KJC Korea
Journal Central

This study is about the UN Airpower's efforts to support the ground operations and their results during the early stage of the Korean War. In Korea, based on the early attained Air Superiority, the UN Airpower conducted Close Air Support, Air Interdiction and Combat Cargo operations to saved the UN ground forces who were in endangered situation. By doing so, it created a friendly operational environment for the UN ground forces by allowing them to operation without hazard of hostile air attack. On the other hand, The Communist forces, which had superior strength in their numbers, had to operation under severe restrictions enforced by the adversary Airpower. The purpose of this study is to re-evaluate the UN Airpower's roles for the support of the ground forces which is still controversial. For this purpose, it particularly focused on the UN forces' two retreats faced by the Communists' attacks―one by the North Korea's People's Army, and the other by the Chinese People's Liberation Army―conducted during the early part of the war. Based on these examinations, it concludes that, the UN Airpower conducted critical roles in deciding the ground operational situation.

The shift of North Korea’s foreign policy in 2018 was understood as the effectiveness of UN sanctions. This research criticizes the explanation that the change is the result of UN sanctions. Sanction theory generally focused upon its effectiveness but lacks in regarding reaction of the targeted state. The mechanism of interaction between sanction state and targeted state is required to refine theoretical ontology considering responses of targeted state. UN sanction against North Korea has two stages, symbolic and effective one, before and after 2016. UN sanction against North Korea overcome the unilateral, multilateral and third party defects and increased its effectiveness. North Korea, however, reacted against the sanction and utilized the sanction for stabilizing its political regime by completing its nuclear arsenal. North Korea sat on the table with its increased negotiation leverage for the purpose of improving US-North Korea relationship, not just nuclear issues. After all, the sanction itself did not resolve North Korean nuclear problem and North Korea’s nuclear build-up means the failure of sanction. The whole cost of US’s deal has been highly increased After North Korea aggressively reacted against UN sanction.

This paper discusses the concept of Thucydides Trap which signifies structural features of conflict between strong powers, and investigates its implications both in the contemporary Sino-American relations and the past experiences of the 20th century. In particular, it introduces the cases of the Crowe Memorandum for the British-German relations and the Long Telegram of George F. Kennan for the U. S.-Soviet relations as the structural risks in international relations. The paper also reviews the U. S. domestic discussion on the Lippmann Gap between state capability and foreign interventions. The final conclusion focuses on the role of effective statecraft by political leaders of strong states in overcoming structural problems in their foreign policies.

This study explores the debate, policy changes, and social perceptions towards immigration in Japan. Until now, there has been no conventional conception of immigration in Japan, whereby a permanent-resident immigrant acquires nationality after a certain period of residence. However, the Japanese government has expanded its foreign workforce through various fragmented systems to compensate for the country’s labor shortage. As a result, the number of ‘consequential immigrants’ – rather than immigrants on the basis of permanent residence – has increased. So far, the Japanese government has maintained that it does not have an immigration policy, and so Japan's system for the social integration of ‘consequential immigrants’ has been relatively deficient. Meanwhile, the social perception towards immigration in Japan is not negative. This perception is based on the societal understanding that the labor force is insufficient in size, and that there has yet to be a welfare crisis in Japan caused by immigration.

Why did the R.O.K. make use of lobby strategy to the U.S. congress in the Ford Administration era? To answer this research question, I distinguish the Ford Administration’s foreign policy on the R.O.K from those of Nixon and Carter Administration’s. Compared to the Nixon and Carter administrations, the scope of the research is centered on the period of the Ford administration, which has not been specifically studied. Also, I analyze the R.O.K.’s lobby strategy to the process of the U.S. Congress and result in the Ford Administration through historical and theoretical case study based on primary sources. In the context of foreign affairs, this study defines the ROK-US alliance as a security dilemma in alliance based on an ‘asymmetric alliance’. A visible factor of cohesiveness was the USFK in the ROKーUS alliance. The debate about the withdrawal of USFK forced up Korea a fear of ‘abandonment’. As a response to the fear of ‘abandonment’, the R.O.K. made a decision to implement a government-level lobby strategy targeting the U.S. Congress. Moreover, the paper analyzes the policy changes caused by the relationship between the government and congress in the process of making foreign policy in the context of domestic affairs. The R.O.K. actively used diplomatic strategies for the U.S Congress, which has budgetary power in the process of making foreign policy decisions. This was effective, unlike the traditional approach adopted by weak countries in the asymmetric alliances. The lobby strategy to the U.S. Congress influenced the unique change in the foreign policy toward the R.O.K. in the Ford Administration. After all, the Ford Administration reconfirmed Asia intervention resolution and decided not to withdraw USFK further. It resulted in strengthening cohesiveness in the ROK-US alliance.

