East Asia Institute - Korean Association for World Regional Studies - Hanyang University Unification Education Leading University Project Group] Reorganization of the World Order and the Korean Peninsula: Assessment and Prospects

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBUN8TRbjow

Video Script

The Complex Crisis of World Order and New Civilizational Standards

We will now listen to the keynote address by Chairman Ha Young-sun. Hello. This is Ha Young-sun. I am pleased to deliver a keynote address at this important academic conference, 'Reorganization of World Order and Prospects for the Korean Peninsula,' jointly organized by the Association for Korean Studies, the Leading University for Unification Education, and the East Asia Institute. Today's world order faces six complex crises stemming from the deepening self-contradictions of modern civilization: the security crisis, the crisis of economic deglobalization, the global crisis of political legitimacy, the human-centered ecological crisis, the crisis of the advanced technological revolution, and the crisis of global governance. However, we continue to make strenuous efforts to view and resolve these complex crises with a traditional and simplistic perspective. What we urgently need is to properly read the new civilizational standards that demand the complexification of the protagonists, stage, and acts of world order, and to put into practice corresponding countermeasures. For the Korean Peninsula to avoid repeating the tragic history of a nation in ruin in the 19th century and to build a new history of a nation prospering in the 21st century,

Complexification of Protagonists and Korea's Role

we must be able to jointly lead this civilizational transformation. First is the complexification of protagonists. The relative decline of the United States, which has led the world order since World War II, risks accelerating with the advent of the Trump era. To properly read this trend of change, we need to look at it from a new perspective of complexification, moving beyond the dichotomous view of simple unipolarity and multipolarity. If we consider the strengthening of coping capacity for the six complex crises as the core new civilizational standard, the U.S. and its allies will not experience a relative decline as rapidly as China, Russia, and North Korea expect. At the same time, it will not be easy for China, which has rapidly risen in the early 21st century, to weaken as much as the U.S. expects.

Furthermore, middle powers and Global South countries will be able to open windows of opportunity through novel efforts that compensate for their limitations in material capabilities. Within this complexification of protagonists, the peace initiative for the North and South of the Korean Peninsula must be formulated primarily within a framework that maximizes the capabilities of the U.S. and its allies, and then seeks coexistence with a reforming and opening China. Advanced middle power South Korea must seek a role as a co-owner of a complex world system that encompasses both the individual and the collective. Next is the complexification of the stage.

Complexification of the Stage: Reorganization of Security, Prosperity, and Technological Revolution

If the modern world order was a simple stage centered on military strength and national wealth, the future world order is a complex stage where the six crises are unfolding. The U.S.-China strategic competition, fiercely unfolding on the complex security stage, is likely to deepen instability at the regional level rather than the global level, due to the risk of global annihilation that would result from a full-scale war between the U.S. and China in connection with nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. On the Korean Peninsula, the rapid evolution of U.S. military AI, leading to remarkable advancements in reconnaissance transparency and counterattack precision, is rapidly reducing the cost-effectiveness of North Korean nuclear weapons, while conversely increasing the efficiency of U.S. extended deterrence. This necessitates new discussions on war and peace on the Korean Peninsula. Second, on the prosperity stage, the current trend of deglobalization, characterized by individual countries and protectionism, will face inevitable difficulties due to the interdependence of the global economy, and will inevitably move towards complexification, termed 'reglobalization,' as a new breakthrough.

Therefore, for the North and South of the Korean Peninsula to survive as protagonists on the 21st-century prosperity stage, they must accept reglobalization, which goes beyond the dichotomy of simple globalization and self-reliance, as a necessity, not an option. Third, the advanced technological revolution, represented by AI, is emerging as a foundational stage that critically influences all other stages, presenting new standards for a new civilizational order of AI. Consequently, a fierce global competition is underway to pursue hybrid AI projects that transcend the limitations of server-based AI and global AI. Ultimately, political forces that properly prepare for this new civilizational standard stage will stand at the center of the future stage.

Complexification of Acts and Coexistence Nationalism

The unification and future of the Korean Peninsula will inevitably proceed in a direction led by political capabilities that can properly pursue these civilizational standards. As the North and South actively pursue advanced technology-based complex civilizational standards, they will face a new path to complex unification befitting the 21st century. Lastly, there is the complexification of acts. The protagonists of the modern international order, on the stage of national wealth and military strength, have fundamentally followed the principle of competition, while performing minimal cooperation to prevent the maximization of conflicts such as war and poverty. However, the protagonists of the new 21st-century civilizational stage must simultaneously perform complex acts that go beyond the simple acts of competition, conflict, and cooperation of the modern era. In the face of a rapidly changing world order, the protagonists of the 21st century must engage in self-reliant efforts of continuous self-reorganization to survive and prosper individually, and at the same time, they must engage in efforts of coexistence nationalism to seek joint evolution with other protagonists on the stage to overcome the crisis of the contemporary world order, which stands at a crossroads of coexistence and mutual destruction. Therefore,

the unification vision for the Korean Peninsula in the 21st century must also be newly formulated to realize complex unification based on coexistence nationalism, moving beyond the framework of adversarial two-state theory or peaceful two-state theory. I believe that today's academic conference will make an important contribution as part of the effort to evaluate the rapidly changing world order from a new perspective and to formulate a new vision for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. Thank you.