moscow, even as there remained some skepticism about what the motivation might have been on the part of South Korea. Because inter-Korean engagement was taking place in this regional context, the process became extremely complicated. Suddenly we are talking about three-dimensional chess, where you have a number of players working at a number of levels. And that situation became even more complicated when Roh Moo Hyun took over in 2003 and began to articulate a slightly different foreign policy for South Korea. The difference between the optimistic mood at the time of the 2000 summit of Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jung Il and the period after the George W Bush administration came into power and articulated a much stronger, more unilateral foreign policy, and stated openly that you “cannot trust” North Korea, was striking. So there was a reaction to that shift from Pyongyang and then a reaction from South Korea as well. I think the two major problems for the Sunshine Policy came from internal push back due to vested interests of South Korea and North Korea on the one hand and pressures coming from the respective alliance partners in the region, on the other hand. That combination made advancing inter-Korean rapprochement extremely difficult.

Emanuel Pastreich The man on the street in Korea is bombarded with conflicting opinions. He hears arguments that greater engagement with North Korea will bring stability and he hears the other side saying you can never trust North Korea and demonstration of strength is all they understand. What is the average citizen to make of this?

John Feffer From the perspective of the man on the street in South Korea, I think he feels great deal of skepticism about North Korean motivations when he looks back at specific acts by North Korea, such as the shelling of the Yeonpyeong Island, or a whole host of incursions against South Korea dating back decades. In order for South Korea to engage with North Ko- rea in a principled and open-eyed manner, South Koreans may have to maintain what might seem a contradictory attitude, or hold what seem to be contradictory beliefs.

On the one hand, South Koreans must grasp that North Korea is a weak power. It once was a power that was comparable to South Korea in terms of military and economic influence, but it is no longer comparable by any stretch of imagination. We are talking about a country which has a large army, artillery positions and some form of nuclear weapons. But if we look closely, we realize that North Korea is dangerous not because its power, but because of its weakness. In other words, it has a big army, but that army is ill-equipped, ill-fed & ill- prepared. It might have weapons of mass destruction, but its nuclear tests have not been successful. In the 1950’s and 1960’s it would have been laughable to think that Iran was technologically more advanced than North Korea. But in fact Iran has successfully launched three satellites into orbit over the last few years, and North Korea has failed with its three attempts. The concern is not so much that North Korea will use the artillery positions to launch an un- provoked attack on South Korea, but rather, out of desperation, North Korea will find its only card left is to use those artillery positions to fire on South Korea.

Emanuel Pastreich And yet, I would hold that there is still one respect in which North Ko- rea is potentially stronger than South Korea, if you took the people of South Korea and you stop feeding them for a couple of weeks, cut off their electricity and disrupted their logistics networks--and so forth, they would be less able to adjust to such chaos than their North Kore- an counterparts. So if there was some sort of conflict in Northeast Asia, although North Ko- rea may be at a disadvantage at the start, over time, it might have some real advantages in that North Koreans are so accustomed to adversity.

John Feffer It is true that North Korean capacity to survive in poverty is unparalleled, but I don’t know if that represents much of a comparative advantage.

Emanuel Pastreich If you imagine a war in which all things fall apart and survival itself is an issue, then the ability to endure is a factor. Although it is certainly a mistake to label North Korea as a threat if it is not, and I think that it is possible for North Korea to be brought around to a meaningful dialog, at the same time I think it is a mistake to underestimate North Korea’s potential strengths. If the situation is predictable, South Korea is in a very strong position, but things may not be that predictable.

John Feffer South Korea needs to simultaneously keep in mind paradoxical perceptions of North Korea. The first is the realization at a deep level by South Koreans that North Korea is a threat more because of its weaknesses than its strengths. The other point that must be kept in mind is that North Korea is a proud country and that there is something worthwhile, of value, in the North Korean tradition with which South Koreans can engage. South Koreans cannot go to North Korea with the attitude that everything out there is worthless and that we are here to just reconstruct your whole society along South Korean lines. That sort of attitude

suggests that relations will be a one-way street. But there must be two-way communication and exchange. Now what would interest the South Koreans about North Korea? Well, as you suggested, there might be something to be learned from the North Korean population’s ability to endure, to live frugally. There is also a tremendous natural beauty in North Korea, which is relatively uncorrupted by modernization and pollution. North Korean society also, once you get beyond the propaganda, appears relatively untrammeled by globalization. In other words, the Korean culture exists in North Korea in an “unpainted way.” There is also the capacity of North Korea to leapfrog, to move forward without going through all the intermediate steps, and this is also something we find in South Korean tradition. The South Korean shipbuilding industry wasn’t built on a long tradition, South Korea made a decision in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the state to invest in the infrastructure for shipbuilding, but it was able to become a leader in the world in ship building because of its ability to leap frog. North Korea today is where South Korea was then in its economic capacity. If North Korea embraces the vision and gets the capital investment, it too can leap frog over existing technology, say in IT, or machine tools. North Korea has an extremely well educated population in terms of engineering and sciences. South Korea has to enter into this process with the attitude that North Korea is an equal partner, even as they know deep down that this is a country that has fallen behind so tremendously in terms of its economic capacity. If North Korea can be engaged in a positive manner, there is tremendous potential.

“The Outsider in Korean and American Politics” 20 April 2012

Francis Fukuyama Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Stanford University

Emanuel Pastreich Korean politics has been distinguished by the sudden rise of outsiders to prominence, to a degree we do not observe in most other countries. We have witnessed the rise to the presidency of Roh Moo-Hyun in 2002, a complete outsider without the political and financial connections generally assumed to be required in Korea. Then there are such figures as Park Wan Soon, mayor of Seoul, and Ahn Cholsoo, Dean of the Graduate School of Institute of Technology Convergence, who is generally considered a major candidate for president even without having any political experience whatsoever—and it is certainly not impossible that he could be elected president under the right circumstances.

Francis Fukuyama The United States has also seen its share of outsiders who make a bid for political power, and there are times when they receive considerable support from the public. One of the most common patterns is for an outsider who has made a name for himself, particularly in business, comes forward claiming that he can run the government more effectively with his business experience. The United States has several examples of such figures, such as Meg Whitman, the founder of eBay, who ran for the governor of California and Ross Perot billionaire founder of EDS. Every now and then a businessman emerges who takes the position of political outsider, and of course politicians often try to portray themselves as outsiders when running for office. The effectiveness of presenting oneself as an outsider derives in part from a deep misunderstanding of the manner in which the government functions. There seems to be this un- dying hope that somehow the government can be run efficiently like a business. But there are structural factors that assure that the government can never be run like a business. Govern- ments have to respond to overwhelming pressures that cannot be assessed in terms of a single bottom line or a unified mandate. Thus many of the inefficiencies that people see in politics are related to the difference in the role of politicians as opposed to the roles of CEOs. Another factor that draws people to the outsider, to those we seem to come from outside the system, is profound disappointment with existing institutions: political parties and government itself. The situation varies from country to country, but part of the problem is the broad perception that the existing political systems are too indebted to existing entrenched

interests, to the super rich, to large corporations, banks and other special interests. So the logic goes that as long as you pick somebody who comes from the existing political class, you are just going to find somebody who is only responsive to those interests and therefore you need to find someone from the outside who isn’t beholden to them. A corollary in a modern market economy is that if you find someone who is independently wealthy, that individual may have the economic base to remain independent of the pressures that result from taking other people’s money. This fascination with the outsider is probably a general phenomenon.

Emanuel Pastreich So we might ask, is there any case in which such an outsider is actually successful? Certainly in the Korean case most outsiders have profoundly disappointed their supporters. If we look over recent history, can we find an example of a total outsider coming in and successfully turning the government around, getting things back in order? Or do such efforts fall apart as the existing system inevitably reasserts itself?

Francis Fukuyama Well, in the United States, the most recent example of an outsider playing a central role in politics can be found in the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger who went from multi-millionaire actor to governor. Schwarzenegger was elected governor of the state of California rather unexpectedly in a rush election after the incumbent governor Gray Davis was recalled, but despite all the trappings of the outsider and considerable skills, Schwarzenegger became quite unpopular rather quickly. There were great expectations for Schwarzenegger, who was famous as an actor and has great charisma, when he won in a special election. Schwarzenegger has the highest level of name recognition and he had never held political office, like An Chulsoo, he was an unknown to most voters and that was a positive. He was also able to appeal to both liberals and conservatives in different ways, building new bridges. But his experience as governor was far from a success. He was frustrated in his efforts to change policy. His experience suggests that even an outsider with the kind of name recognition and personal charisma that Schwarzenegger possessed ended up facing the same problems as the previous governor and was equally ineffective. Why was that? Well, it turns out that his political strategy was to appeal directly to the people over the heads of the existing powers in the state legislature. Early in his term, that approach had some scattered success, but in the end, he faced the same problems as any politician: in order to cut the state budget, you have to go directly against the interests of powerful forces in the state and by the time he left office Schwarzenegger was just as unpopular as any other professional politician.

Emanuel Pastreich You mentioned the differences between how the government works, how institutions work, and how we imagine they could work. There are several factors that make innovation in government much more difficult. I am reminded by the quote about bureaucracy by Alex de Tocqueville:

“It does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from coming into being; it does not tyrannize, it hinders.”

But obviously citizens constantly hope that through their efforts, they can somehow they can change the direction of politics. In the Korean case, that desire clearly underlies the support for Ahn Cholsoo for president, a successful businessman and political outsider. Where should the citizen focus his attention to affect better government?

Francis Fukuyama I think it is not unreasonable for us to hope for leaders that have the ability to shape public opinion rather than following it. So if you consider great American presidents, I would say the three greatest ones were Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. The reason why I think they were great presidents is that they did not merely reflect voter preferences mechanically, but rather they laid out an agenda that was different, and visionary, which then attracted popular support as it was implemented. Let us consider the case of Ronald Reagan: Reagan never had a Republican majority in the House of Representatives so he was forced to constantly work with a legislature dominated by the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, he still got his tax cuts and tax reform bills passed because he was able to appeal to the American public in a manner that went over the heads of a lot of existing political actors. This is what Schwarzenegger was hoping to do, but he could not do what Reagan achieved. Reagan was successful because he had a very coherent vision and he was able to get others to share it through his warmth, his ability to communicate and sympathize and his enthusiasm. He presented an alternative vision for the US economy in which markets played a critical role and brought a new vitality and self- regulation. His alternative vision of how markets could play a more important role than government was convincing and accessible to a broad range of people. Reagan had a vision of a deregulated economy, what was then called “supply-side economics,” that was powerful and suggested a new potential in the American economy. In the 1984 election, he created again a powerful image of "Morning in America" that suggested the United States was on the edge of a new golden era. His passionate defense of freedom and enterprise touched ordinary people and he was able to get people to work together and move forward. He was perceived as the leader of the “Reagan Revolution” to reduce dependency on government. He said, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." And he was decisive as few presidents are in his decision to fire the federal air traffic controllers when they went out on a strike. Equally important, he was able to both create a general impression of the Soviet Un- ion as an “evil empire” at the beginning of his term and launch a military build-up, but then switch to an embrace of the reform of the Soviet Union and put forth a vision of a new peaceful world that was quite moving. Reagan was the “great communicator,” a man who could perfectly articulate a vision in a few words and who was able to change the rules of the game by doing so. Even those

who did not like his policies were changed by the style that he introduced and the terms that he employed. As a result of Reagan’s arguments, he was able to create a consensus in favor of fairly large shifts in public policy. The key to his success was not really the perspective of the outsider, but rather the ability to frame a coherent vision of what it is you want to do, a vision that can be stated simply enough that it can attract political support as an alternative. That articulation of an alternative vision is the key for becoming a transformational leader.

Theodore Roosevelt was another critical figure who was not just a good Politian, but a man with a powerful vision of what government could be. He was a critical figure for the establishment of the modern American federal government during the progressive era, a man who not only improved what was there, but created entirely new national institutions, like the national park system, out of nothing. It was not an evolution from a previous branch of government, it was a leap into an entirely new concept of what government could be. In that respect he made the Federal government something it had never been before. He placed the presidency, and the character of the president, at the center of the political system, leading the charge as president against big business collusion and against the destruction of the environment. With regards to the environment, he was a visionary, creating five national parts and 150 national forests—ideas that have inspired nations around the world since. It is obvious that government can play that role today, in the US or Korea, but it was a totally new idea then. Franklin Roosevelt was another political genius and visionary who was able to put in- to place the central elements of the American welfare state. He was paralyzed and unable to walk, but maintained a remarkable optimism and personal confidence that contributed to a renewal of the national spirit. He became president at the lowest point of the American economy and immediately declared, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” He meant by this that the lack of confidence, the growing economic fear was the essence of the problem for the country and that he could lead the nation forward spiritually. He had a series of “fireside chats” via radio which were listened to by millions of people and inspired a new idealism. But the most remarkable aspect of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency was the total re- invention of the Democratic party. The Democratic party had been an extremely conservative party in many respects, strong in the South with those who remembered the southern Confed- eracy and opposed the rights of blacks. But Franklin Roosevelt build a remarkable, impossible coalition through the strength of his vision and personality. He brought together labor unions, big city politicians and their powerful political machines, whites from conservative rural regions, American Americans and minorities, and rural white Southerners, often racist in their thinking. Roosevelt was able to pull together these conflicting groups in his New Deal and make the Democratic party an inclusive and progressive force as it had never been before. Both Roosevelts were able to do change the United States culture and government, not because of their attention to detail or technocratic approach to governance, but rather because they were able to articulate a larger vision and convince people of its value. This approach to politics is more characteristic of presidential systems than of parliamentary systems.

One of the advantages of a presidential system is that if you get the right president, you can appeal over the heads of the parties and of the legislature to create a larger consensus.

Emanuel Pastreich I have heard it say, on the other side, that in the case of President Jim- my Carter, the strongest criticism was his interest in the details of the administration paralyzed him. He was too interested in the actual policies, and not in projecting the vision of what was possible. Carter was the perfect example of an outsider in American politics. At the time, The Watergate Scandal in which the Republican president Nixon had used government agents to spy on the Democratic party was very much in everyone’s mind. Carter was from Georgia, in the south, and from a small town. He used his position as an outsider, distant from Washington DC corruption to get himself attention. The centerpiece of his campaign platform was government reorganization. Carter published Why Not the Best? in June 1976 to help introduce himself to the American public. But in a sense his vision was tragically focused on the details of institutional change.

Francis Fukuyama I think that one problem for Carter, and many others, was the attrac- tiveness of an engineering mentality, the assumption that the challenge is how to develop an optimal public policy within a set political system. Such a ruler wants the best technocratic advice on what the right policy should be. But the big problem is not getting advice, but rather implementing a policy through the political system and getting both the voters and the bureaucrats, to support it and implement it. The big failures in politics often stem from the belief that it’s the details that matter rather than to develop a large vision and to sell that vision to everyone.

Emanuel Pastreich When the famous political outsider Roh Moo-Hyun was elected president in 2002, for example, or when the social organizer Park Won-soon was elected mayor of Seoul in 2011, clearly technology played a role. We find in Korean politics these days a buzz that surrounds such outsider candidates that is equivalent to what surrounds an idol singer. Instant messaging and blog posts are a big part of the process. Technology changes the manner in which information is received and processed by the individual. When candidates are fed through that medium, they can become more like products for consumption than leaders. This process also encourages the rise of such outsiders.

Francis Fukuyama These days, because you have alternative media channels of communication, you can create a political following in ways that were simply not possible before. Be- fore, the politician had to deal with multiple communication channels and bureaucracies. Pol- itics was truly a local matter wherein you had to create a big political machine in every single district and you had to have party workers who would rally the voters to get out to the polling places and so forth. It was more important to show up for the weddings of important backers.

But now you can bypass a lot of that social interaction and that’s one of the reasons why political parties have become weaker around the world. Whereas we once tried to get out the vote on a neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, basis, now you can mobilize your people without that big apparatus. So it is now easier for outsiders to come to power.

Emanuel Pastreich Technology seems to change the nature of democratic process. What are your thoughts about the long term prospects of these technological changes?

Francis Fukuyama Broadly speaking, much of the technology of the 19th century, such as coal and steel based industrial production, tended to favor large organizations that command- ed economies of scale and therefore tended to result in concentration of power, or to put a premium on size. The technology associated with communications also favored economies of scale. I think we still reward bigness today, but the information revolution has democratized access to information and multiplied the number of communication channels available. In that respect it has probably been good for democracy that ordinary people can get information and therefore have a route to power and they are able to organize. The result of the emergence of social media is that it is easier to mobilize people for different causes. But now you end up with an opposite problem: there is fragmentation of the congregation into diverse self-reflexive conversations that don’t add up to a national conversation. So we have gone from one extreme to the other.

Emanuel Pastreich In the Korean case, there was an enormous uproar about importation of American Beef which was linked to fears of mad cow disease constantly echoed in the media. At the time, the opposition formed an enormous mass movement, something that you don’t usually see in the United States. Even people in Environmental groups felt compelled to be involved in these mass demonstrations against beef, even though it had nothing to do with their own agenda. It was overwhelming, Korean activists received instant messages to gather together and they were out there protesting within minutes.

Francis Fukuyama I found that kind of a strange phenomena and I get a strong feeling that this wasn’t just driven by safety concerns, that there is a lot of Korean nationalism and underlying resentment of the United States that was also driving response. That was what got people onto the streets because I think the beef issue itself didn’t merit that kind of large response.

Emanuel Pastreich Well in the Korean case that transformation of politics is the reason why so many people feel that traditional political parties are ineffective and very distant from them. In a strange way, the new outsider seems closer to ordinary people. In the case of Ahn Cholsoo, for example, he speaks very effectively and seems caring and thoughtful. His sin- 84

cere appearance completely obscures his lack of political experience and he comes across far better than those rather artificial, political operatives.

Francis Fukuyama Such behavior appeals to the anti-elitist trend which can be found in every democracy. One of the reasons that Sarah Palin developed a big following in the United States was precisely because she didn’t have any technical qualification for office. She was “one of us.” Palin didn’t know the policy issues, she had no national political experience. In spite of that, or because of that, many people could identify with her as a mother and as an ordinary middle class person and that appeal was the basis of her popularity. It was precisely because she wasn’t one of the elite, that voters could think of her more as a friend than was the case for a professional politician.

Emanuel Pastreich In American politics we find powerful strands of populism among both the liberals and the conservatives called democrats perceive each other as being elite. The liberals think of the conservatives as being the insensitive rich, but many conservatives have the same feelings about the liberals in America—liberals are the elites who have forgotten the common man.

Francis Fukuyama The conservatives believe that liberals control the media and use it to force unhealthy values on the people. Hollywood and the mainstream media are part of an elite that has profoundly different values than they do. For liberals, Wall Street and powerful corporations are the real threats to ordinary people.

Emanuel Pastreich What do you make of that situation: both sides thinking the other is elitist? I find that part of American politics confusing myself.

Francis Fukuyama There has been a powerful strand of populism in the United States that has existed from the beginning and I think it is a critical part of the American democratic tradition. We can trace back the populist stance to President Andrew Jackson and his appeal to ordinary citizens. Before Jackson, the whole American government was made up of elites from Northeast, and that goes for the founding fathers as well. They all went to Harvard and Yale, and they were friends of George Washington and his descendents, as part of the “gen- tlemen farmer class” that ruled over the Mid Atlantic. Jackson was the first president who came in to office as a result of the expansion of suffrage. He said that the government doesn’t need to be run by those elites but rather functions well with ordinary people like you and me. It is not just United States, however, that finds this argument appealing. I think it is a characteristic of democratic government that it encourages the rise of people who are not from elite backgrounds. There has always been tension between the need to have elite and expertise guidance and the need to make sure that policy is accountable to a broad public. 85

Emanuel Pastreich Let us take the case of the Mormon Church in the United States. Many people think of the Mormon Church as a conservative institution and Mormons vote very conservatively on many social or economic issues, including welfare and labor rights. How- ever, when I lived in Virginia, there was a group from the Mormon Church that had gather- ings every Sunday in a park near my home and they literally included everybody in their groups, including Hispanic workers and homeless people and anyone else who was there. Anyone was invited to their group. That sort of inclusiveness I did not see so much in liberal groups. I thought it was quite interesting that the Mormons had a commitment to a certain form of equality in their vision.

Francis Fukuyama I think it has always been a characteristic of American religion that it is very good at mobilizing people. One characteristic of American religion is that it empowers non-elite groups and gives them direction. If you look at the big religious revival movements in America, beginning from the great awakening in the early nineteenth century, they always started among groups that were not elite. Religion became a means of organizing a community. Such a tradition of Christian activism is quite relevant in Korea because there are so many Christians.

Emanuel Pastreich That Christian tradition in political activism is quite powerful in Korea, and many activists in Korea draw upon that legacy today. This issue of Populism, well it goes back a long way in the East and the West, and we see twisted versions of it under communism and fascism. Kim Il-sung was the great master of populist appeals, even as he shut himself away from the ordinary citizen. There is always this risk that although the political activist thinks he is reaching out to the people, he is in fact empowering totalitarian systems of government through these appeals to the mythical “commoner.” How do we deal with that risk?

Francis Fukuyama I think there is no set plan for avoiding the risk of the abuse of politics by extremists. That is why we must focus on making sure we have good leaders. A lot of times the populist anger is required to shake up the political system and force the system to operate the way it was intended to. For example, after the great depression, Americans were down on their heels and very angry about what had happened in the economy leading to the stock market crash and the collapse of the banking system. President Roosevelt was able to mobilize a lot of the anger and he channeled it into a constructive set of policies for rebuilding the American state, putting into place innovative institutions like social security and the regulatory institutions that offered the possibility of addressing the problems. Without the crisis, such innovations would have been impossible. But under wrong leaders, that same anger can be directed into far more destructive projects. One curious development in American politics is the emergence of populist anger about the 86

financial crisis and the following bail out that has many people very angry at Wall Street. But what might have been expected to feed a left-wing populist movement, has for the most part fueled a right-wing populist movement in which the main anger is directed against Presi- dent Obama and his administration who are actually trying to protect people from Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. It is very bizarre the way how that process has progressed, and it is in some sense a matter that I don’t quite understand, why has this cognitive disconnect emerged? People are very angry at Wall Street, but then they continue to vote for conservative politicians who are in the pockets of these same financial institutions. That the nature of populism, sometimes it gets directed towards the right sources and the right solutions, and then sometimes it doesn’t. The difference is whether or not we have political leaders who can actually provide the right kind of vision to channel that kind of anger. In Europe in the 1930s political anger was channeled in a very dangerous direction.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us consider the tragic case of Russia, where you had such a range of people committed to political reform and the establishment of a new Russia from 1905 onwards. But those thoughtful reformers were all in jail by 1925, and the Bolsheviks ruled unopposed. As soon as the revolution started, it spiraled out of control of the moderate people who started to question the system.

Francis Fukuyama I don’t know if it “spiraled out of control” is the proper way to describe the process. I think the country ended up being controlled by an extremely well organized party that had a definite agenda.

Emanuel Pastreich So even if people do not like the inflexibility and narrow-mindedness of traditional political parties, they do serve a function.

Francis Fukuyama It is not just that political parties serve a function. I think that they are absolutely necessary. You have to be able to organize interests and you have to be able to organize them coherently beyond the cries of any single interest group. An interest group is never going to be able to make the tradeoffs necessary in politics on large issues, like “free trade” versus “protecting existing interests.” Like it or not, only a political party can make those sorts of deals. This idea that somehow you can do away with political parties is an illusion.

Emanuel Pastreich You make a very important point when you propose that we cannot do away with political parties. In the Korean case, we constantly hear arguments that political parties are just made up of mindless operatives and that if only we could get back to that inspired feeling of responsible citizenship, we could solve our problems. 87

Francis Fukuyama It is understandable that such perceptions dominate because what political parties do is to contest for power. They inevitably become so preoccupied with their short-term struggle for power that they forget what their long term vision and stop focusing on the issues. There is a good reason why people do not like political parties. But if you don’t have a political party, you cannot focus diverse interest groups to participate in the formation of policy, a role that is still very necessary.

Emanuel Pastreich So perhaps we can suggest there is a dichotomy between the political party which is absolutely necessary but inevitably becomes short-sighted in terms of it per- ceives as its primary role and those individuals who hold up some greater vision of the possible but do not have the staying power to dive into the nitty-gritty of making policy. Is this political reality something that comes from human nature itself, is it a malaise we can trace back to the Babylonian Empire, or is there something new and unprecedented we find today?

Francis Fukuyama I think that every populist leader that hopes that he or she will simply do away with politics very quickly learns that it cannot be done and that, if you are going to stay in power and accomplish things, you are going to have to organize a political party— whether you call it that or not. Those dreams of “anti-politics” just never pan out. There are plenty of socialists who thought you could do away with parties, but the only socialist parties that were successful were the ones that understood tight organization and created strong party structures. Organization and hierarchy was the key to the rise of the Bolsheviks and the Chi- nese Communists. Similarly, after the fall of communism, democracy activists in Eastern Europe thought you could just use civil society to run the country. That proved to be an illusion. So those ide- alists had to spend their time building party organizations, promoting their political parties parties, and fighting it out in elections just like everybody else. It’s just a fact of life. Political parties are ways of organizing political participation. The alternatives that exist are extremely dangerous. You can find a charismatic leader who simply appeals to popular opinion through a referendum, like Mussolini. But then there are no restraints on his power.

Emanuel Pastreich If we tell our children, that this is how bureaucracy and government really work, first they would find such words very difficult to understand and maybe they would find such a perspective rather discouraging. The average person, let alone children, is going to have trouble grasping the complex relationship between ideology and institutions, between the interest of groups and the interest of the nation. So maybe we must need these not entirely honest overarching visions, which is a little fuzzy sometimes. What do you feel about this issue?

Francis Fukuyama The best way to convince people is by being successful. If you can run a government that says that they are going to do something and then they succeed in doing it, that process creates its own legitimacy, regardless of what the process is. It is hard to begin with a process without having a goal in mind and say that all of this mechanism is necessary. I think the hard part is implementation. One of the biggest problems in all modern governments is that the actual administration and formulation of policies, getting the government to do what you want, is the difficult task. People go to Washington with big visions of what they would like to do and then they run into the reality of a government which constrains them in a million different ways. Unless you can navigate through that, you are not going to be able to build legitimacy by good performance.

Emanuel Pastreich I am reminded of a phrase, “Voters don’t want leaders; they want miracle workers.” There is this desire these days, not to be led by somebody, but rather to have somebody who will come in and solve these problems for you. Is this is a new phenomenon or has this always been the case with politics?

Francis Fukuyama I think that tendency is probably old. Let us go back to the issue of why people think businessmen would be better leaders. They see that in businesses you make strong decisions, you can fire people and you can make mergers and acquisitions for strategic reasons. They just don’t understand that you cannot run a government like that. To the degree that a government can be run in that manner, it is not a democratic society.

“Free Trade and the Status of Small and Medium Enterprises in the Global Economy” 21 April 2012

Clyde Prestowitz Founder and President

Economic Strategy Institute Former counselor to the Secretary of Commerce

Emanuel Pastreich The proper relationship between market liberalization as part of larger trade liberalization efforts and the need to protect agricultural industry has become an enormous issue in Korea, debated at every level of society and it will be one focus of attention in the upcoming election. As the issue is generally treated in a symbolic manner (concerns about mad cow disease rather than a debate on the concrete impact of market liberalization on the agricultural sector) there is much confusion as to what exactly is at stake. That said, there is a far wider consensus in Korea than is the case in other countries about the importance of trade to Korea’s economic growth. Most Koreans seem to believe that Korea has no choice but to trade.

Clyde Prestowitz When you say “there is a wide consensus,” what exactly do you mean? “Trade” implies a two-way street, that one should both buy and sell through trade and that both are good. Are you saying that there a consensus in Korea that Koreans need to buy or that they need to sell? In my experience, I would say, most Asian countries, with one or two exceptions, focus on exports, on selling. They know that if they want to export, they sometimes have to buy something in return, but they don’t really want to buy things. So they enter into market opening agreements in which they agree to open their markets in return for overseas market access, but typically the Asian country’s market doesn’t open very much, even after the agreement is implemented. Asian nations feel a conflict because they know they should be buying because of the agreements, but they also know that buying is not their interest. I doubt there is a consensus in Korea about the value of trade, as opposed to the benefits of exports. Exports are something most everyone can agree is a good thing.

Emanuel Pastreich If you were a Korean, thinking from a Korean point of view, would you think that exports should be the focus? Or do you think that from a Korean perspective, imports would also be a great help and the whole problem is one of a misconception?

Clyde Prestowitz Well, franklyKorea is doing really well these days in an arrangement whereby their agricultural markets are protected and the farmers are can just be inefficient and maintain their picturesque farms in a beautiful countryside, so why change? Just because the Americans say we want you to eat more beef? Economists tend to put enormous emphasis on global efficiency, the proper allocation of resources and so on. We have heard all that before. But what economists do not explore, and what they are not that good at predicting, is the actual cost of adjustment—which are not

just monetary. So let us take the case of agriculture. Let us suppose Korea just got rid of the protections for the Korean agricultural market. So that would mean a lot of farmers would be out of work, and so they would no longer maintain the land efficiently. Also, the tax base would fall, schools would deteriorate and the local economy would shrink. Ultimately, someone would have to step in to fix up the mess. That would be the cost of adjustment. Typically economists take a very simplistic approach to those costs by just describing how many people lose their jobs and what there were earning. Such an approach ignores the secondary impact of all those changes, and so, when you actually sit down and consider the costs of adjustment, it is not clear that gains in efficiency, or the gains of sales through trade, are really worth all that much.

To come back to Korea, the domestic market for agricultural products is a relatively small market, in my opinion, and it’s not worth fighting for its protection, especially when it is not clear whether that fight produces all that big a gain for Korea.

Emanuel Pastreich Even among Koreans, although there may be consensus, for example, that Koreans are basically interested in exports, and not so much in trade, still there is quite a difference of opinion on the question of “Is it worth it” in terms of the costs?” There are many in South Korea who would say it is worth it. Whatever you may lose in terms of small agricultural production, you can buy that food elsewhere. But others say that it is a security issue: whether you use your own land and grown your own food.

Clyde Prestowitz It’s definitely not a security issue. Korea is dependent on the import of oil, on the import of all kinds of raw materials. So it’s nonsense to argue that you need to keep those rice farmers going for security reasons. There are probably a lot of Koreans who sympathize with the farmers for cultural reasons, but there are others in Korea who feel that they are getting ripped off by those farmers and would like to end that. The essential question is who are the people who feel they are being ripped off by the farmers and which industry do they work in? For example, let us take the telephone industry. Not many phones come into Korea from abroad. But how would those workers at communications companies in Korea feel if foreign phones flooded into the Korean market?

Emanuel Pastreich Korea has made enormous effort in terms of pursuing trade agreements with Europe, the United States, India and now China and Japan. There is a broad consensus on this policy, or else it would not go forward. There were some problems with the KORUS FTA, but the other agreements went through smoothly.

Clyde Prestowitz I am not really sure why Koreans are so agressive. I suppose that they are in part trying to assure continued access to large markets. Perhaps in competition with Japan and China, they would like to guarantee some level of preferential access. But what is Korea 91

thinking in terms of its own market? That is the real question. Is Korea seriously opening its markets, or are all these deals essentially “shams” in which Korea gains access to other markets while acting like it is opening its own markets, but then never actually implementing reforms. I am not sure about the true nature of these trade agreements.

Emanuel Pastreich That is the accusation that some people make about Korean trade policy. But we have to ask are selves, can the Koreans actually engage institutionally and culturally in such a strategy?

Clyde Prestowitz Well some countries can play this trade and diplomacy game well, and others cannot. The United States simply cannot play this game effectively because the administrative system is simply too transparent, and the institutional culture is too fragmented. Foreign companies that are incorporated in the United States have the same rights as corporations and American corporations. They can use the United States court systems just like any American company. If the United States started playing games, the foreign companies would be filing suits in the United States that American courts would take seriously. There is an example from back in the 1980s. At the time the Japanese were flooding the European Markets with inexpensive video tape recorders and the French got upset. So what did they do? They redirected customs for the import of all video tape recorders to the Port of Poitier. The Port of Poitieris 150 miles inland and its custom inspectors only worked part-time. So the boats were backed up out into the sea and nothing moved. The French used this tactic very effectively and then they used the action as leverage to negotiate with the Japanese to limit imports. You could never use that strategy in the United States. The American subsidiary of the of Japanese firm would just skip over to the courthouse, submit a complaint, receive a binding judgment and the whole thing would be over. Japan is a major auto market, maybe the third biggest auto market in the world. It has no tariffs on imported cars, and yet you do not see many foreign cars on the Japanese highways. Do you really think that if you signed a “free trade agreement” with Japan that suddenly you would see Korean cars running all over Japan’s roads? Hyundai is quite competitive globally but I believe that Hyundai actually just pulled out of Japan.

Emanuel Pastreich That approach we see being used in Japan and to some degree in Korea, that lack of transparency and of reciprocity in institutional agreements, do you think it is viable for those countries in the long term, or does it ultimately result in failure of transparency that has serious negative consequences?

Clyde Prestowitz I used to think that such approaches by Japan and Korea are not viable, but I have changed my mind. I believe that the strategy can be sustainable for two reasons. One is because the countries that have the more open markets, and take a more laissez faire

approach to the economy, such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, adopt laissez faire policies because their highest priority is not trade. These countries think more in terms of geopolitics: the maintenance of bases globally, coming up with solutions to counter the military provocations of the North Koreans and Iranians, of the diplomatic initiatives of China and India. So such countries engage in trade agreements not for economic purposes, but as a demonstration of solidarity, of support for a broad range of political, diplomatic and security concerns. One reason that countries like the United States engage in trade agreements is that their basic economic philosophy is that trade is win-win. There is a wide range of American economists who argue, in authoritative books, papers and editorials that whether it is potato chips or computer chips, It does not really matter what products you make or that you sell— in fact it does not really matter if you make things at all. By that logic, if your semiconductor industry gets wiped out by competition, don’t worry about it! You can always start up some other industry. So most American policy makers are rather unconcerned about the structure and health of an industry and its technological and manufacturing foundations. They simply have other priorities. The second reason why Korea can continue to use this approach is that they can effectively restructure the industries that interest them on a global level. As a result of the asymmetry in competition in industry between the United States and nations like Japan, China and Korea, countries that adopt a more strategic approach to the development of their economy—and therefore have a more controlled market, their companies start to dominate global markets. They then can drive the foreign competitors out of business, or buy the foreign competitors, or invest at a local level in building up a presence within the overseas market as the first step towards controlling the market. Over time the local competators in countries like the United States lose the ability to complain about adverse impact, or they simply disappear. Actually in 1936, the Finance Minister of Japan Takahashi Korekiyo made a very really insightful statement once. He said, “The consequences of economic defeat are far more difficult to reverse than those of a military defeat.” He was exactly right and that is perhaps why Asian countries put more emphasis on strategic trade and production and less on geopolitical positioning. What is happening today is that the strategically trading countries are defeating the free trade countries in economic terms. The free trading countries are increasingly finding it impossible to reverse the consequences of this shift. From the Korean point of view, free trade between Asian countries could result in a win-win situation. But with other countries, say with United States, where the auto markets are quite open, there is no win-win possible. Hyundai had a 5% market share of the US automobile market, nowadays it’s up to around 9%. That change means that companies like GM have a reduced market share at home and no increase overseas.

Emanuel Pastreich So do you have any ideas about how we can solve this problem?

Clyde Prestowitz Historically, there has never really been anything that can be called “free trade.” Let us look back to the 1850s, which is when England began to develop its textile and woolen industry on a large scale with foreign markets in mind. The first country that advocated a “free trade” regime then was the United Kingdom, starting in 1846. The United Kingdom passed a law that essentially removed British tariffs on wheat and grain coming from the United States. The United States, however, did not adopt free trade. In general the United States was quite a protective trade nation until after the Second World War. The European countries were all protectionists, apart from the United Kingdom, and that tradition is strong today. The UK practiced something resembling free trade from 1846 until 1914. During the First World War, the English became more protectionist. After the war they tried their hand at free trade for a while, but they were no longer an empire and it simply did not work, so they went back to protectionism. But the current idea of some sort of global free trade system, as represented by GATT, that approach has only been in existence since World War II. Let us remember that between 1945 and 1975, most of the major players were still recovering from the war. So although the United States spoke of “free trade” it was not encountering strong competition from its partners. So the real growth of free trade and global competition has been from 1975 until the present. Economists have always argued that trade is win-win on an average, but they have to admit that there are some losers, and that some industries like agriculture or textiles— specifically the employees of these corporations, will lose. So, if the gain for the vast number of consumers is greater than the loss in these limited industry sectors, then what we should do is tax the winners and compensate the losers. But although people talk about taxing the winners and compensating the losers, in fact that has never happened. In the 1950’s Japan began to develop textiles and that became the first industry for which American suppliers began to rely on offshore suppliers. Textile mills in the United States began to close and they were replaced by Japanese producers. Then, of course, the textile industry moved from Japan to Hong Kong, Korea andTaiwan. The American textile workers complained that they were being hurt by this trade system, but economists replied, “You are just a few textile workers. Don’t worry, we will take care of you.” But then, after textiles, it was steel that started moving overseas. Japan, Korea and some other countries began build up a globally competitive steel industry. The steel workers in the US began to lose their jobs and they also complained loudly. The answer was basically the same. Later on it was consumer electronics that followed textiles and steel to Asia. After a few decades, the pile of losers got pretty large, and nothing was being done to help them. As a result, the political opposition to trade liberalization has grown and the public in general is wary of free trade.

Emanuel Pastreich Do you imagine there is an ideal state of free trade that we have not reached, but that we should strive for? Could such an ideal state actually be achieved?

Clyde Prestowitz No. That ideal state cannot be achieved. There is a real problem in trade that is becoming increasingly apparent. To begin with, the concept of free trade is actually built on extremely limited theoretical foundations. We begin with Adam Smith and his concepts of free margins, the “hidden hand” and comparative advantage. Later on, other economists elaborated on this theme, often without much sense of what Adam Smith was trying to articulate. Eventually, the theory that emerged holds that country should concentrate on making the products and services that it does best and then trade them to its own advantage with the rest of the world. The argument goes that this sort of international trade will be win-win. It could be “win-win,” but only under the most limited and unique conditions. The assumption of this model is that you have perfect competition. That suggests that no single producer has an influence on the total amount of production for a product or service, or for its price. Let’s pick an example of a product that causes some international friction, say commercial aircraft. There are two producers for commercial aircraft, basically, Boeing and Airbus. Both companies have a profound impact on the total amount of industry production and on the price set. The political, cultural and diplomatic factors are significant. The theory of free trade ignores that kind of competition, it suggests that in markets those factors don’t exist. The second assumption is that there is no cross-border flow of technology, or no licensing of technology, no IPR issues, no concerns about the protection of patents and no cross-border flow of capital. All those messy factors are swept under the theoretical rug. The third assumption is that exchange rates are fixed and cannot be manipulated for advantage. Those rates reflect an ideal market that follows general principles like the law of gravity. Exchange rates are a perfect reflection of a natural system. Finally, there is an assumption that there will be full employment and full capacity utilization, and there will not be any secondary costs if you switch from making steel, for example, to making cell phones. If you accept all those assumptions, then yes Virginia, free trade is win-win. There are few circumstances in which that logic works. But in most of the industries we are talking about, automobiles, semiconductors, cell phones, airplanes there is imperfect competition which are determined by economies of scale. There are no economies of scale in the looking-glass world of free trade. To the degree that industries are characterized by economies of scale, by rapid technological progress, by other institutional and cultural barriers, then trade is zero sum. Most what goes on in world trade is ultimately zero sum: Somebody wins, somebody loses. That’s why governments are always so deeply involved in these deals.

Emanuel Pastreich But if you had zero sum equation, it still possible, in theory, to negotiate, to say you lose here, I lose there.

Clyde Prestowitz Maybe it’s possible theoretically, but in reality that does not happen.

Emanuel Pastreich Finally, there is a certain ambiguity in your description of the Asian approach to trade as to whether the problem is ultimately cultural or structural If Korea, China or Japan rose to the same level as the United States in a geopolitical sense, would they then, because of their new position adopt a free trade position? Or is the culture, the tradition, so fundamentally different from that of the West that such an approach would never be taken?

Clyde Prestowitz Well, even when Japan ran its own little empire, it never adopted a free trade ideology. The Free trade system is basically an Anglo American approach. It is not continental and it is not Asian. The lesson we should have learnt in the twentieth century is that less is more. Look at the rich countries today. Singapore for example, has no natural resources. It doesn’t have an empire, it does not have bases around the world, and yet it is rich. By contrast, the United States has natural resources, it has a big empire, but it is growing poorer and poorer.

Emanuel Pastreich Another debate taking place in Korea today that is parallel to, but distinct from the debate on free trade is the question of the multinational corporation in relationship to the SME. There is much discussion about whether it’s important, or even effective, to protect smaller businesses from larger businesses domestically. The question for Koreans is whether the government should put in place barriers to give SMEs a chance to complete with large firms. Should the government keep, for example, large companies from using their resources to set up chains of bakeries, or fast food stores that complete unfairly with local businesses and exploit their advantages in terms of logistics and scale to put SMEs out of business, thereby reducing the diversity of businesses and ending local ownership?

Clyde Prestowitz I think that the emphasis on SMEs in Korean politics is somewhat misplaced. Koreans seem to think that because only a small group of Korean multinationals are engaged in global trade, therefore we need to help more SMEs get to the business of international trade through government subsidies and other support. There is a lot of support given to SMEs by the Korean government, but the bottom line is that in order to carry out global business in a meaningful manner you really have to have resources on a large scale that allow you to hire people who speak English and have your materials produced for an international audience. SMSs simply do not have the resources to do so, and it is unrealistic to expect that they would. So I think these calls in Korea to increase the amount of business that SMEs can do by increasing dramatically their role in international business is just nonsense and gives false expectations to companies that may lead them astray. The bigger question that is suggested by your remarks is the problem of large multinationals leverage their scale of economy and other advantages in order to dominate in the local economy. But this question is not ultimately a question about SMEs. The essential question is about true competition and the limits of market forces. I strongly believe that

effective competition policy in the domestic market, as well as meaningful anti-trust policy and anti-monopoly policy, is very important. Globalization and the advances in technology have not changed that fact. One might say that the failure to codify the response to monopolies in the case of Korea and Japan has been a serious weakness and the lack of laws to articulate this issue in Korea means that it is treated in an emotional, rather than rational, manner. The US has traditionally maintained a quite an effective anti-monopoly policy. In recent years, that all-important tradition in the United States has withered under attack from special interests. Nevertheless, Americans still understand what monopolies are and can identify them, and criticize them. The European Union has also been quite strong on anti- monopoly policy. Asia has a much weaker record.

Emanuel Pastreich On a practical basis, there is a nice coffee shop on the corner near my house. But that coffee shop is run by a large corporation, not a small business. There is a bakery next door that is run by a family. I like the family business, but let me be honest, I end up going to the well-lighted, attractive coffee short run by the larger corporation more often. So in that case, I can’t really help myself. Do you think that government has a role regulating this situation?

Clyde Prestowitz For this kind of issue, I don’t think government has much of a role. But I do think that there are serious distortions one finds at a higher level. Let us look at the automobile market in Japan. Look, why are there no foreign cars in Japan, or in Korea for that matter? If you ask that question to a Japanese, he will respond that the problem is simply cultural. “We don’t really like the design, the feel, of foreign cars. They are not that good in terms of quality and do not match well with our lifestyle.” So I respond, “Okay, I understand that maybe a Buick does not fit in that well in Japan. But what about Korean cars? They are of high quality, have excellent designs, perfect for use in a Japanese environment and lower in price than a Japanese car. Yet I don’t see any Korean cars driving around in Japan.” The true story has nothing to do with aesthetics or the narrowness of Japanese streets. Simply put, in order to sell cars you have to have dealers who will sell them. What people fail to appreciate about the United States is that the automobile dealer is a fully independent business man and by law an automaker cannot control, or own the dealerships in the United States. That means that General Motors cannot tell a dealer not to sell Japanese or Korean cars. Imagine what would have happened if when the first Japanese automaker tried to enter the United States market back in the 1960s, it was told that they would have to build a nationwide dealer network from scratch. That sort of a project would be hugely expensive and it would have taken years, decades. In fact, Japan would not have been able to do so at all. In fact, Japanese manufactures simply went to GM auto dealers and asked, “Please sell our cars too.” America is transparent and the powers of automobile companies are circumscribed, so Japan could get its toehold in the market. But things don’t work that way in Japan. The manufactures in Japan control the dealers. I think the situation is similar in Korea. If you

can’t get the dealers to carry your cars, then it will be very difficult to sell the cars. Of course there are a few speciality shops in Korea or Japan that sell BMWs or Mercedes. But those are high-end products where they can make a sufficient profit selling few cars, so the manufactures don’t need lots of dealerships. But manufacturers interested in the average consumer have no way to break into that sort of a market.

Emanuel Pastreich Recently, the Korean government established laws that require Wal- Mart and other discount super stores, to take a holiday twice a month as a way to protect smaller merchants and grocery stores. What do you think of this policy?

Clyde Prestowitz It is not going to help.The small shops are not able going to be able to compete with Wal-Mart even with such policies in place. If people are willing to spend a little bit more money for the special services of smaller stories, or if they are willing to put up with slightly less quality for the price because they like to have the friendly neighborhood shops, they’ll keep going to those stores anyway. But the primary reason that many smaller stores cannot compete is because consumers simply prefer to go to Wal-Mart. The prices are lower and quality and services are more consistent. That change is driven by a deep transformation of the economy that cannot be so readily be constrained by a law.

Emanuel Pastreich So if we compare the services offered by Wal-Mart with those offered by the small stores, the small stores cannot hold their own?

Clyde Prestowitz Sometimes a small firm can hold its own because it offers some form personal service: they owner knows your name and customizes his stock to meet your needs. Some customers like that service and they will prefer to patronize the store even if it is not competitive in terms of price.

Emanuel Pastreich In Korea, visiting the supermarket has become a weekly ritual for many families. Now so many housewives are working that it is rather difficult to run down to the local store to buy daily. Easier to buy en masse on the weekend.

Clyde Prestowitz Well, when I was a little boy the milkman came to the door everyday with milk and the bread man followed with the bread. I liked that service as a child. But let us fact the facts, such a system could not have been preserved. Some changes cannot be held back by laws.

Emanuel Pastreich So you really do not believe that programs that force big stores to take holidays cannot make a difference to smaller firms?

Clyde Prestowitz Well, I am not a Korea expert, but I seriously doubt that such band-aid policies can do much of anything to change the inevitable. The domestic market is changing and the little guys are at a disadvantage regardless of what is done. After all, nobody is forcing the customer to shop at Wal-Mart; they are choosing to shop there. If customers prefer to go to Wal-Mart, what realistic means does the government have to force them to go to the smaller shops? Any such a response is likely to create all manner of unintended distortions that do not help the small store or the consumer. For example, Starbucks is found everywhere in the United States, and in Korea now. I see them all over my neighborhood in the United States. Now there are a couple of small independent coffee shops in my neighborhood as well. Even though the price there is higher, I still go there because of extra personal service that they offer. I like the environment and that is part of the experience. But I know that eventually those stores will go. There aren’t enough people like me to keep them going.

Emanuel Pastreich Now you did suggest that regulation of monopolies is important. If you were not talking about small firms competing with larger firms, what exactly were you referring to?

Clyde Prestowitz Well anti-trust, anti-monopoly regulation takes place at another level in the economy and is not about sentimental attachments to mom and pop stores. I am talking about cases like Microsoft’s introduction of Internet Explorer. Long ago, but not that long ago,Netscape was the first browser for the internet. All of us were introduced to the Internet originally by Netscape. But there is no Netscape today. Why did that happen? Because Microsoft tied a new search engine Internet Explorer to Windows. That is to say that Microsoft used its monopoly over all computer operating systems through its control of Windows to force consumers to use Internet Explorer. So, in my view, Microsoft used its monopoly position to kill a very competent Netscape and then took over that Market. The result was a loss in terms of competition in the market and in terms of available expertise in the United States. I think the U.S. government should have filed an anti-trust case against Microsoft at the time. You can see the consequences of that failure today. There is no real meaningful competition in browsers. They have become parts of larger companies, Microsoft and Google, and there is not much innovation going on.

Emanuel Pastreich Well, it sounds as if you are saying that anti-monopoly laws can be taken advantage of by corporations, but that for the little guys, it does not really make much difference. Does not sound all that fair.

Clyde Prestowitz I think we have to be clear about what monopoly activity is and not let sentimental feelings about mom and pop stores cloud our vision. In the case of Wal-Mart competing with a small shop, Wal-Mart isn’t telling a customer what to do. Walmart does not say to the consumer: if you want to buy my dress, you also have to buy my shoes. But that is exactly what Microsoft did. Microsoft told the consumer, if you buy my operating system, you also have to buy my browser. Of course the signs of abuse of monopolies are not always black and white. I always look for some clear sign of collusion, some element of obvious misuse of market power

“Challenges in Korean Education” 6 May 2012

Bertram Chip Bruce Professor Department of Library & Information Science University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Emanuel Pastreich Both parents and students in Korea feel oppressed. Students feel that they need to study all the time just to pass the tests required for high school and college entrance not because they enjoy learning, but because it is the only way to find a job. At the same time, parents pay much of their income, going into debt in many cases, just to get their children into the right schools so they can survive economically. This endless study and endless payment cycle seems to be spinning out of control. And those students not only have to go to school, but they also have to go to cram schools where they study until late at night. What can we do about it? And what do you think is at the heart of the problem?

Bertram Bruce We have to start by distinguishing between short-term and long-term goals. In the short term, students are often concerned with getting good test scores that will let them enter good universities, particularly universities that are internationally recognized and 100

looked upon favorably by employers. It is very understandable how people get caught up in that game of collecting documentation that makes them qualified. But in the long term, this focus on exams and collecting the perfect “specs” for college admission, or employment, is detrimental for both individuals and for society as a whole. Even in the narrow sense of economic success, there is no clear relationship between test scores and success. It’s very hard to point to some new rapidly-growing corporation and demonstrate that this is happening because the people involved had good exam scores—often it is the opposite. Success happens because people are given the opportunity to be creative and innovative—the specs are not much of a factor. A colleague, Professor Yong Zhao, researched international test scores and found that test scores are negatively correlated with creativity and innovation. Zhao suggested facetiously that if you want an indicator of success, then identify people who eat with chopsticks. Eating with chopsticks happens to be loosely correlated with standardized test scores. That may be a joke, but the truth is that the level of public debate on examinations and their function is at about that level: taking certain factors and blowing their significance out of proportion.

Emanuel Pastreich You are suggesting that there are multiple variables that one could link to success: whether you eat with chopsticks, or are left-handed, or you like jazz music, or you do well on standardized tests. There is no clear reason to say that doing well on standardized tests has a privileged status as an indicator of success.

Bertram Bruce That is exactly right. So if you take a narrow view of education as the foundation for future economic productivity, there is no evidence that a focus on this narrowly defined academic “success” has any meaningful economic or societal benefit. Another point to keep in mind it that the original purpose of education is quite unre- lated to economic productivity and this rather functionalist definition is a rather new and alien perspective. Traditionally we thought of education, whether with regards to its function for individuals or for society, as a project that enhances the quality of life or produces critical thinking individuals and socially engaged citizens. Or education can play a central role in inculcating people committed to building a more harmonious world, or a more just society. Those functions of education are critical, and one could even say they are more important than economic productivity, but they are invisible if we use many of these standard criteria for evaluating education. The narrowing down of the curriculum and the focus on simple quantitative measurements of success is simply misguided. There is absolutely no evidence that such education will produce an engaged and responsible citizen who is committed to build a just and peaceful world.

Emanuel Pastreich That gap which you identify between what the system demands and what the true value of education could be is clear to many Koreans. But Koreans remain puz-

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zled: how did this monstrous system come into being? How can we put the muzzle back on this monster?

Bertram Bruce Well, we live in an interconnected world and we need to take a holistic perspective regarding the challenges. I am not sure that even if there was a consensus in Korea, that Korea alone could put the monster back in the cage. Even the United States, although it sets many of its own standards, is not in the position to simply opt out of international systems for the evaluation of students—or professors, for that matter. We are talking about a system that has spun out of control one in which we are all caught up, and for which we all have a responsibility. So the first step, in my opinion, is to encourage more informed and sustained public debate on education not just between parents, but among members of the community. We need to consider the entire education system and how it relates to the economy and society if we are looking for solutions. We need to go back to the basics as well, to debate what it is we are trying to achieve through education and what are goals are. I recently attended a conference in Spain about the future of the university. In Europe one of the biggest issues these days is the Bologna process, a program that establishes a standardized higher education system for all of Europe. In Spain the cultural and linguistic diversity of regions in Spain is a very important domestic issue and even today certain regions have their own languages and their own cultures. Communities have built unique aspects of their culture and language into the very education system. The massive standardiza- tion of education required by the Bologna process threatens to wipe out all cultural distinc- tions between schools in Spain. I am not saying that the Spanish education system is perfect, but we do need a critical debate on what are the pros and cons of this massive change are. We need people to consider how the Bologna process can be modified so that it continues to preserve some local differences as well. Of course we need some standards concerning what the degrees issues in difference countries mean, but we can do that without demanding un- compromising uniformity.