This paper is written to find answers of the research question that the 'Meeting First, Key-issue Agreement Later" approach of the US and South Korea in the North Korean denuclearization negotiation may have caused the current standstill of the negotiation. As a result, this paper found that South Korea and the US approached the denuclearization negotiation with 'Meeting First, Key-issue Agreement Later" approach. Thus, they failed to achieve any decisive result by holding summit meetings without resolving the key issue, which was the denuclearization of North Korea. They lost the negotiation momentum by being too slow in speed and failed to demonstrate military options as the Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) during the negotiation. South Korea and the US should increase aspects of rational model in their negotiation with North Korea by reflecting on their past mistakes and make sure that the term "denuclearization" means the dismantlement of North Korean nuclear weapons. They have to focus their efforts on the key issues, the denuclearization of North Korean nuclear weapons, in their future negotiation with North Korea.

This thesis ultimately focuses on the project for peaceful community in Korean peninsular with the possibility for reconciliation and coexistence traced from the various situations and histories. On the basis of the detailed professional studies on the topic of reconciliation for all times and places, I will vision the unified Korea in peace with a triangular structure of reconciliation, coexistence and peace. It works this way: When reconciliation makes coexistence possible, coexistence makes the road to peace. Then, peace can make reconciliation go on to the other stages. Also, I would like to present what we have to do for this process.

This article examines how the republican ideal of turning citizens who are members of a political community into soldiers who are willing to take up arms in their own hands to defend their own political community, was emerged in the crisis of loosing sovereignty at the end of Korean Empire, maintained by citizens in the ‘imagined state’ under the Japanese imperial rule, distorted by forced conscription during two wars and military dictatorships, and declined soon under the influence of the neo-liberalist reformation of the society after being reappeared with the passionate movement for democratization, but also is evolving with the emergence of participative citizens observed during the candlelight vigils of 21st century. The ideal of citizen-soldiers will continue to have a very important political meaning as a regulative idea needed to criticize and correct reality, as long as we still believe that a political community should belong to all citizens, and that such a democratic republic should be defended.

Over the last past decades, the tax structure in South Korea has experienced notable changes that have gone beyond the previous framework of fiscal developmentalism. Existing studies have not yet provided thorough accounts of these new developments. In an effort to fill in this gap of research, the present study seeks to define new characteristics of the tax structure in South Korea, along with its long-lasting historical features. It finds the Korean tax structure presents a consistent pattern of ‘labor-friendly residualism.’ Within this overall feature, a new tax structure has emerged out of the previous developmentalist variant. In particular, it has increasingly turned to a hybrid model of existing OECD cases: residualism from English-speaking countries and labor-friendly dualism from Southern European countries. The author demonstrates the validity of these claims by examining various tax indicators (such as marginal statutory rates, average effective rates, and tax burdens as % of GDP) in comparison with other representative OECD cases.

This paper explores the effects of house price changes on support for the incumbent party in local elections in South Korea. House price has dramatically increased during the 2003-2018 period. We examine patterns of retrospective economic voting induced by housing price changes under both liberal and conservative governments. We analyze party-ballot outcomes for provincial legislature in four local elections in 2006-2018. We find no discernible effects of housing price changes on support for the conservative incumbent party, but sizeable negative effects on support for the liberal incumbent party, especially in localities with low rates of home ownership. Our finding reveals an asymmetric reward-punishment voting behavior under different government partisanship.