KJC Korea
Journal Central

2022 marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and China. China is not only geographically close, but has historically influenced in various fields such as politics, diplomacy, national security, and economy, and is a powerful country that can exert substantial influence in relations with North Korea. In particular, it is likely that this relationship will be maintained in the future as it has repidly grown as a hegemonic country that divides the global market with the US. In this context, studying Korea's perception of China by analyzing the Korean media's tendency to report on China after the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and China will be meaningful in many aspects. To this end, the editorials of four major daily newspapers which were reported from 1992 to 2020 were analyzed chronologically, and the trend of media changes and discourse on issues. As a result of the analysis, it was possible to identify differences in media perception of China according to the ideological tendencies of the domestic regime, the global situation, and each media's viewpoints, and recognized China as a country that is economically helpful but should be wary of politics, diplomacy, and ideology.

The Tumen River basin corresponds to the periphery of Northeast Asia. Symbolized as Manchuria, this place has been a place of confrontation since the modernization period. The transition of the Tumen River basin from a confrontation space to a solidarity space is very important not only for Northeast Asia but also for peace and economic prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. The now-suspended Tumen River Basin Development Plan (TRADP, 1991) claimed similar purposes, but they were limited in that they were large projects led by the central government. As an alternative to overcoming existing limitations, this study examined the meaning and possibility of the "Social Solidarity Economy" (SSE), which is emphasized by the UN-SDGs as an action strategy, in cross-border cooperation in the Tumen River basin.

This paper explains the outbreak of the Imjin War and Qing’s Invasion of Josenon as a result of the underbalancing caused by the elite fragmentation and the internal vulnerability of the regime. Right before the Imjin war period, there was no elite consensus to Japan's threat due to intense partisanship between the Western faction and the East faction. In addition, the internal vulnerability of the Seonjo government, which prioritized blocking internal threats to the regime, led it to take an ineffective underbalancing strategy such as diplomatic mission. Meanwhile, before the Qing’s invasion in 1636, there was a broad consensus on Qing’s rising and its threat to Joseon. However, Injo government failed to carry out conflict prevention strategies such as an active appeasement policy due to its political vulnerability resulted from the pro-Ming China Injo Restoration. In event, these factors led Injo government to take ineffective half measures for preventing Qing’s invasion. In the future, the security policy needs to be sought in the basis of an accurate understanding of reality and rational debate rather than partisanship.

As North Korea's recent offensive missile provocations have developed into military exercises of tactical nuclear units to show off the diversity of missile launch capabilities, rather than simple development, they pose a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. The current situation perceived by the North Korean leadership is that despite the preemptive measures for denuclearization, nothing has been gained from the United States over the past three years, and it has only been used. In particular, in a situation where there is no fundamental change in hostile policy, it is rather perceived as a crisis situation in which the threat to the regime against them is further heightened. Considering these points, how does the situational variable of North Korea's crisis affect the strengthening of national defense, represented by the strengthening of nuclear force? What are the characteristics of reinforcement? etc., need to be considered. The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of North Korea's military strengthening through consideration of North Korea's perception of the foreign situation. In other words, how North Korea perceives the situation and how it views the United States after the collapse of the North Korea-US summit in Hanoi? And, as a result, it examines the characteristics and changes in strengthening North Korea's defense capability represented by nuclear force. The significance of this study is to provide military and security countermeasures and implications for alleviating the crisis situation in a situation where the stalemate is prolonged.

This study aims to analyze the effect of North Korea's participation in the multilateral cooperation system on military conflict. The multilateral cooperation system was established as a way to discuss and cooperate on security issues between countries in the target region. Military conflicts occurring on the Korean Peninsula can also be discussed and solved within the framework of the multilateral cooperation system. The study confirmed that only ARF among multilateral cooperation systems reduces the possibility of military conflict in North Korea. North Korea's low probability of military conflict when it participates in the ARF seems to be trying not to cause military conflict by considering intergovernmental dialogue on politics and security more important than other dialogue. This study is meaningful in that it is possible to manage military conflicts and increase the level of cooperation by participating North Korea as a member of the international community through the multilateral cooperation system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how possessing nuclear weapons affects national diplomatic behavior. The voting behavior at the UN is examined to verify the hypothesis that having strong military power would lead to more aggressive behavior in the diplomatic field, regardless of the motive for nuclear development. Although it has limitations in that it analyzes only their votes on specific resolutions, by analyzing the results of long-term votes, the change in dendrogram and relative distance based on specific countries can be analyzed according to the similarity of positions by country. The changes in the U.N. voting behavior were confirmed as follows. Most notably, as they join the “nuclear club” they act in a compromise with existing nuclear armed states, showing clear differences in positions depending on whether and when they have nuclear weapons. In relative relations, aggressive actions to existing adversaries or independent positions from existing guardians were not revealed significantly. This study is meaningful in that it analyzed changes in behavior of nuclear powers using the UN General Assembly vote in various ways, but it will be possible to analyze more carefully when supplemented by qualitative interpretations of reports, records, announcements, and discussions.

This study aims to explore the research trends and characteristics of North Korea’s weather and climate field by closely examining research papers in North Korean journals from 1982 to 2022. To this end, I summarized key words based on Korea’s national science and technology standard classification system and collected 1,263 papers among papers owned by the NK-tech. Then I extracted bibliographic information through crawling techniques using selenium library. Research results show that papers related to weather observation and analysis technology was the most active in the field of meteorological science. After Kim Jong-un took power, study on agricultural weather and numerical forecasting gained much attention, emphasizing cooperation between the agriculture and the weather observation to improve food productivity. In the field of climatology, research of climate change impact assessment and response technology was actively conducted in accordance with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the National Strategic Plan for Responding to Climate Change. Lastly, in the field of air science, it was notable that the research on air quality monitoring has increased since the enactment of the Air Pollution Prevention Act in 2012. This study has methodological and academic significance in that it accumulated research data through data mining and improved understanding of research trends in the field.

This study attempted to examine the life of North Koreans in the toilet after the march of hardship from the perspective of technological social history and ANT. The results are as follows: First, the policy is designed to aim for supplier convenience rather than equality, but differential, and residents' position. Therefore, when related infrastructure such as electricity, distribution system, and water supply became paralyzed, the resident-toilet network was reorganized extensively. Second, 'water' in flush toilets and 'rules' in conventional communal toilets have significantly lost their translation ability. And, non-human actors drew embodied cognition through the senses of the people, triggering conflicts between the people. Third, as people interacted with non-human actors and reorganized the "modernity and hygiene" composed by the policy, the network was relocated from flush to conventional, and the sense of goods for wiping-excreta was also differentiated. Fourth, "revolution, politics" were projected into the daily life of feces, non-human actors such as feces achieved both restoration of governance and sculpture.