Emanuel Pastreich This question of whether to standardize education or preserve diversity has been debated for a long time.

Bertram Bruce Well, back in 1923, when Ataturk established the Turkish Republic, he wanted to create an independent and secular European-style modern nation where the backwards Ottoman Empire had been. The first thing Ataturk did was to invite the American academic reformer John Dewey to come to Turkey. Dewey stayed for three months and wrote a report on education in Turkey. That report contained a remarkable insight which remains relevant today. Dewey wrote, “Ataturk wants to create a new unity among the Turkish people and this goal is a noble one. There is great advantage to establishing a unity that crosses all these

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different languages, cultures, languages and religions. But he needs to remember that unity is not the same as uniformity. Uniformity precludes the chance for genuine dialogue and understanding of differences, which is necessary to create true unity.” What Dewey was saying is that while every child should study about nature, and there should be generally recognized definitions of what nature is, nevertheless, the manner in which they study can vary from region to region and such variation is a positive. In the moun- tains they might learn about goats and berries and at the sea side they might learn about fish and seaweed, the tide and the winds, and so on. This same kind of argument could apply to any part of the world. All children need opportunities to learn about nature, mathematics, civil society, and so on. But the subjects they take up, and the approaches that they employ can vary from region to region—and such variation provides valuable diversity. Even in Korea, which is not a large country, I think there could be remarkable variations in education based on region that would enrich education. Such diversity would be quite stimulating to students.

Emanuel Pastreich I agree. The potential for making Korean education truly exceptional can be realized by introducing such diversity based on location into the curriculum itself. So far the Ministry of Education has not tolerated that degree of autonomy, but I think the potential is immense.

Bertram Bruce I can imagine that even in the heart of Seoul, there might be interesting differences between the histories and the traditions of two high schools. By valuing those differences and by allowing students and teachers to build on their own local knowledge, their own unique traditions, actually presents the possibility of more profound learning and more meaningful unity— not just uniformity. Much of our standardized testing system values uniformity.

Emanuel Pastreich Around the world this numeric approach to evaluating education, through the ranking of schools, or the ranking of students by test scores, has taken root. All forms of knowledge are now given some numerical value by importance or relevance and people get this sense that somehow that number can be used in an absolute sense to assess the value of knowledge. Where did that compulsion to rank students, teachers, schools and even teaching methods come from? Is it a necessary evil that we have to live with?

Bertram Bruce I think it is a very understandable impulse to want some accountability in education and to establish some kinds of measures for progress and achievement in learning. That approach has been around for a long time and makes sense in many cases. For example, if I study piano I certainly need a measure by which I can know if I am learning something or just going around in circles. My teacher can give me things to play and I am sure that she is looking at my hands and listening to what I play, assessing whether I am learning and what else I need to learn. That assessment is in many cases numerical.

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Education seems to go through pendulum swings whereby the approach to teaching goes one way or the other to great extremes. It seems to me that reached the extreme today in terms of making a narrow sense of accountability the overwhelming focus. Accountability does not necessarily mean quantifying ability or achievement. Accountability simply means an approach to assessing performance. For example, having a student in grade 12 present a portfolio of his or her best work is also a form of accountability. That approach might actually be more informative, and more related to the kind of work we want the students to do, than a standardized test that shows how quickly students can do math calculations or how many vocabulary words they can identify in a limited amount of time. Accountability is useful, but it’s a mistake to acquaint accountability with a narrow form of quantitative assessment. In fact if anything, relying on such standardized tests results in less accountability. If you look at a school district in which the parents have high incomes and advanced educational degrees, you can be guaranteed that the kids will do well on standardized assessment tests. I think that reduces the accountability for those students to do better than they would have granted their own privileged backgrounds. I would want to challenge the school system, and challenge the parents saying, “Look, your kids would have done well on those exams even if they had never gone to school at all. If they had just spent time talking with their highly educated parents and reading the books that their parents bought for them, that would have been enough. So these tests are not pushing your kids at all and are not assessing how well they are doing.” If high school students in wealthy neighborhoods receive good test scores, that doesn’t tell me anything about accountability. What has the school achieved, what value has it added to the child’s experience? One of the best program evaluation studies ever conducted was the Eight-Year Study conducted between 1932 and 1940 by the Progressive Education Association (PEA). Thirty high schools participated. Instead of narrowly-defined subjects, there were broad themes of significance to the students. “The starting point of the curriculum would be life as the student saw it.” Moreover, the schools were community-based. Students focused on issues like citizenship, society and the arts, developing the whole person as part of the educational process. They followed the young people who had been in these schools into college and did blind match pair analyses. The study was longitudinal: not just what is happening this year, but what happened eight years later. What they found was that the students who have richer education experience rated higher on citizenship, creativity, whole development, and all the things that most parents would want and most government officials advocate. We have proof that a richer and more open approach to education is possible and we actually know that it works in the long run. When we narrow the definition of education down, we are not likely to be able to measure such things as creativity or maturity. It’s cheaper to conduct a standardized test, SAT, but it does not measure those things that we expect education will do for children.

Emanuel Pastreich Sometimes when I listen to my students, I feel that if someone were to tell them “You can graduate with good grades and then get a good job with Samsung, if you sign here. And if you sign here you will not have to go to school at all.” Most of them would 104

just sign it. They don’t see the taking my class as all that critical in and of itself. They just want the certification that will allow them to get a job.

Bertram Bruce Part of me is disturbed by the apparent cynicism with which students look at the educational system. But then, when I reflect on the issue more deeply, it occurs to me that the students accurately comprehend the system that we are offering them. The irony is, if you ask people, “Do you really want to create a world in which there are no arts and no appreciation of the arts? Do you want to see a world in which young people are uninterested in, and uninformed about, civic processes and the political system and don’t care about others.” All parents would say, “I do want my child to get a good job, but I also want him or her to appreciate these other things and I want the education system to further these larger concerns.”

One suggestion I would have for Korea, granted its strong position in education globally, would be national discussions about what the different goals for education can be and what we trying to achieve in education. The Koreans should ask themselves, honestly, whether they are doing the things that will help to get them to where they want to be as a country, not just what will get his or her child into the college of his or her choice.

Emanuel Pastreich I have talked to parents who say that they don’t want their kids to read lots of books. I thought it was an odd statement. But they explain that reading books doesn’t improve your test scores; it’s better to focus on the repetition of test questions so you can improve your scores and secure a good job with Samsung.

Bertram Bruce As we encounter greater and greater economic inequality in society and fewer and fewer decent jobs, why wouldn’t a parent, or a student, say that? We need to understand that the parents, the students and the teachers are all caught up in this inhuman system and need to succeed in it. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot simultaneously be talking about how we could build a better system—and start taking the first steps in a new direction.

Emanuel Pastreich An increasing number of alternative schools are emerging in Seoul these days. The number is miniscule, but the rate of change is very fast. There are some parents who have said they will handle the education of their children themselves, that there is nothing to be gained from this incredibly competitive test-oriented system. The alternative schools do a good job teaching the students. However, those schools cannot place students in sufficiently reputable universities.

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Bertram Bruce That is the problem. These alternative schools may look very good, and maybe doing very well at educating, but within a system which has been corrupted, alternative schools have trouble surviving. If we look for success in alternative education in the United States, we see the most interesting examples either at the very top or the very bottom. At the very top, we find students from privileged families who know very well in advance that they are going to be successful and feel great self-confidence. They can afford to go to innovative alternative schools. They can work on a farm milking cows or live with people in Africa, because ultimately they do not have to worry. Then there are alternative schools at the very bottom, like the Puerto Rico community that I worked with in Chicago. There was an alternative school for kids who had dropped out of, or been kicked out of, school. Those students were in a pretty sad state because of drugs, diabetes and abuse and neglect and gangs. So in that alternative school, the administrators said, well nothing else has worked, trying a few off the wall things will not do them any harm. Then the alternative school was able to do some creative and original things. Even the test scores started going up. It is really in the extremes that we see some of the most innovative work being done in alterative education. It makes me think, if we can be successful at the extremes, why can’t we do so in the middle? We probably could be innovative in the middle if we could move our notion of education goals beyond the very narrow definitions. At present, we demand of the student in elementary school answers to trivial questions about reading a paragraph or solves very predictable math equations.

Emanuel Pastreich I am reminded of what Richard Feynman’s argues about Mathematics, The issue in mathematics, he notes, is not how quickly you calculate, but rather whether you understand what the process is. Being able to recite the multiplication table quickly after you memorize it is one thing, but being able to understand what it means to multiply is a different skill set.

Bertram Bruce One argument that one could make in Korea concerning education relates to what is happening in technology today. Technology is evolving to the point at which it can do the work of searching, it can do most calculations and it can increasingly do translation. So probably these skills should not be the primary goal of our educational system. Computers are going to get better and better, now the question is what can people do. They shouldn’t be trying to compete with Google, which is certainly what our testing system does now. Instead students should learn to do all the many things Google hasn’t even talked about, understanding different cultures, communicating in a deeper sense. People can find the problems, find the questions, as opposed to computers that are good at solving problems and questions. For example, how do you take a messy situation and define it as a problem? That is what a good engineer does. For example, if a bridge is about to collapse a good engineer can find what the problem is. Once the person has identified the problem: the bridge needs more structural support, then the computer is good at solving the problem.

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Emanuel Pastreich My university, Kyung Hee University, has been trying very hard to introduce significant change into the curriculum, including the introduction of civic classes for students in the university that explain what the role of the citizen should be. The project is quite compelling, and I enjoyed the book immensely, but the fact is that many of the students do not like these courses. They just want to take courses that will get them a job at Samsung. These courses that describe how society works, that are meant to teach them how to think about the world and its complexities, those courses are just a distraction for them. For many students, education is about being qualified for a job, nothing else.

Bertram Bruce I think we are giving a mixed message to students without even knowing it. We tell them they should have a broader education to learn about the real world, to think critically, to understand others, to appreciate art, and so on. We may offer opportunities to volunteer and take time off. But then we turn around and rank students by their grades, or by their test scores. We hire them based on how closely they stuck to mainstream majors. Students naturally want to know what we really mean, what we really want from them. They think to themselves, “Societies says this and then it requires the complete opposite. Is this that civic course really useful to me if you are going to come back and judge me solely on my grade point average when you hire me? Students may not always get As in their courses, but they are actually pretty good at seeing through the show. We offer a course on society, and we even work hard to teach it well and make it relevant. But if the signs out there in society don’t suggest that civic engagement really matters, most students will not think so either.

Emanuel Pastreich It’s a question of the entire political system. Some put the question more cynically. Do the powers that be even want people to think deeply about how society actually works?

Bertram Bruce The progressive education movement in the United States floundered exactly because of this point. Leaders of education reform ended up saying “We need to change not only the schools, but all of society. By changing the schools and producing engaged citizens, we will have the capacity to change the society. At the same time, we need to change the society so that it is more open and more supportive of the individual. You can’t do one without the other.” During the 1930’s Harald Rugg a leader of the progressive education movement produced a series of social studies textbooks, under the title, “Man and His Changing Society.” The series was organized around controversial issues, such as the nation's considerable economic achievements but the persistence of economic inequality. It stressed the importance of understanding people from different cultures, thinking about the goals of society and pursu-

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ing equity and justice. He was attacked by right-wing radio hosts and business interests. His remarkable textbooks eventually disapperead from American schools. There wasn’t much attention to education during the Second World War, but after the war, progressive education again came under attack. It was clear that many influential people were thinking, these textbooks and methods of instructions create students who can think for themselves on critical issues and we don’t want that. That’s why I think that ultimately we are not just talking about a technical question of how to improve education, but a political question of what kind of society we want to have.

Emanuel Pastreich Of course there are set platitudes that just about every politician will say when asked about education: “Education should encourage our students to be innovative and productive, cultivate creativity and judgment, and teach them the skills they need to serve as good citizens.” So at some level there is a consensus.

Bertram Bruce The reason politicians can get away with saying those sorts of platitudes, is because there is a lot of agreement at that level of generality. I mean we are talking about a “Google search” level of generality. But if you go deeper into the issue, if you ask “what do we mean by ‘innovative?’” then the differences become stark. Do we mean by “innovative” people who can quickly figure out solutions to puzzling questions on their college exams? That is one way to look at innovation. Or do we mean people who can really think outside the box, leaving behind the “common sense” they learn from mainstream society to come up with approaches that work in messy situations that don’t have such clear solutions?

Emanuel Pastreich How one reads, how one learns is more critical than the textbook or the test. For example, if you take a great work of literature, or a thoughtful philosophical work, and you come across it quoted on Wikipedia, it will appear flat, just a part of this continuity of words that roll in front of your eyes at a set rate. Even the most profound writings will seem pretty homogenous.

Bertram Bruce There was an interesting recent case concerning Wikipedia. Timothy Mes- ser-Kruse is an expert on of one of the most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. As an author of books and articles on the event, he decided to edit misleading statements in the Wikipedia entry on the subject. But Wikipedia took away from him his ability to edit the existing entry, no matter how erudite he was or how much evidence he could produce. Why? Well, Wikipedia asked him for his sources for what he was writing. Although he had his own writing and verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress, this was considered a minority viee. It had the facts yes,

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but was not supported by the preponderance of authoritative texts, which have not been updated yet. The Wikipedia policy on adding information is "the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth" This means that they writers must cite authoritative sources like the encyclopedia. If the encyclopedia is wrong that is fine as far as Wikipedia is concerned. If you have new information (“original research”) that is more accurate than what is cited by received sources, it cannot get into Wikipedia because does not have that pedigree. This episode should remind us that students need to learn not only how to access information quickly, but more importantly, how to evaluate what they find. Moreover, it highlights that students today need to learn the meaning and appropriate use of concepts such as “truth,” “verifiability,” “evidence,” and “source,” This goes far beyond the kinds of things assessed in standardized tests or in the curricula geared to nothing by higher test scores.

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“Korean Media in Comparative Perspective” 9 May 2012

Robert W. McChesney Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Emanuel Pastreich The reliability of the mainstream media has become an enormous issue in Korea today as many feel that the newspapers and television broadcasts no longer serve a role of keeping citizens informed. Recently the TV comedy show “I am a Selfish Prick” (“Nanun Ggomsu da”) was rated as more accurate than the mainstream media—even though most of its content is tongue in cheek. What exactly is the problem with media and how can we approach it?

Robert McChesney Firstly, one must begin understanding that the media is a problem for Korean society. By “problem” I do not mean that the media is poor quality or produces dubious content that has negative effects upon our culture, politics, and society. By this framing, if the media were doing a commendable job, there would be no problem. Whether their content is good, bad or a combination, the media is a problem for any society, and an unavoidable one at that. The problem of the media exists in all societies, regardless of their structure.

Emanuel Pastreich So the very existence of media in any country, not just Korea, will bring forth issues that are problematic. Is that is to say there is not a pure state of an objective media that we could reach if we just follow a certain set of policies? To become a democratic society does not make one immune from such problems?

Robert McChesney Media are at the center of struggles for power and control in any society, and this is arguably even more the case in democratic nations, where the issue is more up for grabs. The political nature of the problem of the media in democratic societies is well-known, virtually all theories of self-government are premised on having an informed citizenry, and the creation of such an informed citizenry is the province of the media. The measure of a

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media system in political terms is not whether it creates a viable democratic society, but whether the media system, on balance, in the context of the broader social and economic situation, challenges and undermines anti-democratic pressures and tendencies, or whether it reinforces them. The crucial tension is between the role of media as profit-maximizing commercial organizations and the need for the media to provide the basis for informed self- government. Once we understand journalism as a public good requiring, public subsidies, the flood gates can be opened for creative ways to address the problem. Until we get to that point, we are in intellectual and political quicksand. The question would be whether Koreans see journalism as a public good equivalent to providing ambulance services.

Emanuel Pastreich We often see that the media and journalists are swayed by people in power, even captured by them. This is true in Korea, but I would say that Korea is actually a healthier media ecosystem because it has so many media sources. Nonetheless, we see many cases in which the tough questions are simply not asked. What do you think democratic journalism, journalism that promotes democracy, should involve?

Robert McChesney It is important for Korean journalists to adhere a set of values and a vision of what good journalism looks and sounds like. Firstly, it must provide a rigorous account of people who are in power, and of people who wish to be in power, in the government, corporate and nonprofit sectors. Secondly, journalism must regard the information needs of all people as legitimate. Thirdly, it must have a plausible method to separate truth from lies, or at least to prevent liars from being unaccountable and leading nations into catastrophes—particularly wars, economic crises and communal discord. And lastly, it must produce a wide range of informed opinions on the most important issues of our times, not only the transitory concerns of the moment, but also challenges that loom on the horizon. These issues cannot be determined primarily by what people in power are talking about. Journalism must provide the nation’s early warning system, so problems can be anticipated, studied, debated and addressed before they grow to crisis proportions. It is necessary, however, that the media system as a whole makes such journalism a realistic expectation for the citizenry. There should be a basic understanding of the commons—the social world—that all people share, so that all people can effectively participate in the political and electoral processes of self-governance. The measure of a free press is how well a system meets these criteria of giving citizens the information they need to keep their freedom. That would be the question I would ask Koreans: how effective is the media of giving you the information you need to defend yourself from those forces that might reduce your political and economic freedom? Great journalism, as Ben Bagdikian put it, requires great institutions. Like any complex undertaking, a division of labor is required to achieve success: Copyeditors, fact checkers, and proofreaders are needed, in addition to reporters and assigning editors. Great

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journalism also requires institutional muscle to stand up to governments and corporate power. It requires competition so if one newsroom misses a story it will be exposed by someone else. It requires people covering stories they would not cover if they were doing journalism on a voluntary basis. In short, democratic journalism requires material resources that have to come from somewhere and need to be organized on an institutional basis. To the degree that Korea can maintain the institutions behind journalism, it will be successful in the long run.

Emanuel Pastreich You have made a strong argument for the importance of an ecosystem that encourages a free press and yet we see all the time the owners of media interests influencing what is introduced to the public not on a basis of democracy, but rather their own interests. How can we respond to this rather subtle threat to democratic distribution of information?

Robert McChesney To some extent, the problem is inherent in a system wherein private capitalist control over news media is combined with a situation in which advertising provides the majority of revenues. As these news media markets invariably tended toward becoming concentrated and noncompetitive it afforded the owners tremendous political power, and tended to marginalize the voices and interests of the poor and working class. The solution to the problem in the past was the emergence of professional journalism. This embodied the revolutionary idea that the owner and the editor could be separated, and that the political views of the owner (and advertisers) would not be reflected in the nature of the journalism, except on the editorial page. Under the ideal of professional journalism, news would be determined and produced by trained professionals and the news would be objective, nonpartisan, factually accurate and unbiased. Whether there were ten newspapers in a community or only one or two would be mostly irrelevant, because trained journalists—like mathematicians addressing an algebra problem—would all come up with the same news reports. I do not know if Korea has held up such an ideal. This practice of professional journalism was anathema to most publishers, who wanted no part of aggressive reporting on their fellow business owners or the politicians they routinely worked with and relied upon for their businesses to be successful. They also were never going to sign away their direct control over the newsroom; editors and reporters had their autonomy strictly at the owner’s discretion. The resulting professionalism was to the owners’ liking, for the most part, and more conducive to their commercial and political needs. The core problem with professional journalism as it crystallized was that it relied far too heavily upon official sources (i.e., people in power) as the appropriate agenda setters for news and as the “deciders” with regard to the range of legitimate debate in our political culture. This reliance upon official sources—people in power—as setting the legitimate agenda and range of debate removed some of the controversy from the news, and it made the news less expensive to produce.

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Emanuel Pastreich In the case of Korea, there has been a substantial expansion of the public relations efforts of corporations, coupled with a rise in the sophistication with which powerful interests manipulate the media.

Robert McChesney A weakness built into professional journalism as it developed was that it opened the door to an enormous public-relations industry that was eager to provide reporters with material on their clients. Press releases and packets came packaged to meet the requirements of professional journalism, often produced by former journalists. The point of PR is to get the client’s message in the news so that it looks legitimate. The best PR is that which is never recognized for what it is. Although reporters generally understood the dubious nature of PR, and never embraced it, they had to work with it to get their work done. Publishers tended to love PR because it lowered the costs of production. The dirty secret of journalism is that a significant percentage of our news stories, in the 40-50 percent range, even at the most prestigious newspapers in the glory days of the 1970s, were based upon press releases. Even then, a surprising amount of the time these press releases were only loosely investigated and edited before publication. It meant that powerful interests could subtly determine what was covered in the news and how it was covered. Since the late 1970s, commercial pressure has eroded much of the autonomy that professional journalism afforded journalism, and that had provided the basis for the best work done over the past 50 years.

Emanuel Pastreich And yet, we would expect that the owners of newspapers and newsrooms would want to run business so as to maintain a profit. And yet overall circulation and profits has declined sharply. Why do corporations no longer find journalism to be a profitable investment? Is the internet making up for that loss of newspapers?

Robert McChesney To some extent it is that increasingly monopolistic news media corporations gutted and trivialized the product, news, for decades. This process ultimately made the “news” seem irrelevant. To some extent the crisis exploded as it did because the Internet destroyed the traditional business model by giving advertisers far superior ways to reach their prospective consumers. Studies were conducted to determine how, in this changing media moment, “original” news stories were being generated, and by whom. They tracked old media and new, newspapers, radio, television, websites, blogs, even Twitter “tweets” from the police department. What did they find? The first conclusion from the researchers was an unsettling one: Despite the seeming proliferation of media, the researchers observed that “much of the ‘news’ people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.” And where did the ‘original’ reporting come from? More than 95 percent of original news stories were still generated by old media. In other words, a great many of the much-heralded online sites –

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even some that proudly labeled themselves as “news” operations – simply disseminated what was being produced by traditional old media.

Emanuel Pastreich And yet, we have heard so much about the blogosphere and the newfound ability of unpaid people—rechristened “citizen journalists”—to go online, launch new websites, do their own thing, tell it like it is, and have the same caliber of Internet access to the world’s attention as the mightiest media conglomerate? Won’t that combine with the commercial journalism online to solve the journalism problem in the digital world?

Robert McChesney Although there are an infinite number of Web sites, human beings are only capable of meaningfully visiting a small number of them on a regular basis. The Google search mechanism strongly encourages implicit censorship, in that sites that do not end up on the first or second page of a search effectively do not exist. Mathew Hindman’s research on journalism, news media, and political Web sites is striking in this regard. What has emerged is “power law” distribution where a small number of political or news media Web sites get the vast majority of traffic. They are dominated by the traditional giants with name recognition and resources. Free speech is alive and well on the web, at least for the time being. But as Hindman has put it, we should not confuse the right to speak with the ability to be heard.

Emanuel Pastreich How can the Korean government help in maintaining good journalism? What suggestions do you have?

Robert McChesney The evidence points inexorably in one and only one direction: If South Korea is serious about improving journalism, not to mention creating a real media utopia, the only way this can happen is with massive public subsidies. The market is not getting it done, and there is no reason to think it is going to get it done. Journalism will require a huge expansion of the nonprofit news media sector as well. It is imperative to discontinue the practice of regarding journalism as a “business” and evaluating it by business criteria. Instead, it is necessary to embrace the public good nature of journalism. That is my core argument. If one accepts that, everything else falls into place. Let’s be clear on what is meant by the “public good” nature of journalism: That means journalism is something society requires but that the market cannot produce in sufficient quality or quantity. The future of journalism left to the market will likely approach what education would be like if all public subsidies were removed. With no subsidies, our education system would remain excellent for the wealthy who could afford private schools in the first place, mediocre at best for the middle and upper-middle class, and non-existent or positively frightening for the increasingly impoverished lower-middle and working class, the majority of the nation.

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Emanuel Pastreich Isn’t the basic problem that most people either have no interest in journalism, or are only interested in superficial stories about celebrities? If people really wanted good journalism, isn’t it logical to expect the commercial news media to give it to them?”

Robert McChesney Public good theory explains that no matter how strong the consumer demand, it will never be sufficient to provide the resources for a popular democratic journalism. Even when Americans have been most rabid about news and politics, there was not sufficient demand for circulation revenues to subsidize a popular news media. But “public good” theory is important in another way: it also highlights that it is impossible for the market to accurately gauge popular support for the news. The market cannot express all of our values; we cannot individually “purchase” everything we value. My experience discussing the crisis of journalism with tens of thousands of people over the past several years has reinforced my view that a preponderance of Americans, and especially younger Americans notorious for their lack of interest in newspapers and conventional news media, want to have credible reporting on corporate and government affairs, even if they do not necessarily plan to read or view the news reports thereby produced. But they want to know that the work is being done and people in power are being held accountable, issues are being covered, and they are willing use their tax dollars to pay for journalism even if they themselves prefer to watch a reality TV show or listen to their iPods.

Emanuel Pastreich In Korea today there is still substantial government investment in public media, even if it may seem a bit boring to many. KTV, for example, is produced by the government and provides quite detailed descriptions of current policy. Korea continues to put a high value on such public broadcasting.

Robert McChesney That effort by Korea is important. Americans are more allergic to public funding for journalism these days. If one mentions government subsidies, the questions that often arise about whether news media should be regarded as a public good and receive public subsidies, “But, wait, doesn’t that violate the American constitution and the American Way?” or “Isn’t the American free press tradition—indeed, the democratic press tradition—built on an explicit and unequivocal ban on government subsidies?” The answer to these questions is an emphatic No. The emergence of advertising to provide the preponderance of resources masked the “public good” nature of journalism. It gave the illusion that the market could provide a sufficient quantity of journalism, and professional standards could guarantee sufficient quality. But advertising always had an opportunistic relationship to the news, and now that there are superior means to satisfy commercial ambitions, journalism sees its revenue base evaporating. The American free press tradition has two components. First is the aspect everyone is familiar with, the idea that

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the government should not exercise prior restraint and censor the press. The second, every bit as important, is that it is the first duty of the government to see that a free press actually exists so there is something of value than cannot be censored.

Emanuel Pastreich Do you think there was a moment in American history at which the media was reasonably functional, was serving its role properly? Or is a healthy media just an ideal out there that we have never realized, and may, or may not ever, realize? This question is critical to our attempts to formulate what needs to be done, I think.

Robert McChesney I think the media functioned the best back in the nineteenth century in the United States. In corporate-professional era of reporting, journalism was at its best in the 1970s, but even then it had some very deep flaws.

Emanuel Pastreich So if we want to look for a relationship between government subsidies and the development of democracy, is there any real evidence?

Robert McChesney Well, let us consider Britain’s The Economist, a business magazine keenly in favor of private enterprise, deregulation, privatization and disinclined toward large public sectors. Every year The Economist produces a highly acclaimed “Democracy Index,” which ranks all the nations of the world on the basis of how democratic they are. In 2011 only 25 nations qualified as democratic. The criteria are: electoral process and pluralism; functioning of government; political participation; political culture; and civil liberties. The top four nations on the list –Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden—are among the top six or seven per capita press subsidizers in the world. Yet these are the four most democratic and freest nations on earth, according to The Economist, and they all have perfect or near-perfect scores on civil liberties.

Emanuel Pastreich What do you think South Korea needs to do to establish a healthy ecosystem for media? What are the essential conditions?

Robert McChesney First, the news media system in Korea should have a dominant nonprofit and non-commercial sector. Commercial interests are welcome to conduct journalism just like anyone else, but commercialism and pure amateurism cannot be the heart and soul of a democratic news media. The evidence suggests powerful nonprofit and noncommercial news media sector will elevate and strengthen the commercial news media sector. As advertising is abandoning journalism, it cannot be relied upon as the basis for a credible journalism in the future. If advertisers wish to support some journalism—and they will, 116

especially that aimed at the upper-middle class and higher—that is fine. But advertising can come with strings attached, and it has been grotesque to see websites twisting themselves into pretzels attempted to shake down advertising support. There is no future in this for a real utopian journalism. Second, monopoly is the foundation of a real media dystopia, so a real media utopia must put tremendous emphasis on a pluralistic, competitive system, where there are differing funding structures and organizations. The system must be decentralized. In popular parlance the term competition is assumed to refer to commercial battle for maximum profits. I think we can just as easily imagine competition between various types of nonprofit and noncommercial enterprises. Establishing news media institutional structures is a central task for a real media utopia. It should be relatively easy for newcomers to enter the fray. Policies and subsidies should encourage nonprofit competition, and not discourage commercial competition. Third, and this bears repeating, public subsidies are imperative. As a rule, subsidies should only go to nonprofit and noncommercial media. This is to avoid the problem of having commercial interests have a stake in subsidies and using their lobbying prowess to distort the system by getting ever larger subsidies. There can be some subsidies that commercial media may qualify for—low postage rates for magazines is an example—but these must be subsidies that are equally of value or of greater value to nonprofit and noncommercial media. Fourth, the prohibition against state censorship is unconditional, no matter who controls the government. I think wise policymaking establishes differing institutions in an open process, provides resources, minimizes corruption and assumes the best possible journalism will result. There is no justification for the state to enter a newsroom and tell people what to do and not do. Fifth, “newspapers” as an organizing principle for gathering and communicating information—especially information that those in power would prefer to quarantine—have a crucial role to play in a democratic society. When I mean by “newspapers” are locally based news organizations covering the full range of political and social activities in a community, providing the news and commenting on it. A collection of niche Web sites covering different aspects of a community are well and good, but in combination they cannot recreate the coherence and unity a well-edited and resourced newspaper can deliver. In the near-term, it’s vital that at least one newspaper remain alive in every community that has traditionally had one. The logic for municipal ownership is clear: the newspaper is a necessary institution, much like the police and fire department or schools.

Emanuel Pastreich So what are some general words of advice for Koreans concerning the future of media?

Robert McChesney Immediate political opposition to news media reform comes not from news media corporations, ironically enough. Those firms would possibly benefit from these reforms indirectly, and certainly would not be imperiled. But spirited opposition comes from right-wing media and the political right in general. These forces enjoy the present collapse of

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traditional journalism and are rushing to fill the void. More broadly, those corporate forces that benefit from a journalism-free environment in their dealings with governments also have no enthusiasm for the type of media reforms proposed herein. Hence the requirement that media reform is a necessary part of broader democratic reform. I think that this essential truth most likely applies in the Korean case as well.

Emanuel Pastreich What are we to make of the success of “I am a Selfish Prick” in Korea? How did this comedy show come to have such significance in the political sphere?

Robert McChesney “I am a Selfish Prick” has a strong parallel in the United States in what we call the “fake news” phenomenon. That “fake news” effort is a bit different than “I am a selfish prick” in that it makes up a mock tv broadcast which is so ridiculously subservient to power that it cannot be taken seriously. The most important example is the Daily Show in which every weeknight Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert demonstrate the corruption and idiocy of politics and industry with comic genius. The Daily Show, like “I am a Selfish Prick” reached the point of playing the role of real news. Fake news filling a role it was never meant to play. And although its stars Stewart and Stephen Colbert were not sent to jail, it has encountered many of the same problems as well. The difference perhaps is that the Daily Show does not have the same sort of an active fan base.

Emanuel Pastreich Fake news like “I am a Selfish Prick” does help to undermine authoritarian rhetoric and lead to a greater freedom of expression. By undermining the mainstream discourse which makes many think that certain topics cannot be brought up, fake news serves its role. But at the same time, it can be damaging in that it gives the impression that some sort of change has taken place when in fact it does not really change anything and does not present documentation. If we look at the case of the Bush administration, I think that the work of Francis A. Boyle at University of Illinois that was significant. As a professor of law, he wrote up a paper calling for the impeachment of President Bush. It was not funny; it was boring. But it listed systematically, with proper documentation, all clear violations of the constitution and US law. The boring part of changing the system are critical: creating organizations, presenting extensive documentation.

Robert McChesney Fake News, or humor like “I am a Selfish Prick” is going to be quite limited. Let us take a look at what Ralph Nader (alternative candidate for president and ferocious critic) recently said, “I love great political humor as much as anyone and there is little doubt that we live in times when there is tremendous political humor.” Nader spoke about a trip he took to the Soviet Union in the early 1960s to see life under communism. He said, “There was the best underground political humor and satire I have ever seen. It was so striking and so well received because the official journalism was so atrocious and discredited.”

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Perhaps that observation is closer to what we see in the Daily Show or “I am a Selfish Prick.” Perhaps we see something more akin to the attempts to mock the central authority in the Soviet Union in a previous age. It is brilliant humor, to be sure, but it is based to a certain extent on how atrocious the official journalism of our times has become. Such comedy is a response to what is so wrong, not a new approach to media.

Emanuel Pastreich I feel this is the most serious limitation and risk. If the alterative media is just a response to what is wrong and only focuses on what people find entertaining, then it is stuck in the same system that created the problem. It cannot become an alternative news system but rather it is entertainment. And that serves the system in a sense.

Robert McChesney Let us first talk about what is positive in this “fake news” approach to journalism. “I am a Selfish Prick” or Stewart and Colbert do not need to adopt the asinine professional practices of mainstream journalism, especially the requirement to regurgitate with a straight face whatever people in power say, and only present opposing opinions when they come from other people in power.

Pro-corporate right-wing hacks like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity, or their peers at KBS and MBC, can get ordinary people to accept as a fact something ridiculous passed down from the government so that it becomes a a legitimate news story, empirical evidence be damned. “I am a Selfish Prick” or Stewart and Colbert actually demonstrate the idiotic, bogus and propagandistic nature of what people in power and “newsmakers” say, in a manner that would be considered “ideological” and “unprofessional” were it to come from a mainstream newsroom. They take the techniques of these professional “journalists” to its logical extreme and make visible its extreme content. By avoiding the absurd professional practices, they can get us much closer to the truth. Fake news becomes real journalism. But we must keep Nader’s comments in mind: although the old Soviet Union had wonderful political satire, it was an undesirable place to live otherwise. Such humor did not change the system in the Soviet Union. The official culture was one of propaganda and lies, freedom as we know it was non-existent, and the quality of life was poor. Although we in the United States and Korea enjoy precious freedoms, our economy and political system are awash in plutocracy, corruption, mindless commercialism and stagnation that are ultimately incompatible with a humane, self-governing and sustainable society and the rule of law. Our future looks dark, and the woeful state of what remains of the mainstream press holds no small portion of the responsibility. But, as Nader reminded his audience, being able to crack jokes is great, but it can also be a sign a weakness. We need also to bear in mind that “I am a Selfish Prick” or Stewart and Colbert are comedians, not journalists. They are not breaking stories with packs of

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investigative reporters. As our mainstream journalism shrivels, as newsrooms downsize and close up shop, the range of issues shrinks.Such comedy expand existing media stories and give inside information, but it does not have the institutional strength to open up whole new topics for discussion. These programs cannot be a corrective to and substitute for mainstream news.

Emanuel Pastreich Will “I am a Selfish Prick” or Stewart and Colbert be the new trend in journalism, or are they just a temporary phenomenon? Are we seeing a real transformation of the nature of media here? Of course they do not offer real news yet, but could they do so in the future? That seems to be the important question for us.

Robert McChesney The striking emergence of Stewart and Colbert has long since exceeded “flash in the pan” status, and is a long-term generational phenomenon. I suspect that “I am a Selfish Prick” also represents a generational shift, and it may be linked to how people get information and how technology is transforming our world. But the long term question of how fake news is evolving, how audiences respond to fake news like “I am a Selfish Prick” and how it affects the political system and journalism, are all real questions that need to be studied and researched. “I am a Selfish Prick” is of course different from the Daily Show in that “I am a Selfish Prick” mocks people in power with some attention to the nature of media whereas the Daily Show focuses on the mainstream media system itself. Is there an equivalent in Korea of a show that makes fun of how KBS presents the news?

Emanuel Pastreich To some degree we are looking at a very different culture in Korea and that sort of sarcasm is perhaps less common. The humor in “I am a Selfish Prick” draws more from a mockery of subservience to power in Korean society than a mockery of media itself.

Robert McChesney So I do not want to suggest that somehow the United States is more advanced than Korea. Koreans have been very active in their demands for a more open press and we have much to learn. In fact we all have to work together.

Emanuel Pastreich Of course Koreans are looking to an advanced country like the United States to give them ideas about what they can do. What do you see positive in Korea?

Robert McChesney In one sense Korea may be more authoritarian than the United States in the habits of government, but at the same time it has a level of commitment within some organizations that is inspiring. There may be some fundamental differences between the nature of government and industry (and their relationship) between the United States and Korea. The battle for accurate 120

information is the same. Information are controlled by the government and the government itself is increasingly repressive in nature. But in Korea there have been a series of strikes by reporters and by editors against both the semi-public MBC and KBS and also the commercial newspapers and TV news programs. Those strikes are not really about pay. They are about how stories are edited and the appointment of political figures as the CEOs of news organizations to keep watch over the production of news. That has not happened in the US. We have individual journalists who have resigned, but no such movements within media organizations exists. Korea is showing US journalists the way to a freer media. I hope we reciprocate. So far, we have not seen such efforts in the United States.

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“Looking at Free Trade and Korea’s Position in a Globalized World” 10 May 2012

Mark Kingwell Professor Department of Philosophy University of Toronto

Emanuel Pastreich Free Trade agreements, especially with the United States, seem to raise very strong emotional responses in Korea. Koreans associate them with mad cow disease and undue influence of multinational corporations. And yet, oddly, trade agreements with Europe or India have not resulted in that degree of protest. It seems many see trade liberalization, specifically the KORUS FTA with the United States, as opening the flood gates for influence by American multinational corporations and the import of unhealthy foodstuff. The import of American goods will put Koreans out of work and result in greater interference of the United States in Korea at the local level. And yet, when it comes to trade, things are not exactly what many people think they are. Many Korean companies are themselves powerful multinationals and the balance of power between the United States and Korea, is far from obvious. Koreans run around worrying that Americans will come in and just buy up valuable Korean companies and dominate the nation. But in fact, Korea is likely to invest far more in the United States than the United States could possibly invest in Korea over the next decade. If there is a problem in trade, it cannot be reduced to an America vs. Korea equation.

Mark Kingwell Some years ago, Canadians went through a similar debate concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Mexico; but there are two significant differences between Canada’s relationship with the United States and Korea’s. First, Canada is a resource-rich country. Our historical identity is as lumbermen and hewers of wood or drawers of water and will likely continue to determine our future, at least its immediate version, with respect to the rest of the world. Witness, for example, the current debate over use of petroleum extracted from the bi- tumen deposits (they are called “tar sands” if you are a critic of the extraction; “oil sands” of you are not) of Canada. So one question is whether we should export this oil to the United States or to China. The question is sensitive within the context of our relationship with the United States, but either way there is no question that Canada is a net exporter, here, of resources rather than talent, expertise, or technology. 122

Emanuel Pastreich Canada is of course evolving quickly, aided by the climate change which may open up the northern regions to development, by the global demand for natural resources by the global economy. One has the sense that the Canada of the future may be quite different from what we have witnessed so far.

Mark Kingwell Korea's situation is different from that of Canada because of its unique resource footprint: the resources in play in Korea are people, ideas, culture, and creativity. The remarkable quality of those of resources is that they are potentially renewable. Moreover, such human resources can produce far more lasting net gains for society because those resources are part of development of concepts for new products So, although Korea is poor in natural resources, in fact Korea has less to fear from the usual risks associated with free trade than is the case for other countries. Those risks for a partner who is less dominant are depletion of resources, economic dependence, and depredation. From the outside, looking at Korea, free trade looks like a good bet for Korea’s development.

Emanuel Pastreich Koreans lament that their country does not have any natural resources, but that may well be a blessing. Let us look what can happen to your country if it has natural resources. Dependence on natural resources keeps one from developing education or technology domestically because there are no interests to lobby for it. And it invites in much interference from the outside as companies rush to secure their control of those valuable minerals. Look at Saudi Arabia or Nigeria if you want to see what the problems can be associated with excessive natural resources.

Mark Kingwell The second big difference between the free trade agreement between the United States and Canada in 1994 and the US-Korea FTA this year, or other FTA agreements being negotiated with China and Japan, is the changes in the global economy since then. Globalization and economic and technological integration have processed so far since then that the nature of the challenges has changed. Financial systems in particular are now so interconnected and as a result so fragile that any strongly trade-based economy is more or less at the mercy of global market ups and downs.

Emanuel Pastreich There is both a remarkable resilience to this new global trade system, and at the same time, a terrible fragility. I think it is too early for us to make a final call as to what the final nature of global trade will be, but it is a fundamental transformation of the global economy that extends beyond just cheap goods.

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Mark Kingwell That fragility, exposing the domestic economy directly to the vagaries of the global market, is real risk from globalization, not the spread of a McDonalds mono- culture and a “Pepsi-fication” of everyday life that was predicted back in the 1990s, and which exercised critics—myself included! What we've seen since then is that instead of local cultures being decimated by homogenous corporate cultures, they have demonstrated an incredible ability as hybrid and local cultures to persist, even to thrive, in the midst of increasing global trade. Humans crave novelty, not sameness. The tenacity of local cultures in the fact of global trade is very good news for Korea’s culture-makers, even if the (cultural) transactions themselves take place with the threat of yet another unpredictable market collapse lingering in the background.

Emanuel Pastreich One of the major problems in understanding free trade is that people see it as something brought about by powerful corporations, or presidents, or other special interest groups. Although there are any number of special interests pushing for free trade, ultimately trade and its recent expansion is powered by the development of technology and the increasing integration in logistics and distribution, not the agendas of the rich. Trade has become so perfectly automated and so impeccably seamless that goods can be transported with great ease internationally, sometimes, than they can be domestically. So perhaps the question is not how can we roll back this system? That may not even be an option, but rather how can we modify its evolution to be more helpful to the environment and to average citizens.

Mark Kingwell So on balance, I'd have to say—again, as an outsider—that FTAs are a good thing for Korea. Access to large markets more than offsets the possible downside risk of undue foreign influence. For that matter, the concept of “foreign influence” is changing, and almost, if not quite, a moot point in a world wherein everyone has to play on the same indexes and stock exchanges anyway. The upside gains of increased trade for Korea could be tremendous: K-pop (to take one prominent example) is currently a relatively minor trend beyond the Pacific Rim; but freer trade could push it forward to be big globally, in terms of both value and cultural traction, as Japanese popular culture has become.

Emanuel Pastreich One question we might ask is this: where trade is trade taking us, locally and globally, as citizens of the world and as a species? Trade is ultimately the exchange of goods from one nation to another across tremendous distances. In a sense the explosion of trade is the continuation of what Frances Cairncross famously referred to as “the death of distance.” Technology has so advanced the transportation of goods over tremendous distances is no longer that expensive, or that burdensome. And as the processing of, shipping of and de- livery of goods worldwide increasingly becomes a seamless cycle because of the total auto-

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mation of ports and of the logistics chain, trade will increasingly link us together to an unprecedented degree. Korea is at the center of this shift, with its strong commitment to international markets and its investment in ship building and sophisticated logistics. So Korea is really about a new generation of trade.

Mark Kingwell You are of course correct to note that trade is inextricable from human civilization, and in the sense you mention, as embodied by Cairncross’s phrase “the death of distance.” Trade has also, incidentally, been the vehicle of other kinds of exchange in the past and today. Culture travels with goods, and so does language, art, ingenuity, manners, morals, ways of being and doing. These factors all stand on the positive side of the human cost/benefit assessment of trade. But trade and markets should be distinguished in a fundamental manner from capital. We need to recognize that the current age is the dominated by capital markets hat have contributed to the all too common problem of the commoditization of everything. Indeed, we must go farther: the later stages of capitalism’s global dominance, commonly known as “neo- liberalism,” cast all judgments in terms of market value. The “neo” of neo-liberalism expresses a movement from classical liberalism, which sought common ground between people in, for example, the rule of law, or a universal fran- chise. That common ground was maintained while, as individuals, people were allowed to pursue their life goals, their religious beliefs and personal practices, free of state interference. Neo-liberalism is twist on this liberal ideology that suggests that you are free to pursue your life goals as long as you submit your life goals that they may be judged against a common standard generated by an ideology of economic determinism. This evolution of the definition of the concept of human freedom is a disastrous development which must now be placed on the higher-order “cost” side of human value. To take just one familiar example, pertinent to our current exchange, the value of a non- vocational university education is now habitually assessed as either (a) something that must produce a job as its logical outcome or (b) something pursued for entirely personal amuse- ment, a luxury good whose value is similar to the status-conscious purchase of a pair of brand-name shoes or an “elite” automobile. Entirely lost between these two reductive options is the idea that education, including especially humanistic education, might be a good for all of human society in and of itself. That is to say, we have lost sight of the fact that education is a part of the public trust, a domain that is not subject to market forces that includes thriving culture, national parks, urban public spaces, and so on. Instead of being able to allude to such a public trust in defense of these institutions, however, one is constantly subject to demands for evidence of the “usefulness” or the “market demand” for such things. In the United Kingdom, academics are ranked on the basis of their “impact,” or how many other people quote them. “Impact,” however, does not have any clear relationship to truthfulness or to significance. We need to fight this tendency to assess everything in terms of its price or its usefulness. Such thinking is an essential perversion of human possibility and even of the healthy human 125

interactions that can be found in trade. Not everything can be, or should be, measured in dollars. These days, the label “useless” is almost always intended as an insult. I know something of this tendency from my vast experience as a philosopher who occasionally moves in the public sphere. We should heed Aristotle’s wisdom and reverse the polarity: “What is the use of ‘use’?” he asked, indicating that we should begin our human questions by questioning, rather than assuming or, worse, letting the transactional market determine, the nature of purpose and value.

Emanuel Pastreich Your distinction between trade and capital, or the manner in which we perceive objects, is most apposite. Such a distinction gives us the spiritual and intellectual space to define again the meaning of such transformations. In a sense to take the simplistic position of being “anti-globalization” is to give up one’s capacity to define the meaning of changes, to become a passive victim of circumstances without any hope of agency. If we are facing the later stages of “The Great Transformation” as Karl Polanyi put it, the rise of a market society in which everything is seen in terms of its value, then the first step is to understand that change and work to redefine its significance. Right now, many associate this global integration, and by extension free trade, with the growth of income disparity, the domination of multinationals. Some also blame global trade for the dependence on “markets” as the ultimate determinant of policy and growth and also for the destruction of the environment through needless consumption and reckless exploitation of natural resources. All these criticisms are legitimate, and we must be careful about how trade develops, and specifically, as you suggest, we must question the relationship of trade to the flow of capital. In a sense we need to go back to the basics of what trade is and why it happens. But have we truly wrapped our minds around the question: what are the full implications of trade for humanity, and what trade might become in the future? It may seem an odd thought, but I wonder whether trade will ultimately be not just the problem that we face today, but also the ultimate solution to that problem. Trade has the remarkable ability to create an integrated global system in a way that the United Nations or other institutions have not done so yet. Could trade, or some part of the global trade system, be the basis for a peaceful system for true global governance? Maybe. The trade system, manufacturing, logistics, shipping, distribution and sales, forms an integrated global network. I would say that trade is the only truly effective form of global governance today.

Mark Kingwell The concern many raise about income disparity is absolutely legitimate, both between nations and within nations. Statistics show that wealth has never been more concentrated than it is at present, and this trend is particularly true in the nations that fancy themselves the most egalitarian and democratic. The same statistics suggest that most believe income distributions to be far more equitable than in fact they are; and that the same people

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would prefer that income distributions be even more equitable in order for a society is to be considered “just.” The first problem for us in thinking about income inequality is to make the reality of the concentration of wealth visible to those who are unaware of the problem. How we achieve this goal is, of course, a matter of extensive disagreement. One place to insert a wedge in the process may be the idea of “regulation.” Free- market cheerleaders tend to speak as if regulation is always a bad thing and is always the work of interfering governments. They portray regulation as at best a hindrance on growth and at worst a form of socialistic “class warfare” –the political phenomenon referred to in Korea as the rise of “populism.” The logical error in their rhetoric should be obvious, and all the more so in light of the bank bailouts and stimulus-package spending that followed the 2008 market meltdown in the United States. Markets are: always regulated. The only question is whose interests are served by the existing regulations. There is no such thing as an unregulated market, except perhaps in the simplest form of barter market, and even there one would expect to find some limits on times and trades. So the anti-regulation rhetoric is just self-serving nonsense, intended to occlude the benefits afforded to corporations and companies in terms of taxes, access, and protection, even as it bashes any attempt to make tax systems more progressive. A similar sleight of hand lurks in the standard right-wing complaint about “redistribu- tive” taxes. All taxes, like all markets, are distributive. In such arguments, it is suggested that there previously existed a pristine status quo ante of a totally free market, like Locke’s state of nature I suppose, which is preyed upon by wicked bureaucrats intent on giving “my” money to someone else. Money has no meaning outside a social system; conceptually money does not, and cannot, predate that system. Even Locke knew this, and that is the reason was why he was wary of currency. But Locke was wrong that property is a natural holding. Property is no more nature than is currency. Both are systems of trust, protection, and redemption that depend on the behavior of others, and their free participation in a system, in order to function. Hence the nonsense of complaints about “redistribution” in the face of the fact that property is necessarily a set of constant, freely negotiated, distributions.

Emanuel Pastreich There are several transformations taking place at once. One is the advance of technology that allow for integrated global systems, and that allow us to classify and track basically everything in a numeric manner. Some parts of this transformation may be inevitable, and in many cases, the development of technology is value neutral. The second transformation is in the realm of concepts and assumptions. That is to say the arguments made about what is happening, and why. Here we wonder into the swamp of causality. Does technology drive the change in thinking, or does the change in thinking drive the acceptance of new systems? There is no easy answer, except to say that awareness of the two aspects of experience: what happens and how we explain what happens, is the first step towards a solution. As Confucius put it, we must start with the “rectification of names” 正名 that is to say, the biggest ethical problem we face is the gap between the terms we employ and the Institu- tions they describe. In the modern vernacular, that means that we are in ethical trouble if we 127

keep calling something a "market" or a "bank" long after it has ceased to serve the function it had when we first gave it that name.

Mark Kingwell I think the key to future global trade is not just more of the same, especially if “free trade” comes burdened with the toxic ideology of neo-liberalism, combined with those these bits of nonsense about “deregulation” and “redistribution.” In fact, the key may lie in an altogether non-transactional part of human life. I mean the idea of a gift economy which functions beneath, or beyond, the contractual economy of money and goods. What we can all gain from trade is not simply what the parties involved in a given transaction can gain. It is, rather, the social intercourse and human freedom associated with the trade, together with the sense of common participation and sympathy, that makes for a functioning social system. The purpose of trade -- to return to my Aristotelian idea -- goes well beyond trade. If this argument seems mystical or “useless,” I suggest that you consider the idea of a work of art. “The mere object is not the work of art,” Martin Heidegger wrote. He meant, in part, that the work art cannot be confined to the fact, or the fate, of the physical object which hangs in a museum or is observed in a gallery. Heidegger did not concern himself with non- physical art, in part because the influence of his thinking was what later gave rise to such art. A small but important consequence of this insight into art is, then, that although the object may be bought or sold in a transactional economy, that is to say that it may fetch a specific price at auction or in a sale, the value of the work of art is not determined by that price. The price measures something, to be sure: someone’s willingness to pay for possession. But that is all that it denotes. All transactions should be seen as potential gifts, and there is no gift when the giving is subject to return and reciprocity. The true gift is a surfeit of expectation, an unresolved re- mainder, the part of life that can never be reduced to price, but which, therefore, has the greatest and most lasting value. How’s that for useless?

Emanuel Pastreich Interestingly, Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi made uselessness the center of his prescription for the political economy. In a sense, he was suggesting that the nation is like a wheel. In order for the nation to function, it must have a part that does not move in the same sense that in order for the wheel to function, it must have a hub which rotates but never moves. For the hub to move is for the system to fall apart. In the economy, or in trade, the problem is perhaps that we must make sure there is a domain that is not monetary exchange in order to assure the health of that part of the economy that is. But I think there is also a certain value in questioning the origins of trade and commerce and the possible technological aspect of the problem. We would say we trade because we consume and we consume on because we desire. But now we are locked into a system in which it seems that unless we consume more than we need, the economy will cease to function. Everything is predicated on the desire of humans for more and more. The common sense explanation for this development is that people have

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become more greedy, more self-centered. But why? That part of the equation remains unan- swered. I would suggest, however, that human nature has probably not changed significantly in the last two hundred thousand years. The cause of this transformation must be found elsewhere. I do not have an answer, but I would suggest that this question should be central. Not to complain that people are greedy, but rather consider why that transformation happened. One intriguing possibility is that technology itself is not just a manifestation of human desire, the drive to create the things that people want, but is also a stimulant, and even the driving force for the wants of modern society. That relationship is present in the super- saturated world of marketing, wherein the advertiser must create demand. But that is only a small part of the picture. We live in a society dominated by Moore’s Law—“law” may not be the right word--that suggests that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months. So the ability to process and produce information increases exponentially, far out of line with the imperceptible pace of human evolution or the glacial pace of cultural change. The resulting surplus drives consumption, the creation and consumption of things is the only way to keep up with the demands placed on our tightly formed system by the glut of information.

