KJC Korea
Journal Central

This article aims to propose new perspectives for corporate history in colonial Korea. The focus is on the ‘business group’ frame which Mark Granovetter has been used for analysing the corporate governance structure of big companies in East Asia. Granovetter argued Zaibatsu in Japan, Jaebol in Korea, and family-owned enterprises in Taiwan to be analyzed as ‘business group’. This unique composition of those companies is very different from the American big corporations such as General Motors, Dupont, Standard Oil com. which were defined as the ideal model of the contemporary capitalist economy system by Alfred Chandler. This model corporations are characterized by ‘vertical integration’ in terms of Oliver Williamson, but the business groups in East Asia are composed of many industrial irrelevant affiliates governed by a particular owner family. The analytic points of this article are (1) historical formation of this corporate structure, (2) relation of state and business corporation which has supported that structure, and (3) the rule of state-corporation carried out in that relationship.

South China Sea conflict initially refers to a dispute over authority of attribution and delimitation of maritime boundaries between China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei for islands located in South China Sea. In other words, South China Sea conflict was a matter between countries directly concerned initially but not a matter between US and China. After Obama government inaugurated, US began to intervene in a matter of South China Sea conflict actively with implementation of strategy of ‘Pivot to Asia’ and worsened the conflict by explicitly supporting Vietnam and Philippines that are countries directly concerned. Conflict between China's aspiration to expand its influence on the islands located in South China Sea and US's strategy to check the expansion of influence of China underlies such dispute. There has been a conflict between US and China in the islands located in South China Sea recently. It is not too much say that a solution for the conflict depends on relations between US and China. This paper views the cause of military tension between US and China that appears in South China Sea as competition for having upper hand between US and China not simple military competition. This paper foresees the direction of South China Sea conflict by analyzing position and goal of policy on South China Sea stated by US and China and by analyzing a change in the nature of South China Sea conflict depending on a change in relations between US and China.

This paper explores the types and operational models of cooperatives in Northeast Asia. Particularly, this paper takes a comprehensive approach to understand their diverse legal forms. Both the english-oriented concepts such as ‘cooperative’, ‘association’, ‘partnership’, and ‘union’, and the indigenous ones such as hezuoshe in China, Kumiai in Japan, and Johab in South Korea are considered. In fact, an in-depth research of these indigenous terms and institutions will offer important and alternative perspectives for the further development of social economy in three countries. This paper first elaborates a basic concept of social economy and cooperative and the abovementioned indigenous terms and institutions. As a result, this paper points out that there are over 80 types of cooperative in the three countries. Secondly, the operational characteristic and development of these organizations are examined in-depth. Their operational models are eventually classified into four categories: domination by central organization, complex network, popular-based small enterprises, and local community formation. Finally, this paper summaries some implications of these models on the further development of social economy in the three countries.

Is the Socioeconomic Status model which predicts that the higher in socioeconomic status a person is, the more likely he or she is to vote not applicable to Korean elections? Doesn't one's socioeconomic status affect one's political preference and choice in Korea? This paper, by empirically analyzing data from the 19th Korean General Election, claims that people with lower socioeconomic status show different political preference from people with higher socioeconomic status. However, people with lower socioeconomic status participate less in politics than people with higher socioeconomic status. If these claims have at least some validity, then it is high time to worry about the unequal political outcome caused by unequal voice between the socially advantaged and the socially disadvantaged.

China is one of the most critical countries in achieving the unification of Korea, which is currently South Korea's biggest challenge. This research premises that Hanryu(Korean wave) has deep associations with the Chinese perception of Korea's political status. In particular, this research seeks to investigate the political ripple effects on the Chinese's usage of Hanryu contents in the context of the nation's brand and reunification, regardless of Chinese's personal attributes. Through the analysis of the 484 online surveys, this research concludes that the Chinese's consumption of Hanryu resulted in statistically significant associations with their perceptions of Korean unification. The results were consistent in situations where the Chinese's demographic characteristics, media usage, and ethnocentrism were controlled. Specifically, this research provides evidence that Chinese's Hanryu consumption has an effect on their perception of Korean unification, Chinese's perception of Korean nation brand serving as a medium in affecting Chinese's perception of Korean unification. This study is significant in providing the fundamentals of bringing about various political and diplomatic consequences through the perception of nation's brand constructed by the Chinese's consumption of Hanryu, taking into account their ethnocentrism and media usage patterns. Finally, this research represents a pioneering endeavor to establish connection between Hanryu consumption and political perceptions by mediating nation brand.

