1972 Korean Peninsula and the Surrounding Four Powers 2014

EAI in the Media [Segye Ilbo] Observing US-China Strategy Reveals Complicated Inter-Korean Relations

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South Korea ∙ North Korea ∙ United States ∙ China ∙ Japan ∙ Soviet Union/Russia

Six Cameras

Détente and Post-Cold War

The Korean Peninsula and International Politics

From David Hockney to Northeast Asian International Politics

The origin of this book is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, which has no particular connection to international politics. In 2012, Professor Ha Young-sun (currently Chairman of EAI, Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University) visited a special exhibition of David Hockney, a master of contemporary pop art, while visiting Madrid to attend the World Political Science Association conference. Among the works that particularly caught his eye at this exhibition was the video art piece "Nov. 7th, Nov. 26th 2010, Woldgate Woods, 11.30 am and 9.30 am." To recreate the woods of his hometown in East Yorkshire, England, David Hockney used nine video cameras to film the forest paths from different angles.

A vast landscape created by nine cameras. Each camera captures its own scene, yet together they form a single, large landscape. Similarly, why not view the international politics surrounding the Korean Peninsula from various angles rather than through a single lens? By focusing on the unique perspectives of the parties involved, each with their own interests, and then synthesizing them into a single scene, a new horizon of understanding that encompasses actors and contexts can be opened. In this way, the artistic endeavor of contemporary artist David Hockney provided a clue for a new understanding of Northeast Asian international politics.

Is there a way out of the regressive Cold War system between South and North Korea?

On the eve of 1990, the world declared the end of the Cold War, which had lasted for half a century, and entered an era of thawing relations. Twenty-five years have passed. Today, no one speaks of the Cold War when discussing contemporary international affairs. Ideologies have faded, conflicts are secular, and new opportunities for cooperation and coexistence are emerging. The world has moved far enough away from the Cold War.

However, the Korean Peninsula is different. South and North Korea remain in a state of confrontation, having not moved an inch from the starting point of the Korean War in 1950. Although there were periods of improved relations, they were temporary, and the subsequent regression could not be escaped. The world has changed, and the surrounding environment of the Korean Peninsula is also different from the past, so why are South and North Korea still bound by the shackles of the Cold War, remaining in place?

Past experiences and the global mood of reconciliation have also been frustrated on the Korean Peninsula.

In 1972, U.S. President Nixon's visit to China surprised the world. At the time, the world was experiencing a Cold War, a period of intense confrontation, competition, and separation in all aspects—ideological, political, diplomatic, economic, social, and cultural—between the free world led by the United States and the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union. It was a war-like intensity without actual flames. Therefore, with ping-pong diplomacy as a signal, the visit of the head of state of the United States to China, a major power in the opposing bloc, was a truly groundbreaking event. It hinted at the possibility of cracks appearing in the rigid framework of ideological confrontation. This marked the beginning of détente. The world was thus able to escape the tensions of the Cold War to some extent and taste an atmosphere of thawing relations.

The global détente also affected the Korean Peninsula. Due to a confluence of domestic and international interests, South and North Korea seemed to have taken the first step toward easing tensions and reconciliation with the agreement on the July 4 South-North Joint Statement. It might have been a moment when a mini-détente on the Korean Peninsula could have been realized. However, because the authorities of South and North Korea desired different things, the global mood of reconciliation and thawing could not take root on the Korean Peninsula. The mini-détente on the Korean Peninsula was frustrated.

Six Camera Lenses Capture the Korean Peninsula During Détente and Post-Cold War

《1972 Korean Peninsula and the Surrounding Four Powers 2014》 is an attempt to reveal the true nature of the Korean Peninsula by contrastingly capturing the frustration of the mini-détente in 1972 and the difficulties of post-Cold War in 2014, using six cameras: South Korea, North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and the Soviet Union/Russia. To this end, twelve experts were recruited as cinematographers to film from the perspectives of these six countries, divided between 1972 and 2014.

As a first step, the joint work agreed to utilize the core diplomatic documents of the relevant parties to the greatest extent possible to minimize distortions arising from the subjective perspectives of the photographers in the process of capturing historical reality. Thus, the negotiation records between Kissinger and Zhou Enlai from the 1970s, the meeting minutes related to the July 4 South-North Joint Statement, and the core documents from the six countries in the 2010s were read together. As the next step, similar to Hockney, to first create a three-dimensional depiction of détente in the 1970s and the Korean Peninsula, six initial draft images were compiled into one large image, and simultaneously, a large image of the post-Cold War era in the 2010s and the Korean Peninsula was constructed. Through this process, we were able to truly experience the spatial complexity of the international, regional, and Korean Peninsula contexts unfolding in our living space, and the temporal complexity of the détente era of the 1970s and the post-Cold War era of the 2010s.

Finally, as the last step, based on the twelve completed drafts, a more analytical discussion was held on why the détente among great powers in the 1970s unfolded as a history of frustration, marked by the promotion and abandonment of the July 4 South-North Joint Statement on the Korean Peninsula, and why the post-Cold War among great powers in the 2010s has not yet evolved into a post-Cold War era on the Korean Peninsula. Following this discussion, all manuscripts were finalized.

While domestic research on modern Korean history and Korean foreign policy remains confined within the limitations of self-satisfaction due to the dichotomous and simplistic problem awareness and methodology, 《1972 Korean Peninsula and the Surrounding Four Powers 2014》 is an ambitious attempt to demonstrate spatio-temporal complexity by approaching the Korean Peninsula and surrounding international politics from multiple perspectives and across time. It is hoped that this book will contribute to paving a new breakthrough for 21st-century new Korean Peninsula policies and discourse.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Part 1: 1972

Chapter 1 From Enemy to Implicit Ally: The U.S. Approach to China in Early Détente ■ Ma Sang-yoon

Chapter 2 China's Détente with the U.S. in 1972: Background, Strategy, and Historical Implications ■ Lee Dong-ryul

Chapter 3 U.S.-China Détente and Japan: The International Politics of the 1972 Sino-Japanese Normalization Negotiations ■ Son Yeol

Chapter 4 U.S.-China Détente and the Soviet Union: Perceptions and Responses to the International Situation ■ Kang Yoon-hee

Chapter 5 Finding the Truth of North Korea in 1972: The Promotion and Abandonment of the July 4 Joint Statement ■ Ha Young-sun

Chapter 6 The Park Chung-hee Administration's Choices During the Détente Period ■ Cho Dong-joon

Part 2: 2014

Chapter 7 The Obama Administration's China Policy: Mutual Recognition of Asian Coexistence and Lingering Tensions ■ Son Byung-kwon

Chapter 8 U.S.-China Relations in a Transforming International Order: China's Strategic Position and Policy Direction ■ Park Byung-kwang

Chapter 9 Changes in Japan's 21st Century Foreign Strategy: Transformation into a Normal Power and the Emergence of Multidimensional Diplomacy ■ Lee Seung-ju

Chapter 10 Changes in the Northeast Asian Power Structure and Russia's New Eastern Policy ■ Shin Bum-sik

Chapter 11 Understanding North Korean International Politics in the U.S.-China Era: Legacy of the Invincible Myth of Autonomous Diplomacy ■ Kim Sung-bae

Chapter 12 South Korea's Northeast Asian and Korean Peninsula Strategy: Current Status and Tasks ■ Jeon Jae-sung