Mark Kingwell I’m wary of any philosophical theory that leans too hard on a notion of human nature, especially if it turns on the unchanging quality of such nature. That kind of theory is usually a form of special pleading about the author’s particular preferences for what counts as “natural” or it embraces a kind of fatalism, as in claims that something is “just human nature.” So I’m glad that that is not what you are suggesting! Whether technology is the great driver of the developments we might as well call, at this late stage, modernity . . . well, as you suggest, this at least is a good question, one worth pursuing philosophically. At first glance, there is much truth in the suggestion. Clearly the cycles of production and consumption that are so typical of “developed” societies would be impossible, maybe even inconceivable, without the advanced technologies embedded in the various production lines. I suspect, though, that humans are so deft at exploiting the desire for relative position that it wouldn’t really matter what we produced, as long as it facilitated conspicuous and in- vidious consumption, or reinforced social status. This trend is what the French sociologist Pierre ourdieu aptly analyses in his wonderful magnum opus, Distinction. In other words, what distinguishes us from others could just as well be beads and shells as Ferraris and iPhones. The essential issue is limited possession, or the display of status. This way of talking, which is clearly derived from Thorstein Bunde Veblen, may seem to endorse just the sort of “unchanging human nature” argument I resisted just a moment ago. But it really just takes a kind of socio-evolutionary baseline as the starting point of an effective social critique. Humans are pack animals, highly developed primates. Humans find pleasure and meaning in what Thomas Hobbes, four hundred years ago, defined as “relative esteem,” that is to say power. But that is the beginning of the story, not its end.

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Can you shape and direct human desire? Of course you can. That is precisely what artists, advertisers, technologists, and politicians have been doing, and continue to do, for so many centuries. Can you have a social theory that does not begin with the very idea of human desire? Absolutely not, and yet this is a mistake that theorists make over and over. Having said that, desire is not simple, or uni-directional. The same desires that give rise to social status-seeking can also generate competitive giving that benefits everyone. The same technological toys that fuel consumerism can in a different context make vast numbers of people happier, safer, and more secure. The same qualities that feed constant war and encourage brutality between humans can be transformed into the moral courage necessary to take risks and make sacrifices for causes of genuine worth. The biggest mistake we can make about technology, though is to accept the dangerous idea that technology is somehow “neutral” or “value-free.” This is the largest single lie in the entire discourse surrounding technology, and, amazingly, that perspective on technology is persistent despite the demonstrable accuracy of analyses by such thinkers as Martin Heidegger and Jacques Ellul. Technologies always have tendencies, if not explicit purposes, that embody and express values. They are, after all, made to achieve certain envisioned ends. You can kill someone with both a pillow and a gun; but only the gun is explicitly designed with the intention of inflicting harm on physical bodies. There is nothing neutral about that. Or consider a much-discussed recent phenomenon. Social media like Twitter and Fa- cebook may allow for swift and pleasant communication between friends; they might even aid certain kinds of political action. But they also, and very obviously, enhance data-mining and targeted advertising, in effect making their uses a commodity which is being produced and consumed at the very same time. This may, indeed, be the endpoint of technological production and consumption, where the product consumed is the individual ingested as a product under the false sign of “freedom?” The fact that technology is not neutral should be obvious, as obvious as the fact that there is no such thing as an unregulated market. The fact that this fact is not so obvious, or is everywhere neglected, is a matter of ideology. Exposing imperceptible ideologies that mold our world is exactly what philosophers are for! It should be obvious that technology is not neutral, just as it should be obvious that there is no such thing as an unregulated market. Trade is influenced by both technology and by markets, so this question is relevant to our topic. The lack of neutrality in technology or the fact that the lack of neutrality is not so obvious, or is everywhere neglected, is a result of ideology obscuring the realities of human experience. Exposing the imperceptible ideologies that mold our world is exactly what philosophers are for!

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“Populism in Korea” 15 May 2012

Benjamin R. Barber Senior Research Scholar

The Graduate Center City University of New York

Emanuel Pastreich Today in Korea much criticism is made of so-called “populism” and the promotion of large-scale welfare programs such as free meal programs for elementary school students. In a previous age, such programs were pretty common in Korea, but of late many write about the dangers of over-dependency on the state. The question is not a simple one, for even if we agree that government should be responsible for educating and feeding all students and even if we thought government should guarantee some form of employment to all students, nevertheless, we would have to recognize that there must be some limit.

Benjamin Barber The problem with this issue is that as soon as someone says something like “dependency on the state” they are making certain quiet assumptions about the key terms for discourse and that framing of the question makes it difficult to respond.

Of course “dependency on the state” IS unhealthy, and should be avoided. But what exactly comprises "dependency on the state"? –that is the question. For that matter, what exactly is “the state?” If we talk about the state, are we imagining an alien body, a distant patriarch on whom the client/citizens become dependent? Or is that state actually "us," a democratic body that represents our interests? If it is the latter, than “dependency on the state” is only “dependency of the citizen body on the citizen body,” which is, in truth, not dependency at all.

Emanuel Pastreich Your immediate questioning of the assumptions of the debate is of course most apposite. There is plenty of room to sweep certain problems under the carpet just by the manner in which we start. Fred Block, who has shown considerable interest in Korea recently, wrote a book The Vampire State and Other Myths in which he systematically expos- es many of these misconceptions and the political and ideological context in which those myths were constructed. So yes, the concept of dependency on the state is sometimes thrown out there as a bogey man to distract and to keep focusing on the more essential question: what is the state and how is it related to the interests of the citizen. 131

At the same time, however, there are clearly dangers of dependency. Siva Vaidhyanthan’s book The Googlization of Everything details how dependency on a search engine can have serious consequences not only for the power of that search engine, but also for the capacity of the individual to think for himself.

Benjamin Barber Dependency is of course an issue with all forms of authority, including political authority. Yet it is the very aim of democracy to turn the relationship of citizens and political authority into an egalitarian relationship. Dependency usually is the consequence NOT of too much but too little democracy. Our response to dependence should be to strengthen the citizen not weaken the state which should be the citizens' instrument. With respect to particular arguments about free lunches, there are indeed many articles in the Korean media, and rather feisty political figures who denounced the recent Seoul Metropolitan City referendum on free meals, and the call for free meals in the first place by the Education Superintendent for Seoul, as an appeal to "uninformed voters." Well, that may or may not be the case. But if it is the case that voters are uninformed, the first question should be “Why are those voters uninformed?” Could it be that voters are assumed to be “uninformed,” or “populist” simply because they disagree with Mayor Oh, and insist that free meals is a right for all students? Surely the position that all students are entitled to free meals is a valid and arguable position, even though there may also be reasonable objections to it. If we look only at the basic facts in this case in which Mayor Oh staked his beliefs on a referendum and then lost seems to me to be an example of democratic process. The people spoke their convictions, and the Mayor made good on his promise to resign if the people over-ruled him. This is the essence of democracy, and only those who don't like the outcome are likely to argue otherwise.

Emanuel Pastreich You suggested that the behavior of Mayor Oh could be seen as rather inflammatory politics and that the essential issue in such political crises is the level of awareness of citizens. Therefore you suggest that improvement in general education for citizens is most important. How do imagine we can manage to achieve such a general education for citizens? It is a noble goal, but the obstacles are many.

Benjamin Barber Mayors and other public officials are supposed to incarnate civic spirit and the idea of public goods. That is their civil responsibility. When they fail to do so, they fail us as civic leaders. But citizens too need to support politicians who stand up for public goods. Politicians need to have the citizens behind them when they make hard choices. Citi- zens need not just an education, but a civic education and a strong tradition of civic engagement. The French scholar of the nineteenth century Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the “apprenticeship of liberty” is the most "arduous of all apprenticeships."

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He was suggesting that people must LEARN to be free. To take that old phrase used so often with regards to the Korean War and give it a new spin, “Freedom is not free.” We may say that men are "born free," but in fact we are born as weak dependents, and we must acquire the skills and arts of liberty through civic learning, political engagement and public participation. That can start with teams in kindergarten who are assigned to clean up the classroom. A constitution is only as good as the citizens it empowers; Without strong citizens there can be no democracy

Emanuel Pastreich For that matter, if the primary argument is that populism is a threat because it appeals to the large mass of citizens who are so poorly educated that they are easily swayed by the rhetoric of politicians, the first step is to invest heavily in education for everyone, especially those from lower income groups. Overall, Korea has done better than many nations in educating its population. Compared with the United States, the working class in Korea is extremely well educated and the focus of education has been on bringing everyone up to a reasonable level, rather than cultivating a super-elite group of highly educated leaders. Interestingly enough, recent movements to increase the emphasis on building elite schools like Seoul National University at the cost of regional or local schools (same for high schools) is justified in reference to the United States. If only Korea had its own “Harvard” it would be globally competitive. Of course, I find myself falling into this very trap when I discuss issues in education as a professor at Kyung Hee University. We tend to want the best for the school. What the consequences are for the average citizen is not a priority.

Benjamin Barber Yet civic education is not just about elite universities. The role of ordinary public schools and colleges is much more important, since this is where most citizens will be educated. Civic education programs need to be widespread. The very idea of "elite" universities such as Harvard or Cambridge in England or the Sorbonne in Paris encourages the notion that education is only for the few. But in a democracy, as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (among the founders of the United States) agreed, there must be universal civic education and liberal arts education to assure that ordinary citizens can understand the facts, can think clearly, and can deliberate rationally.

The “best educated” have not always been the most liberal, or the most democratically inclined. In fascist German and Imperial Japan, the elites elected to use their special knowledge and position for purposes of oppression rather than justice! But, coming back to the question of free meals for elementary school students, we can put it the question way: It is not "the role of the state to feed everyone," but it IS the right of citizens to decide that children in school need to eat in order to learn, and that rather than seg- regate the rich and poor at the cafeteria, it is more just to feed all alike. Perhaps one possible reading of this argument advanced in the Korean media, and by various pundits, is that there is somehow no real popular support for what should be popular causes, and so demagoguery is needed to rally the people for those causes. But surely we can

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interpret the very action taken by the people in favor of free lunches as an indication of activated people who rose to oppose a mayor who threatened to quit if his views were not upheld. Some might consider the mayor's threat "demagogic."

Emanuel Pastreich I certainly saw that episode as a very twisted interpretation of democracy by Mayor Oh. After all, he was elected to be mayor of Seoul, not elected to do what he feels like, or even what he feels is his moral responsibility. If he somehow felt that giving free lunches to everyone was so unethical that he could no longer serve as mayor, then he was certainly entitled to resign. But to stake his continuing to serve as mayor to the passage of a referendum was in a sense saying, “I am giving you the privilege of having me as your mayor. If you do not do what I want, I will take that away from you.” Oddly, and here we come back to the issue of education, many people in Seoul of various political stripes were somehow impressed by what Mayor Oh did. He impressed some people as someone who was willing to stake his career on an issue—even if that issue was a bit silly. That part of Korean politics I found a bit puzzling, but it was true. Many voters are swayed by the rhetoric of politicians and led the wrong way, or at least in very different ways than they had anticipated. So although this example may not be the best one, the question of how voters can be manipulated is a very serious issue. And I would say it is not even primarily an issue of the poorly educated. The contrary, the most serious manipulation is aimed at the highly educated who are fed articles in extremely refined language with elegant photo- graphs which suggest that practices that are highly damaging to the environment are eco- friendly, or rapacious lending practices of banks actually encourage entrepreneurship.

Benjamin Barber Citizens are often impressed by politicians who follow principle as they see it, rather than public polls, and properly so. Politicians are supposed to be leaders. But a citizenry may admire a mayor and still oppose his policy vigorously. Citizens too have responsibilities. And in a democracy, true leadership concerns the obligations of the many to take responsibility as both citizens and candidates for elective office. Democracy is NOT the result of noblesse oblige by a few self-appointed democratic aristocrats. As has been demonstrated again and again, from the Nazi takeover of Germany through democratic elections to the systematic rise to power of the elites of Imperial Japan, good education and advanced learning are, by themselves, no guarantee of just government or fair judgment in politics. The American writer William F. Buckley, Jr. Once wrote, “I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” Indeed, the demagogues are more often than not the educated elites who manipulate corporate media, and other elite knowledge resources, to influence public opinion.

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Emanuel Pastreich And yet I sense that the issue may be a bit more complex. One of the common complaints expressed today about the electorate in the United States is that citizens “don’t want leaders, they want miracle workers.” I believe there is a kernel of truth to that hyperbole. There is increasingly an expectation that you will vote someone into office and then he or she will proceed to clean up the mess, put everything in order without you as citizen having to do much of anything except complain to each other. And then if he or she does not do the job well, then you can vote someone else into office. In a sense politicians are viewed in the sense that Tide Detergent or Tylenol is: a product or service. That attitude is a result of the profound commercialization of our society, in which we cannot help but see things as products for consumptions, and in which all processes are governed by money, or free no-obligation choices (Netflix or Google). Such a crippling culture is not limited to the elite; it permeates even the poverty-stricken and significantly hampers our ability to get much of anything done. There is another layer to things that goes beyond the simple class dichotomies. I think it has something do to with technology. Populism is a serious misnomer, but there is clearly an effort to make appeals to the people of perceived happiness, or perceived freedom, through symbolic acts. I would say that President Obama’s embrace of same sex marriage is a perfect example of that sort of a product for political consumption. Of course the issue is critical to some people, but for many, like late-term abortion for the Christian right, it is an addictive stimulus, not policy.

Benjamin Barber I agree that when citizens begin to see themselves as consumers, as clients of a service state, rather than as citizens, democracy will be badly distorted. Radical commercialization is incompatible with democracy. I make this argument at length in my book Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole. The commercialization of all things is the most dangerous "manipulation" of all. The spread of such a perception deludes individuals into thinking that as private consumers they can do what a responsible public citizen would do. They cannot. In order to understand the difference between consumers and citizens, civic education needs to focus on the distinction between private and public goods; between private liberty (choosing what I want) and public liberty (considering what we -- a community -- need). Education also must help demonstrate the distinction between top-down coercion, which is well understood, and bottom-up persua- sion and manipulation, often invisible and underestimated. We think we have a “choice” because in Los Angeles we can rent or buy a hundred different brands of automobile. Yet the real choice between private and public transportation doesn't exist and deprives of real liberty! We have only the choice of what kind of car we want to spend four hours a day sitting in while we are stuck on the freeway! And finally, we require MEDIA EDUCATION to understand how the old and new media, including video games and Facebook, all shape how we think and feel in ways we often don't notice, or even like! But there are also issues of demographics at play here as well: Korea has a rapidly aging population, but does not have some of the other social problems of other aging Western

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democracies. So the fact that Korea also encounters the same crisis of the welfare state suggests that perhaps the crisis is not just about objective demographics, like having too few young workers to pay for the retirement and medical benefits of many aging and retired people. The problem is pretty much the same. Questions are being asked about how working people are going to handle their retirements, but what is missing from the discussion about the costs of the welfare state is a consideration of the impact on these policies of corporate and financial elites. The political choice is not just between responsible “noblesse oblige” elites who are trying to curb the excesses of a runaway welfare state and an undisciplined citizenry who are demanding too many goodies for free. There is a third force in play: private interest corporations and banks who seek the domination of private interests over the public sphere and put profits above the public good.

Emanuel Pastreich I would not disagree with that analysis. In fact the most striking aspect of the political discourse in Korea or the United States over the last ten years is just how much of the political issues are simply off the table, not up for any form of discussion. The lobbying firms who go to work on healthcare legislation are never subject to any form of analysis in reporting on healthcare reform in the United States, even as their role is decisive. And yes, there is a form of deep political passivity that we see at all levels in Ameri- can and Korean society that allows this situation to continue, keeps people from organizing and criticizing. In a previous age, poor people know how to cook for themselves and even how to build a house, or skin a deer. There was not the same level of dependency on television or food services. That dependency on technologies, on food supplied, on commercial entertainment, has been a major factor in keeping working class people from being politically effective, in my opinion. I am not saying that the elite strategies to sweep problems under the rug are not true, but just there is yet another dimension.

Benjamin Barber The important point you make is that passivity (and dependency) are widespread in modern society, whether in the East or the West. A paternalistic government, a "nanny state," can be a reason for such passivity, but there are many other institutions that can infantilize people and make them dependent besides the government. I am talking about markets, consumer culture and the media. Perhaps the worst defect is the dependency of citizens on private interests for public goods and services. The truth is that the real problem in Korea or in the United States is the subordination of democratic public goods to undemocratic private goods, and the emergence of a dominant global ideology that vilifies the "state" as an undemocratic and patronizing oligarch, and praises private markets as the saviors for all problems—which they are not!

Emanuel Pastreich There have been all sorts of criticisms of populism for both the conservative and the liberal parties in the newspaper. But what exactly is meant is somewhat ob-

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scure. Sometimes it seems as if the word “populism” takes the place of the term “socialism” used in the old days to attack people from the left, or the right, who asked the wrong questions within the Korean political system. But there is also a sense in which the term is related to a general pandering to voters impressions. In the later sense, the term does have some meaning.

Emanuel Pastreich In Korea today there is a move toward extending welfare coverage, which obviously will have to be financed through increased taxes. Some want higher tax rates for the rich, or on multinational corporations. But there is concern that such efforts to extract social justice through government, through taxation, will create extremely damaging social conflict. What do you think about this issue?

Benjamin Barber There will only be social conflict in connection with taxation when there is NO belief in, or commitment to, the idea of a “Res Publica” (public good). If we look at history, when Public goods and public services were supported by the public and then money went for a public cause, there was no social conflict. When those who pay for the projects of government share in the public benefits, and the beneficiaries of all such projects and programs pay their fair share (based on their ability and income), then there will be no social conflict but only social harmony. But we do not find such a situation today. There are many programs run by government with your tax dollars that are only available to the wealthy and to large corporations. If public goods become essentially privatized, and those who were once citizens start to think of themselves as private individuals, responsible to no one. If everyone is essentially looking out for his/her own interests by gaming the system, then conflicts will arise. The most basic cause for conflict is this: people have ceased to think of themselves as public citizens, as part of a continuum that includes all people. They are no longer bees working together in a beehive for the common good, but rather lone wolves looking for prey. In an era of market fundamental- ism like this one, privatization prevails and social conflict is all too present.

Emanuel Pastreich There is a move in Korea toward extending welfare coverage, which obviously will have to be financed through increased taxes. Some want higher tax rates for the rich, or on multinational corporations. But there is concern that such efforts to extract social justice through government, through taxation, will create extremely damaging social conflict. What do you think about this issue?

Benjamin Barber The distribution of income and wealth has become a critical issue as a result of the perfect storm born of two set of events: the banking crisis and the ensuing economic depression of 2008. The cause of these two hurricanes was the irresponsible behavior of financial leaders. The subsequent polarization dividing the populations of nations sharply between the rich and the rest, as well as between the middle class and the poor has been a long-term trend in the West for a half century, but it is being radically accelerated. As the

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middle class and poor suffer the consequences of the current depression, the rich are demanding lower taxes and freedom from all regulation. The situation will not be tolerated forever. Under these circumstances, prudent business leaders like Warren Buffett recognize the dangers and are arguing that the wealthy should carry a greater tax burden to go along with their wealth and privileges.

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“The Future of Voice Recognition” 28 May 2012

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Emanuel Pastreich Can we say that the focus of your research is speech recognition—or is that speech recognition?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson I would say that's one of the two areas in which I've published most of my work. The other area is Multimedia Analytics –generally, audio and video event detection and multimedia database browsing.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us start with voice recognition—is that the same as speech recognition?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson In the field we usually say "speech recognition." The term "voice recognition" is ambiguous; it could mean recognizing what a person is saying, or it could mean recognizing who is the person saying it. In my case, it so happens, I've worked on both problems.

Emanuel Pastreich Has the field of speech recognition changed significantly, and how is progress in technology changing that field of study?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson The field has changed dramatically in the past ten years. Basi- cally, the technology has gone from being an object of study in research labs, to being a ubiquitous product that everybody uses.

Emanuel Pastreich When you say the technology, you are talking about the recorded message on the phone that asks you which city? Are there other less obvious applications?

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Mark Hasegawa-Johnson The highest-profile application this year has been Siri, the application shipped with iPhone 5 that allows one to send an e-mail, make a calendar entry, search the maps for restaurants, or search the web for arbitrary information, all using a voice interaction with a pseudo-intelligent agent named Siri.

Siri seems a little funny to experts in this research field, because the speech recognition technology behind Siri is almost identical to the recognition software that was released by the same company in 2008. What is new in Siri (the part that SRI developed) is the dialogue manager, the pseudo-intelligent agent interface. That user-friendly interface has become much more robust in the past three years.

Emanuel Pastreich Is Siri part of a larger, long-term trend?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson Prior to Siri, I'd say the previous big milestone was the first commercial desktop dictation software to achieve more than 99% recognition accuracy for a large vocabulary, for anybody with a standard North American accent. That happened in 2006.

Emanuel Pastreich So as voice recognition becomes ubiquitous, how will the world change? What are you imagining this technology will be like in ten or twenty years? I assume we are talking about having computers we can talk with comfortably, maybe not even that far away. Five years? The growing strength of these automated interface systems can be linked to such services as Facebook. So now Facebook is quite useful, but what if we start to populate Face- book with more and more "people" who are in fact just programs? Well, oddly, those "people" might be more responsive to our needs than actual friends who do not have time to interact 24 hours a day and reply to every email. So could it be that human machine interaction might become preferable to human-human interaction?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson That's an interesting thought, the idea of pseudo-intelligent agents interacting with people on the web. It is quite possible to imagine. There are spammers trying to create such programs right now (I've had spam from some of them), but they are still relatively easy to fool. It's possible that might not be the case five years from now. But on the other hand, would that be very much different from a world in which human beings can be easily hired to advertise to you? It just means that you have to be careful about who you allow to “friend” you on Facebook -- the other person might be a computer. Emanuel Pastreich As for networking, I have often thought it would be great to have a computer do my networking for me on Facebook and Linkedin; it could search out possible

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partners around the world 24 hours a day and writing them all personalized letters, or send personal voice messages in my voice. In the case of voice reproduction. What might be the implications of having a computer that can speak in my own voice, indistinguishable from me, and make up what it will say without my direct imput?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson That situation could pose some serious challenges.

Emanuel Pastreich So what are the big challenges in the field today? Are there fundamental disagreements as to the linguistic and neurological aspects of language, or have we come to a consensus? Are there specific technological breakthroughs we are waiting for?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson The big challenges, I think, are (1) increasing robustness for individual variations within the human-computer interface, and (2) developing multimedia search applications that will be able to recognize speech in low quality recordings, such as open-microphone recordings of group meetings, and the like. Right now if you speak a standard North American dialect and you talk directly to the microphone, you can use a human-computer interface; no problem. But if you have a disabil- ity like Cerebral Palsy, you can't; if you speak with a strong South African accent (not one of the standard accents well modeled by software manufacturers), you can't. For that matter, if you are speaking a language with fewer than about 9 million native speakers, you can't.

Emanuel Pastreich So, looking forward to the solution of these problems, is that a matter merely increasing computing power and functionality, or might there be more complex theoretical issues involved? Are there algorithms that can solve that problem, or do we have to go to a new level in our understanding of language?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson Actually, it's really hard to say whether the issues are gaps in our understanding, or just gaps in our sets of labeled training data. I think that both are true. The problem of collecting more data is one that companies and universities and governments are working collectively to solve. I have seen some intriguing new proposals recently for online data sharing sites for linguists and speech scientists. In my own research, I have been pursuing possible theoretical solutions to these problems. Specifically, I am working on approaches to semi-supervised learning: learning from a small amount of labeled data plus a large amount of unlabeled audio data, transfer learning: learning accurate speech recognition in one language or dialect by leveraging systems that already work well in related languages and dialects, and the use of prior knowledge in machine learning systems: reducing the amount of training data necessary to achieve a certain level of accuracy by constraining the way in which the system learns from data. The last ex-

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ample can consist of a bias in the learning process so that the system is encouraged to find a solution similar to some initial solution that we already know to be approximately true based on linguistic research.

Emanuel Pastreich And when it comes to actually getting a computer to speak, say in a person’s voice…

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson For generating your voice, the most recent standards competitions, the most famous being the Blizzard Competition for Speech Synthesis, have featured new systems that come very close to being indistinguishable from a human voice. Of course that process involves quite a lot of careful engineering. Commercial systems are not there yet in terms of verisimilitude, but I think that the commercial systems will be there soon.

Emanuel Pastreich But as we imagine what might be possible in the future, in terms of technology, we are, in a sense, forced to go back to the basics of language, back to Noam Chomsky and his suggestions as to universal attributes of language and their neurological basis. So, will there ultimately be one algorithm that works for all languages, or will there be different strategies and approaches for different language groups? Can all languages be seen as part of a larger meta-language in a technological sense? That is to say, there could be a divergence between how brains operate in the reproduction of multiple languages and how computers do, or maybe not.

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson With regards to Chomsky: actually, there is a set of algorithms that seem to work very well for all languages, but they need a lot of language-dependent training data in order to learn the right kinds of parameters. The best commercial systems right now are using hundreds of times as much training data as a child hears in the first five years of life, so you know that we are missing something. With regards to building technologies that leverage what we know about the neurology and psychology of speech processing, that is very hard, because, frankly, the amount that we know about the neurology of language is a very small fraction of what we would need to know. Language production and perception involve the use of neural circuits that have some poorly understood approximately universal physiological substrate. On top of this physiological substrate you get at least twelve years of precision fine tuning of the synaptic connection weights in order to optimize the child’s speed and accuracy of language processing, and the only way that we can measure those synaptic weights is by carefully testing the behavior of the child or adult. Simply put, the amount that we know is dwarfed by the amount that we don’t know.

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The result of our ignorance is that if you try to develop an algorithm that simply im- plements what you know, in the form of a set of rules, the algorithm will fail completely. Such technologies were obsolete by 1990. On the other hand, if you use general-purpose machine learning algorithms, and completely ignore what we know about human speech and language, then you wind up in the situation we have currently: you have algorithms that require 100 times as much training data as a human child, and that achieve a speech recognition accuracy that is, at best, ten times worse than that of a human child.

One of the things I’ve been trying to do in my research is to find ways that we can have the best of both worlds, by encoding scientific knowledge in a way that can guide machine learning algorithms. So, for example, we know that humans are differentially sensitive to salient phonetic landmarks, e.g., consonant releases and consonant closures, so I have developed landmark-based speech recognition algorithms that incorporate differential sensitivity to consonant releases and consonant closures, and I’ve shown that doing this improves recognition accuracy.

Emanuel Pastreich Will computers approach humans in terms of how they handle voice, or will the fact that the computer is silicon-based, not carbon based, system, ultimately mean that it will be mimicking very accurately, but not really functioning the way a human would in terms of recognition of language, or replication of language?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson How would you know? Until we have a method for imaging synapse weights and neural activation patterns on a scale of nanometers and milliseconds in a living brain, I don’t think it will ever be possible to know for sure whether the brain is recognizing speech in the same way as the computer. I think it’s interesting, though, that in many ways the technology and the science converge toward the same model, despite starting from very different starting points.

Emanuel Pastreich Is this your first visit to Korea?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson I visited Jeju Island for the Interspeech 2004 conference. This is, however, my first trip to Seoul.

Emanuel Pastreich So what is interesting to you about Korea and the Korean language with regards to your field? I know you have worked a bit on Japanese.

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Mark Hasegawa-Johnson The Korean language is interesting in many respects. There are ways of distinguishing phonemes in Korean, and patterns of coarticulation, that are quite different from any other language that I've worked with. I would be very much interested in applying my landmark-based speech recognition methods (basically, learning high-precision binary classifiers that distinguish pairs of speech sounds to Korean, because the binary dis- tinctions we would have to learn would be so different from English (or Arabic, or Mandarin, or Japanese, or German or Spanish).

On the other hand, I've been told that automatic speech recognition already works very well in Korean, so there is some disincentive against further research in this area for the Korean language. I haven't seen demos, so I'm not sure what to expect.

Emanuel Pastreich Do you think Korean is quite different from Japanese in your field of research? Are people doing the two languages together as a meta-language, for example? Could you develop a program that recognizes both Japanese and Korean?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson Yes, in terms of the speech acoustics, Korean is very different from Japanese. In terms of syllable structure, and some aspects of morphology and syntax one could perhaps work on them as a meta-language, but not with the same kind of transfer that you could achieve between English and Dutch, or between Swahili and other Bantu languages, for example. The other way in which Korean is similar to Japanese is prosody –or, at least, the prosody is less dissimilar than the segmental phonetics. I've done a lot of work in the automatic recognition of prosodically prominent words, and prosodic phrase boundaries, so now that you mention it, it might be interesting to see if one could learn automatic phrase bounda- ry detectors in Korean and Japanese that take advantage of some of the similarities.

Emanuel Pastreich Are there any specific features of the research and technology landscape in Korea that are intriguing? That is to say, do you find unusual combinations of strengths that might be different than what you find in the US or Japan?

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson I think that the research and technology landscape in Korea is very different from the US, but I'm not sure that I know of substantial differences between the Korean and Japanese research landscapes, at least not in the way that these bear on my field. Both Japan and Korea have very strong traditions of research in both universities and in corporate research labs. There is perhaps more collaboration between the university and corporate labs in Korea than in Japan, if I understand the situation correctly. Such collaborations in Japan tend to be less direct, I think, as they are less direct in the US. 144

“An Indian Perspective on the Korean Peninsula” 2 June 2012

Vyjayanti Raghavan Associate Professor Centre for Japanese, Korean and Northeast Asian Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Emanuel Pastreich How does the recent tension on the Korean Peninsula look from an In- dian Perspective? India has obviously a profoundly different cultural tradition and historical experience. And yet we are quite aware of the fact that India has had any number of conflicts and disagreements over the last sixty years. After all, Pakistan and India were separated in 1947, the exact moment that the divisions between North and South Korea were forming. So what might be some differences in the way that the Indian observer would look at the Korean experience, and perhaps have some insights that are not so obvious to the Koreans caught up in the day-to-day conflicts with North Korea. Are there some lessons from the In- dian experience that can be helpful in addressing the long-term issue of the divided Peninsu- la?

Vyjayanti Raghavan Over the years, India has had any number of issues with Pakistan, and also faced serious internal challenges as well. So there are some distinct aspects of the Indian perspective on the Korean Peninsula that can help to shine light on the current conflict and perhaps to seek out long-term solutions to the conflicts of the divided peninsula. First, Indians see North Korea as an almost exact counterpart of Pakistan and see strong parallels with their own experiences. First, both countries were once part of the same nation and divided for complex ideological and geopolitical reasons. Moreover, today North Korea and Pakistan both rank very high on the index of “failed states” with serious internal and external liabilities that cause great international concern. The extremes that we see in both states can be traced back to the negative legacy of the colonial past and profound insecurities within the state that rule out the sort of normal exchange that other states take for granted. In both cases, those insecurities are manifested through authoritarian military states in which civil society plays a minimal role. Pakistan does not have the same space for a public debate and civil society that we find in India, and it appears to us that North Korea is rather similar in this respect.

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Those parallels extend into the economic realm. Both nations are plagued by unending economic crises with the result that most in the international community consider them to be “basket cases” beyond the fringe in their behavior and norms.

Emanuel Pastreich How about the security realm?

Vyjayanti Raghavan More recently, both nations have embarked on reckless programs to develop and stockpile nuclear weapons without any concern for the regional instability bred of such activities. They both sell their weapons in the international arms bazaar for profits without concern for global norms. Nuclear weapons and sales of arms on the black market are indicative of a general de- nial of international standards and norms and a willingness to recklessly spread sensitive technologies without concern for regulations on proliferation. Both nations employ blackmail regularly in their negotiations. Not only that, they are both capable of supporting, and engaging in terrorist activities on occasion.

From a geopolitical perspective, North Korea and Pakistan have served as client states of su- perpowers such as China and Russia in larger geopolitical games. That rather destructive brinkmanship has caused much chaos and is common to both. Therefore, India and South Korea both face similar challenges in terms of security, culture and politics from an aggressive and irresponsible neighbor. And for that matter, both countries have tried patiently to resolve outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. One striking difference is that India is not seeking reunification with Pakistan and there is no “ministry of Unification” and there is an Indian ambassador stationed in Islamabad. We do not have the same concept of ethnic reunification, perhaps because India is originally so eth- nically diverse. India’s approach today is to work determinedly towards strengthening the civilian government of Pakistan. Indians see that only through the development of a strong civilian government and the growth of a public sphere in Pakistan can the inordinate role of the military in Pakistan be reduced and the disruption by the military of normal state-to-state relations be brought under control. There is much to be said for such an approach in my opinion.

Emanuel Pastreich That comparison is fascinating and I must say it had not occurred to me that the parallels were so close. Of course Pakistan is not as completely isolated, and it does cooperate with the United States in a variety of ways, economic, diplomatic and military, granted with great problems. But what might there be of value to the Koreans in the Indian experience. You mentioned the need for engagement in building civil society in Pakistan. That seems like a very solid approach, and perhaps there is something that could be done with North Korea. Tell us what other possible lessons are there from engagement with Pa- kistan that might be helpful, what might Koreans learn from the Indian experience in terms of

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long-term management of a dangerous situation, of effective engagement and valid confrontation?

Vyjayanti Raghavan As a basic level, I feel that as geographical neighbors there is no alternative but for us to live together amicably. India too has gone through alternating periods of confrontation and engagement with Pakistan. So far neither approach has proven to be that effective. But, as I mentioned, the persistent and systematic efforts of India to engage with the civilian government of Pakistan is slowly beginning to pay off. We are seeing now the first of concrete initiatives for cooperation in trade, in the political realm and even in military exchanges. There has been progress, granted the road has had its ups and downs.

Emanuel Pastreich In Northeast Asia, the North Korea issue remains the primary block to integration and the formation of a peaceful community. It sometimes seems a bit ridiculous that with all the initiatives for collaboration between China, Korea and Japan that the North Korea issue still has not been solved. And yet, at the same time, many people feel that a sudden move towards unification, towards true normalization of the situation on the peninsula, could result in a destabilizing geopolitical situation with unpredictable consequences. What are your thoughts on this issue?

Vyjayanti Raghavan Feasibility and sustainability are prerequisites for any long-term solution and that will require careful thinking and careful planning. But as far as desirability is concerned, normalization would be, and I dare say it should be, the most desirable situation for both sides, for all parties in Northeast Asia. I can certainly imagine such a resolution as a true win-win situation for both Koreas. And the process would do so much to increase stability in the region. The Korean peninsula could become a power to reckon with in every sense if normalization and the first steps towards reconciliation were undertaken.

Emanuel Pastreich What exactly is the potential that you see in a unified Korean peninsula and why has it been so very difficult to realize despite many efforts over the last few decades? I certainly remember back in 1999 there seemed to be so much potential for real progress on the peninsula, but all those good intentions and even solid policy proposals could simply not be implemented. There was simply too much resistance to fundamental change on all sides. Many Koreans would say that it is the desires and interests of the great powers that keep the peninsula divided. That is to say, that a solution cannot be found simply between the two Koreas. Is that an accurate assumption? Or is there another way to approach this problem?

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Vyjayanti Raghavan The impact of unification on Korea will be multifaceted, but above all its psychological impact will be tremendous—and overshadows other possible problems. Unification will unleash positive energy that will allow Korea to harness all the opportunities - economic and diplomatic—made possible by this enormous geopolitical change. I would also stress that although there may be those in the United States or China who want to hinder unification, but ultimately that unification is in their interests as well. We need to rethink our very concept of our interests. Yes, it is true that during Kim Dae Jung and Clinton administrations both North and South Korea were moving in the right direction. But then there was a change in the administrations of both the United States and South Korea and a combination of factors both domestic and international resulted in all those efforts coming to naught.

Emanuel Pastreich So let us come back to North Korea as it is seen by South Koreans on a daily basis. On the one hand, there are these Six Party talks that go on and on but do not seem to solve the problem at all. The food is great and its looks impressive on television, but there is serious uncertainty as to what the result of these talks might be, what it could possibly be. But many see these Six Party Talks as the only way to engage with North Korea. The whole process seems like a stalemate. Is there some way we can use our imagination, think on a grander scale, and get to another level in addressing this issue? What are your thoughts on what might be possible?

Vyjayanti Raghavan Yes, the Six party Talks have not achieved all that much in part because each party involved has its own agenda vis-a-vis North Korea, and so the talks start at cross purposes in my opinion. Most of the issues need to be addressed bilaterally between South and North Korea. If somehow the North could be convinced by the South to enter into bilateral talks, as it did during Kim Dae Jung's administration, maybe a deal could be worked out. In any case, with the possibility of the United States reducing its defense presence in Northeast Asia in the future, South Korea needs to start thinking of solutions for the various issues involving North Korea in a regional context.

Emanuel Pastreich So I can see from your comments that Korea is a very important country for you and that you have had a long-term engagement. How did you start your relationship with Korea?

Vyjayanti Raghavan I completed a master’s degree in Korean history at Seoul National University, studying there from 1977 to 1981 thanks to a generous Korean Government scholarship. Before that, I completed the advanced level in Korean language at the Seoul Na- tional University Language Institute and then went on to do my master’s degree under the guidance of Professor Han Woo-Keun.

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Emanuel Pastreich How were you treated in Korea at that time?

Vyjayanti Raghavan Very royally indeed, as I was one of the very few foreigners at that time who actually went through the effort of learning the language to do my research. I found that many Koreans were rather enamored with India because of the influence of Buddhism. But they had not had many opportunities to meet with Indians and so were quite delighted to talk with me. Interestingly, Koreans often mistook me for a Brazilian. I found the people to be so genuine and so warm. I have travelled extensively within South Korea, as part of the field trips organized by the history department at SNU, on trips organized by the Ministry of Education as well as on my own adventures. But I haven’t traveled to North Korea. I tried enquiring about the visa a couple of times here, but I did not make any headway. I’d love to visit that country with some other scholars.

Emanuel Pastreich What is India’s relationship with North Korea today?

Vyjayanti Raghavan On the one hand, overall relations are cordial, on the other hand, In- dia remains concerned about North Korea’s cooperation regarding nuclear and missile technology with Pakistan and Myanmar, our immediate neighbors. Trade relations between North Korea and India are stable and solid.

Emanuel Pastreich What is the study of Korea in India like these days? How do Indians approach the study of Korea?

Vyjayanti Raghavan The study of Korea is gaining popularity in India by leaps and bounds. All universities and institutes in India that had until recently only concentrated on Chinese and Japanese studies, and considered that to be all of East Asian Studies, have suddenly wok- en up to the fact that the departments are incomplete without including Korean studies. The demand for Korean language has shot up tremendously because of the job opportunities for graduates. There is not a single graduate student from our department who had trouble finding a job. In fact, because Korea now has state-of-the-art facilities and programs in the applied sciences, in marine engineering and in the IT field a number of Indians want to come to Ko- rea to pursue their higher degrees in these areas as well. Korean culture, Korean business and Korean education are all gaining a large audience in India today.

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“Position of SMEs in Korea and in the World” 10 August 2012

N. R. Narayana Murthy Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Infosys Technologies Pvt Ltd., India

Emanuel Pastreich A major issue in Korea these days is the proper relationship between major multinational companies and small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). There are many who see the large firms as a threat to smaller companies, and especially to small mom and pop stores. At the same time, it is not clear that the relationship is innately adversarial. What do you feel should be the proper relationship between small or medium size enterprises and larger corporations? And what role should government play in terms of regulating large companies so as to protect smaller ones?

Narayana Murthy Well, I can say one thing with confidence. Whatever the government does, it has to make sure that there are incentives in place for smaller companies to become big. This point may seem minor, but it is not. Unfortunately, during seventies, the government of India put in place an industrial policy that included many incentives for companies to remain small. Therefore, what the businessmen did in response was to create more and more small companies as they tried to expand their operations. Ironically, the attempt to help small companies created an artificial environment that held companies back from expanding and realizing their full potential. I understand the motivations of governments to offer incentives that make it easier to establish and maintain small-scale companies today. But, at the same time we must be careful not to give so many incentives that the company does not want to grow bigger or to pursue excellence.

Emanuel Pastreich It certainly is true that often policies undertaken with one intention can have almost the opposite effect.

Narayana Murthy Another realm in which I think government can play a meaningful role is in setting out incentives for small companies that create the mindset of a large company CEO among small scale entrepreneurs. I think this point is critical. If you start to think like a big company CEO, no matter how small your business is, suddenly you find yourself in a new world and many opportunities will open up for you quite naturally—opportunities that were previously invisible.

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Once SME CEOs adapt that perspective, they can take advantage of their relationship with larger firms. Let us consider my own business of software development, and specifically the large-scale development of software and information services. Infosys has invested very heavily in quality processes, tools and training. It is unlikely that a small company could make such an investment by themselves. Infosys spends approximately 350 million US dollars on its training and R&D. which is beyond the means of an SME. Ideally, the government could offer incentives for larger companies to provide access for smaller companies to their quality control programs, their training programs, productivity improvement and research and development infrastructure as long as it is not proprietary. At the same time, it is also possible for the government to create a centralized infrastructure that can be employed by smaller companies for nominal rates.

Emanuel Pastreich The idea is certainly appealing, but I fear that deep cultural traits of competitiveness make it hard to adopt such policies in Korea on a large scale. That said, some places, like Chungnam Techno Park, have already adopted such practices for SMEs with great impact.

Narayana Murthy I feel that government can play a role in promoting a symbiotic relationship between large firms and SMEs. For example, government can help link smaller companies to larger companies through mechanisms that allow a large company to feel comfortable working together with a smaller company because the government has endorsed the relationship and provides support - guarantees the relationship. If something goes wrong in that relationship, larger companies will have the means to resolve the disagreements and claim their losses. Generally, the larger companies say that the consequential losses are more important than actual losses. What they mean is that the losses as a result of damage to a firm’s reputation with customers from a problem involving smaller firms they cooperate with is far more serious than the monetary value of just that transaction. Obviously, nobody can provide complete insurance against all consequential liabilities from work with smaller firms, but at least the government can think in terms of creating a safety net, an insurance mechanism that covers possible problems and thereby means that larger companies will not hesitate about working with the smaller companies. The Japanese offer a very exciting model for how government can help smaller companies to link up with larger companies in a mutually beneficial manner. Japan has created a very positive value chain that places many smaller companies under the care of a large company. I believe that Korea is already taking steps to create a symbiotic relationship between SMEs and major firms. I can imagine an innovative mechanism for marketing and sales of smaller companies in which close cooperation with larger companies plays a significant role.

Emanuel Pastreich So should we assume that SMEs have to be protected, or that large firms somehow owe them something?

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Narayana Murthy It is certainly not the case that large firms are the strong player in every respect. I would say that smaller companies have an advantage in innovation because their speed in taking advantage of opportunities is very high in comparison with the larger companies that are slower and more bureaucratic. Smaller companies do not need help in innovation and speed but they do need help in improving quality and productivity, in training their employees, and expanding sales and marketing.

Emanuel Pastreich You suggest that government can play an essential role as a mechanism for cooperation between large and small firms. But there is much talk in Korea about how firms should take their own initiative in creating a symbiotic relationship with smaller firms. For example, Samsung, of its own initiative, has worked to promote a symbiotic relationship with smaller companies for growth. Obviously there can be a role for government, but perhaps there also can be symbiotic relationships that can be worked out between larger and smaller companies? Or, perhaps, between companies and NGOs or local community groups?

Narayana Murthy I have found that in any relationship, even between a husband and wife, both the parties will have to bring sustained complimentary value to each other. Otherwise the relationship will die. Therefore, in a symbiotic relationship between a larger company and a set of smaller companies, the two parties will have to sit down and define the sustainable complementary value each party brings to the other. The larger company may, perhaps, bring the power of its finances, its brand, its access to markets, its marketing and its sales capacity. The smaller company will bring to the table its speed in innovation and its institutional flexibility, its focus, and its specialized skills for producing unique components and customizing to meet special needs. But the day the larger company itself develops these competencies, the relationship will fail. No degree of artificial regulation can undo this reality. Therefore, the smaller company will have to constantly innovate and demonstrate how it can bring unique value to the larger company. The same is true for the small firm’s expectation of the value of working with a larger firm. Symbiotic relations are critical but they must be based on this understanding of sustained complimentary value between the two parties subject to constant evaluation.

Emanuel Pastreich In the Korean case, the political debate goes beyond small suppliers in the supply chain who work with large conglomerates. Another critical issue is how large firms are now starting to run chains of outlets that sell products at very low prices and undercut small shops of limited means. We also have large companies who set up direct competitors with local family businesses. For example, SPC Group’s Paris Baguette chain for bread and pastries competes directly with mom and pop bakeries. A large part of the Korean econ-

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omy is made up of small shops, and there have been lots of calls to limit the ability of large companies to engage in practices perceived as undermining the well-being of these smaller companies.

Narayana Murthy We find the same political issue in India. One of the main reasons why the state governments are so reluctant to bring large foreign retailers into their regions is because they feel such big firms will take away the business from the mom and pop stores. But the reality of business is completely different from the perception. The big retailers can bring the power of technology and the economies of scale in purchasing. Therefore, they can provide better prices to consumers. Because they invest heavily in technology for logistics and for cold storage for food items, they provide fresher produce. Well, entry of large retailers may result in loss of jobs for a million people in India. But, more than 400 million Indians will benefit immensely from cheaper prices and fresher items, thanks to these large retailers. We have to take the utilitarian view in this case. At the end of the day, it is the mom-and-pop stores that are there at the street corner. If you want a carton of milk any time of the day, you can go and get it there. You do not want to drive down to the big retailer. So, there will be a role for both the small and the large retailer in any economy. The answer to the problem of how to protect small retailers is not endless regulation to limit the entry and growth of large retailers. Rather, the smaller stores have to bring in innovation to give them an advantage. For example, small stores can deliver products to the customer’s house. Or, they can keep their shop open until midnight, or they can open their shop in the morning as early as 5 or 6 AM. In other words, small firms can provide a differ- entiated value proposition that will give them a real advantage. If they can innovate, they can bring better value to the consumer than the large technology-driven retailer.

Emanuel Pastreich You mentioned the question of innovation previously. What is the best way to encourage innovation amongst these smaller shops?

Narayana Murthy About ten years ago, one of the janitors at our company came up to me and said, “Sir, you keep talking so much about innovation. But, I really don’t understand what you mean by it.” I replied, “Friend, sit down with me here. I will explain the meaning of innovation. You are in charge of eight conference rooms here at Infosys. It is your responsibility to make sure that these eight conference rooms are clean and are maintained in good order. Every morning when you come to the office, ask yourself the following questions: What can I do to maintain my conference rooms cheaper, faster and better? The answer is innovation.” He understood the gist of innovation and has become very successful in using innovation to make himself more and more useful day after day.

At a generic level, we have to keep asking ourselves a basic set of questions:  How can I do things faster today as compared to yesterday?

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 How can I do things cheaper today as compared to yesterday?  How can I do things with a higher level of excellence today as compared to yesterday?

Emanuel Pastreich Let us hear a bit about your own experience. When you started Infosys, it was not a big company. What were some of the critical issues for you in your evolution? How did you take advantage of your strengths as a small firm?

Narayana Murthy In 1992, we were a firm of about two million dollars (USD) in revenue; last year, 2011, our sales were about seven billion (USD). I recall when IBM, Microsoft, Ora- cle and a few others came to Bangalore back in the early nineties, my friends told me “your company is going to be in serious trouble! All your best employees will leave you and go to work for those multinationals and it will be very difficult for you to get new employees of that quality”. So, we sat down and thought long and hard about what we could do to attract employees. We realized that these multinational companies would pay much higher salaries. So, we decided that until such a time that we can also pay our youngsters competitive salaries, we would provide them with stock options. Thanks to our stock options scheme, they made a lot more money than they could if they had joined a big multinational company. We went public in 1993 and we gave away about 35% of the company’s equity. We knew that big companies, like IBM, would not be in a position to give stock options in India. So we created a unique differentiation with these big companies. Another important issue we focused in on was improving the working environment. We knew that those multinational companies were able to provide a good working environment. They offered their employees a big office, whilst we had small offices. They had very good technology and recreation facilities. So, we decided to go public as early as possible and raised money to create India’s first software campus. That was something that those multinationals were not able to do. Why? Because, at that time, they were not committed to investing in India to create infrastructure in the country. Most rented offices in city centers. These city centers did not provide enough parking space and cafeterias. So, when we decided to go out of town and create huge office space, invest in the best technology and infrastructure, establish quality food courts, and create an environment like a central research center, not a local branch office, we created differentiation which the multinationals could not match at that time. Also, we decided that we had to provide exciting work opportunities for our young people. That’s why we decided to go public and enhance the brand equity of the company so we could bring home bigger and more complex projects for our employees and also enhance our sales force. These strategic decisions of our company greatly enhanced our position and we were able to attract quality people in larger numbers than most multinational competitors. At the end of the day, no matter how small you are, and no matter what industry you are in, if you ask ‘what differentiation can I create with reference to my competitor that is valued by my customer,’ you will find a way forward.

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“The Outsider in Korean Politics” 11 August 2012

Gregg A. Brazinsky Associate Professor Department of History and International Affairs George Washington University

Emanuel Pastreich So one immediate question that comes to mind is whether President Roh Muhyun should be regarded as an outsider. Certainly he had all sorts of conflicts with his own party. But was he really an outsider, and was that outsider quality important for his election to the presidency? Was there something naïve or outsider-like about Roh that allowed him to be elected?

Gregg Brazinsky I see Roh less as an outsider, and more in terms of the generational shift in Korean politics that brought him to power. Roh was the first person who embodied the perspective of the 386 generation—perhaps outside of the establishment that had ruled Korea previously, but not an outsider. His election embodied that generation. Above all, Roh represented a shift away from the standard politics of the Three Kims, the domination of the old political backroom system that limited participation. Roh may have appeared as an outsider, but in fact he rose up under the political tutelage of Kim Daejung, he went up the ladder over time in the national assembly. Although did not go to college, much of his behavior fit in well with the habits of a liberal politician. Roh’s presidency was not so successful. The Sunshine Policy did not realize its potential and its results were ambiguous. There was great hope that Roh would follow the tradition of protest and bring great change to Korea. In some respects, civilian rule strengthened and democratic process became more robust under his leadership. But Roh did not bring about the fundamental changes that supporters had hoped for.

There remained a level of corruption and the abuse of personal connections in Korean politics that could not be changed so easily. The result was more disillusionment with the left. The current desire for a true outsider is in some ways tied to the failure of Roh’s administration.

Emanuel Pastreich Was Roh’s rise unique in Asia? 155

Gregg Brazinsky There is a parallel between what happened in Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan in terms of the downfall of authoritarian one-party developmental states that found their legitimacy in the rapid economic growth they offered. In each of those countries in the 1980s and 1990s there was a great political coming of age. All three counties displayed a pent up need for democracy, needs that could not be met by the developmental system of the 1970s and 1980s in which citizens had no opportunities for expression or policy input. Roh was deeply involved in that political coming of age in Korea. That was a political and intellectual movement throughout Asia that led to the downfall of Marcos, the growth of a democratic system in Taiwan and advocacy for democratic policy by Kim Yongsan, Kim Daejung and Roh Moo Hyun.

Emanuel Pastreich I understand that Roh was not an absolute outsider, but he did lack the extensive patronage network among bureaucrats and leaders in industry. He did not really have someone like Han Dok-soo or Han Seung-ju to guide him along and make deals with powerful ministry leaders. As a result, he became unnecessarily isolated.

Gregg Brazinsky There was a lack of training in diplomacy and foreign policy among those that Roh chose to surround himself. Perhaps that failure was reflection of his lack of experience in foreign policy, but at the same time, he was facing a tremendous challenge in the period after 9/11 when George W. Bush declared that North Korea was part of the “Axis of Evil.” That shift in American policy created enormous pressure. In addition, Roh came to power in part because of an emotional response to incidents in Korea involving the U.S. military. Part of the support for the administration, whether they wanted or not, came from an anti-American mood in Korea. He made some mistakes in terms of going along with that anti-American sentiment in Korea. He played to that audience too often in his speeches. I found in my own career that the period of 2002-2003 was the most difficult. I spent a lot of time in Korea from the 1990s as a graduate student and professor in Korea. But its was only then that I encountered any sort of personal antagonism toward me as an American. People were still kind to me, but the questions they asked me in taxi cabs were a little more harsh and confrontational than usual. I think that Roh played along with, and fos- tered that anti-American mood in Korea and that was very damaging to him internationally.

Emanuel Pastreich I remember his unique “Balancer “argument from that time. It struck me as the naïve work of an outsider. Of course in the long term, Korea has to imagine itself as engaging in a complex balancing act between China, Japan and the United States. But to write that as a document for public consumption seems the height of the naïve. What better way to assure that Korea cannot pursue such a stategy?