This study attempts to focus on the construction of Chinese non-state actors' discourses on North Korea and reconstruction of them in South Korea during Xi Jinping period. In particular, by comparing between China's abandonment theory, which was significantly emerged after the third nuclear experiment of North Korea in 2013 and North Korea collapse theory, which initially appeared in the mid-1990s, it attempts to explore distinctions of both theories and the process of construction and reconstruction based on political and diplomatic context. This study argues that China abandonment theory has been initially generated by internal and external actors and exaggerated with the process of interaction between internal and external actors. including influential scholars and major media in South Korea. In addition, this study contributes to the understanding of diversification of China's identity toward North Korea and the reconstructive process of Chinese foreign policy discourses on North Korea in the post-Cold War period.

This article analyzes the province-managing-county reform in China during the 2000s. The article argues that the operational effects of decentralization have been considerably and significantly enhanced. While the 1994 Tax Sharing System contributed to the institutionalized relations between the center and the provinces, it, however, failed to address issues of subprovincial fiscal system and fiscal relations between the municipalities and the counties. As a result, the institutionalized relations between the center and the provinces caused the macro-level non-zero-sum game, while the uninstitutionalized relations between the municipalities and the counties resulted in the micro-level zero-sum game. Theoretically, this study contends that both the macro-level non-zero-sum game and the micro-level zero-sum game bring about the further popularization of norms of the decentralization during the process of implementation, and lead to various optimal strategies by the provincial, prefecture-level, county governments.

There have been paradigms of international development cooperation, such as the Millennium Development Goals (Millenium Development Goals, MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Plan (Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs). MDGs has been affected in various ways to support the development of North Korea, and changed paradigm, SDGs will also affect the development of cooperation in various aspects of North Korea. This paper certainly applies North Korea to recently announced SDGs. According to discussions, international donors will basically focus on No Poverty, Zero Hunger, and Clean Water and Sanitation as they did in the past, and they also work for Decent Work and Economic Growth, Industry Innovation and Infrastructure and Responsible Consumption and Production for North Korea's Development.

Korean peninsular is in the time to prepare for the social integration of its future generations after the unification of the territory. The fact is South and North Korean societies lack in their objective understanding of each other, enclosed with prejudices formed since the division. For the purpose, various studies and discussion related to the integration of values in the future of the peninsular should be preceded based on unbiased understanding of North Korea's collective identity. This study considers the collective identity of North Korea as Kimilsung monolithic ideology which has characteristics of voluntary system(loyalty, reliability) and compulsory system(supremacy, predominance) and explains it has resulted from ‘related knowledge formation’, ‘system of power’, ‘relationship between ego and others’ which Michel Foucault suggests as three formation factors of collective identity. The result of our survey of 284 North Korean refugees shows that the collective identity of Kimilsung monolithic ideological system is internalized in North Korean inhabitants and forms ‘loyalty’ supported by ‘reliability’. The Korean society in the unfied peninsular should accommodate the strengths of South and North Korea. This study suggests a desirable identity model for social integration in the unified territory which can combine freedom and democracy of South and loyalty and reliability of North.

This paper analyses South Korean's attitude toward North Korean defectors focusing on the influence of ‘perceived threats’. Based on survey data sets collected from 2007 to 2015, this research organizes several regression model to investigate whether perceived threats of South Korean respondents intensify their exclusive attitude toward North Korean defectors. Now there are almost 29,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea. They have multiple and often contradictory positions in South Korean society. On the one hand, they are legal citizens and the same blood brothers, but on the other hand, they are refugees or migrants who have to adapt to a new host society. This research suggests that prejudice against minority groups like North Korean defector is not only reinforced by explicit political and economic factors such as increased labor market competition and conflicts around additional policy costs to support minorities. It is also important to examine that respondent's perception of social threats, sense of insecurity, concerns about unemployment and unstable future may provoke mechanisms of contra-identification to put minority groups out of majority’s boundary of community. The result of regression analysis shows that the scale of social distance toward North Korean defectors inclines to extend when respondents' level of perceived threats increases. However, respondent's occupation and education background show no significant impact in our regression model. This means that exclusive attitudes toward minorities tend to be reinforced if ordinary people are more worried about instability and insecurity in their everyday lives. It is also found that the effect of perceived threat is more significant among young respondents in their twenties. Young people who are more concerned about unemployment crisis, especially since 2013 survey, incline to have negative attitudes toward North Korean defectors. This result implies that competitive social conditions in South Korea may increase young people's perceptions of powerlessness which in turn amplify exclusive attitude toward minorities and out-groups such as North Korean defectors. It also supports for the importance of policy measures including education programs to enhance the value of multicultural coexistence among young generation and also social inclusion of North Korean defectors.