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Gregg Brazinsky I think that balancer argument was part of a movement towards embracing China as a potential big brother at the time time, a major power that could one day replace the US in the region region. This was a naïve assumption. Over time, Koreans became increasingly disillusioned with China because it turned out that China is not better than the US. China is a rising superpower with its own interests; The US is an established superpower with its own interests. As Koreans witnessed China’s behavior towards its neighbors, its approach to territorial issues, they became more wary of China as partner. When Koreans saw China’s strategic ambitions, they grew less enthusiastic about replacing US with China. At the same time, the US made that situation a bit worse by being so openly critical of Roh and the Bush administration so openly hostile to an ally. I would have been better to just let our ideals and our tradition speak for themselves. We do not have to complain in a way that antagonizes if an ally chooses a different approach.

Emanuel Pastreich How about mayor Park Wan Soon? Does he count as an outsider? What was his appeal?

Gregg Brazinsky So Park Wan Soon is a bit harder to characterize and I do not want to say too much about someone I do not know as well, but what I have heard and observed that his rise was very much tied to Ahn Chul-Soo’s endorsement. He was part of a larger movement. That said, he was clearly an independent candidate without the institutional support of the two existing parties.

Emanuel Pastreich Park was not a party member. We can contrast him with Roh Moo Hyun, Roh was clearly a member of the democratic party and had established his credentials within the party before the election.

Gregg Brazinsky Park has the support of some in the party, but ultimately his election was not party related and the election shook up Korean politics a bit. There was clearly an enthusiasm for Park as an outside candidate that stemmed from a frustration and disgust with politics as usual. This was a shock to many in the party system who were used to running things the old way.

Emanuel Pastreich In the United States, Park could not be elected. It is not possible to come out of nowhere in the American system. In the US you cannot just walk in at the last moment in the party system and become the candidate for your party. In fact it was possible before, but now the delegates to the convention are locked into place and also so much of the election is based on massive advertising which third-party candidates cannot do easily. There really are not opportunities to for an independent candidate to emerge. We see the Democrat-

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ic Party putting as much effort and money into stopping 3 party candidates from running as into fighting republicans. In some cases, democrats are more interested in stopping 3rd parties than stopping Republicans.

Gregg Brazinsky It is true that the US is less friendly environment for 3rd party candidates. But although the US does gravitate towards establishment candidates, there remains the potential for surprises in the US. Hillary Clinton was certainly the establishment candidate for Democratic party candidate for president, but she was defeated by Obama. But in the US it would be difficult to be elected as an independent. Recently “Tea Party” candidates have also challenged and defeated Republican establishment candidates. That said, it is not impossible. We have the example of Ross Perot who did make some real progress along that line. We have true independents. Jesse Ventura, professional wrestler and conspiracy theorist was elected governor of Minnesota. It is possible, under the right circumstances. Nevertheless, not many independents get elected to really central positions as Park Wonsoon did when he was elected mayor of Seoul, which can be a launch platform for presidential bids.

Emanuel Pastreich So what about someone like Ron Paul who might run for president this time as an independent. He has a very unusual combination of strengths and appeals to both conservatives and liberals. he could run as an independent, but I doubt he can be taken as a serious candidate.

Gregg Brazinsky In the US there are some clear structural barriers to suddenly making oneself felt in party politics. Especially for third party candidates. There is a need for a lot of money, now up to a billion dollars per candidate, to cover TV advertising and the campaign as a whole. That is a high bar in politics and it keeps out third party candidates, or even outsiders within the party. In the electoral college system in the United States there must be one candidate who has a majority. So there is always a concern that a third party candidate will throw the system into chaos. So if you did not have any background in politics it would be difficult to get that far in the US. In the case of Park Wan Soon’s election as mayor, obviously Ahn Cholsoo played a big role, but more importantly, there is now a very low level of confidence in political parties in Korea, perhaps a historic low. In the US as well there is now a very low level of trust in the parties, but the US lack of faith in existing parties has not translated into support for an independent candidate, at least when it comes to the current presidential election. That said, I think the time is right for an outsider in the US. Someone like Mike Bloomberg, billionaire and effective mayor of New York City, could attract a significant following in the US if he ran as an independent. He would attract voters who are fed up with Republicans and Democrats and wanted a common sense policy, a real change. Bloomberg is in a position to run for president and he has the independence and the funding to do so effec- 158

tively. I also think someone like Bill Gates might also be viable, because he is someone who is respected, who has proven himself to be a leader; he has the intelligence and the media savvy, and the connections to pull it off. The problem is that not everybody wants to run for president and face the intense scrutiny that comes with doing so. Thus while the U.S. has figures who are similar to Ahn Chulsoo in some way, we have not seen them come forward and challenge the two party system, saying I can do what neither democrats nor republicans can do. In the Korean case, voters are fed up with the ruling party, but the opposition party has not recovered from the 2007 defeat for the opposition. It seems too weak to be an effective opposition.

Emanuel Pastreich We had Ross Perot run for president in 1992 of course, what happened in that case? Was the US not ready for it?

Gregg Brazinsky In the case of Ross Perot in 1992, Perot was doing well, but he dropped out of the race and then came back. He did get a lot ofvotes in the end, but he was not in a strong position. If he had stuck with the election from the beginning, he could have had a better chance. His decision to drop out of the race and then enter it again at the last moment damaged his chances significantly.

Emanuel Pastreich And is this desire for an outsider in government a universal one? Do we that demand now everywhere in the world?

Gregg Brazinsky I am not sure it is a trend globally, rather a manifestation of a disgust with politics and a feeling of facing limited political options. That mood, more than anything else, makes it possible for someone to come in from the outside and have more legitimacy than insiders. Enough people must be fed up with the system that they will take a risk on an unknown. Right now, neither Obama nor Romney are popular candidates. Neither of the two candidates are well-liked or deeply respected. So there is a real opportunity for a third voice, but so far people still fall back on the existing party structures.

Emanuel Pastreich In the case of Roh, he was able to bring along a large group from the democratic party and form the Sae Nuri party almost overnight. That could not happen in America—or in Japan, China or just about any other country.

Gregg Brazinsky That is something unique about contemporary Korea that is more difficult to imagine in American politcs. In the US the parties have changed in their political orienta- tions in many respects, but the Democrats and Republicans have dominated American poli-

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tics since 1860. That is more than 150 years—Korea was still Choson back then and governed by the Yi Dynasty.

Emanuel Pastreich The Democrats and the Republicans use the same name, but they have switched their role.

Gregg Brazinsky Yes, the Republicans were the progressive party back in the 19th century, leading the fight against slavery in the United States. But after the New Deal the Republicans have increasingly been defined by their conservatism on social issues. Moreover, in Korea, the game is not just about loyalty to a party, but rather about loyalty to an individual and the vision that person embodies. So if one person says, I am going to break away and form my own party it is possible to do because loyalty is as much to people as it is to party. It is a significant difference in political culture between the US and Korea, loyalty to party, rather than to individual, is powerful in the US. That is not to say the political system in Korea is better or worse than that in the US, they are different in nature.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us talk about the specific differences between the systems in Korea and the US.

Gregg Brazinsky In the United States, you need connections within the Democratic or Re- publican Party to run for office. You must buy into the system as a whole. Of course you may have a mentor and close friend within the Democratic or Republican party, but loyalty for the politician lies with the party. Hillary Clinton lost to Barak Obama in what was an extremely bitter primary campaign where the stakes were quite high. But at the end of the 2008 election, Hillary and Bill Clinton were out there campaigning for Obama with enthusiasm. For them, the political party stood for certain ideals, for a world view and for an approach to government. The campaign for the nomination in the Democratic Party was divisive and bitter, but when it came to the general election, Bill and Hillary had come to come back into the fold for the sake of the party.

In South Korea there are parties with long-term institutions, but those parties are less about ideals, instead the party coalesces around an individual and his vision. So it is possible to break away from parties and also to start them, or rename them, more easily.

Emanuel Pastreich In the case of Ahn Chulsoo, his strategy for campaigning for president seems truly unique. He strategically puts off declaring presidency to the last moment. At the moment most politicians would declare their candidacy, we find that instead he published a

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popular book articulating his ideas. He tries to position himself through this book as something of a thinker, a feeling accessible person. It really is not a book about politics at all, but it is intended to be a political statement.

Gregg Brazinsky So for an American, his behavior is a bit hard to read, and a bit mysteri- ous. I think he is being extremely coy about whether he will or will not run. One fact is that once he declares he is a candidate, the ruling party will attack. They are ready to take him on full force. Ahn’s emergence, his approach to politics has avoided the standard path of rallies, talks, interviews with the political kingpins. Ahn is well educated, he is a professor at Seoul National Universitywith experience as a successful entrepreneur, all these features are impressive for Koreans. But he just seems more accessible, more open and relaxed than professional politicians.

Emanuel Pastreich It is amazing to me just how un-political Ahn is in his activities. He is not at all ready as a personality to kiss babies and whip up an audience into great enthusiasm, or shake a thousand hands in a massive crowd. He seems totally wrong as a traditional politician. And he also does not like to talk much. Moreover, there seems to be enthusiasm for him for exactly that reason. I cannot think of anyone like him in the US.

Gregg Brazinsky But for that matter, Park Geunhye also does not like to talk all that much either. We are seeing a move away from the previous generation of politics. Kim Daejung and Kim Youngsam were politicians to the core. They knew how to make the speech and get the crowd excited. Part of Ahn’s appeal is that he just does not seem political. To some degree that may be Park Geunhye’s appeal as well.

Emanuel Pastreich People are tired of those slick politicians. That lack of polish is interpreted in Korea as accessibility, as honesty in Ahn. Perhaps to a degree that would be difficult in the United States.

Gregg Brazinsky Ahn can take this approach to deciding to run because the requirements in Korea are different. In the case of the United States you need an enormous budget to pay for TV ads for publicity for the entire campaign on a massive scale. Now up to one billion dollars in the US to run for president. There is not that sort of overhead expenses in Korea and it is possible to start a campaign up in a short amount of time. There are also more regulations in Korea that keep political parties from using such large amounts of money to influence the election through advertising. You cannot run political ads at all in Korea.

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In Korea there is a smaller audience to appeal to. There are only 50 million Koreans after all. It is a smaller territory and more homogenous.

Emanuel Pastreich Interestingly, tthe newspapers in Korea are already treating Ahn as a candidate, comparing him constantly with Park Geunhye. He really seems to have no choice at this point.

Gregg Brazinsky Very true, and they are even conducting polls about Ahn’s popularity relative to Park Geunhye. The media has created a virtual reality in which he has become the candidate. So if Ahn does not run, it may be too late for other candidates to build up the following necessary to win. The situation is far from easy at this point. Because of the way the media has slanted to Ahn Ultimately, it would be difficult for someone from Ahn’s background to govern in several key respects. But his success would be easier in Korea than in the United States. Wildrow Wilson was president of Princeton, but otherwise professors do not become presidents, and rarely cabinet members, in the United States.

Emanuel Pastreich So let us talk about political parties. Seems like this situation is only possible because of the nature of political parties in Korea. There appears to be something going on here that we do not see in the United States.

Gregg Brazinsky In Korea you have a constantly shifting set of political alliances. Back in 1997, Kim Daejung was in a close contest with Lee Huichang. So Kim turns for support to Kim Jongpil for his political advantage. Kim Jongpil was his long-time political rival, not within the party but between parties. That was a move that is absolutely impossible in the United States where our culture is less flexible. Imagine George W. Bush allying with Hillary Clinton or one of her close allies for a political campaign? In the United States that would be impossible.

Emanuel Pastreich The Clinton family and the Bush family have their own distinct patronage networks in Washington D.C. in government and industry. I think it would be impossible to make that sort of a move even if they wanted to do so.

Gregg Brazinsky In the US the political system is quite established and consistent. In Ko- rea, parties are constantly splitting and reforming. Parties collapse, are renamed and move in new directions.

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In the US there is considerable discipline in the political parties and partisanship on parties is very strong. It is hard, and getting harder, to make deals between parties, or between rival politicians in rival parties. In the debate about the FTA with the US, there was a breakdown along party lines in Korea, but not anything like the split you will find the United States.

Emanuel Pastreich You mentioned that the administrative system might be different.

Gregg Brazinsky I think one important difference is that in the U.S. a president can be reelected so during the first term in office they have to keep a much closer eye on how their policies are received by the electorate. This is an important difference in how the two countries operate politically. Another difference is that the U.S. has a bicameral as opposed to a unicameral system in South Korea.

Emanuel Pastreich There are two significant differences between the US and Korea. One is how the parliament is different from the US congress in is laws and its functions. But the even more important difference is the age of the United States. The United States is institutionally just a lot older than Korea. Of course the culture back to Tankun of Korea is older than the United States, but the institutions for governance in the United States are much, much older. The United States has been running according to this constitution since 1787 and current parties for over 150 years.

Gregg Brazinsky There are real differences between US and other democracies because of the age of our system. Korea has come very far in a very short period of time. In the Ameri- can case, even before it was a country, the US was made up of people who fled from the old world and brought with them an idea of what a democracy would be and how they would run their small communities. We were experimenting with new governance in the 17th century.There were waves of dissident groups from Europe who, inspired by liberal political ideals, fled to the United States to seek greater freedom. That was not the case for Korea. In Korea there was a monarchic dynasty until 1910 and Korea was run under Japanese colonialism until 1945. Then new democratic institutions were, in some ways, imposed upon South Korea by the United States. But these institutions did not function the way they should have. The United States ultimately had to tolerate an authoritarian ally because it feared that otherwise, South Korea would be taken over by the Communists.

I argue that it would have been difficult to establish a functional liberal democracy in Korea in 1945. The roots of democratic process were shallow and there was much that was unprecedented in Korea. Koreans simply did not have the habits or the understanding of democratic government to make it a reality.

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Of course some Americans disagree with me on this point. Some say that the US used Korea’s so-called “immaturity” as an excuse to support a military government. I think that if you look at history, post-colonial societies, nations after civil wars, or nations that gain independence suddenly, you will observe that when they try to set up democracies right away, the success rate is not high. Before you can have a functional democracy, citizens have to understand what their responsibilities in a democracy are, they have to develop new habits and practices in decision making. In the American case, when people started crossing the Atlantic setting up communities in the 17th century, many saw these communities as full-fledged democratic communities. But these colonies were initially very small in scale. That effort in the US was nothing like Korea, nothing like taking a whole country and saying, “Let’s set up a democracy.” The United States had been a democracy longer, even before it was a country. At the local level it was democratic, even if not all people could participate. That is not to say that democracy in America has been perfect. If you look carefully at US history, there are some things to be ashamed of. For many people, African Americans and Native Americans, America was not a democratic country at all. So it took the United States a long time to improve and perfect its democratic institutions and it is still an ongoing process. What South Korea has done that is remarkable is creating such a vibrant democracy in such a short period of time.

Emanuel Pastreich We could say that Korean democracy is less mature, institutionally less mature, that Koreans have less sophistication in politics. And the result is greater corruption and more improper activity in politics. That might be true. At the same time, there are those who would argue the opposite, that Korea is more vibrant, more vibrant as a democracy— perhaps because the struggle for democracy is more recent for Koreans.

Gregg Brazinsky The politics of Korea and the US are different. I don’t think we can say that one is better than the other. Each has its strengths. What we can say about Korea that is distinctive is the role of NGOs and watchdog groups that play a very important role in Korean politics. In the US we have political action committees, but overall they are clearly under the influence of a particular party. They are not really objective, their impact is reduced. Korea has a strong NGO movement to keep politics in check.

Emanuel Pastreich There is also a difference in the formation of the political economy of the two economies. We can talk about about political parties, industry and bureaucrats as players in the political arena in Korea. The big difference is the role of bureaucrats. People working in government agencies and their leaders, have much more power and influence in Korea than in the United

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States. In the United States, career bureaucrats occasionally rise to significant roles, but in general it is not a fast track and appeal of that track is very low.

Gregg Brazinsky Part of the legacy in Korea is of ministries that built the economy, proposing and implementing five year plans. The Ministry of Economic Planning and the Minis- try of Finance played a central role in Korea’s rapid economic development. They made up policy and implemented it. The ideal of a professional impartial bureaucrat has great power in Korea and impacts how government and politics is perceived. Obviously there are plenty of people working for the US government as well, but what they can do in their departments is more limited. When politicians are elected they can appoint a whole new bunch of people and then shift what a government agency does to a large extent.

Emanuel Pastreich Back in the 1960s, something like forty percent of the graduating class of Harvard Law School went to work for government. But today the number is more like 4% or less. Graduates of Harvard Law School may end up working in the government eventually, but they would first go into business where they can make money, pay off student loans and build up business and political connections. Those elites do not go directly in the De- partment of Commerce and start climbing the ladder.

Gregg Brazinsky I remember vividly how young people in Korea study for years to become a lawyer or a civil servant. It is a very different world one in which civil service is a viable, workable job for people with good credentials. Moreover, schools have become so expensive in the United States that working for the government is not really an option for graduates. If you go to Harvard Law, or even Har- vard College, you cannot afford to work for the government.

Emanuel Pastreich That is good point.

Gregg Brazinsky US higher education is so expensive that it limits the ability of people to work in government. Simply it is not lucrative for graduates. This paradox of education has a real impact in America. There are some Americans, however, who say, I will pay my debt and then work in government.

Emanuel Pastreich So you and I are professors and we know what it is like to try to work on policy issues from the perspective of, the position of, a professor. What can a professor (which is what Ahn is seen as in Korea today) do in American politics?

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Gregg Brazinsky There was once a large number of scholars brought into the government under Franklin Roosevelt, or especially under John F. Kennedy. In the Kennedy administration we saw a government run by Walt Whitman Rostow, Arthur Slessinger, Lucian Pye—the best and the brightest from academia. There are occasionally some who play a role, although not a top role. We do not have new figures like Henry Kissinger, or like Zbigniew Brzezinski, scholarly figures who play a central role in government. That was two generations ago. The only example would be Condoleezza Rice during the George W. Bush administration.

Emanuel Pastreich Condoleezza Rice reached that position because of her extensive business connections, her work with Chevron, her connections outside of academics.

Gregg Brazinsky Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski established themselves first and foremost as excellent scholars in their field long before they were appointed to any position. That was a different age. In Korea there are far more academics appointed to high positions which is quite healthy. Academics are called on for public service frequently in Korea.

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“Korean Social Welfare in Comparative Perspective” 28 August 2012

Eckhard Schroeter Professor and Chair Department of Public Administration Zeppelin Universität, Germany

Emanuel Pastreich Should government be entirely responsible for the social well being of the individual, should responsibility be split with employees? Should individuals be responsible for themselves? Where exactly do you see the funding coming from that will cover expenses like medical treatment? Will you just tax the people more? Will you tax corporations more? If you just tax the people more, the problem is not really solved, especially if the political system is such that such expenses are passed on to the poorer members of our society. If you tax corporations, they can just pass that cost on to people and adopt new policies to protect themselves. As long as corporations have a high level of influence, it is quite difficult to change the situation indeed. What do you think?

Eckhard Schroeter I strongly believe in the principle of subsidiary (belonging to the larger whole) in policy. Individuals and smaller and lower-level groups and organizations are our immediate points of reference. Above them are larger collectives and above that is the nation, or welfare state, that can step in when required. We should look at welfare policies as an essential approach to risk management in the fact of the vicissitudes of life. We are subject to multiple risks in the course of a lifetime to our health and our well being. We all are at risk. In today’s complex world, the stakes associated with those risks are so high that we need to rely on larger collectives to socialize our risk management. The approach is extremely practical and understandable to anyone. In Germany’s welfare system, occupational groups have traditionally served as these large collectives to protect the individual. Workers and their employers contributed equally with their monthly premiums to pay for the cost of healthcare, unemployment insurance and pension plans. These insurance funds are run in a transparent manner in accordance with public law, but they are managed at arm’s length from government. Government provides the regulatory framework to make insurance programs mandatory to make sure everyone is covered, and to set specific service levels. However, government does not have a direct hand in the provision of many social services: doctors, hospitals, care facilities and the like are run by private companies or non-for-profit organizations. Particularly, in the provision of personal

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social service the non-for-profit sector and voluntary associations play a very strong role in the German case. Interestingly, North Americans and Europeans pay roughly the same percentage of their income for social insurance plans – only to very different institutions (private insurance companies in the case of the United States and government agencies in the case of Europe). Welfare services will have their price tag in any case, whether we trust government, or businesses, more to provide those services. In a sense welfare comes down to a matter of trust and of power relations in any given society.

Emanuel Pastreich Why is it exactly that political parties do not represent the concerns of average people today? Why is it that we have such a gap, an inability, in the political system to represent the needs of ordinary people with regards to social welfare?

Eckhard Schroeter Well I would not want to leap to the conclusion that political parties do not represent people’s interests, and I would want to identify who exactly are those ordinary and average people we are talking about. As with all public policies, welfare policies reflect the relative power of political actors quite directly. We can see the results of electoral competition and politics clearly in welfare policy. Of course, it is also important to understand the national and cultural setting within which political parties operate in order to address how they respond to social welfare issues. Last but not least, we must not blind ourselves to changes in the political and economic environment that are constantly taking place and that change the entire welfare environment. The political allegiances of voters have shifted often to the right in many nations, and it is certainly true that soaring government debt and budget deficits have made nations states poorer (and have increasingly shifted the burden to future generations). All these factors are exacerbated by pressure from international economic competition and the overall weakening of organized labor has had a negative impact on wages and benefits. In spite of all these factors, the welfare state as we see it in Germany, has shown a great deal of stability and continuity. The welfare state persists and retrenchment in terms of its basic social role has been rather limited. Also, there is no reason to be naïve about the value of established welfare states in the political realm. All entitlement programs automatically create their own constituencies who will defend them. That is true not only on the receiving end, but also on the part of the providers and “producers” of welfare service, i.e. large welfare bureaucracies.

Emanuel Pastreich Can you give some more concrete details of how the problem of an aging society and the social burdens on families can be addressed? What are some effective approaches? Do give a bit of detail: Specifically in Germany.

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Eckhard Schroeter We find a mixed bag of approaches for dealing with an aging society in Germany. We see efforts to extend welfare state services to people and also we find examples of a (partial) retrenchment from full-fledged welfare systems. For example, Germany has introduced a mandatory long-term care insurance program (which requires contributions from employers and employees) thus adding to the already high burden of financing the welfare system for citizens. This is an example of expanding the role of the welfare state. More in the line with a cutback in services, however, is the move to push the legal retirement age gradually back from 65 to 67 years and to lower replacement levels. At the same time, people are encouraged (by government subsidies) to buy pension plans from private insurance companies. An aging society, however, calls for a change of socio-cultural patterns of behavior more generally. We have to reconceive of our lives and our expectations as part of the process—we cannot focus merely on the financial issues. There will be a need for life-long learning as life-expectancy increases. So also there will be a need for new health programs to meet the needs of an aging workforce. And then we need to be creative concerning new lifestyles for seniors. How can we house them in more human environments and still guarantee them care? How can we get volunteers and family members to devote the time to do required community service? Well it requires a real shift in values and priorities. In Germany, as a matter of fact, more than 35,000 people enlisted for the first year of the newly-introduced “federal volunteer service” (2011) which provides rather marginal financial compensation for work in social institutions. Those efforts were clearly not just about money.

Emanuel Pastreich How about the problem of women and social welfare, we see in Korea a failure government and business to address the massive shift in Korean society as women work more. Tell us about the German role. Has government kept up with this massive change? What problems do we see?

Eckhard Schroeter Traditionally, the German welfare system was designed so as to serve the conservative model of a single male-breadwinner family. However, the system has significantly moved toward a more flexible model that takes into consideration the needs and concerns of working women. The introduction of parental leave, which allows both mothers or fathers to take time-off from work to be with their children, is the latest point in case. Germa- ny has given the question some thought. However, there remain two massive problems: equal pay for women is still far from being a reality in Germany, making it rather difficult for women to serve as primary bread- winners. At the same time, despite improvements, child care is still very difficult to manage, and still too expensive for women. The barriers to a career for women that result are immense.

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Emanuel Pastreich Can you explain in a bit more detail about the question of public housing. How big a responsibility does government have for building housing, for those who cannot afford housing? What should be done? What is German policy on public housing, on helping citizens with housing? What is the general state of the EU?

Eckhard Schroeter At present there is no pan-European policy towards public housing and assuring the opportunity to have access to housing. Germany falls into the category of countries that rely heavily, but not exclusively, on private-sector investors and developers to provide housing generally in the real estate market. This policy stands in contrast to countries, like the United Kingdom, for example, in which the public sector plays a dominant role providing public housing. Germany’s public authorities at the federal, regional, and local levels, however, remain very committed to “socially integrated cities” in which we do not find the segregation and polarization on the basis of income, or of race, that can cause serious social problems. Still, government in Germany does not employ a heavy hand, or enter directly into the market in terms of the direct provision of social housing. Most importantly, housing benefits are provided specifically so as to give low-income groups access to the housing market, rather than defying market principles. For many years, Germany used time-limited subsidy arrangements – in exchange for rent restrictions – to provide affordable housing. Those federal programs, however, have phased out. As of today, the initiative for public housing lies with local governments that, for example, may require private investors to include a certain number of affordable housing.

Emanuel Pastreich How can we control speculation in real estate that causes so many problems for average people?

Eckhard Schroeter In Germany, the rate of owner occupation is comparatively low, particularly in cities and metropolitan areas. This is also a function of the relatively strictly regulated housing market in Germany. And tenants enjoy strong rights vis-à-vis owners in Germany as well. Also, there is a long-established tradition of shared ownership through co-operatives and housing associations in Germany that helps mitigate the repercussions of the real estate market. There is a general sense of housing as being for living, not speculation. In addition, there has not been an overheated property market as epitomized by the “housing bubbles” in the US or in Spain. As with the development of the private rental housing market, local government can employ their own land to stem the tide of market pressures.

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Emanuel Pastreich Give us some details of the problem of creating jobs through government actions in the Germany. What exactly is the problem today and what approach do you think might work as a solution—especially for young people?

Eckhard Schroeter Currently, Germany’s youth unemployment rate is among the lowest in Europe. Part of the reason is the booming export-oriented economy in Germany and declining numbers of youth who drop out of school as a result of demographic changes. A key component of any success story involving bringing young people into the work force, however, is training and the employability of the youth. The German way of handling training and specialized knowledge is the time-honored system apprenticeships. We have a dual system wherein training-on-the-job paid for by qualified employers is combined with vocational training in schools that is provided by local government. After school, roughly 60 per cent of all graduates opt for this model. It is specifically geared to cater to the needs of German industry and is the result of a close cooperation between employers, trade unions and government. That sort of cooperation might be an approach for Korea as well.

Emanuel Pastreich As German society ages, we see more reliance on immigration to support society. What do you think about this strategy? What policies to make Germany more multicultural are being pursued?

Eckhard Schroeter German society today is already very multicultural after decades of labor migration and influx of humanitarian refugees and asylum seekers. However, most Ger- mans and their policy-makers have not yet embraced the notion of Germany as a “country of immigration”. Consequently, policy changes can be labeled as “too little, too late”. In individual cases, however, those changes can be quite substantial. We have seen the adoption of a new citizenship law making the naturalization of immigrants much faster and easier. More importantly, increased flows of migration will not come to the rescue of financially ailing social insurance plans – no matter how much we try. The mobility of highly-qualified workers, professionals and academics, however, is likely to help filling the many vacancies that will be opening up soon when more and more members of the ‘baby boomers’ generation start to retire. It is to this end that most policies are geared to: bringing in more international students, allowing them to stay in the country after their graduation, making it easier to get a work and residence permit for well-trained job candidates from abroad, and accepting more readily foreign degrees and diplomas for professional work in Germany.

Emanuel Pastreich What is the thinking in Germany about using massive public spending to create jobs and help the economy?

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Eckhard Schroeter Printing money to throw at economic problems does not bode well with public sentiments in Germany. Inflation has been a traumatic experience in the nation’s collective memory as we know from the 1920s. For the better part of Germany’s post-war history, federal government has taken more of an ‘ordo-liberal’ (Ordoliberalism is a German variant of neoliberalism that emphasises the need for the state to ensure that the free market produces results close to its theoretical potential) stance, making sure that the regulatory setting right for a competitive business environment.

Having said that, Germany had its own stimulus package after the financial crisis, 눌 bailed- out ‘system-relevant’ banks and introduced a ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program to help the then ailing car industry. And yet, these examplesr remains as exceptions that prove the rule.

Emanuel Pastreich Tell us something about Germany’s job sharing programs. How do they work? Can they be a model for other countries?

Eckhard Schroeter What you refer to as a “job-sharing” program, is known in Germany as a “short-work” program – a program designed to prevent lay-offs when there is a temporary drop in demand. The program is an integral part of the mandatory unemployment insurance scheme (to which employers and employees contribute equally) run by the federal employment agency. Rather than making workers redundant, their hours are reduced by 10 per cent or more for a limited period of time during financial difficulties. The government agency will compensate workers for 60 per cent of their lost salary for up to six months. However, the time limit set by the program is typically extended in times of exceptionally deep recessions (e.g. in the wake of the financial crisis) to up to 24 months. The program has advantages for both employers and employers: workers will see their income (moderately) reduced, but they are still on the pay-roll and enjoy benefits; industry can hold-on to skilled workers and will hit the ground running once the economy kicks-in again. Clearly, the program can serve as a role model for other countries.

Emanuel Pastreich What are we to make of the crisis with debt and with pensions in Eu- rope today? Are we hearing the full story? What is going on and what are the implications for the rest of the world?

Eckhard Schroeter There is no such thing as the one full story. The world is hearing much more and much less at the same time. There are always many narratives in which a storyline can be told. The currently prevailing narrative reflects to a large extent the perspective of financial markets – and powerful actors in these markets from outside the Eurozone. The focus is on government debts and budget deficits – despite the fact that European nations do rather well on both accounts in international comparison. Of course, I do not want to belittle the 172

immense challenges of public finances in European nations. The “framing” of these problems, however, is in itself part of the problem. In reality, the challenge of currency is related to governance problems in the Eurozone and the European Union. The single currency is, of course, just as much, if not more so, a political project as it is an economic project. As a matter of fact, European integration might be deepened and intensified as a result of the current crisis -- and Europe might emerge stronger from it.

Returning to the question of welfare more specifically, we should also be quick to mention that Germany’s health care and pension funds, for example, currently enjoy big operating surpluses.

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“The Real Issues on the Korean Peninsula” August 28, 2012

Larry Wilkerson Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy College of William & Mary Former Chief of Staff, Department of State

Emanuel Pastreich The conflict between North Korea and South Korea just goes on and on. We can blame this state on this president or that administration on the Northern side, or the Southern side but clearly the problem goes beyond the capacity of one individual, or even a group, to change. What might be a new way of tackling this problem?

Larry Wilkerson I have a solution. I am not sure that it is a politically acceptable solution. Certainly it would not be acceptable to any United States administration we are likely to encounter soon. But this solution deserves to be discussed. I can sum it up succinctly: get the United States out of the process. When I say “get the United States out”I don’t necessarily mean, although it may be possible in the future, the removal of United States forces from South Korea. That is a step that would come later. The first step is to get the focus away from nuclear weapons and nuclear power in all interactions with North Korea, and also to take the focus off of the United States and its concerns. The United States has developed a lumbering bureaucracy related to East Asia with its own complex security concerns in Northeast Asia that cannot represent the interests of the Korean Peninsula. Let us put the focus back on the Korean people themselves in both North Korea and South Korea. I am convinced that if we let South Korea and North Korea go forward in their discussions without the constant interference of the United States, they will find a route to accommodation or reunification, whether through a “sunshine policy” or some very different route. Let them deal with the problem themselves. Although the man in the street is not aware of it, the United States is constantly interfering with the attempts of the Koreans to determine their own future. The United States can offer its support to Korea, but not in the sort of obstruction and interference we have seen so far. When and if necessary, Korea can invite China, Russia and Japan to enter into the effort. That is the only real way to move towards reunification. Consistently the United States has gummed up the works. Requiring all these countries to be part of the process through the Six Party Talks is a perfect example.

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Emanuel Pastreich How has the United States gummed up the works?

Larry Wilkerson One problem is simply American arrogance in its attitude towards Koreans. That arrogance on the part of United States representatives just increases apace. After serving in the Bush administration, I had some confidence that the Obama administration would ameliorate the situation in significant ways. But in fact the people around Obama have turned out to be just more subtle in their arrogance that they show towards Korea and the world. Hillary Clinton, for example, is a little bit better at peddling that arrogance, but overall the Americans are not accessible or accommodating of the problems Koreans face on the ground.

The second problem is the complete inability of Americans to see the big picture. For example, today the United States cannot see the big picture in the Middle East when it deals with Syria, Iran, Israel. Similarly, we cannot see the large issues, the complex factors underlying developments in Northeast Asia. We cannot see the big picture anywhere, it seems, and I feel that the real problem is simply that the United States lacks a vision for what could be beyond our perceived self-interests. And the third and most tragic part of the problem is the American obsession with “national security.” We have this overwhelming focus on national security issues to the exclusion of everything else in our foreign policy. As a result, the degree to which the United States is a national security state, keeps it from effectively engaging with others in good faith to bring about compromises and original solutions. This concern with national security keeps us from treating our partners as equals. We cannot consider the problem of the Korean Peninsula without a serious reflection on the structural problems within the United States itself.

Emanuel Pastreich What are some concrete examples of how the United States’s structural problems effect its diplomacy?

Larry Wilkerson Let us look at one aspect of this national security cancer. The United States is now top in arm sales by an order of magnitude according to the New York Times. We sold 66 billion dollars of arms in 2011, which tops the US previous record of 26 billion set the year before. That comes to $9.50 for each person living on the planet. Russia was second in arms sales with a paltry four billion dollars. This is an unbelievable figure. A country like the United States that is so involved in the national security business, for whom income from arms sales is so important, is simply not capable of the sort of delicate, subtle and prolonged negotiations required for the careful diplomacy necessary to address the problems of the two Koreas. The priority is weapons systems, not developing personal relations, or engaging in complex discussions on multiple tracks over years. That is the primary reason that I suggest that the United States can do the most good by

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simply getting out of the North-South discussion. If our structural needs go against the concerns of the Koreans we cannot realistically help in the discussions between the two Koreas. No place shows the limits of our ability to engage in diplomacy in the traditional sense than our lack of engagement with Iran. One of the reasons that our rhetoric with Iran is so strident, that the United States is so hostile towards Iran, has nothing to do with Iran itself. We are not so much concerned about scaring Iran as we are about scaring the nations around Iran like Saudi Arabia who might have some disagreements with Iran– so completely, we hope, that they will buy our arms.

Emanuel Pastreich Returning to Korea, what do you think about the Sunshine Policy as it was practiced starting with Kim Daejung?

Larry Wilkerson I won’t say the Sunshine Policy was perfect, but there really was no way for the Sunshine Policy to succeed when it faced such a level of hostility from the United States—particularly from the fist George W. Bush administration, the one I served. If you engage with your enemies, sometimes you have to hold your nose as you do so. Anyone who assumes that the process of engagement has to go perfectly without any dissimulation, hiccups, or seemingly intractable complexities, is simply naïve about how any real diplomacy works. If one has the superior position in the discussions, which I believe South Korea has— economically, financially, governance-wise, and so on–in its engagement with North Korea, one can wade through the prevarications along the way because one can be clear about the ultimate goal and magnanimous at the same time. South Korea has shown such remarkable economic development that it is now a subject for study. So South Korea is in a position to engage and to transform North Korea through its model. South Korea has the superior position, but it does not have to be arrogant about it. Instead, it has to use that superiority subtly to co-opt. So from the secure position of South Korea, you can legitimately take the position that I am going to suffer all sorts of abuse in order to get to my ultimate goal which is, after all, to absorb North Korea. But you cannot pursue that rather complex route if you have this enormous giant hanging over your shoulder at every turn that is focused exclusively on the nuclear issue—i.e. the United States. The United States falls over itself to stick the North Koreans in the eye at every turn, and insult them. That situation made the Sunshine Policy simply impossible to carry through.

Emanuel Pastreich The man in the street is confused about North Korea: can you trust them, or not?

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Larry Wilkerson Of course there is some truth about all aspects of what the man in the street sees and reads about North Korea. Let us face it, the Koreans are a proud people, and North Korea is a proud country. We should not expect them to just bow down and do whatever they are told. And remember, the Koreans, North and South, are the same people. There are regional differences, but Koreans north and south are both proud people, as John Feffer said. I certainly can understand how the man on the street in South Korea is confused by what he reads in the newspaper. It’s a question of leadership on the South Korean side. How does the leadership in South Korea mount a sustained campaign that convinces the citizens that it has a policy that is consistent, productive and sustainable? Sustainable is the most important part, for the process is long and the policy of engagement must be sustained through multiple administrations in order to be successful. We cannot achieve a transformation of the Korean Peninsula in one administration. And bouncing around from Roh Moo Hyun to Lee Myungbak, with their opposite policies, makes the whole matter just all the more confusing for the man in the street. Let us start with one long-term and strategic plan.

Ultimately with the right leadership, and without the interference of the United States on a daily basis, Koreans can build a consensus for reunification at home and achieve some success over the course of a generation. The Koreans are entirely capable of doing so and I have seen the wisdom and the intellect in Seoul. Of course you also have to deal with the regional powers that have their own dogs in this fight—but the primary issues are a domestic vision and consensus and north-south diplomacy. Concomitant but less vital is regional diplomacy—with China, Japan and Russia primarliy.

Emanuel Pastreich Tell us something about what Korea’s neighbors are thinking about the North Korea problem.

Larry Wilkerson Russia is not that engaged in the region. Russia right now under Putin is remarkably hesitant to develop its Siberian far east. So why is Putin reluctant to develop that area which has so many resources? Because the region is being overwhelmed and overrun by the Chinese! Why develop a region that will just be for the benefit of the Chinese who are flooding in in search of opportunities, and also in search of land to settle. Putin does not want to develop infrastructure that will just be helpful to those Chinese. As a result Putin would rather develop Western Siberia as a counterweight to this region that he sees the Chinese so rapidly overtaking. So that flow of Chinese throughout the region is a factor we should keep in mind when thinking about North Korea. Russia has enormous problems with Eastern Siberia, which is the region that will be most directly impacted by what North Korea decides it will do regarding integration with the rest of East Asia. That tension between China and Russia is a major factor in the background.

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Emanuel Pastreich Will Siberia become part of the greater Chinese sphere of influence? What are the implications for the Korean Peninsula?

Larry Wilkerson We see that the Chinese most certainly wish to expand outwards as individuals and as a country and Russia is underpopulated and resource-rich. Chinese are rapidly availing themselves of this opportunity. Some 4000-5000 Chinese cross the Amur River on a weekly basis, of which a thousand will not return to China. They are beginning to settle in and to develop the region, both in the immediate vicinity of the Amur River and even further north. The implications are immense and we should remember the similar pressures of Germans settling in Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries that caused such geopolitical struggles. The Chinese are developing the area in terms of China’s own economic and trade interests. The whole development is somewhat disturbing in that the Russians have made military moves to increase their presence sufficiently that they have the option of reducing the spread of this massive settlement by the Chinese by cordoning off the region—beyond the range that Russia thinks they can control the situation.

Emanuel Pastreich So would we say that this immigration is massive illegal immigration? Similar to the immigration of Mexicans into the United States that has caused such political trouble in the United States?

Larry Wilkerson The situation is quite similar and has the potential to be quite destabilizing if it is not properly handled. The implications are enormous. We need to think about borders and the flows of people as a big part of the security picture and move away from an obsession with conventional arms. If you’re familiar with studies about transforming forces in human history, you know that one of the most powerful of those forces is human migration.

Emanuel Pastreich If you think about it Mexico is not a geopolitical superpower like China. So the migration issue could be even more destabilizing.

Larry Wilkerson Certainly the influx of the Chinese into Siberia could be massively destabilizing, but equally significant are the vast resources that lie just beneath the surface of Eastern Siberia. According to some of my friends at ExxonMobil, there may be 20-30 trillion dollars in oil, coal and gas just beneath the surface waiting to be exploited. Now that is a serious geopolitical issue that dwarfs disagreements on the DMZ. And if global warming continues, there will be even more land to settle in new ways that were not possible—all at the same time as enormous amounts of methane gas are released that will speed up global 178

warming significantly—with dire consequences for all of humanity. We have to see North Korea in the context of these larger movements that are transforming the region, not in a vacuum.

Emanuel Pastreich So let us consider the total region and the larger shifts going on that may impact the future of the Korean peninsula. What will the neighborhood around Korea look like in the future?

Larry Wilkerson Let us take a look at China which stands to be the main player. The People’s Liberation Army’s advice to the Politburo now includes the concept that North Korea is a very critical buffer between what they see as American interests (South Korea and Japan), and American forces as well, and themselves. That Chinese perception is something you would have to deal with quite directly in a crisis situation. If we had a political collapse in North Korea, a scenario that I think is possible, I assume that the Chinese have contingency plans for moving forces some forty to sixty kilometers into North Korea under the guise of stabilizing the country if they perceive any risk of collapse. But those troops would set up a new buffer zone for China. That is to say that those troops would not intend to leave. China has an immediate concern with the immediate military implications of reunification.

In the long term, China is thinking that if they allow the Korean Peninsula to be peacefully reunified, and if they allow for the Chinese-North Korea border to remain the same, that the reunified Korea would ultimately become part of a Northeast Asian, United States-dominated security complex. That total complex would include all of Japan and 70 million united Koreans. In addition other players from ASEAN and elsewhere who were somehow unhappy with China for one reason or another (about the South China Sea, or whatever) might align with this group at any time. Chinese fear that this situation would give the United States a more formidable leverage in Northeast Asia and East Asia as a whole. I personally doubt that such a scenario is possible. The Chinese concerns are misplaced and if we look at history and previous great powers, the answer is clear: the United States is so over-extended that it cannot engage in that sort of power game. Just being able to hold together what we have now in East Asia, or Europe, or the Middle East is going to be extremely challenging. The chance that we would be able to build something even broader, more like NATO embracing the entire region with Japan and Korea at the heart, that I think is a pipe dream. It will not happen. But admittedly it would be hard to convince the PLA of that reality. Now if China were to become a real threat, a clear and present, in your face, blow your ship up, kind of a threat, then the entire situation would change. But I don’t see the Chinese being that strategically stupid.

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Emanuel Pastreich I think that with the massive budget cuts within the United States today, perhaps the greatest threat for us will come from the United States inability to properly control the dangerous materials, dangerous chemicals, nuclear materials and weapons, stored within the continental United States. We have to be worried about the United States itself.

Larry Wilkerson Well put. And our infrastructure is falling apart, creating unimagined dangers. There are many dangerous assets that are not secure in the United States, and the situation will get worse. We did a study as part of the New American Foundation’s Smart Strategy project that looks at the 4 trillion dollar infrastructure of the United States today. We looked at housing and transportation (light and long-distance rail, highways, bridges), sewer and water systems, electrical grids, etc. We learned to our dismay that not only is the United States falling apart, but there are no real substantial plans to rebuild the United States;No plans to rebuild the United States not as what it was in the past, but with a sustainable and resilient, energy efficient and rational infrastructure. I will say this, however, what we have found across the country is that states are making efforts to rebuild infrastructure in the United States and efforts are being led by the states in defiance of Washington D.C. We identified over two hundred metroplexes that are investing in infrastructure, from Seattle to New York City from Detroit to Houston, where local governments are actually taking the first steps to building infrastructure for the future. We Americans need to think less about North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs and more about our own infrastructure issues, immigration issues, environmental issues. And the same thing goes for Korea. North Korea’s nuclear program is just one problem that blinds people to the significant long-term challenges for Korea. For example, climate change and its potential for devastating impact on human populations is not a hoax. It is as real as the melting ice in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Emanuel Pastreich Let us talk about the Kaesung Industrial Complex, a project with some achievements that has fallen into a sort of limbo. What is your assessment of the Kaesung Industrial Complex?

Larry Wilkerson Overall, I felt that the Kaesung Industrial Complex was a brilliant strategy and I told Secretary of State Powell exactly that at the time back in 2002. I told him that the project was extremely well thought out. What I meant was that the Kaesung Industrial Complex was a policy of engagement that was ultimately aimed at absorbing North Korea, to cajole, to wheedle, to convince (whether you see the terms in positive or negative sense) North Korea to change. The strategy was to have the North Koreans wake up one day and find themselves, for all intents and purposes, having become part of a South Korean economic and financial system. Moreover, following that strategy, North Koreans would become so enamored of the products produced by Kaesung, and the economic potential of that complex, that over time

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they would have no choice but to continue on with liberalization. I realize that the process is very hard to pursue when you are dealing with a regime whose only concern is its political survival— and maintaining the life style to which the powerful have become accustomed. But we need to be patient. The idea was smart. I spent a good amount of time speaking with Korean generals, diplomats and policy makers in Korea back ten years ago. When I mentioned such possible problems, they smiled and they said, “we can deal with that.” These sorts of changes will be painful and contradictory, but the important thing is to go forward. In a sense you are buying the North Koreans off. But that’s better than having a highly destructive war with them.

Emanuel Pastreich So you are suggesting that at some level there is always some sort of a transaction taking place. That as with the Soviet Union, we have to admit there is a buying off, but that is just how it works. We should not be so squeamish, not wait for some perfect opportunity. To say we are buying them off sounds terrible, unacceptable.

Larry Wilkerson I told my South Korean colleagues, “I have played the war games. Those were war games that took into account just about every angle of every possible scenario. Let me assure you that it is cheaper to buy off North Korea than it is to have a war.”

Emanuel Pastreich You are saying something here that I think is quite profound and which many people have not thought about. The principle criticism of the Sunshine Policy is that it is just like the tribute to the Barbary Pirates: we are paying them off and rewarding them for being bad. But you are suggesting there is a more profound strategy behind that action because the process is transformative.

Larry Wilkerson There is a more subtle strategy that is obscured in the sensationalist media reporting. The strategy is to get South Korean managers in those factories, to get North Korean workers exposed to the culture of those factories, so that over time, and this process might take a generation, we can look forward to absorbing North Korea. And the Northerners will say, “we like this. This is good.” And at the same time, we have to deal with the 300 or so at the top leadership who are vehemently opposed to such changes because they see them as eroding their own power. We will have to deal with those people separately. Most South Koreans who think about this issue carefully say that if you offer the elite a deal, you can buy them off too. I do not see that “buying off” as an immoral action. It is the way such transitions are handled and Koreans should be realistic, even as they hold up their ideals.

Emanuel Pastreich I guess I feel uncomfortable looking at the problem just in terms of money. Of course you buy people off in all cases; in democracy we are constantly making political deals based on offering money in one form or another to interest groups in return for 181

their support. I understand that reality, and politics has always been that way. But at the same time, there is such a disturbing trend in our society today to see everything in terms of money and monetary value.

Larry Wilkerson I look at the issue from the perspective of what one intelligence analyst told me back in 2006. He said, “We, NATO and the United States, have spent so much money in Afghanistan that if we had just taken the money and given it to the people of Afghanistan as cash, we could have given each person $40,000 each.” That puts the problem in perspective. I would rather see the money handed over by some corrupt bastard from the CIA in a suitcase to the people, than for that money to be spent on killing and the destruction of homes and communities in a war. That is our choice. But there is reason we cannot just give the money away. I will be very frank with you on this point.

Emanuel Pastreich Please!

Larry Wilkerson The United States today, because of its enormous military budgets and twisted policies, needs North Korea to be an enemy. It is as simple as that. If North Korea were not perceived as an enemy, if North Korea were not perceived as an intractable, implacable, inflexible Stalinist dictatorship—as a dangerous threat that cannot be won over, then there would be no long-term reason to continue to remain in South Korea. The United States does not have the imagination, or the incentive, to come up with a different reason. The United States can’t do whatever it feels like in Northeast Asia claiming some sort of “national security agenda” unless it has another “national security state” that it is playing against. In this case, it has two such states, one for certain—North Korea—and the other aborning—China. The two are part of the problem and the US has no incentive to solve the problem. Of course with China, the economic dimensions are so huge that the U.S. dare not say that China is the new Soviet Union, though there are those among the national security elite in America who would like to so declare. The unfortunate development of an enormous national security bureaucracy within the United States informs everything we do in East Asia and, for that matter, in the entire world. We do the same, for examples, with Iran and Cuba. In the case of Havana (Cuba) it is comical that it is presented as some sort of a national security threat to the United States.

Emanuel Pastreich So let us talk about Japan. Japan has suddenly started to talk directly with North Korea. What is going on behind the scenes? How can we interpret this shift in a larger context?

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Larry Wilkerson Japan has always had the strong desire to discover all there is to know about its abductees—those citizens kidnapped, more or less, by North Korea. So that has to be at least part of Tokyo’s motivation. Likewise, Japan is not content with U.S. policy nor with the 6-party talks. Often, bilateral talks can accomplish more than multilateral talks. Japan, after all, is beneath the North Korean missile envelope as well as South Korea. There is a strategic interest in coming to some sort of understanding with Pyongyang. I don’t blame Tokyo for wanting to engage.

Emanuel Pastreich So let us consider the implications of growing Chinese influence in North Korea, and consider that in light of the less than constructive role the United States has played at times. The problem is this: there are discussions going on between North Korea and China about far greater economic cooperation. If the South Koreans think they are at an advantage with regards to North Korea, they may have a rude shock. This could be the end of a reunification process in which South Korea is in the driver’s seat. China could insist in being involved in all discussions with North Korea and be the main player in economic development there.

Larry Wilkerson All possibilities to contemplate. Would it not be ironic if China were to adopt essentially the Sunshine Policy and make it work!

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“The Challenges of Korean Education in Historical Perspective” 4 September 2012

Michael Seth Professor Department of History James Madison University

Emanuel Pastreich Koreans are quite aware of the problems in Korean education, and yet they are having great trouble coming up with solutions to those problems. Why is education reform so difficult?

Michael Seth Koreans put great emphasis on gaining and maintaining social status. Social status is not a feel-good luxury, but essential for one’s career and one’s livelihood, and that has been the case for generations. So you find a strong emphasis on degrees, more than education itself, as a determiner of social status in Korea. The roots of this problem can be traced back to late Joseon period, but that pattern was reinforced by Japanese colonial education policy which set up different career tracks for children in school that determined one’s future career. Under the Japanese rule, higher education was reserved for the elites. Originally there was a six year primary school and then in middle school students were sorted out into vocational schools for skilled labor, or some sent to more elite academic middle schools tracked towards university. Everyone has a clear vocational track by the age of twelve. Under that system, ninety percent of children could see that their options were very limited by the age of 12, and that they had little prospects other than attending a vocational school. So that experience from the colonial period established the precedent reinforced the tradition of determining social status based on education. But ironically, when that tracking system was eliminated, then every stage of the education process offered opportunities to move to a higher level of status for any student and the entire the school system became competitive at all levels. The result was fierce competition to get into good middle schools, good high schools and good universities.

After World War II there was a breakdown in the old hierarchy of Korean society and a greater fluidity in Korean society which many Koreans took advantage of. In that fluidity and chaos they found ways to get their children into better schools than was possible under colonial rule and to get better job opportunities for themselves. The educational system that 184

the government adopted in the late 1940s eliminated early tracking and made every level of school open to further advancement, making the system competitive at every level. These institutional developments encouraged a highly competitive educational environment in which education became the primary means of achieving or maintaining social status. As long as this situation is true, as long as degrees are the best way to maintain social status and move up in society, as long as employers hire on the basis of the degrees from established schools, the situation in Korea is not going to change.

Emanuel Pastreich Why is status so much determined by what school you attended in Ko- rea? Sometimes it appears as if Koreans are not interested in education, but rather obsessed with the certification that gives them status. Learning does not seem that so important, per say.

Michael Seth That attitude of students towards school is entirely rational because in a winner take all society, you want your child to be successful and have a good job. The prestige degree insures that opportunity and if they do not have it, no matter how well educated they may be, their chances for success are not so great. As long the degree brings stature, the response of parents is rational. You can have changes, but those changes would have to be global. But I am not optimistic for change soon. Let us face the truth. Kora is increasingly a leader in education, for better or worse. If anything, other countries are increasingly becoming more and more like Korea in their approach to education. In terms of the relation between eduation to status. Education in other countries is becoming a winnowing process for the power elite in the same way it is in Korea. I see this trend in the United States. Increasingly political leaders and CEOs are the from the same elite schools, certainly in terms of their graduate degrees, but often undergraduate degree as well. This was not the case a generation ago. So although there are exceptions, the general trend in the United States is towards the Korean model. How do you change a culture like Korea’s when is at the center of the economic trends?

Emanuel Pastreich So what exactly are the pressures that are transforming all countriesin a similar manner, making education into high pressure industry for affirming social status?

Michael Seth I suppose if we look at the problem historically, the previous determinant of status was family: a good blood line, the authority of an aristocratic family. Modern society has shifted to a certification meritocracy in which status comes from training, set skills and prestige. Korea perhaps has gone further than most just about any country in eliminating all traces of the traditional hereditary classes social status.

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Emanuel Pastreich Certainly in Korea today being a grandson of the former king has no value whatsoever. That is different than most countries. So education is under immense pressure because it is the only status item available.

Michael Seth So that process of replacing aristocracy with certification is just accelating these days. It seems quite unfair to determine your future at the age of eighteen with a test. But the truth is that in Korea if you fail to get on that elite track in life early it is extremely hard to get back on at a later date. There is no way to make a breakthrough when you are 45 or 50.

Emanuel Pastreich I understand something of the history of Korea, but does that fully explain where this hyper-competitive Korean culture came from. What elements in Korean culture brought about this sort of society—which clearly did not exist one hundred years ago.

Michael Seth We see the emergence of a combination of culture and institutions in modern Korea that transformed the original Korean tradition of learning into an all-out competition and made education the most significant determinant of one’s life chances. School systems, tests and the practice of hiring and promoting in Korea exacerbated many extent tendencies in Korean society. In my own work, I place emphasis on institutions, which can be traced, as opposed to “values” which are vague and difficult to pin down. Korea was highly ascriptive (hierarchical) society, a caste system with a rigid class structure based on heredity, but that hierarchy was reinforced and justified through education Everyone knew their place in society and there was relatively little social mobility. When this system broke down in the 20th century, now opportunities for social advancement emerged. And from the late 1940s the government committed itself to universal standardized education, promulgating policies that were remarkably successful in educating all citizens. by the late 1950s. almost everyone in Korea was getting the same education ,by the same standards. For many, there was the possibility for the first time of improving one’s status through education.

Emanuel Pastreich That concept of universal education was a radical change for Korea. Previously there was no such concept.

Michael Seth There were demands from the beginning of the20st century for universal education. Koreans had no sense of equality or equal opportunity previously; it was a nation based on inherited status. But the nature of status changed extremely quickly in the first half of the 20th century. Intellectuals and citizens embraced an ideal of equality. Koreans accepted early on the idea of equal opportunity with great ardor. 186

To some extent these ideas came in through Japan, for the Japanese also promoted the idea of equal opportunity, but many ideas continued to come in from the West via Japan during Japanese occupation. Ideas of equality resonated very strongly with Koreans. There is something in the culture, in spite of, or because of, centuries of rule by aristocrats that reso- nates with ideas of equality. There were many elite educators active in Korea during the 1920s that had been educated at teacher’s college Columbia, one of the most innovative programs. Koreans viewed a strong education as a sure means of providing equal opportunity for all people. There was a broad consensus among educators and the public on this point. More- over, the writings of Marxists by 1940s were very influential. Most Korean historians of the time were Marxists and the Marxist interpretation of social and economic issues were powerful for citizens. The rhetoric of equality could be seen everywhere before the Korean War. So you found in Korea at the time egalitarian ideas, a strong emphasis on social mobility and the implementation of a true meritocracy. People felt that society should be led by the most capable regardless of background. It was a combination of modern rationality with traditional Confucian ideas linked to the examination systems. But all those trends towards a more equitable society occurred within a society that continued to emphasize social status and rank.

Emanuel Pastreich I suppose what is interesting about the Yangban is that although they were hereditary elite, they felt a need to justify their elite status in terms of education. By contrast, the samurai in Japan never felt a need to justify their status in terms of their moral superiority or in terms of their education. They were just samurai. That make the yangban less willing to adopt more modern ideas (because learning was linked to Confucianism was linked to their social status) but it also meant that it was not acceptable in Korea traditionally just to be ruling class. It had to be backed up by scholarship.

Michael Seth Education was essential for constantly reconfirming social status Confucian ideology held that leaders should be the most virtuous members of society and power elites felt obligated to affirm that view. Therefore the elites in Korea, although they owed their status to their family lines, they were obliged to demonstrate that they were virtuous, that they were enlightened. This contradiction parallels the contradiction of modern Korea: a highly egalitarian society that is also extremely status consciousness.

Emanuel Pastreich Chris Hayes, an American writer, wrote a fascinating book about America entitled “Twilight of the Elites” in which he identifies the lack of interest in public life on the part of most American elites as the central problem in American society. Hayes traces this problem back to meritocracy. Chris Hayes argues that meritocracy at first encourages more people to succeed, but that over time the groups who come into power seek to control their status and keep others from rising to that status—thus creating the opposite of meritocracy. That crisis was repeated throughout Chinese and Korean history.

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Michael Seth South Korea in the1960s and 1970s was a relative meritocracy, to a rare degree in the world, and especially to a rare degree for a developing nation. But it is far less a meritocracy today because as the new elite increased their stature, it is natural that they tried to protect what they have obtained. In the case of education today, it serves increasingly the role of gatekeeper because the expense of education becomes so prohibitive. That cost makes of education society less equal-even though education previously served to make society more equal.

Emanuel Pastreich How do feel about standardized tests?

Michael Seth I think that standardized tests can play a very important role and I recommend careful use of standardized tests to see whether students are meeting certain objectives. I would also suggest that standardized testing can have advantages, although we must be aware of its limits. The tremendous challenge for Korea lies rather with the college entrance examinations. College entrance exams that determine a lifetime are a more serious question.

Emanuel Pastreich You suggest that educational issues are related to basic institutions in Korean society, and that makes sense. But what thoughts do you have about how education might be conducted differently?

Michael Seth The biggest problem in Korea is the amount of time that children spend in out of school, in hakwons and other tutoring programs. The Korean case is extreme. Korea is an outlier far from global norms. Korea spends more on education than any other country in the OECD, or anywhere I know of. Korean private expenditures on education are more than three times the OECD average. Korean students spend more hours a week in out of class instruction than any other country as well. More than twice what the average is for other advanced nations. It is extreme, expensive and a tremendous waste of resources. More than any other factor, this problem must be addressed head on.

Emanuel Pastreich So why is it that Koreans are just reduplicating what they have already learned in the classroom? What is the logic behind it?

Michael Seth Koreans find themselves in a culture is so competitive that students spend immense amount of money for what are only marginal gains. Studies have shown that such cramming produces only marginal differences in education. Here is the problem: Koreans will continue to press for further cramming even as the effectiveness is drastically reduced 188

Because all of the hakwon teaching is entirely focused on passing the college entrance examinations its general application is marginal. And what are Koreans gaining from such education?

Emanuel Pastreich It seems to be a tremendous loss. If children read books or played games related to what they learned in school, they could better integrate that knowledge into their experience and remember it, understand it.

Michael Seth The reform in Korea should be focused on those cram schools that hold students back. This is the heart of Korean complaints about education.

Emanuel Pastreich And Americans are primarily hearing about how good Korean schools are.

Michael Seth Korean education is held up for praise internationally. The Program for Inter- national Student Achievement (PISA) is the only systematic comparative test of students, and Koreans scored first in reading in 2009, first in mathematical literary and third in science of all countries. Overall, Koreans scored better than fifteen year-olds anywhere else. Not only did they score better, but they just get better and better at taking the PISA test. So people look at those scores and they think Korea must have a great system. Korea has the highest rate today for high school graduation and even in analytical rea- soning Koreans score near the top. The real problem could be identified as the lack of challenging higher education.

Emanuel Pastreich It does seem that Korea is particularly good at educating the bottom third. What makes Korea so competitive is not how educated its elites are, but rather how well educated working people are. Although there is no “Harvard” in Korea the average Ko- rean is quite literate and capable in mathematics. America is a country supported as by a thin elite of 10% who are extremely well educated and incredibly competent. But the average American is rather poorly educated, in fact. Korea is the opposite.

Michael Seth This focus on average students was the approach to education that was explicitly dictated by government policy. That is of course less true now than it once was. When the South Korean government was authoritarian, it was far better at imposing its uniform standards on schools and parents. The democratization of Korean society, oddly combined with neoliberal policies, has eroded the universal standard for education that so impressed me in

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the past about Korea. Education is still pretty good for all Koreans—although in some respects education is not as balanced as it was twenty years ago.

Emanuel Pastreich So could it be that democratization ironically has reduced social equality and the commitment to helping the disadvantaged?

Michael Seth Bureaucrats will have far greater difficulty insulating themselves from interest group s in a democracy. Politicians have to be reelected and they need devoted follow- ers—which means special interest groups. It was impressive just how much the authoritarian government in Korea was able to impose policies that were fair to all people and beneficial for citizens. At the time, the government was made up technocrats who made decisions for what they thought was good for the country. Many moves taken by the government were extremely unpopular, especially among the middle class interested in social mobility. Korea pursued school busing very aggressively to make education fairer. Lottery systems were enacted that had students assigned to schools other than those near their homes. The government made sure there were not concentrations of good teachers and students in one school. All these policies were immensely unpopular with upwardly mobile people in Korea.

Emanuel Pastreich We know how unpopular busing was in the United States. Sending children to poorer school districts in Chicago became an immense political problem that could not be solved.

Michael Seth At the time, the technocrats could put forth policies without having to worry about special interests creating problems, and the military had the muscle to make those policies happen. Now such an approach would be much more difficult.

Emanuel Pastreich Do you think Korea should be more decentralized in its education policy?

Michael Seth Of course over-centralization is not good. But if we compare Korea with the United States, which is extremely decentralized in education, we find that although the Unit- ed States has the advantage in terms of its ability to experiment, it cannot assure quality education to many students. So I think that a little more decentralization for Korea could be a positive as it might give local schools to experiment. There would be some benefits. Nonethe- less, the Korean system has worked well for the average student.

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The US policy of decentralization creates some remarkable school districts, but overall results in extremely unequal school systems. Such a system continues to accelerate inequality in society. The challenge is for the country to decide where the balance is between centralization and decentralization.

Emanuel Pastreich And then in terms of implementing policy, what method can be used to decide on the policy. Should parents vote on policy? Should it be determined at the local level.

Michael Seth In the 1950s local autonomy in Korea was a big issue. Many editorials in newspapers called for greater educational autonomy and there were even experiments in 1950 in electing school boards and getting parents involved in schools. That system was abolished in the 1960s. There have been attempts to implement these policies again, but the response has been unenthusiastic. When there have been elections for school officials the voter turnout has been low. I am not sure whether parents were cynical, or just uninterested. You cannot have parents running schools unless they have a high level of commitment.

Emanuel Pastreich What are some possible solutions to this education crisis?

Michael Seth The best approach for Korea in reforming education is looking around at other countries. Finland is a similar homogenous society with a strong emphasis on education. In the case of Finland, it is almost at the same level in terms of achievement in education as Korea is. The educational system is extremely strong, but there are no cram schools—the classes in themselves are sufficient. Finnish students study 15 hours less a week than Koreans and score about the same as Koreans. Finnish students do not suffer the levels of stress of Koreans; they do not commit suicide in the same way. Obviously they are doing something that is more efficient. The Fins discourage private tutoring, so Koreans can learn from that example. The other remarkable fact about Finland is that schools are run by teachers. There are no elected school boards, or politicians, or bureaucrats who control policy. Teachers are given complete autonomy to make decisions. This approach has been very effective. Finland’s educational system has not always been that good. It underwent reforms and achieved this state in a short period of time.

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“The Crisis in Education in Korea and the World” 15 September 2012

Peter Hershock Director Asian Studies Development Program East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Peter Hershock Some of the problems we face in education are new, but many have a long history and we must consider more comprehensive changes that go beyond individual students and teachers if we want to make any headway. We have to find concrete ways of disen- tangling ourselves from the past, from assumptions about education that date back to the 16th century.

Emanuel Pastreich What exactly changed about education back in the 16th century that was the cause of problems in education today?

Peter Hershock How we school people today is for the most part a global system. That system may vary from place to place and its relationship with government, and with parents, also varies. The universal assumption is that education has to do with students moving through a curricula. This idea was framed originally by Peter Ramus, French mathematician and philosopher, back in the late 16th century. Ramus was disappointed by the practice of education at the time which employed what was known as the “studio” approach to education. The studio approach assumed that education stemmed from a long-term apprenticeship and learning personally from a master. Ramus argued eloquently that education needed to be standardized and organized methodologically. He suggested that knowledge could be delivered to students in digestible chunks and that the student could then go through the material in a linear fashion, acquire it systematically, and then be tested and rewarded individually based on his or her demonstrated grasp of the material. This “curriculum” model of education has been in use for five centuries, and has globally replaced the previously dominant apprenticeship or “studio” approach to education wherein students wanting to gain expertise in practice or area of understanding would commit to an open-ended, potentially lifelong process of engagement with a relevant master. This “studio” approach has fallen by the wayside. In the new curriculum model, education is understood explicitly as terminal—a process that must come to an end. Interestingly, the term “curriculum” comes from the Latin word for a “race course.” So the curriculum model of ed- 192

ucation is one in which you compete with other students to see who wins—who gets the best grade. Learning becomes entangled with ranking “pupils”—literally, the passive “apertures” through which knowledge is methodically put into action. This approach to education was later applied to further the modern agendas of industrialization, urbanization, and the nation- state building, where it proved quite successful. In connection with this, there also emerged the need for a uniform format for education to meet new demands for a uniformly prepared labor force. All this occurred, of course, in connection with a massive migration of the population from rural areas to cities globally—a process that started in different places at different times, but has gradually been almost universally embraced, dramatically altering our world as a result. The social transformations that began during the 17th century vastly accelerated in the 19th century. The underlying assumption informing education thereafter was that individuals must be properly trained so that they can in new kinds of (especially industrial) labor that required uniform skills and knowledge. There was a broad convergence among educators on scientific convictions about the uniformity of space and the mathematical representation of reality, and on a constellation of modern values including: universality, autonomy, equality, control and freedom of choice, as well as ideas of precision and predictability drawn from the scientific method. This amounted to an enormous paradigm shift that went “viral”, globally, transforming both intellectual discourse and daily life around the world. We live with the consequences of that revolution. The curriculum approach to education was very effective at what is was designed to do: produce populations that had standardized common information at their disposal and a standardized set of skills, enabling anyone educated through that system to be easily slotted into the larger political-economic machine. As the workplace and its demands became more uniform, this education system seemed more convincing. When we ask ourselves how to respond to perceive crises in education, we need to keep this history in mind. A snapshot of the present is not enough. We need a “movie”—a clear sense of how things have come to be the way they are—in order to effectively change the way things are changing. We cannot look at the shortcomings of today’s educational systems as problems for which we can find technical solutions. In fact, what we are facing are quite complex predicaments, where predicaments occur when we are confronted with the presence of conflicts among our own values, aims and interests. Addressing today’s educational predicaments is inseparable from questioning and aptly reorienting a profound social and ideological system that undergirds everything. Problem-solving requires, first and foremost, that we have an agreed-upon set of conditions within which we can define what a solution would be. But in the case of education today, we do not have that. The educational issues we are facing are interdependent with a complex array of political, social, cultural, aesthetic and technological issues and values. Changing education requires challenging and responding to the entire system of interactions and relations that make our lives possible. Education doesn’t exist in a vacuum: it is part of the fabric of our globally interconnected societies and is affected by all the forces shaping them.

Emanuel Pastreich So are we not talking about civilization in that case? 193

Peter Hershock We are talking about the larger complex set of relations among disciplines, among economics, culture and the structure of society, but I hesitate to use the word “civilization” that comes from the Roman idea of civility and implies normative standards of behavior. It was these European standards that were forwarded as “universals” during the colonial period and that are now encompassed in the termas “civilizationand its opposition to what is judged to be “primitive” or “barbaric.” So yes, in layman’s terms, this is a crisis of “civilization,” but that term is not so helpful. We are talking about a crisis in how we understand human refinement and maturation. Of course we are talking about how we educate people, but behind that question lurks the questions, “what are we educating for?” “What is the purpose of education?” The crux of the matter is found in these questions, which are not anxillary, but primary. If education is just concerned with producing a workforce for a particular set of markets, then education is quite limited in its potential and—given the rapidity and unpredictability with which markets now change—doomed to failure. That sort of an interpretation of education sells us short. It limits the way we connect citizens and “learning.” It suggests that both learning and living in community are purely instrumental in nature. That, I think, is a terrible precedent to set. Educa- tion is, of course, changing. But we are at a global historical point now at which we are facing imperatives to change the way education is changing

Emanuel Pastreich So why is it that education seemed to be working previously, but not appears to have spun off the track?

Peter Hershock We can put it this way. The current approach to education worked well in supporting nation-state building and for consolidating national identities—political necessity in the new, geographically-defined, multi-ethnic, and multi-linguistic polities that emerged in the modern era. That process, although quite real in a political sense, was not “natural”; it was a historical invention of modernity. The curriculum approach is effective in creating a uniform sense of identity and the kind of standardized skills and knowledge sets needed for an industrial economy. The fact is, standardized education is very effective in inculcating abilities to solve problems—that is, to work within a predetermined set of constraints to reach an already defined goal. If you want to maintain current practices and values, then standardized education is great. That model worked well until the middle of the 20th century. But then, as global inter- dependencies became more extensive and complex, we have been confronted with the on- slaught of “reflexive modernization.” We crossed a threshold of interdependence and interpenetration beyond which further industrialization and economic growth force us to confront risks and threats that are in principle unpredictable. You can think of this as a threshold beyond which we can no longer externalize or export the negative consequences of our actions

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and in which further growth entails greater volatility. And so, although the prevailing development model may result in increasing the production of various public “good,” it will also result in the production of considerable public “bad”—pollution, degraded environments, disrupted communities, political and economic insecurity, and so on. The fact is, we are not just interdependent in a linear manner, and we are not yet fully aware of the risk we have brought on ourselves, not because of any failures of our industrial, economic and expert systems, but precisely because of their successes. These systems have done exactly what we asked of them in pursuit of a particular set of values and aims. We now live in a world dominated, not by needs for problem-solution, but for predicament-resolution. Yet, the globally dominant paradigm of curriculum-based education is not oriented toward developing the capacities-for and commitments-to predicament resolution. On the contray, industrialized education and thinking will lead us into increasingly unpredictable situations and leave us needing to make responsible decisions without the resources to do so. That is not a comfortable position to be in, to say the least.

Emanuel Pastreich We could certainly look at the BP oil spill or the Fukushima Daiichi tragedy as the result of a tragic process of locking into a mindset.

Peter Hershock Exactly. To grow our economies, we need energy. But we have already exploited the easy to access energy sources. So we need to drill a mile under the ocean or use nuclear power, knowing that the risks involved can’t even be fully calculated. These kinds of disasters are “costs” of further development, just like labor or financing or market development. In the past, these disasters were relatively local in scope. Now they are not. Climate change forces us to realize that humanity now has the capacity to affect planetary processes. Crossing that technical threshold comes with new responsibilities. If compels us to address the need to cross ethical thresholds as well—something our educations systems have not been geared toward doing.

Emanuel Pastreich What do you mean by “export the costs?”

Peter Hershock To export, to “externalize,’ the consequences of industrialization is to dis- place them to some location where they are no longer “problematic” because they have been placed at a geographical distance or cloaked in ideological invisibility. We no longer can just dump pollutants in the river and have the waste products just go down stream and “disappear.” The results of those actions are coming back to haunt us. Similarly, it has been common practice to undermine political problems, to “export” them by creating an underclass that suffers the consequences, but which has no voice and is not participating in the political process. That invisible underclass is a product of modern democracy which defines participation in the narrowest sense: voting for candidates like products every few years.

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But these systems are breaking down, not just among societies, but also within them. Recursive dynamics create not only global interdependence, but global interpenetration. The issue becomes, not just one of countries, societies, bumping into each other in diplomacy or trade, we are now internally related. In this new world you cannot simply export the costs associated with doing “business as usual.” Everything reverberates back to the start. There is no empty social space into which those costs can be exported, dumped,in a political social or cultural sense. We must deal now with the costs of the current world system directly, paying as we go. The unfortunate truth is that many societies around the world, and many groups within those societies have some values in common, but their interests and concerns diverge radically. So the question is, how do you make a decision that balances or sets effective priorities among the political values that operate in a democratic country, like Korea? How can you balance the economic values of continued growth and industrialization, the social values that have to do with family and the education of children and the cultural values that have to do with specificities of Korea. Those concerns in Korea will be quite different from those in a country like the United States. But the dynamics that impact local systems are now global. And that means we need to start a conversation about how we can generate shared resolution—both clarity and commitment—regarding the global challenges we face. Again, these challenges are not fundamentally technical; they are ethical. They have to do with what we mean by living a good life or having a healthy environment or a flourishing community. How can we make our educational systems responsive to these new global dynamics? How do we actualize the recognition that much of what we should be concerned about in schools is not about transferring technical information, but rather about generating ethical sensibility and a capacity to improvise together, not just about individually solving problems? That creative and ethical approach to education is the only one that can generate the resolution needed to address complex, global predicaments.

Emanuel Pastreich Interesting Suggestion as to how we can use creativity and ethics to address these challenges,while moving beyond the obsession with “problem solving” that undermines most reform. On a related topic you have written about at length, what do you feel is the impact of technology on education and perception, in society?

Peter Hershock The impact of technology on education is extremely far-reaching. Its impact is not just far-reaching in a global sense, but also in a philosophical sense. I have two sons. One is 32 so he is beyond the formal education system. But the other is just ten years old and he is going into fifth grade. All o of his assignments from school are on the laptop computer issued by the school. His class features a blog to “facilitate communication.” In some ways the approach is exciting and offers new potentials. But this approach to learning is liable to causing a dangerous confusion between information and knowledge. We are increasingly substituting information acquisition for knowledge development. That policy is extremely dangerous. We live in a world that is changing both rapidly and un-

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predictably. I think most people would agree with that assessment. Experts on cultural change, political change and technological change argue that the changes we can foresee are not the most important ones. There are some problems that you can predict and for which you can plan. We are not worried about them so much. The challenge is responding to challenges that are unpredictable, especially those to which you must respond quite quickly. If we identify education with the transmission of information, as opposed to the development of knowledge, we are training a generation to react to things, but not to respond thoughtfully. Knowledge is what is required to respond thoughtfully. According to Gregory Bateson, "information is any difference which makes a difference.” That is to say, anything that happens and triggers some other association is information.. What is important about this definition of information is that it gives us an insight into how information works in the so-called information economy. Ultimately, information that is repeated is no longer informative. To just repeat information, does not help and it certainly is not education. But for a society like our own that is so saturated with information, information is always at our fingertips and can be readily manipulated and disposed of. Thus information has a set lifetime of usefulness for any given individual. In a society where information is very readily available, you encounter information pollution, what we call “data smog.” The conditions resulting from data smog are like those resulting from atmospheric smog: something that gets in the way of your healthy normal activities. And there are issues of equity involved, If you look at information, you observe that it has a clear lifetime. In science cutting-edge information has a lifetime of about 18 months. After that point, this once-new information ceases being generally informative. It is old. Out of date. On the US Stock exchange the lifetime of information in the narrow sense is more like 18 seconds. If you do not act on new information in 18 seconds, you might as well forget it, you’ll be chasing a trend from the losing end. By contrast, knowledge is something that develops over time, through repeated encounters, reflection, further action, getting feedback from the situation, responding to that feedback, and making an effort to heighten the quality and effectiveness of your interactions Knowledge is not static. It doesn’t exist in books. It is a the living edge of socially embodied creativity and mindfulness. Perhaps cooking is a good example of knowledge. You cook a meal from a recipe, but that is not the end of the process. You taste what you’ve done, ask others to try it, and then you go back to the kitchen. You remember what you did, make some changes based on the feedback you’ve gotten, and cook the meal again, and again,. Over time, with the right kind of attention to relationships among ingredients and peoples palates, you begin realizing what it takes to get the dish just right. Even if you are cooking a simple dish like bibimpap, to cook it, season it and present it well requires continual engagement. Knowledge is like, that from mathematics to music, to scholarship and sensibility. Infor- mation is involved, but it has to be brought to life through attentive, creative and reflective engagement for the knowledge to develop and mature. Therein lays the difference between knowledge and information. Repetition does not cause the demise of knowledge or make it redundant. Technology confuses the differences between downloading and manipulating songs from the web and the fully embodied actions involved in making or appreciating music. There is a body-mind practice, and a social en- 197

gagement with a teacher and other musicians that goes into learning to play an instrument in a fuller setting. We are talking about an entirely different process from manipulating information. This difference in learning is not limited to academic learning; rather all forms of learning are impacted. The root of the English word “learn” is the same as the root for “lore”—the shared stories, passed down, altered and enriched from generation to generation. Learning is a process of cultivation—a relational endeavor that results from and results in expanded attentive capacity, maturity and sensitivity. What would it mean for education to be truly aimed at enhancing learning in this sense?

Emanuel Pastreich Information is flooding around us because Moore’s law dictates an ex- ponential increase in computing power and that increase in the ability to produce and manipulate information creates institutional and social change with which humans cannot keep up.

Peter Hershock That is true, but there are techniques for dealing with information glut and saturation, including basic mindfulness techniques that make it possible to be avoid getting “caught” by specific bits of information, thus losing contact with the “flow” of information and the capacity to affect how that flow is directed. And there are techniques that have been informed by recent research in neuroscience that can aid in information acquisition. Learning involves the entire body-mind, as I said. But if you chew gum when you study, for example, and chew gum during testing, you will perform better on the test than if you didn’t have this biological point of connection between the “learning” and “testing” phases of the process. Taste, hearing, seeing, smell, touch and cognition are all part of learning, all part of a process of human interaction that defines learning. The more senses and processes we use when learning, the better we will remember. The richer the environment, the richer the stimulation, the better the learning process will be overall. Working with a computer screen gives us just the visual sense and maybe sound on occasion. It runs on what you might call a very narrow relational bandwidth. The experience is of much lower resolution than what we have when involved in an intense discussion with someone. The on-line context affords great freedoms of choice about who to interact with, for how long, and in way manner. But it is a poor substitute for being present in situations in which we can’t always just opt out—situations in which we have to confront challenges and really improvise. You can use a computer effectively to train people, to instill a specific behavior, but that is not what we want for our children when they become adults. If we want democracy, we don’t want people trained mechanically to respond in predictable ways. We don’t want people trained to just repeat what they have heard over the media without reflection. And we don’t want them to acquire habits of just “turning off” difficult situations or confusing a life of maximum options with the optimal life. Reflecting on what you learn is far more important than how much you learn.

Emanuel Pastreich So what is the ultimate social application of knowledge? 198

Peter Hershock There is the knowledge of “how.” You can know how do to something: how to tie your shoe. And then there is factual knowledge: knowing “that” something exists, or knowing some detail about something. But in addition, there is another form of knowledge: knowing “whether” to do something. That form of knowledge involved in assessing the long-term practical and ethical consequences of our actions. This form of knowledge is also known as wisdom. Wisdom does not come from isolated learning in front of a computer screen where your experiential context—your experienced environment—is strictly a matter of individual choice. Wisdom emerges only in the context of truly “broad- band” relational encounters where shared meaning-making is required. When we look at the impact of technology, we need to focus not just on how using certain tools (for example, tele- visions, smart phones, computers) impact us as individuals, but on the full spectrum of relational impacts generated by the spread of a given technology. Unlike tools, technologies can’t be put in the closet. They are relational systems. And those relationships everything from those involved in manufacturing and marketing certain tools to the impacts of their use on families and friendships—the ways we engage one another socially, politically and economically. It is the full spectrum of these relationships that needs to be taken into account assessing a technology and its impacts.

Emanuel Pastreich What you say makes sense, but it seems to be so hard for people to consider the differences in the quality of learning, especially those aspects that cannot be readily measured.

Peter Hershock We are laboring with conceptual deficit. The vocabulary we use to discuss education does not provide us the vocabulary or the concepts required to address most of the issues I have raised. The current model for education based on classes, credits, courses and grades, operates with the individual student as the unit of analysis. How the individual student performs, measured as an aggregate through statistics, is how we judge success. But we live in an interdependent world in which the relations between people and groups should be a crucial part of education. To try to understand the education process using only terms that refer to the individual is like trying to eat soup with a fork. You can do it, but you will only get the pieces of stuff floating around in the soup; you will not get the essence of what makes it soup, the broth. We need to move to a more relational understanding of education in which the individual is at the center. And we need to move away from the idea of “bodies of knowledge” to something like “ecologies of knowledge.”

Emanuel Pastreich Is this not a misconception related to the definition of values in terms of markets, in terms of consumption?

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Peter Hershock We find that students are now expected to make their own curricular choices and build a customized course of study in college, and often in high school. This sounds “good.” But if you step back and think about it, this is a market system aimed at providing different niches for educational consumers to maximize educational “productivity.” In some ways, this is a good approach in that the process can meet the individual needs of the students. Some choice is undoubtedly better than none. But if we look at this trend philosophically, some of its larger implications are disturbing. We are moving from the ideal of universal education in which everyone is given the same education, toward a model of educational variety in which each person is educated however he or she sees fit. If education is a purely private good, then this is fine; but if education has any public purpose, if education is supposed to create conditions for society to flourish and not just maximize individual self- satisfaction, then we have to retain a sense of the public dimension of education that structur- ally addresses the aim of strengthening society as a whole. At a practical level, the student-as-consumer, market approach to education has the liability of transporting the kinds of distributional inequalities that we find in other markets into education—a process by means of which educational equity is seen strictly in terms of the “opportunity” for any individual to “choose” the education he or she wants. But in fact, our choices are constrained. And just as the wealthiest in society can live in the cleanest and most secure environments, eating organic foods and experiencing only the best of what world culture has to offer, there will be a very small sector of society that will get “high end” educations, while the fast majority will be “shopping” at the educational equivalent of Walmart.

But at a deeper level, the market approach to education commits us to a simplistic dichotomy between unification/uniformity (with its connotations of potential coercion) and variation/self-centeredness (and its connotations of freedoms of choice). The term I have adopted to make an oblique cut through that seeming either-or is the notion of “diversity.” As I conceive it, diversity is a relational achievement that occurs when the differences that are present in a given situation are activated as the basis of mutual contribution to sustainably shared flourishing. What I am trying to do with the term “diversity” in terms of redefining education is equivalent to what Einstein did with the terms “space” and “time.” Einstein said, “We are using these terms like “space” and “time” as if they were distinct things, but in fact the world does not work like that. Time and space are interchangeable and they form a network of relations and we need to recognize that fact.”

This concept of diversity is taken out of an encounter with traditions that say that interdependence is basic and relationships are in some sense “prior” to things that are related. If we ask which comes first, the children or the parents, the first reaction is: “of course, the parents come first.” But in actuality, “children” and “parents” emerge together, if at all. What we mean by “son” or “daughter” or “mother” and “father” emerges through the dynamics of ongoing familial relations..

This new concept of diversity—as opposed to mere variety or universality—involves us concerning ourselves not just with how much we differ-from each another, but also and

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more importantly with how well we are differing-for one another. “Differing-for” suggests consideration for others. It is the first step of leading an ethical life. So also, contributing is not merely about giving something, it is about offering something to that is accepted and ap- preciated as enhancing an ongoing relationship. That is what education should be about: acti- vating our cognitive, emotional, physical and spiritual differences to realize increasingly robust spaces of mutual contribution.

Emanuel Pastreich Please give us some concrete examples of new approaches to education that might be helpful here in Korea.

Peter Hershock There is an elementary school in Los Angeles, a public school, that decided they would use place-based learning. From that day on, everything that they studied, whether math or social sciences, was done locally. They would learn about percentages by going to local businesses and interviewing the people who work there about what they do. They would ask how businesses calculated prices and used percentages in their work. When students studied food and nutrition, they went to the grocery store to learn. They interviewed people there about how they purchased food, where it came from and how it was processed. They brought in farmers and scientists. So the student’s knowledge was generated through concrete research. They were able to generate knowledge about how the world around them works that will last for a lifetime. They explored their world with the new concepts they learned: how does the bus system work? how are goods distributed? Where does electricity come from and who decides how much it costs? Learning is not about being told something, or seeing a Powerpoint presentation about the delivers some units of information. We learn through practice and through engaging others. Learning is building a communication network, the value of which is determined by the number of nodes in the network and the quality of contributions being made through each. Learning is not just building new skills or retaining data; it is overcoming our nervousness about talking to strangers and appreciating—at once sympathetically understanding and adding value to–our differences from and for one another. The sum of those activities is a far richer and long-lasting, educational experience. Perhaps an even more radical approach to education, would be to have some of the student’s evaluation (grade) based on team activities. I think that such an approach to learning can help us get away from this relentless focus on the individual. The advantage of a learning practice that takes into account teams is that, as opposed to curriculum models based on student-to-student competition, this approach can bring cooperation back into learning. We see little attempts to bring such team work into education these days, but its use is extremely limited. Team learning can be at the core of education with students learning at least as much from each other as from the teacher. We want the students to engage with each other. The reason is simple: in an information-saturated society what becomes so scarce is attention, not information. We need to reclaim our own attention. For many of us, we do not even know what that means. We need to get young people to reclaim their attention and to 201

use that attention to do something meaningful—to make meaning together. That is true learning—the cultivation of effective wisdom. So often I hear parents tell kids, “pay attention!” or “you need to pay attention!” But to be completely honest, in most cases the children have no idea what their parents are talking about. Why? Because nothing in the child’s learning experience requires attention. Children are just required to be there to absorb, to consume Concrete examples of real attention building involve moving away from just absorbing information to being apprentices, to being engaged socially, mentally, emotionally and physically in learning. But you cannot achieve that by saying, “pay attention,” but only by investing our attention in practice. So the question is not so much “what have schools tried that work.” The question is one of going beyond a view of education that is focused on the individual at the expense of the community, of the relations between people. Here is a hard question for us as parents: What would be required from me in terms of my ideas and the society and culture I inhabit, for me to be able to say, “OK, I know the whole system needs to be changed, but the system is not going to change overnight. I am not going to manipulate the system for the benefit of my own child, using my privileges to put him or her ahead while knowing that the vast majority of children are going to be left behind because they cannot attend a different school. I am going to fight for institutional change from within my school. I’m going to resist the temptation to take my children out of public school to put them in private schools, and to use the resources saved to struggle with making educational equity—a world in which educations fosters real diversity—a reality for all and not just a dream of future opportunity.” That approach to education is very hard in Korea where people will invest their life savings on giving their children special advantages. It is hard in the United States where people pay to live in neighborhoods with good schools. We need education that focuses on relations among students, including all of society. The individual student is important. But relational dynamics are indispensible. None of us would live but for short time in a total vacuum. Real educational change in a world of increasingly global predicaments is change aimed at the transformation of relational quality, not the achievement individually measured information outcomes. Such a shift would not just change our schools, it would have the potential to change our world.

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“The Challenges and Opportunities in Korean Education” 1 October 2012

Regina Murphy Senior Lecturer at the Education Department St. Patrick’s College Dublin City University Dublin, Ireland

Emanuel Pastreich Have you had any experience with Korea in the course of your research and your activities in education?

Regina Murphy I was at a conference on arts education in Seoul that provided me the opportunity to learn a bit about how Korean education is approached, or at least something about the culture of those involved in education. I remember distinctly the extremely advanced audio-visual equipment that the conference centre employed and overall the Korean conference as one of the most technologically advanced and well-organized conference I have ever attended. Nevertheless, I received the distinct impression that the Koreans were not so interested in music and art education—my field of expertise. I was told that if an individual or school holds a concert, few people would come who did not have a strong obligation. The performing and visual arts do not seem to be a priority in Korean education. Overall, I was struck by the remarkable uniformity of clothing in Korea—even though the clothing was not meant to be uniform. Men’s dark suits and ties seemed pretty much the same and most women were wearing beige. That crushing uniformity seemed to me to be a challenge in Ko- rea—although I do not know Korea well.

I was profoundly aware of the size of Seoul, some ten million people living in high rise apartments. Ireland, the entire country, has a smaller population of 4.6 million. I drove by kilometers of apartments. We are talking about living spaces with no place for toys, bicycles or elaborate gardens we enjoy here. If you do not have the space to have such hobbies, then perhaps education takes on a greater significance.

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Emanuel Pastreich How has Korea and its education system been perceived in Ireland?

Regina Murphy Although there are profound differences, the history and culture of Korea has a lot in common with Ireland, certainly in terms of cultural identity and the struggle against a dominating imperial power next door. The identity issue is huge for both countries. The climates of the two countries are quite similar as well. So also Korea and Ireland have constantly compared their domestic education policies with foreign examples, exaggerating deficiencies in education, that part is also equally similar. For the past twenty years Asian countries like Korea have been held up as examples for Ireland as successes in education. We first saw this in international studies of achievement in mathematics and science that revealed that Korea was extremely advanced1. For some in Western Europe, there was perception that our students and teachers are lazy and not willing to put in the necessary hours for teaching and learning compared with Korea. And this is true, at least in part: we know that instruction in mathematics here is not remarkable. Typical governmental aspirations in Ireland are for citizens to become more skilled, for the country to be more advanced technologically, mathematically and scientifically. So Korea is held up as an example all the time of what our education system should be supporting. We see a profound awareness of educational achievement in Taiwan, Korea, Shanghai and Singapore here. But there is counterargument you will hear in Ireland to the Asian model. Many feel that the critical issue for us is our own cultural identity. There are many in Ireland who talk seriously about how we can build and reinforce our cultural identity, and reinforce individual- ity and promote self-expression among young people. These people ask where would story- telling, arts and crafts, poetry and dance fit into that Asian-style educational system? What does such an approach to education offer for the student’s true happiness and well being. There is a real resistance towards too rigorous and inflexible a model for education in Ireland and not enough interest in math and technology. Perhaps in some ways that holds Ireland back. At the same time we feel strongly that the other values of culture, our connections with our family and community are of great value. So I ask myself what would community mean for me if I lived in one of those towering apartment buildings in an enormous city like Seoul? It clearly would be different and it would not be possible to just do things in Korea the Irish way; Or in Ireland the Korean way.

Emanuel Pastreich Seoul is not a village, after all.

Regina Murphy No, Seoul is certainly not a village and it is on a far larger scale than even the biggest cities in Ireland. In my writing and teaching about education in Ireland, and in the seminars and conferences we hold here, we keep coming back to the importance of happiness and quality of life. I believe there will always be unintended consequences of our actions that

1 See: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

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we did not anticipate. Korea has extremely high levels of suicide and one should ask if these are, in part, the unintended consequences of educational practice? We can easily miss the big picture. Is this an educational system rife with competition, standardized tests and constant study that is just something you must go through for a few years to get to a much more satis- fying level of existence when you come out on the other side? Or could it be that life after education remains the same, perhaps colored by the process of education? Or could there also be a case in which you have a very happy experience in school, but when you graduate you find that the prospects for employment are dismal? We must constantly ask ourselves: what is the purpose of education? The large question is connecting with the problem effectively. Some of the administrators in universities and the public policy experts would tend to look at the problem from the point of view of demographics. There are three “thirds” of the student population. The top third are the high achievers who want to go into medicine, sciences or higher professions. And then there is a lower third that would go into the trades, seeking relevant, but less advanced training. Finally there is a third who can be encouraged one way or another in terms of their life strategy, their approach to education. Some of that group are leaning towards social sciences, or applied sciences or other fields. That is the group that you should be working with to encourage them to meet the needs of society, to make sure they are trained for the needs of the age and the challenges of the future.

Emanuel Pastreich One of the most difficult parts to understand about Korean education is how Americans can see so much that they admire in Korean education. They think Korea is very impressive and the Koreans are all extremely well educated. Working class Koreans are remarkably well educated in this country. But if you go to Korea, you find Koreans trying to ship their kids overseas, anything they can do to get out of the Ko- rean school system.

Regina Murphy I have an Asian colleague who told me quite proudly about how he had sent his son to boarding school in Australia because his son did not seem all that independent in his thinking. And now his son is much more independent and now he even wants to become an Australian citizen. Well his parents just think that is a great thing. But for me that response seemed quite odd. If it were me, and my child had taken off for some far-off country at a young age, and then wanted to become a citizen and lived there forever, well, I would be extremely sad and I would even feel I had somehow failed as a parent.

Emanuel Pastreich Certainly it would seem a tremendous loss.

Regina Murphy So there is this tremendous question of citizenship and identity that is linked to education. Do we feel inferior or uncomfortable with our identities? Of course Ire- land is quite accustomed to emigration, and to the question of how we reconcile our identity 205

with regard to England next door. Emigration has been Ireland’s hallmark for ages. We hear that some forty million Americans are descended from Irish émigrés. In fact, President Obama was able to trace his roots back here to Ireland and when he visited, - he met his eighth cousin who has a pub in a tiny village in Ireland.

Emanuel Pastreich Korea does not have that sort of internal cultural politics yet.

Regina Murphy Korea tends to be quite homogenous, I believe. Perhaps with the aging population and more foreigners coming to Korea, a more complex cultural will emerge.

Emanuel Pastreich In my daughter’s case I certainly see the emergence of a more diverse culture. Her school, Jangchung Elementary now has kids with parents from Italy, the US, Mongolia, China, Japan and Indonesia. It is more diverse than the so-called international school that my son is attending now. Let us consider the European case. Certainly Europe is quite multicultural these days. Are there aspects of European education that you would want to recommend to Koreans?

Regina Murphy One program that has been outstanding in Europe is the Erasmus program, an exchange program that encourages quite deep learning in other countries. At the university level, Erasmus allows students in the second or third year of study, to spend a period of time - weeks, a semester, or a full year - studying at a partner university in Europe. Academic or university credit gained in one university is then transferred to the home institution through as university partnership agreement. The program makes such exchange a very enriching part of the students’ experience, encouraging a general social cohesion in Europe itself. Many of our university and college students have benefited immensely from that work. The experience broadened their perspectives and established close international friendships early on and there is a desire to increase the number of students from Ireland on Erasmus programs. The exchange of students, learning about one’s discipline in a broader sense, learning from interactions and discussions with peers around the world are all invaluable. We welcome students here from around the world and they are taught for free. The Bologna Process assures that credits are received and all teaching is aligned to a set of frameworks. Those programs have been extremely helpful in opening up the horizons of our students to new possibilities in themselves and in their communities. Even if the students do not travel, they have friends who will.

Emanuel Pastreich Give us a specific example of an educational program in Ireland that you think works well.

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Regina Murphy An initiative that we have found very beneficial in Ireland is offering students a transition year in secondary (high school) system. This approach to high school education has been quite effective in encouraging students to reach their full potential and really reap the full benefits of education. . The transition year is for students properly registered in high school and it comes at around age 15, when students have completed 3 years of secondary school and still have 2 years to go. It falls between two important periods of state examinations: Junior Certificate (for 15 year olds approx) and Leaving Certificate (for 18 year olds approx). Transition year is extremely important for many students. In the transition year, however, they do some reading and study, but they are discouraged from studying for the higher examinations (Leaving Certificate) explicitly. What they do instead during that transition is a range of social programs and volunteer work. They might learn how to start up and run their own business, or learn the principles of social entrepreneurship. Or they may be involved in some form of scientific experiment or a journalistic or academic investigation of some topic or participate in a variety of arts and theatre events, or debating competitions. Some take the time for outdoor pursuits like hiking, or they may learn a language and spend time abroad. For some parents, they have such ambitions for their children that they will take them out of this program and arrange for more rigorous study. Such students skip transition year and focus exclusively on examination. Transition year has an extremely positive effect on students, as our research in Ireland has confirmed. And overall such activities contribute to the maturity of students, and in many cases, improve their academic performance. I was speaking with my older son about transition year and its benefits en the other day. My older son, who normally does not say much about social issues as an engineering student, spoke with great passion about the importance of transition year. He detailed all the benefits that he received. At one stage in the transition year, his group staged an Ibsen play for which my son was responsible for the lighting. I went to see the play and I was inspired. My daughter was also involved in setting up a business, working in the theatre and also involved in working with an orphanage in Romania. Her work that year was quite broad in subject and approach. Both my elder children were hugely supportive of the concept of the transition year, feeling that it made an infinite difference. So I told my son that I remembered that the mother of one of his friends pulled him out of the transition year program to send him to grind school. And my son responded lightning-fast, “Yes! And I can tell you that kid went to college and he ended up dropping out.” Now we cannot generalize without knowing more of the background, but we say that taking the children out, before that race to the finish line of examinations and school, has tremendous benefits. Those activities can maximize brain power and diversity of experience at that point in one’s life so that one can develop a broader perspective. That broad perspective can make the difference when it comes to making full use of the variety of new information that one gets from one’s studies thereafter. One can learn self- discipline, learn to decide for oneself the value of study, and how to sustain one’s work on one’s own and to self-regulate without external systems. Transition year gives children a chance to grow up a bit, to think more broadly about the world we live in and the significance of their work within it. This time gave them a 207

chance to do things that they did not have a chance to do previously in the education system. This results in children having a very positive view of their own schooling and for what they learned. Some of those benefits cannot be seen for years, so the evaluation cannot be made immediately, but only over years. So also the negative impact of test-driven education also are not immediately obvious, but revealed only over time. We see that over time that women do not study science, or that they do not get married, or any number of critical shifts, but shifts that are not visible on an individual basis.

Emanuel Pastreich In Korea we see the terrible consequences of the failure to anticipate women’s needs. Workplaces do not provide for childcare, grandparents expect mothers to be responsible for everything and as a result women are increasingly giving up on having children. The demographic implications are catastrophic, but along the way no one thought that there was any particular need to make special provisions for women. Most Koreans had no idea what the larger implications of undervaluing women’s work would be.

Regina Murphy Those are what we call quality of life issues. They may seem minor, but their long-term implications can be enormous. The best workplaces can integrate the needs of mothers into the work environment, even make them a priority. We need to be concerned with maintaining the well being of our entire society, all members, and we should be concerned with preserving the best of our society. We should not let the population drop by half in a generation because we did not want to be bothered with the concerns of women. We should be looking at all issues, about bonding between parent and child, flexible ways of working that preserves families. Part of education policy should consider home working and job sharing that makes raising children and contributing to their education a critical of our priorities. Ireland is considering the model of shared parental leave that is practiced in some Scandinavian countries to create a more balanced family environment. The most important point is to start debate. Even if we cannot achieve new models immediately, we should certainly start the discussion. Just as well talk about the devotion of “tiger moms” to their children’s education, we also need to evaluate the positive impact of making the work and the home more integrated and more humane for education overall.

Emanuel Pastreich So where does the solution lie for us as teachers and as students?

Regina Murphy The key is not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” so to speak. Not to see education as an “either or” or “all or nothing” choice. To go too far in one direction or another is to give the impression of an extreme reaction, something that might work for one individual but that cannot be integrated effectively into the system.

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Let us take the case of the shared-area classrooms (or open plan) that reflected the progressive approach to education. Such shared classroom spaces were very popular in the 1970s in Ireland. But then a substantial minority of teachers held the view that , “Well these shared-area classrooms are a nice idea, but they are so chaotic.” And over time, schools re- verted to single teacher classrooms with the teacher in front of the class in the traditional style. That style seemed much more “efficient.” The earlier movement for cooperative learning and group learning seemed too physically removed—and ideologically removed-- from the reality of the classroom. So it might have been better to have said something like, “Ok, we will have separate classrooms, but we are going to work on the principles of shared learning and cooperative learning in certain subject areas and that will define those subjects.” If, by contrast, you go to a completely experimental approach to learning, and the children are given complete freedom, it is very hard to integrate that approach into the mainstream of education. A similar case is found in the case of the patronage and ethos of schools. In Ireland, schools have traditionally been denominational and 95% were run by the Catholic Church. Of course in many small towns and villages the citizens would have had more of a secular quality, but the school was still under the Catholic Church. Then thirty years ago there was a movement to make schools multidenominational and the patronage would be held by the parents themselves. These schools started in middle class neighborhoods and they were very creative and experimental. But it was not until the schools became part of the less wealthy and rapidly developing neighborhoods that they started to be taken seriously as an approach. They had to stop being just the experiments of well-educated parents. These schools were known as “project schools” and the title “project” made them sound like a rarified experiment far outside out mainstream education. People thought they did not have any application outside of those experiments. But now the approach is called “educate together” and we see many of these new schools opening in all parts of the country using this model and it has garnered tremendous support at all levels of society.has tremendous support. The philosophy of these schools is “child-centered”, multidenominational, co-educational and democratically run. One could argue that the original principles of state schools are the same, but in practice they are not very democratic or child-centered. The point is that this new model for “educate together” schools has stayed close to many of the norms and regulations of regular state schools, but they have done so far better and more effectively. The result is that they now have a direct impact on policy itself, and impacting how schools are designed.

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Chapter 2 ESSAYS

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“The Frankenstein Alliance”

Emanuel Pastreich

If you read U.S. newspapers through a security lens, you might get the impression that Wash- ington is well on its way to containing China economically, politically and militarily. China is portrayed in the media as America’s enemy of choice: the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Re- port states explicitly that “of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter-strategies.” In response the United States is working closely with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Indonesia to develop closer bilateral military relationships. It has concluded a nuclear deal with India, remains close to Pakistan, and has cultivated strategic alliances in Central Asia with China’s neighbors. When former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld held a meeting in June 2006 with Mongolian Defense Minister Mishigiyn Sonompil one might have thought the United States had just about surrounded China. More recently, in October, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency touted a successful integrated ground test as the first step in a system that will counter the supposed military modernization of China that so threatens American security. And China tested an anti-satellite missile in response that caused great concern all around. In the political section of the newspaper, however, the United States is practically begging China to intercede and defuse the conflict with North Korea. Washington policymakers repeat ad nauseam that the Chinese must use its influence over Pyongyang to solve the nuclear standoff. More recently, American policy makers have slipped so deeply into the Middle East imbroglio that they can barely come up for air, let alone articulate a long-term Asia policy. Consequently, despite the invocation of a looming Chinese threat, the United States finds itself hoping for Chinese support, or at the least Chinese neutrality, in just about every important diplomatic issue from the Middle East to Africa. Finally, the culture and style sections of U.S. publications aimed at the upper middle class are filled with appealing images of a sleek China pulsing with vitality. Americans are gently drawn to Shanghai’s post-modern landscape; a stable China where healthy green tea is consumed and ancient culture endures. As far as the next generation of Americans is concerned, China is benign and close-at-hand. Chinese ideograms are sprinkled throughout the Saturday morning cartoons, and the study of Chinese is taking off, even in American elementary schools.

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Clearly the United States is having trouble deciding what to think about its rival. Chi- na is simultaneously an adversary and an ally, an attraction and a threat. The prevalent explanation for this schizophrenic U.S. view of China is that, although the two nations have common interests around the globe, strategic concerns and cultural differences lead to divergent approaches.

A more compelling explanation is that China and the United States have fashioned an economic alliance that both pulls the two countries together and, because of the logic of competition, pushes them apart. The resulting beast, a Frankenstein monster of composite parts, lurches forward without regard to the destruction it leaves in its wake. China and the United States both wholeheartedly subscribe to technological and economic integration through a cycle of massive production (in China) and consumption (in the United States) without concern for the social or cultural fabric of either nation. Economic exchange has served to unify the two countries at the level of infrastructure and transportation, but the process has created yawning chasms in the societies of both countries that are as dangerous as ICBMs or missile defense systems. The emphasis in both countries on a crude definition of economic growth that does not take into account the social or environmental consequences of manufacturing and consumption has encouraged an underlying disregard for the social responsibility of corporations and a burgeoning culture of waste. This merger of the United States and China takes the form of distribution systems and computer-based business networks that graft together hugger-mugger the tissue of two profoundly different societies. This new creature cannot understand its own heterogeneous nature, let alone decide which direction it wishes to pursue. Transnational corporations such as Wal-Mart sew together the two countries through logistics and distribution: A largely opaque world of factories, loading docks, shipping lines, trains, trucks, and warehouses that support a supply network permeating both countries. A transfer point for containers (or isotainers) owned by such unfamiliar giants of the U.S.-China economic system as China Shipping Con- tainer Lines in Ohio has more in common with similar facilities in China than it does with the surrounding Midwest community. Meanwhile, the rapid advancement of communications technology has resulted in a virtual “death of distance,” in Frances Cairncross’s phrase. A designer in the United States can e-mail a pattern for a dress to China and have it manufac- tured the same day. Here, too, Wal-Mart has led the way in developing these connections for manufacture. Increased tensions between the two countries are inevitable as they grapple with the evolving alliance in the absence of a common culture or language. Both sides feel their chains being yanked by invisible forces. As these profound shifts are rarely mentioned in leading journals, politicians and special interests struggle to make up a convincing tale to explain the disconcerting transformation.

Parallel Developments Although differences between China and the United States could result in conflicts, the similarities between the cultures of the two nations may well pose the greater threat. The similar 212

obsession with mass consumption, the disregard for environmental pollution, and the polarization of wealth draw the two countries ineluctably closer but at considerable peril not only to each other but the world as a whole. The media of China and the United States are awash in the similar images of individ- ualism expressed through customized consumption. Conspicuous consumption and the glori- fication of privatization, rather than the U.S. constitution or the American ideal of freedom, have been America’s contribution to China -- with devastating environmental consequences for the world. The growing triumph of automobile culture over the millions of bicycles that once plied the streets of Chinese metropolises is just one example of how China’s unprecedented demand for raw materials is endangering the global environment. One reason that a culture of consumption serves as the unifying belief system for the body politic in both China and the United States is that the ideological underpinnings of both states have largely collapsed with the end of the Cold War. In China, where communism was certainly a gallimaufry of hypocrisy and platitudes, social pressures nevertheless limited ex- travagant consumption. In the United States as well, the New Deal vision of social services that remained throughout the Cold War period has rotted away, leaving Americans fragmented and despondent, a “nation made of sand” to quote Chinese political leader Sun Yat-sen. Today, in both countries, consumption is a virtue. The death of a unifying ideology has transformed consumption into the act that gives human experience meaning. Also tying the two countries together is the increasing concentration of wealth, in part facilitated by the misappropriation of public funds to private individuals. The actual mechanisms behind such economic shifts in both countries are obscure: sophisticated financial in- struments, tax policy and outright corruption. The awareness of a breakdown of the consensus on relative social equality that existed in both nations, through articulated in different ideological terms, has not translated yet into a groundswell of support for fundamental political and economic change. Another ominous development in both China and the United States is the emergence of cosmopolitan urban areas that float in a sea of rural discontent. The traditional landscape of Shanghai has given way to a fantastical city of glass and steel. With its lack of space for community, Shanghai’s futuristic landscape more closely resembles the malls and city centers that have replaced neighborhoods and family businesses in the United States. It has much more in common with the upper tier of American metropolitan areas such as Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Dallas than it does rural China. And just as significantly, those American cities have more in common with Beijing and Nanjing than they do with rural America. While city dwellers in both nations lounge about in Starbucks Cafes, the rural populations are increasingly alienated and confused, and fall under the sway of anti-state rhetoric from obscure new political groups. In China, rebellious groups in rural areas are drawing considerable followings with their assaults on privilege. In the United States, Christian nationalism and other anti-globalist fundamentalisms of the right are gaining ground, leaving the blue cosmopolitan centers floating in a sea of red anger. China and the United States have taken a similar social and economic trajectory. Pri- vatization and shrinking government services in the United States have reduced once-proud 213

institutions into private fiefdoms and relieved policy makers of a sense of social responsibility. The dismantling of China’s central government carries similar implications. The deterioration of social responsibility, whether embodied in traditional Confucian- ism and Puritan republicanism or in New Deal social philosophy and socialist ideology, has made even the most educated blind to the horrors of unregulated economic development in China and the lack of equitable tax policies or enforcement mechanisms for regulatory policy in the United States. Laws are far less meaningful if those enforcing them no longer have a sense of the common good. The economic and political restructuring of both countries, which is connected as well to larger global developments that have removed many levers of control from the hands of states, has made it difficult for either Washington or Beijing to control investment and consumption, even if they were inclined to do so.

Taming the Monster? Although China has advantages over the United States in terms of its motivated workforce, its manufacturing base, and its increasing control of cultural and technological capital, Chi- na’s battle with the United States for global domination of hearts, minds, and markets will be a Pyrrhic victory. The immense environmental destruction resulting from this firm embrace of a radical consumer culture by both China and the United State may well drag down both nations, if not the entire world. The role that each nation plays in this process is distinct, although linked. The United States, as the consumer nonpareil, has committed itself to the economically suicidal practice of trying to make up for the loss of manufacturing capability by artificially creating demand through social pressure to consume. Americans individually are racking up debt, and the nation as a whole has slipped into the red. Although China has embraced the consumer perspective as well, it continues to serve primarily as the factory for the world. China is not a consumer in the same sense. Many Chinese continue to labor in marginal environments without the most basic protections -- for them consumption is a motivating ideology as much as a practice. China’s unsustainable growth and America’s unsustainable consumption have created an alliance that is, as once was said of Chrysler, “too big to fail.” The world financial system could not sustain the collapse of either country’s economy much less the combination of the two. And yet, the Frankenstein monster will inevitably come apart at the seams. In both Chi- na and the United States, a commitment to growth without concern for the environment, ram- pant consumerism, and widening disparities of wealth may well herald the dawn of a night- mare era of mutually assured ecological destruction. The problems with this alliance are so profound that there is no simple remedy. There are, however, conceptual, institutional, and policy shifts that can help to give hope, if not an immediate solution. At the conceptual level, we should follow the Chinese principle of zhengming (the rectification of names). Only when the terms we employ correspond with the reality we face can we make progress. For example, we need a standard for measuring growth that takes into account the damage to the environment, the harm to society, and the scarcity of resources

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created by unlimited consumption. Moreover, the new standard should be accepted not only among ecologists and sociologists, but the general populace of both countries. The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) developed by Yale’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy or the standards advanced in the Human Development Index (HDI) offer hints as to what a balanced assessment of development might look like. Both the United States (28th in the 2006 EPI, 8th in the HDI) and China (94th in the EPI, 81st in the HDI) have considerable room for improvement. This conceptual change should be accompanied by integration that creates meaningful, long-term ties between communities of specialists and local institutions. One such example would be the personal ties forged between students at San Diego's Patrick Henry High School and their Chinese colleagues as part of an experimental email program called ePALS. Lan- guage will be always an issue, but there is ample opportunity to build bridges at the regional level so that populations in China and the United States already joined at the hip can assign a human face to one another. With a different conceptual understanding of growth and a bottom-up integration strategy, it is possible to imagine a positive alliance between the United States and China based on neither the unlimited exploitation of resources nor vaguely articulated threats such as terrorism. If Beijing and Washington were to team up to address the looming enemies of pollution, climate change, and social stratification, then the currently monstrous alliance could evolve into one based not only on mutual interest but also on global needs.

Published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 9 March 2007

“Daejeon: Environmental Capital of Asia”

Jung Hoon Han & Emanuel Pastreich

No one would expect that it would be Daejeon, of all cities, that would take a leading role in adopting policies to reduce the consumption of energy, mitigate pollution and implement aggressive recycling policies, but it is easy to see that because Daejeon is blessed with such remarkable scientific resources, it is poised to become the environmental capital of Korea and serve, eventually, as a model for all cities in East Asia that are now engaged in the battle to rid themselves of the specter of environmental degradation and the addiction to imported oil. The first step towards this goal is simple: a contest for elementary school children asking for an answer to this question: "What is the best way for Daejeon to reduce its use of energy and reduce pollution?" The winner will be given a scholarship for university. The essays will be 215

published in all of the newspapers. And it will be made clear that freedom from oil and pollution is critical to our city's future. The next step for us will be a careful survey of all the technologies that have been developed in Daejeon and research underway at universities or government research centers that is relevant to energy conservation and pollution reduction. The most valuable and practical technologies and strategies will be identified, analyzed and a plan put forth for their application in Daejeon. That process will require considerable imagination, as the applications of technologies being developed to the reduction of energy consumption or elimination of pollution may not be immediately obvious. For example, technologies developed at the Korea In- stitute of Machinery and Materials or Korea Aerospace Research Institute may allow us to build highly efficient electric bikes that will reduce automobile traffic. Daejeon will not only be a center for research, it will become a testing ground for the applications of the new technologies developed here. Experimental trains with minimum emissions and maximum efficiency will be built using special computer coordinated tracks. New cutting-edge heating systems will be subject to large-scale testing in Daejeon to see whether we can cut down inefficiency. Space-age insulation materials will be added to all new housing to bring down heat loss, and the next generation of solar cells will be seen first in Daejeon. Daejeon will rapidly become a showroom for advanced energy and pollution technologies available nowhere else. We can expect global attention and increased interest in the region. Moreover, Daejeon can become a leader in environmental technologies as a result: a field that promises to grow exponentially as the environmental problems of China, India and the developing world are confronted over the next decade. We should think of this effort as equivalent of the plan to put a man on the moon. We will declare that Daejeon will be the greenest city in Asia in 8 years and will cut its energy use and pollution emissions by half in spite of anticipated growth. We will then have a clear, and difficult goal. We can then focus on using every technology that we have at hand to realize that ultimate goal. Let us consider the concrete steps we should take: We should conduct a survey of technologies with applications to reducing energy consumption and pollution. Technologies that reduce emissions; technologies that reduce energy waste; technologies that insolate homes; technologies that generate energy cheaply and cleanly; technologies for collecting and processing garbage; technologies for reducing garbage in the first place; technologies for making transportation more efficient; technologies for cleaning up pollution, etc. We can then identify which of those technologies can be applied effectively in Daejeon as part of an experimental run before global application. We should consider which technologies can be readily applied in China and India, but at the same time, we should also aim for a global standard, undertaking projects without precedent. Daejeon will become the center in Asia for environmental technologies. Establishment of a center for environmental issues in Daejeon that will coordinate the development and implication of these technologies. 216

Identify companies or organizations that can cheaply and effectively produce and distribute these new technologies in Daejeon. Promote policies and habits that reduce energy consumption and eliminate pollution in Daejeon. Technologies related to the environment will be immensely valuable in the years ahead. If Daejeon leads the way, we can become a center for the world economy over the next 15 years.

Published in OhmyNews, 10 January 2008

“Wenchuan as Eco-City”

John Feffer & Emanuel Pastreich

A devastating earthquake leveled the Chinese town of Wenchuan, leaving in its wake over 60,000 dead and five million homeless throughout Sichuan Province. It will take years to heal the damage of this tragedy. Nevertheless, even as aid organizations and local government scramble to erect temporary housing and supply drinking water, it's important to step back and consider how the international community can properly contribute long after the last rescue crew has left. First of all, today’s China is a very different place than the country that suffered a major earthquake 30 years ago. In 1976, China was largely closed to the world, despite an incip- ient rapprochement with the United States. As Wenran Jiangnotes, China has opened itself up to the world, accepting international rescue and medical teams to an unprecedented degree. “But for a tectonic shift to occur in the world’s perception of China as a new kind of superpower,” he writes, “Beijing needs to do more than demonstrate that its crisis management is better than Burma’s or that post-earthquake Sichuan is no post-Katrina New Orleans.”

One way for China to prove that it is a new kind of superpower is to do something that goes beyond simply rebuilding Wenchuan. It can make a virtue out of necessity and, with outside assistance, leapfrog over existing technologies to create a new kind of city. Such a transformation in the face of adversity is not unique. For instance, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 killed a similar number of people. That tragedy led to the development of the science of seismology. King Joseph of Portugal rebuilt Lisbon as a grand city boasting the first buildings with earthquake-resistant designs. Lisbon's Pombaline district from that era of regeneration remains a tourist attraction today.

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China can do Portugal one better. With international help, it can rebuild Wenchuan as an eco-city of energy efficiency and Green common sense that can inspire the world – a Gaviotas for the 21st century. Such an eco-city can be a model of sustainable development that points beyond the contradictions of economic growth based on energy consumption. Wenchuan could draw admirers just as Curitiba in Brazil does for its excellent public transportation and environmental urban planning. Such a tribute to the earthquake's victims, by implementing solutions that can save the planet, would be more fitting than any plaque or monument. China has already shown itself to be open to the establishment of eco-cities.Dongtan island, near Shanghai, is an ambitious effort to create a next-generation low-energy- consumption community powered by sustainable energy and organized by the Shanghai In- dustrial Investment Corporation. Built by the global engineering firm ARUP, Dongtan will feature extensive local organic farming that will make it food self-sufficient. Its public transportation will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and its carbon footprint will be virtually nonexistent. By doing something similar inland, China can transform not only how it approaches the environment but, because of how important China is to the global picture, how the world deals with climate change. The recreation of Wengchuan as an eco-city could rely on an already extensive regional network of environmental cooperation. Korea signed environmental cooperation agreements with both China and Japan in 1993. The Sino-Japan Friendship Centre for Envi- ronmental Protection has been around for more than a decade. In particular, Japan has been working with China to control the latter’s air pollution. Japanese cities, too, have established sister city relations with their Chinese counterparts, which has served as a conduit for transferring technology and know-how. When Chinese premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan in early May, his tour of a state-of-the-art recycling plant prompted a request for cutting-edge Japa- nese technology to address China’s environmental problems. Wenchuan could raise regional cooperation to the next level. Japanese technology, Korean funding, and the support of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia could all play important roles. Taiwan, too, could earmark special funds as part of a newly unfolding economic relationship with the mainland. But Wenchuan should not simply be a showcase. It must be sustainable and replicable. Much as Habitat for Humanity builds affordable housing for the poor around the world, the Wenchuan model must be workable not only where there are blank slates but also in existing cities. To deal effectively and honestly with the challenges of pollution, climate change, and energy inefficiency, we must focus our efforts on the neglected regions of the world where the struggle for economic growth trumps all other concerns. Using hybrid automobiles in wealthy countries or installing more efficient refrigerators, while necessary, is not nearly enough. Funding from wealthy countries must help cities like Wenchuan meet the new global standards for reducing carbon emissions.

If the Cold War was about the threat of nuclear war and massive ideological conflict, the environmental struggle today is about regaining harmony between nature and human development. President John F. Kennedy asserted his solidarity with the people of Berlin when he 218

said in 1961, "Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner' [I am a citizen of Berlin] All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'" In the spirit of the new age of environmentalism, let us update Kennedy’s famous words. Let us say today "Wo shi Wenchuan de Shimin" (I am a citizen of Wenchuan). In that spirit of compassion, let us rebuild Wenchuan, the victim of an act of nature, with an eye toward rebuilding all of our cities, the victims of our blind embrace of unsustainable growth. Published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 3 July 2008

“The Language of Climate Change”

Emanuel Pastriech

Many think tanks and NGOs in the United States and Europe – Sierra Club, Earthwatch, Sky – wield multimillion-dollar budgets with the aim of reducing environmental degradation and climate change on a global scale. Yet a glance at the websites of these institutions makes it immediately obvious that very few offer materials online (or offline) in the foreign languages spoken by corporate leaders, civil servants, and citizens' groups in countries the United States expects to make changes in environmental policy. We find nothing on these institutions' websites in Chinese, Russian, Hindi, or Arabic. Although English-language prescriptions may have some value in communicating with highly educated, English-speaking researchers from other countries, those individuals aren't the key figures driving reckless, damaging development and building of factories and coal plants. Nor are they likely to be the decision-makers in the government's response. To address issues like poisoned groundwater, increased numbers of coal plants, and disappearing forests, one must engage directly with local government and local industry, and make the case in their common language. In some nations, even the elites don't consider this local language important for intellectual discourse. In a nutshell, getting serious about combating climate change isn't about bringing English speakers from developing nations to listen to Harvard professors; it's about talking to players at the local level in the languages they best understand.

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Even highly educated civil servants in Japan find Japanese summaries of English proposals far easier to comprehend. And although educated Indians may wince at the suggestion, at the local level we need to get information out in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Bengali. Someone may ask if we really need to translate our ideas into dozens of languages to be effective. The answer is simple: Yes, eventually we must, if we are to pull the world back from the brink of environmental destruction. In the short term, however, we should focus on key languages such as Chinese, Russian, Arabic, and Hindi. Translating English-language documents doesn't imply people in these countries have a greater responsibility for global warming. Indeed, because the United States has the much larger carbon footprint, U.S. NGOs have the greater responsibility to invest in the dissemina- tion of information about global warming. Translation isn't simply communication. It's also the basis for cooperation as U.S. NGOs work with their counterparts overseas to refine the language and implement the recommendations. Translation is more than linguistic; it's cultural. Anyone who has engaged civil servants and corporations on the ground in Asia soon learns that it's not enough to make a proposal in the native language. A proposal has to be formatted in a specific form that can be processed by government, NGOs or companies internally. Translation, and translation that is relevant for the task at hand, is a key step in building partnerships. Yes, it will take extra effort for the Brookings Institution and the Earth Institute to put up websites in Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. But that's what has to happen if we want to start reaching people who can effect change. And if we don't, well, those in the developing world who complain that the developed world is simply not living up to its side of the bargain would have a point.

Published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 23 April 2009

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“The Eco-Currency: A Proposal”

Emanuel Pastreich

The environmental challenges we face today compel us to reconsider the conventional economic concept of growth and recognize that it cannot be easily reconciled with the dangerous implications of runaway consumption and unlimited development. The obvious solution to the environmental crisis is to devise a mechanism that will link the health of the global ecosystem directly to the economic rules that undergird all aspects of global finance, trade and investment in the post Cold-War era. That is to say, the environment must be embedded deeply into the heart of the global financial system and its roots must extend into the concepts by which we assess growth and imagine the economy. We would like to propose here that the most appropriate starting point for such a reform of our concept of the environment and its economic significance is with currency itself. The international community should establish an eco-currency that will serve either as a universal currency or as a factor that significantly impacts all the global currencies linked to the IMF. How much of that currency a nation possesses will be a reflection of its environmental policies. Such a mechanism stands the best chance of encouraging significant progress on the environmental front. If the eco-currency serves as one of several factors impacting all global currencies, it might serve as something akin to the SDR (special drawing rights) system currently employed by the International Monetary Fund. According to the IMF website, member [nations] with sufficiently strong external positions are designated by the Fund to buy SDR s with freely usable currencies up to certain amounts from members with weak external positions. That strong external position could be redefined so as to consist primarily, or entirely, of environmental criterion. The eco currency could also serve as a gold standard for all nations of the world, per- mitting each nation to increase its money supply in direct proportion to the environmental credits that it has accumulated through wise and effective policies by reducing emissions and preserving water and soil. After all, in that the gold standard was based on a mineral that was exceptionally rare and valuable, it is a logical extension of that concept to argue that a healthy ecosystem is the most valuable commodity available. In fact, the ecosystem is far more valuable than gold because it is so critical to human life. Each nation would continue to have sov- ereignty with regards to its own currency, but the calculation of that currency will take into account the environmental status of each country and its share of a calculated total of environmental credits for the entire world. Whether it served as a universal currency, or as a factor impacting all hard currencies, the eco-currency available to the world would be calculated as equal to a total global sum of environmental credits. Those credits would be assigned to a country based on an evaluation of how good a job that nation does reducing harmful emissions, preserving undeveloped lands, caring for its water supplies and otherwise implementing policies that have a positive

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effect on the environment. Although the calculation of what the total number of environmental credits for the world should be and the division of that total number between the nations of the world would be difficult, and at times political, it would by no means be an impossible task. Such an international currency program based on environmental credits would make the abstractions of carbon trading far more palpable and more visible in the financial world. The policy would require all makers of fiscal and developmental policy at the local level to engage in a serious debate on the implications of their policies for climate change as part of their economic policies. No longer would it be possible to think separately about monetary policy and environmental policy; the two would be effectively yoked together. By reflecting the consequences of good environmental policy at the core of our future economic system, we can ensure that environmental issues cannot be put on the back burner.

Published in Asia-Pacific Business and Technology, 1 March 2010

“The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: New Thinking in Northeast Asia?”

Markku Heiskanen & James Goodby

Over fifty heads of state will meet at the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit on March 26-27. Among the participants is US President Barack Obama, host of the first nuclear security summit held in Washington, DC, in April 2010. The primary motive for convening the 2010 nuclear security summit was to address the unprecedented threat of nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists. This remains the main task of the summit, but two other security problems will be on the minds of participants: the Fukushima catastrophe of 2011 and the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. The nuclear crises in the Middle East and Northeast Asia and the stalled promise of a nuclear renaissance in civil nuclear power could all be solved by a more rational approach to the generation of electric power. Although it will take years before the current, outdated system is replaced, the Seoul meeting could provide a political impetus. The new system would rest on three legs: small modular reactors (“mini-reactors”), internationally managed nuclear

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fuel services, and increasing reliance on the distributed (local) generation of electricity. After the disaster in Fukushima, there has been an understandable retreat from plans for large-scale reactors, with their inevitable safety issues. A vivid example of this reaction is found in Ger- many, which has cancelled its plans to increase the generation of electricity from nuclear reactors even though they are cleaner and more dependable than most other sources currently available. Vulnerabilities and inefficiencies of long-distance transmission lines point to a paradigm for generation and distribution of electric power that is more local – connected to national grids, to be sure, but able to operate independently of them. This is an ideal situation for mini-reactors, which are safer and less prone to encourage the spread of nuclear weapons. Internationally managed nuclear fuel services already exist and the security of supply can be assured by policies that foster more fuel service centers in Asia and elsewhere, including in the United States. These factors would enable suppliers of mini-reactors to expand their business to nations like North Korea and Iran under IAEA safeguards. The relevance of this energy paradigm to resolving the issues in North Korea and Iran is evident: both nations could develop civil nuclear programs with assured supplies of nuclear fuel from multiple internationally managed fuel service centers in Russia, China, and Western Europe while avoiding the ambiguity of nationally operated plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment. Reliance on distributed generation of electricity would be more efficient and less prone to blackouts. And the presence of a level playing field should be apparent from the fact that similar arrangements would be the 21st-century way of generating electricity from nuclear energy in the developed economies as well as in energy-starved economies such as India and China. Is this vision nothing but a dream? Maybe, but the main issues standing in the way are neither technical nor economic, but political. That is not to say that political problems are easy to solve. Einstein famously said that politics is harder than physics. Politics will be front and center at the summit because it takes place in one of the major capitals of Northeast Asia, and all heads of state from this region or engaged with it – North Korea excluded – are participating. This will open opportunities to discuss regional problems in a situation quite different from that of the first nuclear security summit in Washington in 2010. Northeast Asia is one of the most dangerous hotbeds of global nuclear diplomacy. China and Russia are nuclear weapon states; the United States, also a nuclear weapon state, is a regional political actor; North Korea has conducted two nuclear weapons tests; and Japan, South Korea, and even Taiwan can “go nuclear” in a relatively short period of time. The Seoul summit could, at least indirectly, become a launching pad for settling this fatal situation. One can never be certain when it comes to Korean developments, but new hope has arisen after the United States and North Korea reached an agreement on a North Ko- rean moratorium on nuclear activities in Beijing on February 29. This may be a modest step forward, but it is encouraging. Fulfillment of this understanding would open the door to resumption of the six-party talks, where a framework already exists to discuss the elements of a political settlement: commitment to a nuclear-weapons-free Korean Peninsula, an interim agreement on borders and means of ready communication between the parties, people-to- people contacts, economic cooperation, and a Northeast Asia organization for security and 223

cooperation akin to the Helsinki process, including its human rights provisions. It can be considered the first major signal by the new Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang that they are open to direct dialogue with the Americans. There will be a shift of power in South Korea in early 2013, when the term of Presi- dent Lee Myung-bak comes to an end. The United States will hold its presidential and con- gressional elections in November, Vladimir Putin has just been elected president of Russia, and China will have a new president in 2013. As for Japan, changes in government seem to occur several times a year. All of these changes cause observers of the Northeast Asian scene to conclude that the time for a more active diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula is approaching. And that refers not only to solving the North Korean nuclear issue but also to several legacies dating from World War II and the Korean War. The ultimate goal should be to sign a peace treaty to end formally the Korean War, which concluded only with an armistice agreement in 1953, and to reunify Korea in one way or another. There is some well-founded hope that the year 2012 could open a new era in multilateral efforts to finally construct a new post-Cold War political and security architecture in Northeast Asia. Europeans have a low profile in Northeast Asia. Almost all EU-member states, however, have diplomatic relations with North Korea, and a number of major Europe- an states have resident ambassadors in Pyongyang. The successful post-war arrangements in Europe have often been held up as an example of how a multilateral peace process could be initiated in Northeast Asia. The Finnish experience of the Helsinki CSCE (Conference on Se- curity and Cooperation in Europe) in 1969-75 proved that patience and determination will bear fruit in the long run. Perhaps this is also a good recipe for Northeast Asia.

Published by The Nautilus Institute, 20 March 2012 http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/the-seoul-nuclear-security-summit-new- thinking-in-northeast-asia/

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“To Take the Lead Globally Korea must build the Ferrari of Hand-held Devices”

Emanuel Pastreich

It may seem odd to suggest that Italy be the model for Korea in its future development in technology. Although Italy does not hold the dominant position in high volume manufacturing that Korea possesses, Italy offers exactly what Korea needs to jump into the next stage of economic development: an emphasis on fashion and ergonomics. Italy has established itself as the undisputed leader in design, with such names as Gucci, Prada and Ferragamo in fashion and in the automotive sector with leaders such as Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini. The aesthetic sensibility and artistic quality found in Italian products are what Korean products lack today.

Let us start with the basic facts. Korea does not need more technology at this point and it does not need more manufacturing capacity. It needs to build cutting-edge devices that will capture the imagination of users and define new fields, along the lines of the I-Phone. Let us consider the case of handheld devices. Korea must dominate the high-end of handheld devices and use that position to make its brand value unassailable along the lines of Gucci or Ferrari. Let us imagine that Korea builds a "Ferrari of Hand-held devices" a top of the line device that is so innovative and so luxurious that it leaves behind all competitors. That specific product will affect how all Korean products are perceived globally, placing Korea in an unprecedented dominant position. At present there are top of the line handheld devices available, but they the market for a truly exclusive range of handhelds (10 million to 60 million Won range) has yet to be explored seriously. The opportunity for Korea is tremendous in this blue ocean. Part of the problem is the "imagination gap" that so troubles Korea. We find that the design used in Korean devices is often unimaginative and even trite: an attempt to catch up with an imagined modern world in the United States rather than a daring leap forward into uncharted territory. The images used for the icons in Korean handhelds are bland stock pho- tos. The structure of menus lacks innovation. The technology is a breakthrough but the design is not. But the point is not that Korea should team up with Gucci. Rather Korea should learn from Italy how to combine its own cultural and manufacturing sectors effectively. All you have to do is open up a recent issue of "Art in America" magazine to see that Korea has the most creative and adventurous visual artists in the world. Those Korean mavericks of painting and sculpture (music and drama) are second to none. But they are not being consulted at Samsung about the layout of the Galaxy. Korea has both the artistic creativity and the engineering know-how. All we need is to bring them together.

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Let us take a moment to imagine what the Ferrari of handheld devices might look like. The exterior will be handcrafted of wood, stone and silver with the loving care you might put into a diamond necklace. Although the software within the device will be changed constantly, the perfectly crafted exterior will last for a lifetime. The visual representation of information will be deceivingly easy to use, so well thought out that it is additive, no matter what the price. CEOs will gladly pay fifty million Won, or more, for one of these devices. The images used within the device will be stunning. They will be remarkable illustra- tions in a perfectly designed "interior architecture" for the representation of information. The layout within the programs will be original and highly functional. The handheld features an inner landscape so perfectly structured as to create a "memory palace" for the user that he can constantly customize to his needs. The user can walk through a 3D "house" within the device that organizes all information on shelves and drawers, or boxes, or whatever form is most appealing to the individual. Just clip on a pair of electronic "eyeglasses" and the user can wander through the device like her apartment to find and organize information in the most convenient manner. As the user builds the "interior" of his hand-held's virtual reality, this activity of per- sonalizing the representation of information becomes a personal, even creative, activity for the user. He will never want to give up the device he has invested so much time in creating an internal world in. The major problem of our day is that handhelds, rather than helping the CEO, have made him into a secretary. He must schedule everything by himself and call, message or email all day long. The amount of time consumed is enormous. The solution is to put the secretary in the device. A live secretary (or team) works remotely with the handheld device to arrange all information in an optimal manner 24 hours a day, and conduct research. A super- computer link helps with more complex tasks. The potential of this market for high-end handhelds has not even begun to be explored. If the user has a pile of business cards after a party, he can just take a picture of them with the device and press send. The information will be input in the optimal manner by the device support team. And after research has been done by the team on the business cards, recommendations are made as to how those individuals could be useful for specific ongoing projects. Another service is instant access to experts. If the CEO needs to talk with an expert on nuclear power, or on biotechnology, or a real estate agent in Argentina, the support team will use a paid group of consultants to set up the telephone call immediately. Simultaneous translation will be offered as well if necessary. For a bit higher cost, the CEO can be put in touch at the press of a button with Nobel Prize winners or important figures in the arts and media. This built in consulting service will make all the difference to the CEO in his business activities. Price will be a secondary concern. Korea can learn something valuable from the Italian tradition of high-end craftsman- ship. Korea has some of the most creative artistic minds in the world. Bring those artists into the workshop at Samsung and SK and there will be no limit to how far Korea can go.

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Published in Asia-Pacific Business Technology, 27 September 2010

“Korea as Number One in the Robot Revolution”

Emanuel Pastriech

We have read numerous articles describing the apocalyptic future that awaits Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and portions of China’s coastline as a dramatic drop in childbirths, combined with the extended life expectancy, creates cities of elderly with no youth to support them. Although such concerns are not unfounded, and if all other factors were constant, this would be convincing enough, yet there is one factor that many analysts have left out. There is currently a revolution taking place in robot technology which will be fully unleashed over the next five years, from 2012 to 2017. An increasing number of tasks will be done more effectively and more consistently by robots, a change that may well completely transform society as well as our relationship with machines. Although we are beginning to get some sense of the contours of this shift in our world, most citizens have not fully thought through just how profound those changes may be. Superannuated societies are distinctive in that they have an extremely low resistance to the use of robots and mechanization. In fact, many children in Korea are hoping that robots will be as sophisticated as possible, as soon as possible, so that they can entrust their aging parents to be cared for by them. It will be no small feat to design robots that can feed, bathe, medicate and amuse aging people, but we have every reason to believe that such robots will be developed in the very near future—in part as a result of the evolution of technology and in part because of demand in Northeast Asia. The question is not so much what technologies are possible, but rather how much social resistance there will be to their implementation. In this respect, Korea will have the least resistance, as it literally may need robots to run its society. Although this might seem at first

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glance to be a demographic disaster, it is very well possible that we are observing a classic blessing in disguise. As other nations struggle over the pros and cons of complete automation and the use of robots in the home, Korea will have no doubt as to which way they should go. That means that Koreans will be the earliest adapters of robot technologies and Korea will potentially become the leader in the new wave: complete integration of robots in daily life after 2015. Korea will gain tremendous advantages in its technological and economic development, advantages that far outweigh the short term problems of a drop in population.

Published in Asia-Pacific Business Technology, 21 March 2011

“The Fukushima Disaster Opens New Prospects for Coop- eration in Northeast Asia”

Markku Heiskanen & James Goodby

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan has dramatically demonstrated the interdependence between the countries of Northeast Asia. This crisis poses a palpable threat to Northeast Asia, and is not an issue of military conflict, but rather of environmental pollution as radioactive materials spread across national frontiers. It is an example of a number of transnational issues that can be addressed effectively only through cooperative actions. It is hard to find any positive thing to be said about this disaster except to express the hope that this common threat can rally Northeast Asia to recognize that degradation of the environment is an immediate threat. If it can lead the nations of Northeast Asia to divert more of their budgets to non-traditional threats, it could be a unique gift presented by this crisis. The massive release of radioactive material is a serious threat with implications for all of us and requires renewed examination of nuclear safety globally, not just in Japan.The countries in Northeast Asia are heavily dependent on nuclear power. China already has 13 power reactors and 25 more are being built. Others are planned. In Japan there are 50 main reactors. There are 21 nuclear reactors in South Korea. North Korea has one. Given this concentration of reactors in areas where earthquakes and other natural disasters have happened fairly frequently, it would be prudent to consider whether additional safety measures are called for. The full support of the entire international community is needed to address nuclear reactor safety. Top experts from around the world should be mobilized to discuss how radioac-

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tivity from damaged reactors can best be contained. International research teams should work around the clock to develop new systems to prevent and respond to similar crises. We need full funding support to quickly make the solutions proposed viable. There are two possible avenues for progress in this area: one is the Nuclear Security Summit scheduled to meet in Seoul in 2012; the other is to proceed within the framework offered by the Six-party Talks. This process should and can be started without delay in Northeast Asia. The six-party talks, aimed since 2003 at solving the North Korean nuclear issue, offers a ready-made forum for such a regional conference in Northeast Asia with the participation of Japan, China, North and South Korea, Russia and the United States. There is a specific working group on economy and energy ready to tackle this issue. European expertise could be utilized in the process. If those talks are not reinstated soon, a forum might be found within the framework of preparatory work for the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit. Although the main target in the talks should be urgent development of a regional energy safety system, in the longer run what should emerge is a fully developed regional energy system. The ultimate goal should be a Northeast Asia Energy Development Organization including all the countries of the region. This proposal, and how to realize it, could be discussed in the run-up to the Seoul Summit. The President of South Korea already has suggested that North Korea participate in the Seoul Conference. It would be natural to invite North Korean energy experts to participate in the preparatory talks if an item such as is suggested here were on the agenda. A version of such an organization was established in 1995 as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), in which the EU also participated, to fulfill the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework. It was founded by Japan, South Korea and the United States. KEDO was terminated in 2006 after evidence of uranium enrichment activities in North Korea was revealed. Finland was the first general member of KEDO. A new and more comprehensive energy organization should include China, Russia, Japan, the United States, the ROK and the DPRK. The EU might also participate in some fashion. The mandate should be to promote energy security and safety in Northeast Asia and contribute to economic development. It should have a standing secretariat; broad oversight should be provided by a Council of Ministers. The European Atomic Energy Community’s charter suggests some relevant missions. The provision of nuclear fuel services could be multilateralized within this framework, allowing the sharing of both North and South Korea in the ownership and the output of one or more nuclear fuel service facilities in China, Russia, and Japan. The condition must be, of course, that the DPRK re-commits to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), including its status as a non-nuclear weapon state. And that means a confirmed dismantling of its nuclear weapons program. The European post-war experience of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), founded in 1951, has lessons which may be useful in the present situation. The insight of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and his intellectual collaborator, Jean Monnet, was that if Franco-German production of coal and steel were placed under a common High Authority, it would plant the seeds of peace between Germany and France. To- 229

day’s European Union traces its origins to Schuman’s declaration of May 9, 1950, celebrated today as “Europe Day”. We can turn the disaster in Japan into a process towards a new era of peace and security in Northeast Asia. Published by The Nautilus Institute, 28 June 2011

“Take Naver Global Today!”

Emanuel Pastreich

Korea has a unique search engine known as Naver (naver.com) which I frequently employ in my searches to find relevant information about Korea and the world. One need only spend a few minutes using Naver's convenient maps, informative "café" discussion groups and interactive dictionaries to realize this search engine is unique in the world. The intelligent combination of search features, news features and social networking features in one site is quite powerful. Koreans are extremely picky consumers, but many prefer conducting their searches and socializing through Naver to Google. Naver's "knowledge search" program uses a dialogic approach to locating relevant information that was the inspiration for "Yahoo! Answers," according to Bradley Horowitz of Yahoo! Moreover, Junior Naver has a very impressive range of activities for children that have a higher educational content than is generally the case in its foreign rivals. But in spite of all the world-class innovation taking place at Naver, there is no English (or any other language) version of Naver available. What a shame! Koreans have invested that much into building a world-class search engine and social networking platform that offers a truly interactive space, but if you don't know Korean, you cannot use it. The time has come to take remarkable innovations that are locked away from the international community and make them the backbone for a breakthrough global search engine and on-line community. Although the current language is limited to Korean, much of Naver could be taken global. This hesitancy to go global has haunted Korea for some time. Korea was the first country in the world to develop metal moveable type, back in 1377, with the Jikji Buddhist text. Unfortunately, Koreans did not see metal moveable type as a breakthrough innovation with global implications and left it to the Europeans to fully exploit this technology. More recently Cyworld came on the stage in 1999, employing ground-breaking "mini home pages" and avatars that offer a unique social networking experience-one that Facebook has yet to match. Sadly, however, Koreans did not invest early in taking the Cyworld concept

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global. The international version of Cyworld was developed far too late, and even then, it was set up in such a way that it was not possible to connect with the members of the Korean Cyworld community-thereby cutting the international version off from its foundations. Facebook has taken over the social network market globally. Cyworld did not fail to reach the status of Facebook because its content was inferior, it but because the inspired individuals who developed Cyworld did not think seriously about its assets from a global perspective. Somehow being successful in the Korean market seemed good enough, or perhaps they felt that Naver's features were so uniquely Korean they would not have any international appeal. Naver, still has a chance for global success, but Naver cannot succeed globally by simply export parts and finished products like Samsung and Hyundai. Naver will have to bring in to the tent experts from around the world to help design localized versions of Naver suited to other markets markets. The challenge will be great, but so will the opportunity. Ko- reans should be more confident about the potential global markets for domestic innovations.

Published in Korea IT Times, 18 July 2011

“Is the United States a threat even if it is just minding its own business?”

Emanuel Pastreich

Most of us are still a bit vague about where all that money is going to be cut from the federal and state governments of the United States. Perhaps some of the cuts will come out of the bloated military budget, thereby reducing the threats that our troops around the world are subject to, and at the same time also generate. Certainly many who actually serve in the military would welcome such a reduction in spending. But we need to start thinking about a new and unprecedented security threat on a global massive scale: the United States without safety protocols and effective inspection regimes for the vast range of dangerous materials collected over the last sixty years. The United States is a pile of chemical waste dumps, aging nuclear power plants, nuclear materials—and weapons—storage facilities, oil rigs, oil pipelines, mines (active and abandoned), armories and any number of railroads and highways that require an enormous investment to maintain safely. There is every reason to believe that a big chunk of this massive budget cut is going to come out of the less visible inspection, maintenance and repair programs that are quietly carried out at the Federal and state level to address the serious security issues described above. If 231

those budgets are slashed, and inspections and security is cut to the bone, we can look forward to massive security threats within our borders that have nothing to do with Taliban and or Al Qaeda. But dwarf them in terms of the scale of potential damage. Unfortunately, the industries and constituencies concerned with such safety inspections do not hire the most expensive lobbyists and rarely show up in the press. Inspectors and experts cannot be expected to defend themselves in Washington D.C. We need only to remember the ongoing crises born of the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the failure of infrastructure at the time of Hurricane Katrina, and the disaster unleashed when a tsunami that hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011 to get a sense of the scale of the risk involved. A few more major industrial or infrastructural disasters in the United States will be enough to bring us the country to its knees and end the age of American internationalism.

Posted on Circles and Squares on on August 9, 2011

“After Kimchi and Winter Sonata: The Intellectual Korean Wave”

Emanuel Pastreich

The Korean Wave (hallyu) has swept the world. Korea's romantic songs, thrilling movies and compelling television dramas have captured the imagination of a new generation-and quite a few from the previous generation. Although the mystique of Korean popular culture first took root in Japan and China, it has crept through Southeast and Central Asia and is now rolling into the Middle East and South America. Moreover, the Korean wave has extended to fashion and cosmetics, food and sports. Nevertheless, although the Korean Wave has vastly enhanced Korea's visibility, we find that further up in the food chain the Korean Wave has not started in earnest. The truth is that most intellectuals in the United States, Europe or even Japan cannot name any Korean writers, have not read the essays of Korea's major intellectuals, and have little sense of the depth of Korea's history. We do not see English translations of articles by major Korean journalists appearing in the New York Times, and although President Obama may praise Korean education, he does not cite Korean experts. But as someone living in Korea, someone who reads Korean books and journals, visits Korean galleries and talks with Korean intellectuals, I can affirm that there is plenty over here that deserves to be introduced to the world in a big way.

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The highest priority is for us to introduce Korea's cultural past. There is an incredible wealth of writings by Koreans on Buddhism, Confucianism, self, and society produced over the last two millennia that has barely been touched. In most cases, those translations of the Korean classics that do exist were part of rushed projects to get out large amounts of text in short periods of time. We need scholars like Arthur Waley whose loving translation of Japan's Tale of Genji made it an essential part of literature classes around the world, or David Hawkes whose remarkable translation of China's Dream of the Red Chamber has made the novel a favorite. When the translations are of the highest caliber, international politicians and pundits will start to quote the great Koreans of the past. Only then will it no longer appear as if Korea suddenly stepped out onto the global stage in the 1980s. Korean traditional medicine is a growth field. Korean scholarship on acupuncture and herbs is in many respects more comprehensive than what is available in China and Japan. And yet even as scholars at Harvard Medical School are taking a deeper interest in oriental medicine, little is available about Korea's great medical tradition in English. Kyung Hee Uni- versity's Kim Nam-il's translation of "Donguibogam" (Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine) into English is a critical first step, but more steps are needed. But the question is also one of the visibility of intellectuals. Let us take the case of Thomas Friedman. Friedman writes about dozens of countries in his best-seller The World is Flat. It is a sign of cultural success that American intellectuals are taken seriously not only for their opinions about the United States, but also for their writings about other countries. Koreans must do the same: get their perspectives out about all issues, not just Korea. I recently read the fascinating book entitled Afghanistan: Lost Civilization: A Tribute the Vanished Buddhas of Bamiyan (아프가니스탄 잃어버린 문명: 진 바미얀 대불을 위 한 헌사) by Ju-hyeong Lee (이주형). In loving detail, Lee presents the tragedy of Afghani- stan's contested cultural traditions and the fatal decision of the Taliban to destroy the nation's most sacred Buddhist statues. I found Lee's writing to be exceptionally lucid and feel strongly that if the book were properly translated into English, it could be a global best seller. When Korean writers start getting their articles published in world class intellectual journals like Daedalus and their books introduced in the New York Times Book Review, the Korean wave will be complete. At this point Koreans don't seem to think much further than Nature and Cell Magazine. And, at the same time, we need to build Korean publishers like Seoul National University Press into global players. Korea is producing some of the most creative and innovative artists in contemporary art. I find it hard to flip through a copy of Art In America without seeing a work by a Korean. Yet those artists are just starting to get the attention that they deserve globally. What do we need to do? Well, we could form a "Seoul School" of painting with an original and significant vision, and get the word out about it globally. Or, we can just start integrating the avant-garde art of Seoul's artists into Seoul's architecture and public design. That alone would create a unique city environment. Seoul is already a thriving metropolis. It would just take a little nudge to take it to the level of Paris and Rome. Finally, Korean language instruction needs to move up a notch as well. We need Ko- rean textbooks that are imaginative and intriguing, with lively and humorous language taken from the best of Korean writing. We must leave behind those predictable dialogs between 233

John the foreigner and Mr. Kim and create texts that focus on compelling scenes from Seoul's cafes and offices. Such materials will compel international students to learn more. We also have to demand that international students read and write Korean at a high level. The Korean acceptance of the low level of foreigners in the Korean language has hampered the development of bilingual internationals. Moreover, dictionaries of Korean language should be produced that are for international readers, not for Koreans. At present, a Korean-English dictionary presents the word "nolda" (놀다) followed by sentences illustrating the usage of different English equivalents. But there is no English language definition of "nolda" to be found anywhere. Why? Because the editors assume that the reader is a Korean and therefore already knows what "nolda" (to play) means. As Korean culture becomes more central in the world, it will be essential to make sure the teaching of Korean is first class. Tragically, many courses in the Korean language taught in the United States are aimed at Korean Americans. Non-heritage students drop out after of Korean language courses after a few weeks because they simply cannot keep up with Korean Americans. But, ironically, those non-heritage students are the most likely to go on and become Korea experts. Korea already has all it takes to be a cultural power like France, Germany or the Unit- ed States at the highest intellectual level. All that is needed is the will and the vision.

Published in Korea IT Times, 16 August 2011

“Key Factors for the Future Success of Scientific Research Institutes”

Emanuel Pastreich

The future of the research institute is one of the most critical topics of our age. Across the world, research institutes are struggling to define their vision and their function in response to 234

the rapid evolution of technology and a changing economic and demographic environment. Here are a few issues that are central to assuring that a future research institute fully realizes its potential.

1. The need for a vision of how the research institute contributes to society In the long term, large research projects will be strong candidates for funding, and broad enthusiasm among workers, researchers and taxpayers if they feature an over-arching vision for explicit social contributions. In an age of limited budgets, the need to show social relevance will be decisive. We have many research institutes that describe their research in terms of biotechnology or nanotechnology. Such descriptions are fine from an intellectual point of view, but in the future justifications for funding must be made in terms of a direct response to serious medical, environmental, or energy challenges, locally and internationally. Creating an intellectual backdrop that highlights how the research institute is leading the way, not only in terms of new developments in medicine and biotechnology, but also in an ethical sense, will be the key to building international collaboration networks. Those networks, by extension, will determine the effectiveness of the institution.

2. The building of global consortia Although the research center may feature a group of outstanding researchers dedicated to solid research within the domains recognized in today's scholarly discourse, it is critical for the research institute to build global coalitions for collaborative research on larger critical topics. The degree to which the research institute plays a leading role in the formation of consortia with other major institutions around the world will determine its own evolution. Investment in the hiring and training of staff with the professional and analytic skills necessary to identify valuable partners internationally, create win-win coalitions, and put together win-win funding packages on a global scale needs to emphasized. If research institutes build larger, but focused, coalitions, they can put together creative international programs for funding that go beyond what any one national research institute could achieve. One of the biggest challenges going forward will be putting together international financing coalitions to fund complex research projects that continue over years. Such projects will require that research be split among major research institutes around the world and they may be financed jointly by corporations, by local and central governments, by foundations, and by international organizations. The process of putting together such complex coalitions, whether to complete a research project or to get a possible product or application through the "valley of death" will be increasingly complex and will require investment in sophisticated teams to construct and maintain such coalitions. Although such efforts are already going on around the world, they could be carried out in a more sophisticated and specialized manner- and the advantage will be with the research institutes that first dedicate the resources to the building of global consortiums. It may eventually be necessary to have teams to negotiate agreements consisting of sophisticated speakers of foreign languages such as Chinese, Japa- nese, or Arabic-and who understand the institutional landscape of multiple countries.

3. The importance of an artists' colony to a research institute

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The next generation of scientific research institute will require an artistic and musical soul that will bring depth to its institutional culture and make it the preferred place for innovation and intellectual stimulation. Let us remember the example of Soho in New York City and how it transformed a run-down neighborhood into a major intellectual and cultural center. The central role in the creation of Soho was played by artists who moved into this neighborhood of empty warehouses and created a thriving community. The power of artists to create an environment that will inspire scientists and help to generate the sort of innovative research that is most desired cannot be underestimated. Although few planners of research institutes think about making a space for artists within those institutions, such a decision would be the smartest one they could make. Although the creation of art may seem quite at a remove from scientific research, an ecosystem of artistic creation can do much to inspire the entire institute and produce a vibrant culture of excellence. A group of artists who work within the research institute will attract top researchers-people for whom cultural attributes are important-and inspire creative approaches to research within the laboratory and the board room.

4. The role of artists in improving the visual representation of information Although few scientists recognize its importance, the visual representation of information has become one of the most important issues these days in the biomedical field (and many other technical fields). The analysis of materials, molecules, and atoms at the nano-level today produces complex information that is remarkably difficult to digest and visualize. The three- dimensional qualities of molecules have real implications, but scientists and laymen are having tremendous difficulty in comprehending them. The marriage of the visual arts and the sciences in the visual representation of information at the microscopic and molecular scale is a central topic for the research institute. The last few years there have witnessed the release of several remarkable short films that provide compelling representations of the function of a cell. There is much room for the collaboration of artists and scientists to develop effective and convincing means to present the immense amount of data generated in research in a compelling manner. To the degree to which information is attractively represented, research is interesting and inspiring. The visual representation of information over next ten years will become absolutely critical to success. There is a vital role for those with a strong sense for the effective representation of information, especially artists, within the research institute.

5. Designing the laboratory with special attention to ergonomics and customized IT solutions One simple step that can do much to improve our laboratories is to think carefully about how the laboratory itself is configured and equipped. Frequently, top research institutes are poorly designed with little concern for the actual needs of researchers. Laboratories that are designed to improve access to equipment, enhance collaboration between units, and make long periods of concentrated work pleasant and stress-free are far more effective. Innovations in the design of laboratory space can have profound impact on the functioning of research institutes. Often just taking the time to observe how researchers work and provide suggestions for improve-

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ment can make a huge difference. We can employ innovative ergonomic designs for laboratory equipment and cutting-edge IT displays to create a revolutionary research environment.

6. Use of prototypes for computers and lab equipment and adaptation of a system for the rapid replacement of hardware As the rate of technological change increases, new paradigms for research institutes must be adapted that can change rapidly. There is a need for a far more flexible IT infrastructure. The next decade will see the emergence of custom-designed equipment for analysis. Rather than buying equipment off the shelf, we will find that IT infrastructure is increasingly part of the experiment, carefully structured to respond quickly to changing needs. The future laboratory will bring in technical equipment in response to specific needs and then remove it as soon as the work is complete. The degree to which the research integrates this new reality into its planning will be critical.

7. Webinars, distance communications systems, and long-term institutional relations The death of distance predicted by Frances Cairncross is at last starting to transform research. And yet, precious few research institutes are designed in a manner to facilitate virtual meetings and close collaboration over distances. Yet we can imagine a moment in the not-too- distant future when the networks that the research institute maintains internationally are as important as its infrastructure. The ability to link up databases, to set up convenient and effective webinars,d and to develop effective means of sharing complex information over great distances will be critical to the success of research institutes. To the degree that research institutes invest in such innovations, they will be able to create alliances internationally and place themselves at the core of multiple international collaborative efforts.

Published in Korea IT Times, 9 September 2011

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“Korean Technology Beyond Motherboards and Displays”

Emanuel Pastreich

The term "technology" demands our special attention because the challenges we face require us to move beyond the rather limited significance assigned to the word. “Technology” generally refers to applied techniques for design and the fabrication of parts for the electronics industry, and to a lesser degree to mechanical engineering, energy generation, and biotechnology. But rapid changes in society such as the environmental crisis and the aging population are putting great pressure on us to expand the definition of technology to allow for new and novel solutions. As Albert Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Technology also must be taken up to another level. Let us consider the original significance of the term "Technology." It derives from the Greek term "techne" denoting “skill” or “craft.” So also the Korean term “gisul” (技術) is a compound formed of two terms for ability, both of which are far broader in their original meaning than in the current interpretation. As Korea plays a more central role globally, we must reconsider exactly what is meant by technology in a Korean context. More specifically, we need to consider the remarkable technological tradition of Korea over the last thousand years and what technologies lie there, perhaps sleeping and waiting for application.

My good friend Hyun Gak the Buddhist monk recently wrote an essay worth quoting, “Kore- ans had this advanced technology [of meditation and awareness] before there was any Sam- sung, before there was an Einstein, an Edison, or even an Isaac Newton.” We tend to emphasize the amazing achievements of Korea since the Korean War, but there was so much here before then. Although foreigners are impressed, and Koreans are jus- tifiably proud, of what Korea has achieved so quickly, the unexpected consequence of playing up rapid growth is that we tend to downplay just how much Korea had achieved in the previous two thousand years. In the realm of Buddhism, for example, Korea has developed traditions of meditation and spiritual understanding that are in essence advanced “technologies of the mind.” These technologies are exceptional in their profundity, garnering wide attention in academic circles. Those “technologies of the mind” developed by Korean Buddhist masters have very direct relevance today in an age in which we wrestle with consumerism and materialism. The next revolution will be a revolution in consciousness suggesting that those “technologies” of the mind have extremely broad applications. Meditation, for example, can reduce our drive to consume and to travel, thereby allowing us to spend the whole day at home and be completely content. Combined with other technologies, Korean Buddhism technologies of the mind are potentially of great value. Similarly, Korea’s remarkable tradition of Taekwondo also has potential as a technology. Part of Taekwondo's physical therapy can be combined with medical treatments and diet supplements to help enhance health, or speed recovery. The remarkable ability of Taekwondo 238

to bring spiritual peace and balance to the metabolism has not been seriously explored as a technology that can be combined with other medicines for enhanced impact, especially in an aging society. And then there is Korea’s greatest hidden treasure, traditional Korean oriental phar- macology (hanyak 한약) and Korean oriental medicine (hanui 한의). Only very recently have these fields been recognized as a potential goldmine for medical technologies.Koreahas its own sophisticated medical tradition which includes a complex acupuncture tradition that shares elements withChinaandJapan, but has followed its own trajectory. Much of Korea’s tradition of homeopathic and herbal treatments for long term diseases has yet to be docu- mented in the West. As the process of scientific analysis continues, there will be certainly many more discoveries. And then there are the remarkable technologies of daily life that are to be found in traditional Korean homes and farms. During the Joseon period Korea developed sophisticated systems of irrigation, organic farming, and low water usage, which have all but been forgotten. Traditional cooking was carefully arranged to minimize waste and assure maximum nutrition. And Korean traditional homes, with their highly efficient “ondol” heating systems, are models of sustainable development. Moreover, the structure of traditional Korean villages, eco villages in every sense of the word, have a striking beauty and efficiency to it that cries out to be utilized in modern construction.

And then Korea possesses a panoply of traditional designs and motifs from fabric, woodwork, fabrics, ceramics and furniture that much deserve to be integrated into contemporary Korea. We have yet to see smart phones that use traditional Korean patterns or offices that employ Korean cabinets and tables. When Korea starts to do so, it will become a world-wide trend. The technologies of lacquer-ware and carpentry will become important again in Korea. The amount of lost technologies that have been passed over in the endless quest for the modern is astounding. Ironically, as Korea moves forward, it must also look backwards to identify the hidden technologies that underlay Korea’s cultural strength. By expanding the definition of “technology”Korea can fully utilize its remarkable tradition and bring a new depth to the range of services thatKoreaoffers to the world.

Published in Korea IT Times, 10 November 2011

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“Next president of KAIST should be a woman”

Emanuel Pastreich

KAIST plays a critical role in Korea as a trendsetter for the nation in the sciences. Innova- tions at KAIST quickly become innovations throughout Korea. It was a tremendous breakthrough when Professor Robert Laughlin of Stanford was appointed president of KAIST, bringing a new international emphasis to the institution. KAIST set a precedent through that appointment of hiring foreign faculty that impacted the entire nation. The decision by Presi- dent Suh Nam-pyo of KAIST to employ English as the primary language of instruction has also done much to increase KAIST’s global profile and sparked a serious discussion about the use of English at the majority of universities in Korea. As we consider who might serve as the next president of KAIST after Professor Suh Nam-pyo, it is important to keep in mind the symbolic value of that role in reaffirming KAIST’s role as a leading institution in Korea, and the world. I would suggest that, if at all possible, we should appoint a woman as the next president of KAIST. Korean girls display remarkable aptitude in academics through high school, and an increasing number are being trained in the sciences at the university. Nevertheless, they continue to face many challenges in the work place. A report of the U.K.-based Economist Intel- ligence Unit in 2010 placed Korea 35th in a “Women’s Economic Opportunity Index” among 113 surveyed countries, but placed it at 104 in terms of women’s legal and social status. The role of women in Korea is increasing rapidly, but with few in science and technology, the distribution of women cross the range of careers is skewed. The problem is acute. Korea produces some excellent women scientists today. But the number of women scientists is still far too small. Although Korea needs the perspectives of women in science and technology desperately, especially as scientific research is increasingly concerned with such human issues as the environment, aging and disease, most women do not find the future awaiting them in science attractive because the landscape is distinctly lack- ing in women leaders. Oddly, Korea faces the possibility that, with Ms. Park Geun-hye considering a run for the top office, there could be a woman as president of Korea even though there are no women as generals, presidents of major research institutes or heads of central ministries. Oddly, Ko- rea encourages young girls to study as hard in school as boys but then does not offer the opportunities appropriate later in life. Appointing a woman as president of KAIST will send a clear message to the Korean people that women will play a central role in the future of science and technology in Korea. That appointment will give hope to girls that there is a future for them in science and it will prove to the world that Korea intends to be a true leader in technologies, taking the necessary step forwards. MIT has already taken that step with the appointment of Professor Susan Hockfield as president. As women play an increasingly important role in Asia as a whole, KAIST can make Korea’s leadership role manifest. Published in The Korean Herald, 5 December 2011 240

“Red Alert: Korean Language Instruction in the United States”

Emanuel Pastreich

When I started studying Korean language at Harvard University, there were about 30 students in the class the first day. Twenty-two of them were Korean Americans and eight were non- Koreans. Within two weeks I was the only non-Korean in the room. The instructors of the class were Korean graduate students with no real training in how to teach Korean to non- natives. When the Korean Americans in the class were able to make simple conversation in Korean language, the instructors took that to be the norm and made no effort to adjust the teaching to the needs of non-natives. Unsurprisingly, the non-natives dropped out. The instructors expressed regret that the non-Koreans dropped the course, but took it for granted that their audience was Korean Americans, not those odd non-Koreans. In many cases, Korean Americans who take Korean language as an undergraduate do so to find an easy course. That is not always the case, but in most cases, these “heritage students” are not interested in Korean studies itself. The non-Koreans, however, are often outsiders with a true passion for Korea. They are the most likely to become significant figures in Korea-US relations. What a shame that the youth who could become Korean experts are being turned away because Korean language classes are not aimed at them. Recent conversations with recent American college graduates suggest that this situation at American universities has not improved. Koreans lament that there are not more Americans who are fluent in Korean, but the problem stems in part from the failure to entice Americans into studying Korean language. The roots of this problem are deep. To start with, Korea has basically assumed that the instruction of Korean in America should be aimed at Korean Americans. Large funds have been invested in Korean language education for heritage speakers, but little effort has been made to encourage the teaching of Korean at high schools and universities for average Americans.

In fact, a very logical argument can be made, in terms of geopolitical significance, that it is as important for Americans in high school to learn Korean as to learn German or French. Sadly, the problem is not that Americans are not listening, buy rather that Koreans are not making the argument for the importance of Korean language instruction. Many in Korea just assume that Americans do not want to learn Korean. Little investment is made to encourage the many Americans who study Taekwondo, or love Hallyu, to learn Korean. And then there is the problem of language instruction materials. Korean language textbooks are often poorly edited and developed by experts in linguistics in Korea, not ex- 241

perts in language training in the United States. Therefore the materials do not feature exciting and relevant dialogs, do not take advantage of the aspects of contemporary Korea that are compelling to young people and lack drills aimed at the needs of native English speakers trying to learn a first Asian language. The dictionaries are also a serious challenge. All Korean-English dictionaries and English-Korean dictionaries that I have ever seen are aimed at Korean readers and are not useful for non-native speakers. In many cases, the American student must study Korean for three or four years before he is at the level that he can effectively use a dictionary. For example, if there were a Korean-English dictionary for non-Koreans, the entry for the word “bap” (밥), presents first a definition of “bab,” “1) rice; 2) a meal; 3) a livelihood.” Then the dictionary would present different Korean usages of the word along with English explanations of differences in meaning. Unfortunately, the Korean-English dictionary the American student sees today is written for a Korean reader. Therefore it provides no definitions in English and no explanations in English of the differences in connotation of the word. The reason is simple: it is assumed that the reader is a native speaker of Korean and knows the basic facts about the word “bap.” Korea invests an immense amount of money in many aspects of its international diplomacy and marketing. It would a small investment indeed to develop first-class language materials that will attract the best and the brightest to serve as future Korea experts.

Published in Korea IT Times, 5 January 2012

“The Importance of Women for the Future of Korea”

Emanuel Pastreich

Korea is a nation facing a remarkable challenge. Although Korean parents have essentially the same expectations for their daughters as for their sons in elementary middle and high school, Korea does not provide the necessary infrastructure, mentoring or work opportunities that would permit women to do the work they were trained to do. Thus, although we find that women as a whole are better managers, are more reliable and in general harder workers than their male colleagues, Korean society has not yet created a space to allow women to fully participate in administrative structures and realize their ambitions. As a result, Korea now faces a tremendous challenge. Korea has one of the lowest birthrates, and the most quickly aging populations, in the world. This state of affairs did not happen by accident. Women have chosen not to get married and not to have children even if they do get married. I have encountered numerous women who tell me quite explicitly that they have no intention to get married or to have children. These educated women made such 242

a decision because Korean families place such overwhelming demands on them as mothers and wives that they cannot pursue their careers. At the same time, Korean companies make so little effort to provide childcare or to support women in their careers through career coaching, mentoring or fast-track promotion. It would not cost Korean companies much to set up well- lighted daycare centers at all offices with cameras that would allow women to watch their children while they work. But because Korea does not make such an effort, Korean women have chosen, in protest, not to have children. The demographic consequences for Korea are obvious. The most fundamental challenge for Korea today is to resolve the contradiction between the expectations of parents for girls, and self-image inculcated in girls and the realities faced by women in their careers. Women face something worse than a simple glass ceiling, it is as if Korean girls were raised in anticipation of a world that does not exist. Suddenly, at the age of twenty or twenty-five women find that the study they did is not recognized and there is no clear road forward. There is another challenge for Korean women: the dearth of historical role models for women. The importance of Korean women in Korean society has risen dramatically over the last 20 years. Today, many professors confess that their best students are the women. Yet in Korean history we do not find many successful career women that serve as role models for girls. The case is even more serious in the case of the scientists. We need, in a sense, to create a myth of the Korean woman scientist from which all girls, from a young age, can draw inspiration. The establishment of new images of women, of new role models and new mentoring systems is the most pressing issue for Korea’s future. Let us say a few words about women in science. Women have an immense amount to contribute in the field of science, particularly because of the accelerating rate of technological change. The skill set required science today is different than it was thirty years ago, and even different from what it was five or ten years ago. Previously, relentless concentration on a single topic was the key to success. That approach has far less relevance today. Men may excel in that sort of single-mindedness. But today the analysis of data is becoming automated as part of basic hardware or software. In the place of the number crunching of the previous generation, we now need to integrate the perspectives of varied fields and maintain a balanced perspective of the research process. The sensitivity for multiple facets of an issue (social, economic, aesthetic and moral) is now at a premium. The need for integrative approaches to the analysis of information and technology, and the consideration of aesthetic and moral issues will continue to increase. Moreover, the new focus on the environment and sustainability in our society demands an increased role of women. In a sense, we must take those aspects of genre roles which held women back previously and reinterpret them positively for a new age. If women were more concerned with social context, as opposed to absolute value, they must play a critical role now that the implications of technology for society, and not technology itself, is our concern. Feminine concerns with social relations are also essential in a network society wherein the careful maintenance of relations with people from various backgrounds and the 243

pursuit of cooperative relations are more important than competition or individual achievement. So also, in the specific case of science, there is a pressing demand to reestablish the social relevance of science and technology. In an age of restricted funding for research and development, it is essential that we determine the actual value in daily life, for human welfare, of scientific innovation. We can no longer pursue technologies simply because they are there. There is a complex relationship between humans and the technologies that they create. Alt- hough there has always been a tremendous challenge, the rate of technological change today dwarfs anything in our history. Feminine concern with the social significance of the technology, as opposed to abstract concepts of the “modern,” and the “advanced” are essential. Women can step back and reflect on the process of technological evolution in moral terms. I am reminded in this context of Paul Goodman’s phrase, “Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.”2

The moral aspect of how we will apply technology is paramount today and in this respect women will play the central role going forward. We are no longer as concerned with the creation of new technology, as with its application. The acceleration of technological innovation resulting from Moore’s Law means that patents and potential new technologies are increasingly unimportant. Rather the overarching concept of what people need and awareness how technology transforms the human experience is more critical than any one technology. We should say a word about the conundrum of dual use today. Whereas military and civilian applications of technologies were previously quite distinct, today technological change is radically reconfiguring the distinction. All fields, nano-technology, bio-technology, civil and electrical engineering have civilian and military applications. In an age in which everything has a potential military application and military technologies can be easily applied for other purposes, the sense of balance that women excel in is absolutely essential. Korea’s military has no women generals at present. If we imagine a general as a person who leads men on horseback into battle, perhaps an argument can be made for why women should not serve as generals. But today security itself must be more broadly defined to include the environment and technology itself. In such a world, the traditional military op- eration would be the exception, not the rule, and we not only can, but must have women as generals in Korea. The expansion of the role of women in Korea is critical to Korea’s new global role. One of the biggest barriers keeping Korea from taking full advantage of opportunities for international cooperation is the emphasis on hierarchy and undue inflexibility found in Korean organizations. I hear constantly from internationals doing business with Korea that such hierarchy, and the male-centered administrative culture, is the most difficult part of Korea to deal

2 Paul Goodman, New Reformation: Notes of a Neoleithic Conervative, PM Press (2010)

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with. It might well be that the introduction of women into key positions in Korea is essential to creating a more flexible and more horizontal corporate and government culture in Korea that dovetails with the cultures of other nations. Finally, Korean women are simply less corrupt. Women working in business and government tend to play by the rules and to avoid back room deals. If you wanted to find a way to counter the insidious culture of room salons that plagues Korean society, a world of backroom personal relations in which men are seduced by power and money and led to make informal and improper agreements, there could be no better way than to appoint women as the CEOs of Korean corporations. Such women would have no interest in bar hostesses or late-night drinking bouts. We must encourage a sense of social responsibility in women, in girls. We must overcome the consumer mentality that focuses attention on how women are perceived, making use of the caring and nurturing instincts of women to lead them to take responsibility for their society and the world. This point may seem obvious, but it is not necessarily so. I have met numerous Korean women with exceptional skills who simply cannot make use of their ability. They are either caught up in narcissistic concepts of their own needs, or intimidated by an unrealistic vision of what “success” means. We need to create critical positive images of women and their roles in society, particularly women’s role in science and technology. We can imagine comic books for children in which the girls presented are hard working scholars; brave, innovative and dedicated to others. We can also imagine a popular TV drama in which the protagonist is a woman scientist who dedicates her life to saving the environment. Such images can have an immense impact on how girls see themselves and the possibilities before them. Even if there are few actual women who serve as role models for girls, TV and media can create such role models. Moreover, because Korea is the most powerful cultural force in Asia today, the roles that women play in Korea impacts the roles women play around the world. Korea should take the initiative, going beyond playing catch up, to play a leading role as a trendsetter. Korea historically has the potential to make such massive social transformations, and must do so again now, not only for the sake of Korea, but for the sake of the world. I would like to close by placing stress on the connection of women with technology. Women are the decision makers about purchases, about the use of energy and water and about the culture of consumption. They have the greatest impact on the use of resources and the education of children. The degree to which average women, not just Ph.D.s, fully comprehend technology its implications for society is critical for our future. As technology evolves with increasing speed, the general familiarity of women for science and technology will make the difference between social catastrophe and cultural innovation.

st Presented at the 21 Century Women Leader’s Forum, 12 January 2012

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“Korea’s tradition of propriety: Godsend for network age”

Emanuel Pastreich

In this age the complex relations developing between individuals outside of the workplace or the family, whether those that develop through online communications within organizations, or those found in social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, are having a profound impact on our society. Connections between people from vastly different backgrounds, who serve at different levels within organizations, can subtly, or bluntly, influence policy. Almost all actions within social networks are legal, but the practice can be profoundly damaging because of the temptation to circumvent proper process and to exchange informally information that is sensitive or blatantly untrue. Media distortions and slanders of individuals can be used to influence the course of events, often subverting entirely the due process of law. These developments are unprecedented, and we do not have any real blueprint for responding to them either legally or institutionally. Law, as we conceive of it, does not cover perception and innuendo. Slander is a legal offence, but it must be proven in a court and is subject to a heavy burden of proof. Most of the inconsiderate and hurtful actions via blog postings and Twitter messages are beyond the reach of the law. There is a pressing need to develop a viable system of governance for the network society, a system for moral behavior build from a set of proper rules of conduct, rather than pu- nitive legal sanctions. Korea’s rich intellectual tradition offers a perfect solution to this modern day dilemma. In the 17th and 18th century Koreans developed complex rules for propriety in daily life and in governance, which served as a means of peacefully and effectively resolving conflicts between individuals in both families and institutions. Building on precedents from ancient China and Korea, Korean scholars developed a unique form of scholarship known as “yehak,” or “propriety studies,” that parses and analyzes the language exchanges and actions taken by in terms of their implications for familial and social harmony and prescribed models for non-confrontational and respectful behavior to resolve institutional conflicts. The rules for proper behavior codified in Korea form the most important field pre- modern Korean scholarship. The appropriate behavior of individuals in any number of complex social environments was carefully analyzed and classified for easy reference. Propriety suggested how individuals could behave in moral manner within the family, local society, the government and the nation without resorting to penal solutions.

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Of course some aspects of propriety studies are relevant to the current age: for example rules for how to serve food to one’s mother-in-law or offer sacrifices to ancestors. But such rules can be updated for the current age quite effectively. Certainly the promotion of smooth relations through respectful behavior has great relevance to our network age. Although propriety works much like constitutional law in setting guiding rules for behavior, it deals deftly with such sensitive issues as loss of face, political parties, family relations and the use and abuse of proper titles that have become so important, but are beyond the confines of law. Propriety studies focuses on how people interact with each other: the spaces that must be maintained between people in order to promote harmony. By contrast, constitutions and legal codes require lawyers who try to ascertain whether actions overstep set boundaries that then require punishments. Legal systems are limited in terms of what they can achieve in an increasingly fluid internet-based society. Propriety can serve as a very effective means of governance, and its rules can be extended from the human to the avatar and the proto-human cyborg easily because propriety is not concerned with who is human, but rather what is appropriate.

Published in The Korean Herald, 25 January 2012

“Raise Expectations of Korean Language Competency in International Students”

Emanuel Pastreich

The world has witnessed a remarkable boom in the study of Korean language over the last five years. There are an increasing number of international students enrolling in Korean universities, often taking all their courses in Korean. I taught a course in Korean literature this year at Kyung Hee University and found many students from abroad were enrolled. Koreans are trying hard to be accepting and kind to the foreigners who are learning Korean. Ironically, their kindness can have unexpected negative side effects. It is important to be friendly to foreigners, and it is important to be willing to speak to them in Korean, thereby letting them know that Korean is a universal language. One should feel entirely comfortable as a Korean to speak in Korean with foreigners. At the same time, however, it is a terrible mistake to treat internationals like babies when it comes to their ability in Korean. We should be friendly, but firm, in demanding that foreigners rise to the challenge of learning Korean properly. 247

One of the most serious problems we find is that many foreign students do not learn Korean to a high level of proficiency and cannot express complex issues, or write sophisticated essays in Korean. Part of the problem lies with textbooks for Korean, and part of the problem is related to the relative immaturity of the field of Korean language instruction. But the biggest problem is the assumptions of Koreans about foreigners speaking Korean. Koreans more often than not do not expect foreigners to speak or write Korean profi- ciently and so do not correct foreigners when they make mistakes. Korean professors let international students slip by with rather poor writing skills in Korean. But this kindness is in fact cruel. Those students do not hold themselves to the highest standards in their use of Ko- rean and as a result do not make the progress that they might have made during their time in Korea. They cheat themselves of an invaluable opportunity to master the language. But Kore- ans also are deprived of future experts overseas with a high proficiency in the Korean language. Korean professors and Korean students must insist that when foreign students do their writing and speaking in Korean they must perform at the highest level possible. There is no doubt that the international students can rise to meet the challenge. I myself feel strongly that the willingness of Koreans to overlook the imperfections in my spoken and written Korean has been a hindrance. If Koreans said that they did not understand me when they did not, if they noted that my writing in Korean was incorrect when it was not, I could have made far more progress. But at every level of Korean usage in Korea, it is just assumed that foreigners cannot rise to the challenge of speaking Korean. I make mistakes and I simply do not know that they are mistakes. If we start to demand high proficiency in Korean, flawless composition or pronunciation, we will get exactly that from foreign students. As long as we think foreigners can never learn to speak Korean at the same level as a native speaker, they never will.

Published in Korea IT Times, 25 January 2012

“Is the World Really Becoming Smaller?”

Emanuel Pastreich

It is a platitude that the world is growing smaller. Whether reading through Frances Cairncross’s ”The Death of Distance” or Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” one gets the impression that the growth of new technologies which link us together reduces distance between us and makes the world smaller, more connected. Although it is hard to imagine how seven billion people could ever be a single group, a global village, there will be few ob-

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jections if I say that “technology is making the world smaller” at a cocktail party. But that assumption is not necessarily true. Let me make two different, related points. First, although you can easily travel from Delhi to Seoul, from Johannesburg to Berlin, physical movement is not the equivalent of communication and deep exchange. Increasingly individuals travel around the world with great ease, but stay at remarkably uniform hotels and eat in quite similar restaurants where ever their travels take them. When it comes to deep conversations and close personal relations, although the amount may be increasing, it is not obvious that greater global travel makes for close personal ties. There is a global class who move everywhere, but they are increasingly more related to each other than to the countries in which they live. As I wrote in “The Frankenstein Alliance,” Washington D.C. and Beijing have more in common with each other than with rural regions of their own respective countries. In fact I would argue, as I have previously, that one of the great challenges we face is the growing gap between the rate at which the world is integrated in terms of logistics and trade, the exchange of natural resources, or the circulation of money and the rate at which individuals in the various nations of the world establish relations, or build global institutions, to parallel those physical steps towards integration. If we look at East Asia one hundred years ago, we see that travel was difficult and such conveniences as phones did not exist. Yet the depth of intellectual exchange between certain scholars and policy makers was quite impressive, perhaps one might even say “deeper” than just about any discussion going on today. There is clearly a loss. The other serious issue is whether the growth of computer power is pulling us together, or fragmenting us further, reducing the distance between us, or creating even greater distance between us. The jury is still out, and I would suggest that perhaps both phenomena are taking place simultaneously. Let me put it another way: the distance between Washington D.C. in terms of travel time has been reduced, and Skype has made it irrelevant. At the same time the actual distance between one office in the Pentagon and another office has so increased, in a bureaucratic sense, as to be measured in light years. We find individuals in such global organizations to be linked together through enormous mazes of supercomputers that create distance and complexity. Such supercomputers, if we can imagine them as organisms, have no incentive to simplify the situation and every reason to want to make it more complex, more convoluted. Bureaucracy is in a sense traditionally a product of technology: the technology surrounding the storage and transfer of the written word. Today, however, supercomputers, that dark mass out there that impacts every aspect of our daily life but is almost beyond our awareness, have created their own “hyper-bureaucracy” that complicates just about everything, slowing down the process by which decisions for most things are made and speeding up just certain tasks that are required for a computer’s global agenda.

We could also say that the essential problem is an excess of information. That the supply of information generated by computers, rather than simply tasks, can make them more difficult. There is some validity in that argument.

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The most inspired and trenchant author, Neil Postman, wrote at length about the problem of information in his most thoughtful book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (Vintage Books, 1993) Postman suggests that we are entering an age in which technology itself dominates all levels of discourse, and even the manner in which men try to think, creating enormous blind- ness, and great risk. Although I think that Postman ultimately overstates the case, he has grasped something essential.

Postman writes,

“The relationship between information and the mechanisms for its control is fairly simple to describe: Technology increases the available supply of information. As the supply is increased, control mechanisms are strained. Additional control mechanisms are needed to cope with the new information. When additional control mechanisms are themselves technical, they in turn further increase the supply of information. When the supply of information is no longer controllable, a general breakdown in psychic tranquillity and social purpose occurs. Without defenses, people have no way of finding meaning in their experiences, lose their capacity to remember, and have difficulty imagining reasonable futures.”

This state at which the supply of information is no longer controlled, and individuals can no longer judge what information is relevant, what is meaningful, is becoming increasingly common. It is quite dangerous in part because the value of the information that the individual receives seems debased. We are subject to, as I commented in my paper on “Non-Traditional Security Threats” a Gresham’s Law of information. The original Gresham’s Law states that debased currency will replaced pure currency. If you circulate coins that are 90% gold and coins that are 10% gold, in short time you will have a situation in which only coins that are 10% gold in circulation. It is not simply that bad information is circulated, although that does happen too, but rather that so much information is circulated that the value of any piece of information, no matter how important, is reduced as a result. I am reminded of Andy Warhol’s series of prints “Car Crash.” Warhol took a gruesome photograph of a fatal automobile accident and made a collage in which the photo is repeated many times. The effect is that the horror of the image is much reduced and it becomes little more than a pattern for the observer. Postman returns to describe his dystopia “Technopoly” as a flood of uncontrolled information:

“One way of defining Technopoly, then, is to say it is what happens to society when the defenses against information glut have broken down. It is what happens when institutional life becomes inadequate to cope with too much information. It is what happens when a culture, overcome by information generated by technology, tried to employ technology itself as a means of providing clear direction and humane purpose. The effort is mostly doomed to failure. Though it is sometimes possible to use a disease as a cure for itself, this occurs only 250

when we are fully aware of the processes by which disease is normally held in check. My purpose here is to describe the defenses that in principle are available and to suggest how they have become dysfunctional.” (Technopoly, 72)

It is a frightening prospect. I am not convinced that Postman’s assessment is entirely correct. There are certainly parts of his book that are overstated and overly gloomy. But I would suggest that we run a very serious risk of misunderstanding the nature of the threats we face. We may imagine this threat out there in Iran or Pakistan, but in fact that threat out there is part of this greater structure in which we are embedded, a structure that continues to expand. One quote that I particularly enjoyed from Postman’s book was this one: “Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science”

(Paul Goodman, New Reformation) The implication of the quote is that how we use technology has a moral component to it. Therefore, to confuse technology with science is to lose track of the true significance of one’s actions.

Published in Asia Institute Report, 6 February 2012

“The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: New Thinking in Northeast Asia?” 20 March 2012

James E. Goodby Senior Fellow at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies Brookings Institution

Markku Heiskanen Senior Associate, The Asia Institute

task of the summit, but two other security problems will be on the minds of participants: the Fukushima catastrophe of 2011 and the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.

The nuclear crises in the Middle East and Northeast Asia and the stalled promise of a nuclear renaissance in civil nuclear power could all be solved by a more rational approach to the generation of electric power. Although it will take years before the current, outdated system is replaced, the Seoul meeting could provide a political impetus. The new system would rest on three legs: small modular reactors (“mini-reactors”), internationally managed nuclear fuel services, and increasing reliance on the distributed (local) generation of electricity. After the disaster in Fukushima, there has been an understandable retreat from plans for large-scale reactors, with their inevitable safety issues. A vivid example of this reaction is found in Ger- many, which has cancelled its plans to increase the generation of electricity from nuclear reactors even though they are cleaner and more dependable than most other sources currently available. Vulnerabilities and inefficiencies of long-distance transmission lines point to a paradigm for generation and distribution of electric power that is more local – connected to national grids, to be sure, but able to operate independently of them. This is an ideal situation for mini-reactors, which are safer and less prone to encourage the spread of nuclear weapons. Internationally managed nuclear fuel services already exist and the security of supply can be assured by policies that foster more fuel service centers in Asia and elsewhere, including in the United States. These factors would enable suppliers of mini-reactors to expand their business to nations like North Korea and Iran under IAEA safeguards. The relevance of this energy paradigm to resolving the issues in North Korea and Iran is evident: both nations could develop civil nuclear programs with assured supplies of nuclear fuel from multiple internationally managed fuel service centers in Russia, China, and Western Europe while avoiding the ambiguity of nationally operated plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment. Reliance on distributed generation of electricity would be more efficient and less prone to blackouts. And the presence of a level playing field should be apparent from the fact that similar arrangements would be the 21st-century way of generating electricity from nuclear energy in the developed economies as well as in energy-starved economies such as India and China. Is this vision nothing but a dream? Maybe, but the main issues standing in the way are neither technical nor economic, but political. That is not to say that political problems are easy to solve. Einstein famously said that politics is harder than physics. Politics will be front and center at the summit because it takes place in one of the major capitals of Northeast Asia, and all heads of state from this region or engaged with it – North Korea excluded – are participating. This will open opportunities to discuss regional problems in a situation quite different from that of the first nuclear security summit in Wash- ington in 2010. Northeast Asia is one of the most dangerous hotbeds of global nuclear diplomacy. China and Russia are nuclear weapon states; the United States, also a nuclear weapon state, is a regional political actor; North Korea has conducted two nuclear weapons tests; and Japan, South Korea, and even Taiwan can “go nuclear” in a relatively short period of time.

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The Seoul summit could, at least indirectly, become a launching pad for settling this fatal situation.

One can never be certain when it comes to Korean developments, but new hope has arisen after the United States and North Korea reached an agreement on a North Korean moratorium on nuclear activities in Beijing on February 29. This may be a modest step forward, but it is encouraging. Fulfillment of this understanding would open the door to resumption of the six-party talks, where a framework already exists to discuss the elements of a political settlement: commitment to a nuclear-weapons-free Korean Peninsula, an interim agreement on borders and means of ready communication between the parties, people-to-people contacts, economic cooperation, and a Northeast Asia organization for security and cooperation akin to the Helsinki process, including its human rights provisions. It can be considered the first major signal by the new Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang that they are open to direct dialogue with the Americans. There will be a shift of power in South Korea in early 2013, when the term of Presi- dent Lee Myung-bak comes to an end. The United States will hold its presidential and con- gressional elections in November, Vladimir Putin has just been elected president of Russia, and China will have a new president in 2013. As for Japan, changes in government seem to occur several times a year. All of these changes cause observers of the Northeast Asian scene to conclude that the time for a more active diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula is approaching. And that refers not only to solving the North Korean nuclear issue but also to several legacies dating from World War II and the Korean War. The ultimate goal should be to sign a peace treaty to end formally the Korean War, which concluded only with an armistice agreement in 1953, and to reunify Korea in one way or another. There is some well-founded hope that the year 2012 could open a new era in multilateral efforts to finally construct a new post-Cold War political and security architecture in Northeast Asia. Europeans have a low profile in Northeast Asia. Almost all EU-member states, however, have diplomatic relations with North Korea, and a number of major European states have resident ambassadors in Pyongyang. The successful post-war arrangements in Europe have often been held up as an example of how a multilateral peace process could be initiated in Northeast Asia. The Finnish experience of the Helsinki CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) in 1969- 75 proved that patience and determination will bear fruit in the long run. Perhaps this is also a good recipe for Northeast Asia.

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“Every Practitioner of International Relations Should Ma- jor in Literature”

Emanuel Pastreich

The Study of Literature and International Relations There is a general assumption in the study of international relations that one should have a strong background in economics, development policy or the study of international relations if one wishes to play a significant role in diplomacy or security, whether that role is in government itself, or in the broad range of disciplines related to the global exchanges between NGOs, governments and corporations. Well, as someone who did not take a single economics class as an undergraduate, and who did not start following international relations with any real seriousness until I was already a professor at University of Illinois, I feel a need to justify why I came to both write about international relations, and to be involved in a variety of activities related to international relations and diplomacy, rather late in my career. Actually, being by nature a rather pugnacious personality, I would rather counter-attack, claiming that in fact anyone who is serious about international relations should not only take a few humanities classes in the course of his or her career, but should major in the field of literature (or maybe art or philosophy) in order to be effective—especially today. Of course the fact that it may be true that majoring in literature is the best first step towards diplomacy, it may not be obvious to anyone. Perhaps this bit of advice may seem a bit odd, but in fact, whether in Korea and China, or in Italy or France, it was not that long ago that a humanities major was requisite for government overseas service. In the early twentieth century, even, a deep knowledge of the Latin and Greek tradition in the European case, or of the classical Chinese tradition in the East Asian case, was essential to finding common ground—common ground far deeper than one can hope to find in a similar affection for Star- bucks or the Economist. That common culture based in literature and philosophy, a common set of terms and philosophical and scientific principles, helped to establish universal norms that made communication possible.

The Rectification of Names Let us consider just how important the manipulation of language can be in international relations. The manipulation of language, is, after all, what we learn from the study of literature and composition. Look at this quote from one of the great experts on international relations: Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland. “There’s glory for you!” said Humpty Dumpty. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said. 254

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’ ” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty. “which is to be master—that’s all.” The essential point that Humpty Dumpty makes here, and that Lewis Carroll draws our attention to, is that the act of defining the meaning of words is the most essential act of politics and of power and that although it operates often in an invisible manner (because ideological shifts are by nature invisible to the naked eye) such transformation of meaning takes place at the deepest level. Controlling the meaning of words, Humpty Dumpty suggests, is the essence of power.If one were to make an analogy, changes wrought be the redefinition of terms takes place at the nuclear level (far more powerful but invisible) whereas changes brought about in day to day diplomacy take place at the chemical level, more visible, but less profound. The ability to set the meaning for terms like “United Nations,” “War on Terror,” “In- ternational Community,” “honest broker” etc. is the ultimate power in international relations, and the degree to which these terms are undermined, or undercut by irony, or implication of hypocrisy and inaccuracy, they cease to function as terms to use in understanding the world. The issue is essentially one of literature. Confucius also identified early on the importance of terms to any form of power or discourse, and his writings may well be the primary reason why the study of “wen” (문 文) was so central to the Confucian project, even to the degree of excluding technical training as a prerequisite for service in government. The term that Confucius employed was “The Recti- fication of Names” (정명 正名) and he held that it was far more critical for maintaining peace and bringing justice to the world to make sure that the terms employed to describe people, institutions and practices were accurate, than was any particular act of benevolence of feeding the poor or opposing perceived injustice.

So what did Confucius mean by the “rectification of names,” and what is that idea relevance to the current age? At the most basic, level, I would argue that most of the serious problems we face today grow from a serious, and growing, gap between the original meanings of terms that we use in everyday speech and the actual nature of the objects they are used to describe in the real world. I would go as to say that this gap defines most moral problems we encounter, and that Confucius’ approach is quite practical in helping us to get to viable solutions. Here are some examples of terms that are central to our daily lives, but whose meanings have shifted considerably over the last twenty years: “Bank” “Corporation” 255

“Government” “Privacy” “Property” “Military” “Intelligence” The shifts in the meaning of these terms is the source of our unhappiness. If the meanings were stable, there would never be a sense that things do not work the way they did before. Much of the frustration that we feel with institutions that do not function (the way we think they should—they do function!) and the disgust we feel for a perceived lack of ethics, or for the cruelty of the modern world, is related at an essential level to the gaps between what we think institutions are suppose to do and what in fact they actually do.

Ogyu Sorai and the game of chess Ogyu Sorai (荻生徂徠; 1666-1728) was one of the great thinkers in the Japanese intellectual tradition, the thinker who set down many of the principles of epistemology that set Japan on a trajectory towards a a modern world view and towards modernization. Ogyu Sorai once wrote, of what we now call Chinese Chess: “There are two ways to master chess: the first is to master the rules of chess perfectly so that one can play flawlessly and defeat any opponent; the second is to make up the rules by which chess is played.” (not exact quote) Sorai was writing about politics, in specific, and strategy in general, but the application of his remarks to international relations should be obvious. There are two aspects of human action in international relations. One is playing perfectly by the rules of the game, flawlessly at times. That is the world of the diplomat and of the general, of the president and of the prime minister. The second domain is that of literature, of philosophy, of ideas. Although the realm of words and ideas may seem weaker than that of tanks, presidential palaces and limousines, it can be on occasion stronger (the relationship between the two realms is like that between like physics and chemistry: chemistry seems stronger in that it involves the release of energy form the breaking of chemical bonds, but physics can be even more powerful and fundamental).

So, I would argue, the ability of literature to help us define what its significant is as powerful a tool in international relations that we can find. However, more often than not, the practi- tioners of diplomacy are repeating ideas and configurations of ideas that they have learned from others, rather than creating something anew. They may appear on television, but they are not the ones in charge of the discourse. The primary tasks in international relations are: To change how events are perceived To change or modify the meaning of past historical events To create meta-narratives of nation, region and globe that give meaning to the actions of individuals and groups and suggest a direction forward that has meaning and promise. These acts may be carried out for a variety of reasons, but the tasks are the same.

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Literature as an aid in interacting with people Literature also allows one to experience more than is possible for an individual through normal lifetime. That quality of literature should not be underestimated. If one reads many novels, one will know what it is like to be president, or to be thrown in jail, or to fly a jet fighter from what one reads. For someone working in international relations, one will never have a chance to go behind the scenes and learn what the president of China, or Kenya or New Zea- land is actually doing, but if one has read many novels, one will have a pretty good sense of what they might actually be thinking or doing. By extension, literary skill as a reader and a writer allows one to imagine what conversations take place that one does not actually hear! This point is absolutely critical. If you, as a diplomat, try and pry into the hidden realm behind the scenes, you will completely ruin the delicate diplomatic situation. But, if you can use your literary experiences to imagine what those people behind the scenes are saying at meetings you were never invited to, then you can recreate the picture quite effectively. And, I would say, if you employ your imagination to create the four or five possible scenarios of what is going on behind the scenes, and then compare each scenario with the facts on the ground, that over time you can eliminate the unlikely scenarios and get a pretty accurate picture of what is actually happening, perhaps more accurate than the assessment you would get if you were spying. And then literature is also about creating world that people can believe in, producing words that will move people to see things in a different way. Literature can help people to imagine, and form a consensus about how things could be even when those things do not exist yet. Let us say we want to go beyond the Six Party talks, those talks that just go on and on. Well, imagining something different is perhaps the first step towards moving forwards. Eve- rything from the United Nations to manned space flight is ultimately the product of people’s ability to imagine something that does not exist yet. That skill is in a sense primarily literary—as we can see from the role that science fiction writers play in science. As Peter Drucker once put it, “The best way to predict the future is to make it.” We can predict the future by laying the foundations for its development and its progress at the level of ideas and concepts. It is our literary training allows us to anticipate potential and then actively change the future.

Challenges for today and our literary response There are many challenges for us at the start of the 21st century, but I would argue that many of them can be traced back to the phenomenon of rapid change in society and institutions that is driven by technology. The world is growing ever smaller because of technology and at the same time our discourse about what we should do to respond is becoming ever more complex. We need to create a global common society and a sustainable environmentally-friendly world, we need to develop a new civilization to meet the challenges of this age. But those changes cannot come through elections, or through laws passed by the national assembly. Those changes cannot be brought about by a single charismatic leader or by a committed political party. Those profound changes can be brought about only through literature or art, or songs or movies—media that change how people perceive the world and themselves. If you want to

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bring about a fundamental shift in how large numbers of people perceive the world, literature (in the broadest sense) is the only way.

Posted on Circles and Squares on May 14, 2012

“Fifteen steps to address the environmental crisis: Things you have already thought about!”

Emanuel Pastreich

One of the great tragedies of our age is the ineffectiveness of efforts to address the environmental issues of our day. People are distracted from the problem of climate change by a spe- cious debate about whether climate change is as dangerous, or dramatic, as some would claim, or whether it might be less severe, even a part of natural processes. That discussion is a remarkable waste of time. Even if you believed there was no climate change whatsoever (which is hard to argue considering that the Middle East was once fertile farmland), the crisis of overpopulation, water scarcity and pollution of ground water, the destruction of forests and ecosystems, over-fishing and damage to the atmosphere itself is more than enough to suggest radical change is taking place in our environment that puts us all at risk. The only response possible is radical change, but for ideological, institutional and cultural reasons we are not even capable of incremental changes. The most criminal part of our hypocrisy is our blatant dishonesty to our children. Un- able to honestly face the world that may be ahead of us, we try to hide the future from them as well. Worse than that, increasingly we use up resources for our enjoyment in the present day (our lifetimes) with little thought as to what we will leave behind for them (their lifetimes). Although I understand that the decision to change how we live is a difficult one, I believe that our youth have a right to know the truth about the future and we should join hands with them to try to change our culture. Young people cannot perceive so easily that things that are green in color, feature pic- tures of rain forests, or are made of wood are not necessarily helpful to the environment. In many cases they are the opposite. Although the local “eco-café” may have wood moldings on the wall that make the consumer feel vaguely “environmentally friendly” that wood would have been much better used as living trees and the amount of disposable plastic and paper, even if it features eco-phrases, is totally unnecessary and damaging to the environment. Moreover, in the age of rapid technological change, images can be reproduced so cheaply that they cease to have much value and therefore the things they convey seem less meaningful. I have put together a brief list of 16 steps to change our culture to keep in mind concerning our behavior towards the environment. Some suggestions are quite simple. As for the wasteful plastic and paper cups used at cafes, just require that everyone bring his or her own

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mug and be responsible for washing it—or pay a $5 fee for the rental of a ceramic mug cup at all cafes and the problems is solved. I welcome further suggestions. Here is a general rule of thumb: If the policy debate you observe does not touch on these issues, then the policy debate is not all that serious or profound.

1) Realistic sanitation We need a new system for cheap and environmentally friendly sanitation in restaurants, in hospitals and other public places. We wrap, refrigerate and package foodstuffs, medical supplies and many other items far more than is really necessary and there is an overwhelming sense that somehow because of sanitation we must be wasteful. That assumption is doubtful. And I have never seen any thoughtful essays on this topic. It would not be a bad idea to start pouring billions of dollars into research on how we can main a germ-free environment without wasting resources. There are strategies for making sure much waste is never created in the first place. If we make up our minds, we can come up with strategies to avoid wasteful plastic wraps in the store or needless disposable medical equipment in the hospital.

2) Recycling is the second best approach We need to move beyond the illusion that recycling is the best strategy. Recycling is always a second-best strategy. In many cases, we recycle plastic and paper products that were not needed in the first place. What a waste! We should not be deluded that such recycling is of much significance. After all, many materials can only be recycled so many times. I would better to set new norms and regulations that mean that we never make the product in the first place. That means redefining our lives and the entire manufacturing process.

3) Built to last The highest priority, far higher than recycling, is creating products that are built to last. Shoes, clothes, notebooks, furniture should be built on the assumption that they will be employed for a long time. It might even be worthwhile establishing government subsidies that offset the increase the increase in cost for products that last. I bought a cashmere sweater in 1985 as an undergraduate. It cost me around $150—a fortune at the time. In 2012 I still have that sweater and it is still about as good as new. We can save an incredible amount in resourses if we subsidize the use of high quality goods for products designed to last 10-50 years. Incentives must be introduced at every level in society to make clothes and other items that last. A new culture that values such products must be encouraged as well.

4) Repair houses, clothes, bicycles and furniture We need to make the tools to repair problems in the home, in clothing and furniture, in bicycles and other equipment, easy to repair at home. So often we end up throwing away perfectly

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good items either because our narcissistic culture does not allow us to use something old, or because we think we cannot repair it. A few first steps would include: a) requiring that small replacement parts for all electronic and mechanical items be provided by law and that the standard parts of most items (bicycles, toasters, computers, cameras) be interchangeable and interoperable between all brands, b) creating a culture through education in which the skill of home repair is a virtue of great merit; c) offer ready education to all citizens as to how they can repair items themselves and offer benefits for those skills.

5) The Environmental crisis is an issue of Aesthetics, not economics or technology The most serious problem for us is not a technological one, or an economic one, but rather an aesthetic one. We have been trained to think that buildings make of steel, glass and concrete are modern and glamorous. If we smell a rotten plant when walking down the street, or we step in a puddle we feel we are moving down a slippery slope to backwardness and poverty. Items made with injection molding seem more modern and trustworthy whereas things that could be made by a local craftsman strike us as inferior. The problem is one of perceptions and aesthetics: the rules by which we judge what is important, what has authority and what is beautiful. The current, corporate-dominated aesthetic distain for the natural and the everyday is a major challenge for us. Much better that we learn to live with the smell of decay than that we insist on living in a sanitized world that causes unlimited damage to our ecosystem.

6) If it can’t be easily broken down into basic categories for recycling, do not sell it to consumers The primary question regarding all products should be first and foremost convenience for recycling. Every product for sale should be easily recycled. If it is made of five or six materials that can be recycled, it should be designed so that it can be easily taken apart into the clearly marked parts and recycled. Locations for recycling should be prominently placed everywhere and detailed lists of what can be recycled—and how—should be readily available. If a product cannot be broken down into recyclable parts, it cannot be sold. If it is essential to create a product in a format that is hard to recycle, its sale requires a special license.

7) Learn to sit still You want to save the environment? First learn to just sit still. If you can sit in a small room all day long and between exercise, yoga, meditation, reading and writing, as well as long conversations about what you read and what you do, you will be doing your part to save the environment. Just have more meaningful conversations, play with your children and enjoy your lives. You will save an amazing amount of energy. Most of us simply lack the training to just be there, to just read and sit all day. But two hours of yoga and three hours of reading is much more valuable than driving to the mall to see an other movie and buy unnecessary products. If we start from preschool to create such a culture where we can sit in a room all day and live profound lives, we will have solved half the problem. 260

8) Restructure Consumer Culture Consumer culture must be seriously restructured. The pressure to buy that permeates our society must be countered by an argument for environmental conservation and restraint. The problem of consumerism, which guts us spiritually, must be a central topic for discussion in school, from kindergarten. A competing “conservation culture” must be constructed.

9) If you must cut down a tree, you must plant three! If you cut down a tree you must plant three trees. This is a simple rule, but we rarely follow it. We must remember that building a house in a forest is not a pro-environmental act. More valuable to make inner city spaces livable, to bring creeks and meadows into the center of our biggest urban spaces.

10) Establish a GDE (Gross Domestic Environment) We need a realistic assessment of growth that includes the environment in its calculus. If the environment is damaged, the GDP cannot be positive. We need a system for monitoring and calculating the state of the environment, both globally and locally, that produces figures which can be posted on the daily news right next to the GDP or the stock market. The daily and monthly state of our environment should be calculated into all economic statistics so that no policy or practice that harms the environment can be perceived positively.

11) A Global System for Measuring the State of the Environment We can only come up with a Gross Domestic Environment if we have a sophisticated global system for calculating the state of the environment and how it is changing. Although there are many factors involved in such calculations, they are absolutely essential if we are going to create awareness globally.

12) Slap a monitor on it Every item, refrigerator, television, computer or toaster, must have a monitor on it that indi- cates how much energy it is using and the cash value of that energy. Monitors should also be set up that indicate how much energy is used in the home so as to create awareness of the aggregate use of energy as well.

13) We must become more materialistic Although we commonly lament the growth of materialism in our society, we have not stopped to think very carefully about what that term really means. We may think of the mad- ness of consumption as being a result of an obsession with the material world, but in many cases we are moving away from the material. We consume more because we pay less attention to the materiality of the object and more attention to its numerical value. We appreciate the taste of food less and therefore need to calculate satisfaction through the amount that we stuff in our mouths, or the cost of the food purchased. The solution can be found in a return to the material, everyday world, an appreciation of daily objects and simple food that relieves that need to consume without limit. 261

14) Make your own energy Although the technology is not complicated, at present there is no way for the individual to add energy to the energy grid. We are passive consumers of electricity with no say in how that energy is consumed. It would be easy to set up a system whereby you can attach an exercise bicycle to the grid, or solar panels, so as to add energy back and make your home self- sufficient. In fact, if you could get back just $5 or $10 for the electricity you give back to the grid over what you employ, it might become a popular hobby to generate energy using solar or other means. At present, such an approach is not even an option.

15) A Pro-environment movement aimed at the upper middle class is a non-starter One of great farces of our age is the effort to advocate for environmental awareness from the driver’s seat of a Toyota Prius. Unless the environmental movement gains a significant following among working class people and its value is made manifest to those who struggle to get by, its influence will be quite limited indeed. The new green economy should not be even primarily for the upper middle class. Electric cars should be cheaper than petro cars and public transportation should be readily available based on need, not on the average income of the region.

Posted on Circles and Squares on August 19, 2012

“How can you have a democracy if you do not know even who your neighbor is?”

Emanuel Pastreich

There is a lot of discussion about how to enrich and restore democracy, whether in Korea or in the United States. Little of that discussion spends much time considering what exactly “democracy” means. The failure to address the nature of democracy makes us blind to the implications of the systems we employ to pursue “democracy.” Let me put it this way. If we elect dictators every four years and then have the right to dismiss them if they do not do what we thought they would do, is that a democracy? I would say it is not. We are in effect treating politicians like products, like Tide, which we assume will get out stains. And if Tide does not get the stains out, well we can buy another product. We assume of course that we have other choices in shopping, or in elections, to pick some-

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thing else. Whether we have alternative products, or just the same products with slightly different packaging, remains a serious question. Which leads us back to an essential question about democracy; is democracy just participation in an election every few years, or should it involve constant interaction in the political process and with government officials? Well, right now there is no way to participate in government except through voting. No other form of input is available. Political parties do not want you involved in the decision making process. Even so-called “liberal” groups like MOVEON.ORG have essentially totalitarian structures that allow you to follow their orders, but not to participate in the drafting of policy, let alone the election of their leaders. Take a look at the “contact” link for MOVEON.ORG for yourself. I would say it is worse than most corporations. And the Mormon Church is far more accessible and far more willing to talk to, and work with, ordinary people. But I would argue that there could be many other forms of input. There is a saying, “People do not want leaders; they want magicians” I am not sure of the origin of the quote, but its significance is obvious. Leaders are people who would lead us inspire us to be something better than what we are. Leaders would be responsible to us, but only in that we are working with them constantly to support them. That is not how we look at our political leaders at all. We are mad at them because they did not do what we elected them to do. But in fact we did not do anything to help them either. We expected them to be magicians, to transform the world through miracles and tricks. Perhaps we thought they were so smart they could come up with an ingenious solution. But many of the challenges we face cannot be solved through ingenious solutions. The only way to solve the problems in the United States would be to have leaders. But the two figures running for president now could not be leaders even if they tried to. I have of late felt great sadness when I look at Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Here are two men, who clearly must understand how wrong many of the things they advocate are, but who are forced to go through these rituals to please the interest groups that support them. They could not be leaders if they wanted to be leaders. I think that perhaps both of them could have been leaders in the right environment. Let us also consider the process of democracy. So if we had elections that worked and the process of selecting candidates was relatively transparent, we would make some process in achieving democracy. But elections are just a tiny part of democracy. How about running your neighborhood, working together to make decisions about where trees are planted or water runs? We almost never do so, and for most of us there is no community we are involved in. So we do not know the names of our neighbors and in a real sense there can be no democracy. Let us also consider the nature of government. I can testify on the basis of my experience with government that is it not a democracy internally. Government employees do not have any way of conveying their opinions or influencing government policy. There are not mechanisms to permit all government employees to participate in the decision-making process. But this is exactly where democracy should start. Nor can NGOs work closely with government officials for better government; but why not? 263

Then, for that matter, corporations and many other organizations also are not even slightly democratic in their make up. If we talk only about elections every two years and consider that democracy, we are deluding ourselves about democracy.

Posted on Circles and Squares on September 21, 2012

“From Pacific Pivot to Green Revolution”

John Feffer & Emanuel Pastriech

The low rolling hills of the Dalateqi region of Inner Mongolia spread out gently behind a de- lightful painted farmhouse. Goats and cows graze peacefully on the surrounding fields. But walk due west just 100 meters from the farmhouse and you’ll confront a far less pastoral reality: endless waves of sand, absent any sign of life, that stretch as far as the eye can see. This is the Kubuchi desert, a monster born of climate change that is slouching inexorably east toward Beijing, 800 kilometers away. Unchecked, it will engulf China’s capital in the not-so-distant future. This beast might not be visible yet in Washington, but strong winds carry its sand to Beijing and Seoul, and some makes it all the way to the east coast of the United States. Desertification is a major threat to human life. Deserts are spreading with increasing speed on every continent. The United States suffered a huge loss of life and livelihood during the Dust Bowl of the American Great Plains in the 1920s, as did the Sahel region of West Af- rica in the early 1970s. But climate change is taking desertification to a new level, threatening to create millions, eventually billions, of human environmental refugees throughout Asia, Af- rica, Australia, and the Americas. One-sixth of the population of Mali and Burkina Faso has already become refugees because of spreading deserts. The effects of all this creeping sand cost the world $42 billion a year, according to the UN Environmental Program. Spreading deserts, combined with the drying of seas, the melting of polar ice caps, and the degradation of plant and animal life on earth, are rendering our world unrecognizable. The images of barren landscapes that NASA’s Curiosity Rover has sent back from Mars may be snapshots of our tragic future. But you wouldn’t know that desertification is the harbinger of the apocalypse if you looked at the websites of Washington think tanks. A search on the website of the Brookings Institution for the word “missile” generated 1,380 entries, but “desertification” yielded a paltry 24. A similar search on the website of theHeritage Foundation produced 2,966 entries for “missile” and only three for “desertification.” Although threats like desertification are already 264

killing people—and will kill many more in the decades ahead—they don’t receive nearly as much attention, or resources, as such traditional security threats as terrorism or missile attacks, which kill so few. Desertification is only one of dozens of environmental threats—from food shortages and new diseases to the extinction of plants and animals critical to the biosphere—that threaten the extermination of our species. Yet we have not even started to develop the technologies, the strategies, and the long-term vision necessary to face this security threat head-on. Our aircraft carriers, guided missiles, and cyber warfare are as useless against this threat as sticks and stones are against tanks and helicopters. If we are to survive beyond this century, we must fundamentally alter our understanding of security. Those who serve in the military must embrace a completely new vision for our armed forces. Starting with the United States, the world’s militaries must devote at least 50 percent of their budgets to developing and implementing technologies to stop the spread of deserts, to revive oceans, and to transform completely the destructive industrial systems of today into a new economy that is sustainable in the true sense of the word. The best place to begin is in East Asia, the focus of the Obama administration’s much-vaunted “Pacific pivot.” If we don’t execute a very different kind of pivot in that part of the world, and soon, the desert sands and the rising waters will engulf us all.

Asia’s Environmental Imperative East Asia increasingly serves as the engine driving the world economy, and its regional policies set the standards for the world. China, South Korea, Japan, and increasingly Eastern Rus- sia are ramping up their global leadership in research, cultural production, and the establishment of norms for governance and administration. It is an exciting age for East Asia that promises tremendous opportunities. But two disturbing trends threaten to undo this Pacific Century. On the one hand, rapid economic development and an emphasis on immediate economic output —as opposed to sustainable growth—have contributed to the spread of deserts, the decline of fresh water supplies, and a consumer culture that encourages disposable goods and blind consumption at the expense of the environment. On the other hand, the relentless increase of military spending in the region threatens to undermine the region’s promise. In 2012, China increased its military spending by 11 percent, passing the $100-billion mark for the first time. Such double-digit increases have helped push China’s neighbors to increase their military budgets as well. South Korea has been steadily increasing its spending on the military, with a projected 5-percent increase for 2012. Although Japan has kept its military spending to 1 percent of its GDP, it nevertheless regis- ters as thesixth biggest spender in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This spending has stimulated an arms race that is already spreading perforce to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. All this spending is linked to the colossal military expenditures in the United States, the prime moverfor global militarization. Congress is currently considering a $607-billion Pentagon budget, which is $3 billion more than what the president requested. The United

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States has created a vicious circle of influence in the military realm. The Pentagon encourages its allied counterparts to boost their spending in order to buy U.S. weapons and maintain the interoperability of systems. But even as the United States considers Pentagon cuts as part of a debt reduction deal, it asks its allies to shoulder more of the burden. Either way, Wash- ington pushes its allies to devote more resources to the military, which only further strength- ens the arms race dynamic in the region. European politicians dreamed of a peaceful integrated continent one 100 years ago. But unresolved disputes over land, resources, and historical issues, combined with increased military spending, precipitated two devastating world wars. If Asian leaders don’t rein in their current arms race, they risk a similar outcome, regardless of their rhetoric about peaceful coexistence.

A Green Pivot Environmental threats and runaway military spending are the Scylla and Charybdis around which East Asia and the world must navigate. But perhaps these monsters can be turned against one another. If all the stakeholders in an integrated East Asia redefine “security” collectively to refer primarily to environmental threats, cooperation among the respective militaries to address environmental challenges could serve as a catalyst to produce a new paradigm for coexistence. All the countries have been gradually increasing their spending on environmental issues – China’s famous 863 program, the green stimulus package of the Obama administration, Lee Myung-bak’s green investments in South Korea. But this is not enough. It must be accompanied by serious reductions in the conventional military. Over the next decade China, Japan, Korea, the United States and other nations of Asia must redirect their military spending to address environmental security. The mission for every division of the military in each of these countries must be fundamentally redefined, and generals who once planned for land wars and missile attacks must retrain to face this new threat in close cooperation with each other. America’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which used a military regimen as part of a campaign to address environmental problems in the United States during the 1930s, can serve as a model for the new cooperation in East Asia. Already the international NGO Future For- est brings Korean and Chinese youth together to work as a team planting trees for its “Great Green Wall” to contain the Kubuchi Desert. Under the leadership of former South Korean ambassador to China Kwon Byung Hyun, Future Forest has joined with local people to plant trees and secure the soil. The first step would be for the countries to convene a Green Pivot Forum that outlines the chief environmental threats, the resources needed to combat the problems, and the transparency in military spending needed to ensure that all countries agree about the base-line figures. The next step will be more challenging: to adopt a systematic formula for the reas- signment of every part of the current military system. Perhaps the navy would deal primarily with protecting and restoring the oceans, the air force would take responsibility for the atmosphere and emissions, the army would take care of land use and forests, the marines would 266

handle complex environmental issues, and intelligence would handle the systematic monitoring of the state of the global environment. Within a decade, more than 50 percent of the military budgets for China, Japan, Korea, and the United States—as well as other nations—would be dedicated to environmental protection and ecosystem restoration. Once the focus of military planning and research is transformed, cooperation will become possible on a scale that was previously only dreamed of. If the enemy is climate change, close collaboration between the United States, China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea is not only possible, it is absolutely critical. As individual countries and as an international community, we have a choice: We can continue on a self-defeating chase after security through military might. Or we can choose to address the most pressing problems facing us: the global economic crisis, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. The enemy is at the gates. Will we heed this clarion call to service, or will we simply bury our heads in the sands?

Published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 4 October 2012

“Wise Words of Confucius on Shifts in Institutions”

Emanuel Pastreich

Confucius argued that the most critical issue for a healthy society is the relationship of the terms we employ to the institutions and objects that they describe. Now, in an age of increasing incoherence and confusion about the most basic terms used to describe our society and economy, Confucius’s insight offer us an invaluable perspective. His suggestion that it is the discontinuity between terms we use and the practice they describe, rather than simple unethical behavior and greed, that produces these contradictions presents us with a means of going beyond the unproductive argument all problems stem from the fact that a small group of the powerful are too greedy. Knowing that a small group of powerful people has immense control does not does not help us understand how we got in this situation, or how we can get beyond it. Confucius suggested that the problems we encounter in the political realm are the result of a slippage in the meaning of the terms that we use to describe. For example, there has been tremendous slippage in the significance of the term “bank” and that slippage has introduced chaos into our society. Although we use the word “bank” without even thinking about

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its meaning, the term’s significance is far from clear. Whereas the word “bank” referred to an organization with a rather limited mandate to lend money under strict regulations, it has evolved into a complex financial instrument whose roles are multifarious and changing rapidly as money itself has shifted in its significance as a result of the IT revolution. We need perhaps to redefine “money” at the same time. Although there is obviously greed among some who work for banks, our inability to regulate banks is most directly related to the immense shifts in the meaning of the very term “bank.” If we want to solve the problem, we are more likely to be successful if we first address the meaning of the term than trying to artificially go back to a previous golden age. The meaning these institutions have most likely changed permanently and we should make sure that their new meanings are clear. In the extreme case, if a “bank” has become a casino, perhaps it should be called that. If “money” has become bits of “information” maybe the term needs to be modified. Let us look at what Confucius wrote in the Analects. If the terms that we employ to describe the institutions in society cease to be accurate representations of what those institutions have become, then, although we can discuss the problems of our age, the discussion will not correspond with the actual reality in a political or economic sense. In that case, if our discussions on the issues of our time no longer correspond with reality, no matter how much we say, we really will not be able to accomplish anything. The result will be that since our discussions about policy do not go anywhere, then all political discourse will lack the vitality and relevance. Under those conditions, if the political discourse lacks vitality and significance, then we cannot expect that the processes of government can properly function. The ultimate consequence of such a breakdown in governance will be confusion among the people as to what they are supposed to do. It is for this reason that the terms employed by the intellectual be such that they can be explained readily. And that speech must be formulated so that it can be readily implemented. In a word, the intellectual must not be sloppy in the terms that he employs. Confucius postulates that the failure in public debate and policy response stem primarily from gap between the terms used and the institutions described. This problem is easy to identify in our society. If we look at our newspapers, whether progressive or conservative, we can find a universal failure to engage in a thoroughgoing consideration of the meaning of the terms employed. We read about the International Monetary Fund, but we provide no detail, or make no investigation into how that institution has evolved and changed in is mission and its structure over the last 10 to 20 years, let alone its primary mission. A more extreme case is Google, which people praise or condemn, but they rarely stop to think how that term “Google” refers to something quite different today than what it referred to two years ago, or five years ago. Tracing the evolution of these institutions and terms is perhaps a more pressing issue than reporting on the latest predictable development, but it is never done. Before we start to attack individuals for greed and immorality, we should think carefully about how the terms like “Pentagon,” “Republican Party,” “Central Intelligence Agen- cy,” and “university” have fundamentally shifted in significance over the last few decades. In 268

a sense, it is unfair to attack people in these institutions for doing things that are “immoral” if what we really mean is that they are doing things that are improper only according to our accepted definitions of those institutions

Published in Asia Institute Essay, 22 October 2012

“The Moral Equivalent of War: Joining with our Chinese Neighbors to Stop the Spread of Deserts in Northeast Asia”

Kwon Byong Hyun Founder & President of Future Forest Former South Korean ambassador to China

It seems as if we are constantly preparing to fight the last war and completely unprepared for new challenges. But one needs only travel to the edge of the Kubuchi Desert in Inner Mongo- lia to see that mankind faces threats on an unprecedented scale that call our for our united action. We must use the full extent of our imagination to come up with solutions to this crisis through new global alliances that require us to completely rethink terms like “security” as we create a new civilization that can lead humans from the dark night of endless consumption to a hopeful future. My engagement in the long-term effort to stop the spread of deserts in China started from a very distinct personal experience. When I arrived in Beijing in 1998 to serve as ambassador to China, I was greeted by the yellow dust storms. The gales that brought in the sand and dust were very powerful and it was no small shock to see Beijing’s skies preternaturally darkened. I received a phone call from my daughter the next day and she told that the Seoul sky had been covered by the same sandstorm that had blown over from China. I realized that she was talking about same storm I had just witnessed. That phone call awakened me to the crisis. I saw for the first time that we all confronted a common problem that transcends national boundaries. I saw clearly that the problem of the yellow dust I saw in Beijing was my problem, and my family’s problem. It was not just a problem for the Chinese to solve. When I had established myself at the Beijing Embassy, I asked my staff to conduct a survey about the origins and implications of the yellow dust, and how it arose from the rapid desertification of land in China. They came back to me with a report that explained that the

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problem was ongoing, already quite serious and worsening rapidly. Here was a threat that I had not even imagined before and it was rapidly becoming as great a challenge as any we face. The threat was increasing and it impacted both China and Korea. As the deserts move from West to East, we can expect the situation to grow even graver in the years to come. I learned from that report my staff gave me that the amount of desert in China was increasing at a rate of 2400 square kilometers a year and that nothing had yet been successful in slowing down that alarming rate of environmental transformation. I was alarmed. I felt we needed to do something, and to do something together with China. So I proposed to our Chi- nese counterparts that we should start some collaboration between China and Korea to combat desertification by planting trees. The initial response I received was lukewarm. The Chi- nese I spoke with explained to me that deserts are a regional problem, and a minor issue among the challenges facing China. They felt that China already has too many problems to address just to support its own people and assure their basic welfare. So desertification was not so urgent a matter. The sort of an issue, they felt, that one can worry about after one’s economic power is established.

Making the Desert Visible Many of the Koreans I spoke with also did not see how this desertification problem had anything to do with them. From the Korean perspective China’s deserts were China’s problem. But I had made up my mind that the spread of deserts in Northeast Asia was the issue of our age and I promised that I would bring the resources, and the know-how, from Korea needed to address desertification. President Kim Dae Jung visited China in November of 1998 and I proposed to him that we should include the combating of desertification as one issue for the “common agenda” of Korea-China cooperation to be discussed. President Kim agreed and we started in earnest a dialog on the desertification between Korea and China for the very first time. For my part, I made the rounds on the Korean side to persuade stakeholders of the importance of the issue of desertification not only as an opportunity for overseas volunteer work, but also as a critical topic for Korea itself. One of the first breakthroughs we had was persuading KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) to provide funding for combating desertification in China. But persuading both the Koreans and the Chinese of the importance of the issue, and the need to work together, was a long process. Although the environment links China and Korea together closely, and we share an ecological continuum, both sides tend to think that responsibility ends at the political border. There were many Koreans who responded to our approach by saying that the Chinese are rich enough to pay for everything themselves now. We had to explain to them that this issue was not just about China and this was not a simple foreign aid project. The challenges were daunting at the time. To start with, there was no clear funding mechanism to support a response to the spread of deserts on a global scale. We had to persuade the Chinese of the seriousness of this issue first and to encourage a more international perspective on the significance of deserts and the importance of a global response to the threat within China, and globally. Although the dangers of the spread of deserts were obvious

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to us, they were not obvious to anyone else. All in all, it took two years to persuade the stakeholders that this topic was critical. When I started planting trees back in 1999, when serving as ambassador to China, I made frequent trips to arid regions of China and saw the situation on the ground. I approached the Korean community in China, and Koreans at home, to help in this project. I wanted them to come with me to see the deserts firsthand. But many Chinese reporters and Chinese friends asked me, “Why do you want to plant trees there?” They could not understand why an ambassador would travel to rural China when he should be meeting with important people in Beijing. The seriousness of the situation did not seem to be common knowledge. When I started to lobby for this issue in both China and Korea, I managed to meet with Premier Zhu Rongji in 2000. I recommended to Zhu Rongji that he pay attention to environmental issues as part of economic development strategy. I drew attention to the need for a balanced development that takes into account economic and environmental issues. Premier Zhu is a thoughtful man and I think he listened with great care to what I said. I personally think that we can see meaningful change in Chinese policy on the environment since that time, much of that change, including the turn to wind power and sustainable development, was very much influenced by Zhu Rongji. So I am encouraged what has happened and I think real change is possible. I like to think of China as the “lurching giant” of the world economy, going alternating between different approaches to the economy and making rapid changes in policy with global impact. China is the key to the environment for all of us globally. We cannot dismiss these issues as local problems for China. We are all impacted. We all have a moral responsibility to work with China to find solutions. Desertification is seriously neglected by most everyone in the world. Most people would not include it in the top hundred threats if asked to make a list. I often felt as if I was speaking to deaf ears as I made my rounds. At the same time I had to encourage those who were engaged in the battle to stop the spread of deserts, working with people at the local, national and international level. The spread of deserts in Northeastern China is no ordinary problem. It is an overwhelming crisis that threatens to discourage even those who are deeply engaged in looking for a solution. So many times we have seen those who are working the hardest are the very ones who despair of making an impact. We must bring a sense of hope to those who are already committed and a sense of crisis to those who have not grasped the enormity of the problem.

As soon as I returned to Seoul in August of 2000 I started making the rounds in government and business circles. I asked my friends and associates, explaining in detail how important this project was for Korea. And among a group of opinion leaders, I received strong backing. At the first stage, we received support from the Korea Federation of Industry, the Chamber of Commerce, KITA (Korea International Trade Association) and Mr. Park Sung-Hyung, Chairman of the Kumho Group. We organized the first Green Corps in the Spring of 2002 and sent one hundred Korean university students, together with fifty Koreans from supporting groups, to areas severely impacted by desertification in China. We spent most of our time vis- 271

iting arid regions of Shanxi Province so our students could see the source of the sandstorms in Korea.

Future Forest and the Great Green Wall I founded Future Forest in 2001 as an NGO focused on combating desertification through close cooperation with China. Future Forest annually dispatches its Green Corps volunteers, a group of more than 100 young students, to Northwest China to plant trees in arid regions in danger of desertification. We focused our work on the Kubuchi Desert. The Kubuqi Desert, one of seven great deserts in China, has expanded to 450 kilometers west of Beijing and, as the desert closest to Korea, is one of the sources of yellow dust that has caused environmental damage in Korea. The Kubuqi Desert continues to expand eastwards and stopping this process of desertification is absolutely critical to the future of Northeast Asia and as the eastern frontier of the Kubuqi Desert is strategically the lynchpin of any attempt to stop desertification, this effort takes on special significance. Our greatest achievement was the building of a strip of trees to stop the spread of the desert known as the Great Green Wall. The Great Green Wall has revolutionized land management in the moving-dune desert region by introducing a unique sustainable planting that fixes permanently the moving sands and providing the know-how for sustainable farming at the local level so as to stop the spread of the desert through an alliance of local people, local government, Korean and Chinese NGOs, Korean and Chinese government agencies, Korean businesses and Korean local governments. For the first time, both those affected by desertification in Korea through DSS and those at the local level engaged in farming are brought together to work on the project that is so critical for both. This cooperation between those who are subject to the results of unsustainable land management and farming and the affected residents and farmers themselves offers tremendous promise as a model for global cooperation involving multiple sectors and stakeholders. GGW runs 16 kilometers, North-South. It consists of trees and criss-cross strips of organic material for sand fixation. GGW was launched as a five-year plan ending in 2011. So far GGW has planted about 5.2 million trees and about 1,800 hectares of moving sand dunes has been fixed and reforested. GGW serves as a critical buffer abutting the moving dunes of the desert that are currently entirely barren. The “Great Green Wall (GGW)” is run by Future Forest, the All-China Youth Federa- tion (ACYF), and the Dalateqi Local Government (DLG) of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. These three entities forged an international partnership involving local, national and global stakeholders to construct the “Great Green Wall” and to build the “Save the Earth Eco-Village” in the Kubuqi Desert, Dalateqi, Inner Mongolia as part of a larger effort to combat desertification and reduce the frequency of dust and sand storms (DSS), thereby mitigating their impact on adjacent regions, including Korea. This collaborative partnership is a unique innovation in that it spans sectors as an alliance of NGOs, local governments, government agencies and businesses in both Korea and China. It also embraces local peoples, youth volunteers and the UNCCD in raising awareness

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of sustainable land management at the local, national and international levels, and strives to give hope to directly affected local people. When the project was first launched, there was deep pessimism about the prospects for stopping the eastward creep of the moving sands in Dalateqi. Most experts and local residents assumed that tree-plantings or sand fixation techniques would not be sufficient to halt the sands. The project has achieved remarkable success over the last few years, however, demonstrating that the local ecosystem can be revitalized and that substantial international cooperation with real impact at the local level is possible. The project is unique in that young people play a central role. The Great Green Wall is of ultimate significance because of its impact on Chinese perceptions and resulting changes in policy. Since China is the “lurching giant” in the global ecosystem, we must encourage the most populous country with second largest deserts, to perceive desertification as a phenomenon that is both a vital threat and at the same time one that can be stopped through policy and action. Through the ACTF, we have worked to have impact at social, political and policy levels in China. Our project is relatively small in scale, but serves as a critical example of how both concrete solutions and a sense of hope can be conveyed to both stakeholders and policy makers and local residents in China. By demonstrating that the spread of deserts can be stopped by concerted efforts, the Great Green Wall has a profound symbolic meaning. Consequently, the Great Green Wall was presented as a best practice for combating desertification at UNCCD COP 10.

The Importance of Youth I proposed more involved collaboration to the Beijing Youth league, stressing that we need the youth of China and Korea to work together in addressing this crisis so that we will produce future leaders who know each other from their work together on desertification. Such relations from a young age will build a link between the two nations at a far deeper level. As I like to say, “It takes ten years raise to grow trees and one hundred years to develop a new culture for people.” We are doing both together through our Green Corps and our Great Green Wall. This next generation of leaders will see the environment as the essential issue of our age and they will see international collaboration as the key. At the start of the Green Corps and the Great Green Wall, almost everyone thought that the effort would be just one time thing and not last. The task of keeping people working together is difficult, especially when there are physically separated and work in different organizations. Many friends called me aside and told me that such an approach would fail because of the lack of support in civil society for this effort. But we were lucky, and we found some who had the imagination to understand what we were trying to do. For the first several years we focused our work on raising awareness of the seriousness of desertification. That alone was a challenge. For many, desertification is a rather remote agenda, but in fact it impacts everyone in the community and in the region. It is one issue that transcends national boundaries and impacts everyone. In 2006 I proposed to the All China Youth Federation and the Chinese Communist Youth League that we could start the “Great Green Wall” at the Eastern edge of the Kubuchi Desert. The goal was clear and the 273

approach in a technical and administrative sense was clear. We started our Great Green Wall then, to raise awareness of the spread of deserts, to ring an alarm bell for all stake-holders.

Our Responsibility The reality of desertification is quite difficult for many to grasp, and we must be patient. At the same time, we need to focus in on a very specific problem and one that we can solve. We worked hard to move beyond our own personal limitations, and also to overcome prevalent defeatism we encountered among the Chinese working on the front line. The process is a delicate dance. We must both inspire optimism so we can move forward and rally our troops but we must also raise awareness about the seriousness of this issue. “We are responsible,” I tell everyone I met, “and we can make a difference. The problem is not about any one person, but every single person can make a real contribution.” Whether working with leaders in the business community or high school students, we demonstrate that the problem of desertification is directly related to us here and now. But we do not stop there. We demonstrate how local people can build ecovillages and have a direct impact on the environment. There is hope if we engage at the local level. But we cannot leave responsibility for deserts to China. They are the world’s problem.

“Moving beyond Militarization: Northeast Asia needs collective security, not conflict”

Honda Hirokuni

Korea and Japan recently drafted GSOMIA (General Security Of Military Information Agreement), an agreement for closer military cooperation. The proposed agreement caused tremendous backlash in Korea. Media reports in Japan suggest that the Korean people are opposed because of anti-Japanese sentiment. But I personally feel that for Japan and Korea to take a military approach to their role in supporting the geopolitical order in Asia, under the supervision of the United States, is in no way a positive development for the stability of East Asia.

The American government over the last few decades has supported efforts to increase the overseas activities of the Japanese self-defense forces and strived to draw South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia into military cooperation agreements as part of its effort to maintain a robust military presence in Northeast Asia. The current redeployment of the United States military is aimed at increasing the effectiveness and speed of the deployment to the region of US troops currently stationed in Guam and Hawaii. The relocation of the Futenma base in Okinawa and the demands from the United States for increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) concerning North Korea and China from the Self Defense Forces are part of this overall change in American posture.

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Japanese administrations over recent decades have accepted US demands and transformed the original self-defense forces from a purely defensive role to one of both defense and active capability that is integrated with the United States military system. Japan has systematically developed a new military system both in preparation for a possible military conflict and also for the proactive sharing of intelligence and the division of labor with the Unit- ed States in future conflicts.

In addition, the Japanese government claims that the American forces stationed in Ja- pan are meant as deterrence to maintain order in the Pacific Region, thus recognizing the need for US bases throughout Japan and even establishing a so-called “good will budget” of 200 billion Won to support the costs of US troops. The whole situation is rather humiliating for Japan. Even as economic interdependency increases in Asia, the US-Japan alliance priority for military relations increases the overall insecurity in the whole region and increases distrust between the China and the United States and a tendency to think of responses to problems in military terms.

What is really needed for peace and prosperity in Asia is not a system that supports military responses to all problems between nations based on collective defense capacity, but rather a security architecture for the mutual inhibition of military build ups and of military intimidation. That depends on a collective security assurance regime to resolve conflicts through open means.

Moreover, with regard to historical issues, territorial issues, and other disputes, we need exchanges in terms of collaborative research on history, scholarly and cultural exchange, tourism and economic interaction. We need to assure the safety of fishermen in their work. At the same time we need to work towards mutual prosperity through the systematic pursuit of mutual plans for the development of undersea resources in the region. I feel that the critical role in this process lies with Asia‘s scholars and scientists.

British military affairs analyst Michael Howard has pointed out that the peace in Eu- rope after the Second World War can be attributed primarily to a massive shift in the culture of Europe after the terror of the First and Second World Wars. Howard suggests in his book “War in European History” (2009) that the people of Europe came to the conclusion that war was certainly not the unavoidable fate of humanity, but not even a powerful political tool. The terrible price that Europe paid for two world wars led to the formulation of a completely different deterrence architecture than had existed previously over centuries of unending conflict.

So what about East Asia? Before the end of the war in East Asia, the leaders of the allies gathered in Yalta and established a blueprint for the post-war order. That vision clearly was not enough to prevent the Korean War, or the Vietnam War and to some degree Ameri- ca’s overreaction to the spread of socialism at Yalta meant that democratization of East Asia was constrained.

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Whereas the economic development in Europe took place within the context of the Cold War and a balance of power, in the Asian case, although there was some variation between countries, the distorted developmental model that countries found themselves following ineluctably was a combination of a developmental authoritarian government system paired with a model for economic development based on exports.

And yet, although the feelings may have been slightly weaker than the case in Europe, there was also a tremendous desire to avoid war in Asia after the Second World War. Japan established a peace constitution, which included Article 9, which renounces the right to declare war or use military force. Of course Japan and the United States signed a mutual defense treaty and the Self-Defense Forces were established with the encouragement of the United States thereafter, so Japan did in fact have a military. Nonetheless, the restrictions imposed by the constitution meant that for many years Japan‘s military was exclusively defensive in nature as a matter of policy. As a result, the role of the Self-Defense Forces was quite limited.

There are already many organizations formed by citizens, scholars, journalists and local governments dedicated to creating a peaceful future for the Asian region. Some recent examples include the response to the problem of assured security by constitutional law scholars written up in the study “Research on a Comprehensive Peace Assurance Policy that can replace military power” and “The Campaign for a United Nations Declaration for the right to peaceful existence.” In addition, Korean, Chinese and Japanese historians have been working on a joint history of the region since 2004.

Column on Hankyoreh, 25 July 2012

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Chapter 3 REPORTS

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“Approaches to International Collaboration in Korean Bi- otechnology: Section 6&7” August, 2009

Commissioned by the Korea Research Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology

Section 6) Current trends in international collaboration in Korean biotechnology

6-1. What works for Korean biotechnology? Korea has followed a steep upwards curve in its development in biotechnology, even in spite of a shortage of cash due to fluctuations in the value of the won and the uncertainly in the international science community resulting from the Hwang scandal. There are several strengths that Korea brings to the table, not the least of which is the strong emphasis on education, and specifically scientific education. Korea tends to be the third best represented country in American graduate schools in the sciences, even though its population is 1/20 of that of the first two: China and India. Korea has also been quite consistent in funding programs over time, thereby allowing scientists to continue their concentrated efforts for uninterrupted periods. Korean science policy is quite predictable and has not suffered from the restrictions on experimentation de- manded by Christian fundamentalists in the United States or the anti-genetically modified food activists in Europe. The lack of political controversy concerning biotechnology has been a great blessing. In addition, Koreabenefits in international collaboration because of its increasingly strong IT sector. Strengths in information processing, display, hardware and nanotechnology have direct impact in such fields as bioinformatics which demands high speed processing. Korean researchers put great emphasis on long-term personal relations and encourage continuous cooperation with individuals and research institutes. This approach, although it can limit the range of international collaboration, also can be a tremendous advantage. Partic- ularly in the "global research laboratory" program in Korea we found efforts to cultivate long-term collaborative efforts. Such commitment is essential to building up trust, the corner- stone of international collaboration.

6-2. Problems observed in Korean biotechnology Korea’s remarkable progress in biotechnology should not obscure the concerns about Korean research that we observed. As Ian Fleming observes in his report on Korean biotechnology, there remains great caution about collaborative research with Koreaamong many American researchers even today, and the scandal surrounding Dr. Woo-suk Hwang of Seoul National University and his false claims concerning stem cells. Issues of perception can only be coun-

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tered over the years by consistent first-rate work, and there is all evidence that Korea is doing precisely that. There are a few cultural and institutional issues in Koreathat undermine the effort in biotechnology and deserve at least a passing mention. The first is the tendency of top administrators in universities and research institutes to be seduced by the reputations of overseas universities and lose sight of the research actually conducted. In some cases, according to our interviewees, administrators refused to take serious important scholars in the United States because their affiliated university was not well known. This tendency is a result of an all too human trait of projecting one’s own culture onto another. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for careers in some Korean institutions to be built more through socialization than through scholarship. In such cases, international collaboration efforts are sometimes undermined by the desire to build a career for oneself through high profile exchanges, regardless of the actual quality of the research conducted. That tendency is related to an unfortunate concern in Korean society about titles. Thus there is a strong desire to establish oneself as the director or president of an institution, a position often given more social status than simply being an excellent researcher. Another concern raised by researchers with experience working with Korean laboratories concerns the fascination in Korea with formal rituals connoting the establishment of ties. Korean research institutes and universities are known for signing large numbers of MOUs with institutions around the world and engaging in signing ceremonies that look good in pic- tures on the website, but have relatively little significance. The lack of follow-up concerning these signings and failure to establish a clear office with responsibility for future international collaborations often results in extremely limited. Part of this problem stems from internal evaluation systems within government-run research institutes wherein the signing of MOUs, the publishing of booklets about exchanges and the number of formal visits and signings are taken as a sign of results. Other forms of collaboration and interactive which is not readily measured, but may be far more profound, is often off the radar screen when the activities of the administrative offices of research institutes are evaluated. Korea has seen a boom in the number of so-called bio-clusters. Combined with a range of techno parks built in every province, such efforts run the risk of being political sym- bols that demand resources and dilute the funding that is available in any one place to pursue biotechnology work. The building of the Osong Bio-Technopolis and the establishment of a biotechnology component in the Incheon Free Economic zone are positive developments, but neither is adjacent to an extant research institute. Moreover the Yellow Sea Free Economic Zone, the Busan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone and the Gwangyangman Free Economic Zone all claim that they will feature biotechnology. There are grave doubts as to the wisdom of spreading the industry out so thinly. Another concern raised frequently by Korean researchers concerns the Korean government’s requirement that institutes and laboratories be so frequently evaluated. Rarely are laboratories allowed to simply dedicate themselves to research for a block of time. There are no five-year research grants and too frequently reports on progress are required. Most grants

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require so much paperwork for every trip or purchase that keeping track of the paperwork is a full-time job. Another obstacle to international collaboration is the low salaries paid to the supporting staff in most research institutes. Although it makes sense that researchers should receive a hire salary than the supporting staff, in many research institutes the support staff receive rather low salaries and it is difficult, or impossible to recruit staff with a strong command of English, or a background in science. The lack of staff with training in English means that researchers must do all of their work themselves when the English language is involved. The burdens that result from such a lack of institutional support force researchers to be far more cautious in their international exchanges, limiting themselves to interactions that they can handle with their own time. Intellectual property rights was a topic that was cited repeatedly as a possible point of conflict.

Section 7. Recommendations as to how to encourage international collaboration in biotechnology

In all scientific fields over the past 20 years, there has been a substantial increase in international collaboration. At the same time, the biotechnology, more than many other scientific fields, has seen a rise in cross-institutional collaboration.3 This section will examine ways to minimize as many of the conflicts and barriers that are inherent in both trends, thereby raising the probability successful collaborations. First, these potential conflicts and barriers will be delineated, and then strategies about how to minimize will be proposed. To begin, there are two separate sets of variables and challenges that are involved in international collaboration. The first set of variables consists of the various laws, norms and values, and scientific capacities of different international collaborators. The second set of variables comes from the different incentives, values and goals set for by different research institutions. Beginning with Roderick Pond’s description of cross-institutional incentives, that set of variables has been expanded to encompass the following points:

■ Researchers working in academic organizations have an incentive to maximize the diffusion of their knowledge by publishing the outcomes of their research. The incentive structure also stimulatesto do research on subjects that are most likely to enhance the scientific discourse. ■ Firms, by contrast, produce knowledge to maximize the rents that can be derived from the right to use this knowledge. As a result, firms have an incentive to minimize knowledge diffusion (at least before it is possible to appropriate it) and to do research on subjects where it is most likely to be successfully applicable in new products and goods.

3 Ponds, Roderik, The limits to internationalization of scientific research collaboration. Journal of Technology Transfer, Vol. 34 (2009): 76-94. 280

■ Governmental research [institutions], or GRIs, have an incentive to produce knowledge that is in the interest of the government and its policy. These goals are sometimes supplemented with projects that are designed for knowledge creation and diffusion. There are some cases when GRIs conduct research with the purpose of applying the results to commercial products within a few years.

Simply stated, academic institutions want to create and disseminate scientific knowledge, and the incentive for collaboration is knowledge production (KP). Private firms, like pharmaceuticalcompanies, pursue the best possible economic return on investment by turning their research into profitable commercial products (CP). While the incentives for GRIs include knowledge production, commercial products, as well as fulfilling science and technology policies that are in their national interest (NI). Many of the scientists interviewed for this report cited common purpose and research goals as the foundation for successful collaborations. Therefore, scientists and administrators at Korean GRIs should match their own goals with international institutions that value the same incentives. If the goal of a particular project is knowledge production, then collaborations with academic institutions should be established. If the goal is to develop a technology for commercial use and profit, then private firms are the ideal collaborator. If the goal of a particular initiative or project is to fulfill a national science and technology policy, then the best collaborator will likely come from a GRI with similar national interests. Once goals and incentive differences are minimized by matching the purpose of the collaboration with the appropriate type of institution, the next step is to cultivate partnerships with international scientists from countries with similar science policy frameworks and cultural considerations in order to further reducethe number of potential conflicts and foster successful collaborations. As noted by Ponds, trust, common norms and values, and mutual understanding are also important for successful collaboration. These are a few of the reasons why fruitful research collaboration can be difficult to establish, especially in case of international collaboration and between different types of organizations. Thus, it is important to establish collaborations with scientists from regions that share commonalities in as many of the following areas as possible: Science policy framework 1. Research funding schemes, including undirected funding and international collaborations 2. Scientific Priorities 3. Legal system, including intellectual property rights

Cultural considerations 4. Common language 5. Business culture, including types of face-to-face meetings.

According to Ponds, "Organizations located in the same country share norms and values, a common legal framework and (often) a language, and also have access to national funding schemes."Ideally, co-location in the same country might provide advantages in overcoming 281

problems of cross-institutional collaboration that originate in these differences in incentive structures, values and goals. However, in the case of international collaboration the ideal situation is to find a partner nation with common system legal frameworks, IP legislation, funding schemes, and scientific priorities. These considerations can vary depending on the region in the world (e.g. EU vs Southeast Asia) or even countries within those regions (Spain vs Belgium or Vietnam vs Malaysia). The chart in Appendix C illustrates a new way of tailoring each collaboration model to fit the research goal, institution type, and regional characteristics of the international science partner. The first step in using the chart is to match the purpose of the collaboration with the desired type of institution, while considering the variables in cross-institutional incentives described above. Once potential conflicts in goals and incentives have been minimized the next step is to cultivate partnerships with international scientists from countries with similar characteristics. However, the importance of one characteristic over another should change based on the purpose of the research. For example, when advancing national scientific interests is the project goal and another government research institution is chosen as a collaborator, then priority should be placed on nations that have similar scientific priorities. The recommendations given in Chart C offer different strategies for different cases in international collaboration the recommendation is to place priority on collaborations with types of institutions that share common goals and incentives and then with countries that have similar science policy frameworks or cultural considerations. Ultimately, these recommendations do not offer analysis concerning potential intellectual property rights or MOU conflicts, but they do reflect the opinion that downstream of reaching MOU and intellectual property agreements these strategies can help to reduce scientist to scientist conflicts and lay the foundation for successful international collaboration. International collaboration can be vastly improved by increasing the number of international researchers present at research institutes. There are numerous researchers around the work conducting high-level work who would be attracted to Korea because of its fine facilities and research communities. Many could be recruited even if the salaries offered were lower than the United States or Europe. Korean research institutes have not made a serious effort to recruit foreign faculty as of present. If they do, they will provide not only a greater diversity of talent, but also significant stimulation to Korean researchers as well. To be successful in such a project requires that the very institutions be international- ized. Signage in English must be found everywhere and the essential internal documents be made available in English as well. English speaking staff will be necessary, and staff with a sense of the needs of an international faculty. To achieve this goal, there may be a need to train staff in English and also hire staff on the basis of previous international experience. This staff should be available to assist Korean researchers in the initial steps of establishing international collaborations. We found consistently that the initial hurtle to international collaboration was simply finding the time to do the groundwork in English. To the degree that assistance is provided in this process, international collaboration can be increased. Also, an environment in which the families of international researchers feel comfortable is necessary. That includes the possibility of programs especially for foreigners and their children andan effort to create an international community. The formation of international 282

schools with instruction entirely in English run joint by a consortium of research institutes is one possible solution. Progressive policies such as providing daycare for the children of female researchers within research institutes are critical to creating a truly international environment. So also, the promotion of women and non-Koreans within the institution will be critical to Korea’s success in science in the future. Such an effort to internationalize should be conducted with the full understanding of all employees. On a related topic, it is critical that experts be brought in to handle those aspects of internationalization that are beyond the expertise of the members of a research institute. Con- sultants in other countries should have long-term relations with Korean research institutes and be ready to address issues that the institute cannotaddress itself. Such an international network is essential to address relations with business, academics and government abroad on a case by case basis. For example, there are considerable sources of funding in this cash-strapped age that can be used to finance research in biotechnology under the banner of disease control, the environment and climate change. To be eligible for such funding, Korean institutes must be ready to present professional applications to international funding agencies such as the World Bank, the Asia Development, the United Nations, the Gates Foundation and the Macarthur Foundation. Such applications can result in substantial increases in funding. But research institutes do not have the expertise to locate such sources of funding and present professional applications for funding. If Korean institutes hired professional development directors in the United States, Europe and Japan on a contract basis and instructed them to seek out possible. Although hiring a professional development director to seek out funding opportunities can be expensive, the cost is more than paid for by the grants that can be obtained. In a related manner, research institutes would do well to hire a foreign consultant from outside to do a comprehensive evaluation of their programs and strategies that will give suggestions for overall development. Such reports can evaluate the relative merits of programs, the needs for institutions for internationalization and effective strategies for finding funding. This report is a first step in that direction, but is overly broad by nature. That work should be supplemented by the establishment of an international advisory committee for each research institute consisting of internationally recognized experts that meets regularly. The OIST committee is an excellent example of such a program with a clear focus. It is also possible to put forth a more carefully coordinated database on possible partners internationally for collaboration that will assist in finding partners. Although many databases exist, it was our impression that many researchers were not aware of where they should look to find possible partners abroad. Finally, Korean research institutes do not need to increase the amount of exchange with external institutions as much as they need to change the quality of those exchanges. In many cases, exchanges with foreign institutions are limited to somewhat ritualized events involving MOUs and formal dinners that allow little time for creative, innovative back in forth about approaches for cooperation. To the degree that the visits of foreign researchers can be leveraged to create opportunities to brainstorm among a small group of experts, new approaches to expanding cooperation canbe found. For example, retreats and focused seminars 283

that allow foreign researchers to go for a walk in the forest with a Korean researcher and re- lax together would be extremely valuable. Often it takes ten hours of shared experience before a working relationship can be established. These carefully arranged events can help both the Korean and international researchers to get over their initial tensions and start to exchange ideas in a positive and stimulating manner.

*For the full document: http://www.bioin.or.kr/upload/policy_rep/1255939802375.pdf

“A Survey of the Nuclear Safety Infrastructure in South- east Asia and Prospects for the Future” Submitted to the Korea Research for Standards and Science 1 May 2010

Link: http://www.asia-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2010-05-01-A-Survey-of- the-Nuclear-Safety-Infrastructure-in-Southeast-Asia-and-Prospects-for-the-Future1.pdf

“Need for Convergence Technology Tools for Assessment of Toxicological Implications of Ionizing Radiation” Submitted to the Korea Research Institute for Standards and Science 10 May 2011

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Vince Rubino Leader of Global Team Business Development and AQ, Korea Insitute of Toxicology

Introduction The tsunami damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant has released radioactive materials into the environment including nuclear fuel cycle fission products such as cesium-137 and activation products such as cobalt-60. These radioactive material releases increase the likely-hood of exposure to low-level ionizing radiation in the general population. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has announced radioactivity exceeding legal limits has been detected in milk certain vegetables produced in the Fukushima area, and measurements made in a number of locations have shown the presence of radioactive material on the groundi. To- kyo drinking water exceeded the safe level for infantsii. Seawater near the Fukushima plant has been found to have elevated levels of iodine-131, far beyond legal limits. Cesium-134 and 137 concentrations have also been discovered to be far beyond the legal limit near the damaged power plant. Many factors go into the determination of whether or not there is harm to people or other organisms that may be exposed to ionizing radiation. Factors include the type, intensity and duration of the radiation exposure, as well as the state of health, age, sex, diet and other variables related to the person or organism. The study of the mechanisms by which radiation exerts toxicological effects is an evolving field of toxicology. Research utilizing convergence technology can focus on identifying biomarkers and improving understanding of the specific mechanisms by which ionizing radiation generates toxicologically relevant end points. Published reviews of the biological effects of radiation and more in- depth discussion are availableiii iv v.

Scope This report will discuss ionizing radiation and the biological effects of exposure to the three main types of ionizing radiation: alpha (α), beta (β), and gamma (γ) radiation. This discussion will not include non-ionizing radiation such as ultraviolet or microwave radiation. It will also include a summary of research in the development of toxicologically relevant tools for the study of this exposure.

Description of ionizing radiation Ionizing radiation is not a substance that we can ingest, inhale, or absorb through our skin. Ionizing radiation is emitted from radioactive or radioactive contaminated materials, and these materials have the potential to be ingested, inhaled or absorbed into the body. In worst case, radioactive materials become bound inside the body, emitting ionizing radiation into the surrounding tissue.

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Mechanisms of radioisotope radiation release Radioactive atoms, or radioisotopes, due to their unstable nuclear structure, will transform into another element by changing the number of protons in their nucleus. During this process of nuclear transformation the radioactive atom may emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Gamma radiation is also known as x-rays. Atoms more massive than lead, which are all naturally radioactive, typically transform by emitting alpha particles. An alpha particle consists of a cluster of 2 electrons and 2 protons that is ejected from the nucleus at high velocity. The alpha particle is essentially a fast moving helium atom without the electrons. If the radioactive atom has a nucleus containing too many protons, it will be throw one of the protons out at high velocity in the form of a positively charged beta particle. Both alpha and beta particle generation processes are also accompanied by emissions of gamma rays. These radiation particles and rays carry enough energy that they can knock electrons away from atoms and molecules they collide with, thus creating ions. Inside organisms, ions can be created from molecules such as water, proteins or DNA.

Alpha particles When an alpha particle passes near an atom, it can pull an electron away from the atom in a process called ionization. A single alpha particle can repeat this ionization process many times with many atoms. With each ionization event the fast moving alpha particle loses energy and it slows down. Because of their large mass and charge, alpha particles have the ability to ionize tissue very effectively. When the particle finally comes to rest it will take two electrons from surrounding atoms in a final, dual-ionization event and then it becomes a complete helium atom. The helium atom is inert and has no effect on the body. If the source of alpha particles is from a radioactive material that is outside of the body, the alpha particles will lose all their energy before penetrating through the human epidermis. For many organisms, the damage due to alpha radiation is a concern only if the radioactive material is ingested.

Beta Particles Beta particles are high-energy electrons that are created with either a positive or negative charge, depending on the radioactive material that produces them. Most beta particles are negatively charged and much lighter and more penetrating than alpha particles. Some elements produce beta particles which have very little energy and can’t pass through the epidermis, but most produce high energy particles that can blast through the epidermis and irradiate live tissue. Their penetrating power depends on their energy, which in turn depends on the radioactive element that it comes from. And as with alpha particles, you can also be exposed to beta radiation from within if the beta emitting radioactive material is ingested, inhaled or otherwise finds a way inside the body. As with alpha particles, beta particles lose energy as they collide with and ionize atoms along their trajectory. When all of its energy is spent, a negatively charged beta particle becomes an ordinary electron that has no effect on the body. A positively charged beta particle will end with a collision with a negative electron, and this electron-positron pair turns into a pair of gamma rays, an event called annihilation radiation. 286

Gamma Radiation Gamma radiation is not a particle but instead is pure energy in the form of very high frequency light. Radioactive atoms giving off an alpha or a beta particle during transformation may also give off gamma rays to release excess energy. These rays travel very long distances through air, body tissue and other materials, much farther than either alpha or beta radiation, and the source can be relatively far away and still create ionization exposure. Many gamma rays may pass through the body and not hit anything. But when a gamma ray does collide with an atom or molecule, the electromagnetic energy it contains can energize an electron in the atom or molecule such that the energized electron will bounce from atom to atom creating multiple ionization events within the surrounding tissue.

Radioactive material release Radioactive material released into the atomsphere is carried by the wind and mixes with the air. If the radioactive material settles to the land or sea, it can be incorporated into the food chain. Rain and snow wash radioactive material out of the air, or dissolve it from contaminated soil that it passes over or through. Radioactive material may bind to suspended or settled solid particles and silt the bottoms of ponds, rivers or the ocean. Radioactive material may concentrate in animals and plants on land and in the sea. If this material finds its way inside the body, it can be mixed in the contents of the stomach and intestines, absorbed into the blood and deposited into living tissue. The emissions from this entrained radioactive material can cause damage to surrounding tissue during its entire journey inside the body.

Measuring affect on tissues and organs While high levels of external beta contamination may lead to skin burns, resulting primarily from the gamma rays they generate, internally deposited radioactive material through inhalation, ingestion, or dermal pathways is generally more hazardous than external deposition. Internal exposures result in the deposition of energy to internal cells and organs. Depending on the radioactive material and exposure path, the radioactive material may be eliminated from the body within hours or it may remain there for years. Radioactive material is eliminated from the body by both the process of radioactive transformation as well as by the body’s own biological removal systems.

The biological half-time (Tbiol) is the time required for the sum of all of the available biological processes to eliminate one-half of the retained radioactivity and has the same value for both stable and radioactive isotopes of an element. However, the biological half-time may be different from one organ to another. The time required for the mass of a radioactive element to be cut in half is the result of the combined action of both the radioactive transformation and biological elimination for the element. This is called the effective half-time (Teff) described by the equation: Teff = (Tbiol x Tphys)/(Tbiol + Tphys).

Dose units In the context of radiation, “dose” refers to the fraction of the overall radioactive energy amount deposited in an organ or tissue. Absorbed dose is the energy absorbed per unit mass 287

of the absorber. Units for measuring absorbed dose include the rad (1 rad = 100 ergs of energy deposited in 1 gram), or the gray (Gy), which is 100 rad (energy deposition of 1 J/kg). Another common unit is the sievert (Sv) where 1 rem = 0.01 Sv. External radiation dose is obtained by multiplying the measured radiation dose rate by the exposure time. Internal radiation dose measurement is more complicated and obtained by calculating the mass of radioactive material ingested, the fraction of this material absorbed, the distribution and retention kinetics of the radioactive chemical species involved, the quality of the radiation(s) emitted by the material, the radioactive half-life of the material, as well as radiation energy transfer qualities for the tissues involved. For internal exposures, it is the effective half-life (Teff ) which will determine if the dose is considered acute or chronic in duration. Gamma radiation is measured by a unit called the roentgen (R), which is the amount of air ionization the energy in the radiation is capable of producing. One roentgen produces 2.58x10-4 coulomb of ions per kg of air, and when exposed to tissue, is generally equal to 1 rad. In terms of toxicological study, gamma radiation would likely be measured in units or subunits of roentgens per hour.

Dosimetry models

Biokinetic dosimetry models are used to estimate internal doses of radioactive material and consider the mass of material entering the body, the factors affecting their movement or transport within the body, the material’s distribution and retention in the body and the energy the material emits into surrounding organs and tissues. The dose may also be influenced by the route of entry of the material into the body. Ingestion of radioactive materials from contaminated food, water or air may result in toxicity from intestinal absorption of the material, irradiation of the gastrointestinal tract during the passage of the materials through it, or a combination of both. Absorption into the bloodstream from the gastrointestinal tract will depend on the specific chemical and physical form of the radioactive material as well as the affected organism metabolic and physiological factors, including diet and agevi. Inhalation is perhaps the most common route of exposure with the size of the particles being inhaled determining where they are deposited in the lungs. Retention of the material in the lungs will depend on the site of deposition, the physiological condition of the lung, as well as the specific physico-chemical properties of the inhaled material. Biological mechanisms for eliminating material from the lungs include ciliary clearance in the upper respiratory tract where large sized inhaled particles are deposited and then either coughed up or swallowed, and phagocy- tosis and systemic absorption of smaller particles that find their way deeper into the respiratory tractvii.

Biological effects Radiation interactions within the body produce sub-cellular effects that may result in cellular damage which may ultimately produce observable effects in organs or tissues such as the skin or thyroid. Biological factors that can influence the effects of radiation exposure include the affected organism species, age, sex, location of exposure and the repair mechanisms that are 288

naturally available to that organism. Cells are particularly sensitive to radiation damage if they exhibit a high rate of mitosis, have a long mitotic cycle or are undifferentiatedviii. All of these cellular features describe the workings of DNA in the cell. Particularly radiation sensitive cells include stem cells, blood precursor cells, hair follicles and gut epithelium cells. Thus, DNA is a primary molecule of concern for radiation toxicity, and undifferentiated and actively dividing cells are particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation. Molecular damage, which includes damage to the DNA, can occur in one of two ways from an exposure to radiation. Ionizing radiation can interact directly with DNA by breaking the DNA strands or un-bonding base pairsix. Radiation can also ionize surrounding molecules, such as water, to produce free radicals and active oxygen species which interact with DNA and/or cell membranes, organelles, lipids and other macromolecules to produce a wide range of damages. The success or failure of the organism’s ability to repair itself depends on factors such as the dose rate received and the affected tissue. If the organism cannot repair itself completely, mutations can accumulate and the result can lead to cell apoptosis, altered cellular function or the development of neoplasticity. Even if the damaged cells recover and relatively normal function is restored, DNA alterations may be expressed later as mutations and/or tumors. Damage in susceptible cell types may result in cell death, and extensive cell death may produce permanent damage to a tissue or organ and may result in the death of the organism. Because the cells of younger people are dividing and growing more actively than adults, they are much more vulnerable to radiation exposure. Rubin and Casarettx devised a classification system categorizing cells from the most sensitive type, such as stem cells of the bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract, to the least sensitive cell types found in muscles and fully developed nerves. Only a few incidents of general population exposures to radioactive materials have been of sufficient size to produce quantifiable effects. These include a rise in thyroid cancer rates associated with the Chernobyl accident and a surge of childhood leukemia cases and other cancers in the general population after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombingsxi.

Tools for toxicological assessment Cytogenetic analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes has long been the standard biomarker of radiation exposure but it requires time consuming and sophisticated processes such as mammalian cell culture, chromosomal aberration detection or micronucleus assays. Mini- mally invasive methods would allow greater access to assessment. The ability to distinguish cancers by profiling the constituents of serum protein was first demonstrated more than 30 years agoxii but only recently have technological advances led to high-throughput and comprehensive analysis of serum proteinsxiii. While use of serum proteins is providing impressive results, blood sampling is not always feasible. If samples could be taken from urine instead of blood, they would be easier to obtain. Besides being less invasive, urine analysis has the added advantage of delivering a metabolic picture over time. Metabolites accumulate in the bladder and are collected there over recognized periods of time as opposed to the snapshot in time that a single blood sample offers. Prostaglandinsxiv, neurotransmitters and their metabolites that identify stress, including radiation stress, have been used to measure radiation damage. 289

These approaches to biomarker identification have been predicated on known or sus- pected biological effects of ionization radiation such as DNA damage or inflammation. The- se approaches use the methods of the field of study called metabolomics, as a means of measuring small-molecule metabolite profiles and fluxes in biological matrices after an event such as genetic modification or an exogenous challenge such as ionizing radiation exposure. Metabolomics is an important component of systems biology used alongside other disciplines including genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. These multi-disciplinary areas of study have high potential for technology convergence. An automated micronucleus assay using flow cytometry has been developed to improve monitoring methods.xv The ability to efficiently survey many dose levels and many more cells per specimen relative to the traditional method, which relies on microscopic examination, is particularly a benefit to studies designed to identify no observable effect levels or lowest observable effect levels that are relevant to low dose exposures. Other advanced tools such as Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption and Ionization (SELDI) Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (TOF-MS) have been used to examine the profiles of binding that exist between large, highly abundant proteins such as albumin, to the low-molecular-weight targetsxvi that typically bind to them. This method could also enable very useful and accessible biomarkers in blood or urine. Another innovative biomarker method uses blood plasma and investigates radiation–induced apoptosis rates using flow cytometric identification of cells displaying apoptosis-associated DNA condensationxvii.

Conclusion Of the major mechanisms by which low-level ionizing radiation exerts it toxic effects, macromolecules - in particular DNA - are the critical molecules that may be damaged. Damage occurs by direct ionization of DNA itself or indirectly through the formation of toxic chemicals in the body, such as free radicals. Because DNA contains critical information for cellular function, when it is disrupted, a wide range of biological responses may be encountered including both carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic end points. Other bio-molecules, such as proteins, amino acids, lipids and carbohydrates can also be damaged. By determining the specific mechanisms by which ionizing radiation generates these end points, research utilizing convergence technology can focus on identifying and developing methods for measuring biomarkers to assess the effects of low-level radiation exposure that the Fukushima reactor release has created. i IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Emergency,19 March 2011, 14:00 UTC ii Anxiety in Tokyo over radiation in tap water, Business Week, 23 March 2011 iii Kondo S. 1993. Health effects of low-level radiation. Osaka, Japan: Kinki University Press and Madison, WI: Medical Physics Publishing. iv ICRP. 1984. International Commission for Radiation Protection. A compilation of the major concepts and quantities in use by ICRP. ICRP Publication 42. Oxford: Pergamon Press. v BEIR V. 1990. Health effects of exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation. Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations, National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. vi NCRP. 1987d. Use of bioassay proceedures for assessent of internal radionuclide deposition. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Report No. 87. Washington, DC vii James A, Roy M. 1987. Dosimetric lung models. In: Gerber G, et al., eds. Age-related factors in

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radionuclide metabolism and dosimetry. Boston, MA: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 95-108. viii Casarett and Alison 1968, Radiation biology, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J ix Mettler F, Moseley R. 1985. Medical effects of ionizing radiation. New York, NY: Grune and Stratton. x Rubin and Casarett 1968, Clinical radiation pathology, Saunders, Philadelphia xi Pierce BA, Yukyko S, Preston BL, et al. 1996. Studies of the mortality of atomic bomb survivors. Rep Rad Res 146:1-27. xii Phillips RK, Dewhirst MW, Gillette EL, Clow DJ. Electrophoretic evaluation of sera from dogs with cancer. Am J Vet Res 1978;39:1482–6. xiii Conrads TP, Zhou M, Petricoin EF III, Liotta L, Veenstra TD. Cancer diagnosis using proteomic patterns. Expert Rev Mol Diagn 2003;3:411–20. xiv R. M. Wolfram, A. C. Budinsky, B. Palumbo, R. Palumbo and H. Sinzinger, Radioiodine therapy induces dose-dependent in vivo oxidation injury: evidence by increased isoprostane 8-epi-PGF(2 alpha). J. Nucl. Med. 43, 1254–1258 (2002) xv Dertinger SD, Chen Y, Miller RK, et al. Micronucleated CD71-positive reticulocytes: a blood-based endpoint of cytogenetic damage in humans. Mutat Res 2003;542:77–87. xvi Lowenthal MS, Mehta AI, Frogale K, et al. Analysis of albumin-associated peptides and proteins from ovari- an cancer patients. Clin Chem 2005; 51: 1933–45. xvii Menz R, Andres R, Larsson B, Ozsahin M, Trott K, Crompton NE. Biological dosimetry: the potential use of radiation-induced apoptosis in human T-lymphocytes. Radiat Environ Biophys 1997;36:175–81.

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