2014, Vol.29, No.1

The Journal of Northeast Asia Research 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.75

pISSN : 2005-4432
https://journal.kci.go.kr/inas

This article compares three North Korean leaders (Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un) by focusing on their growth, thoughts, political legitimacy and leadership characteristics. Since its founding in 1948, North Korea has been ruled by the Kim family. After Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un is the third leader of the state. The leaders have been the crux of social unity and are described in terms of "the highest national dignity" in the media. In a totalitarian society without political checks and balances, they have almost monopolized decision-making. Under the highly centralized decision-making system, regardless of their relative triviality or importance, their decisions affect both domestic and international politics. If we define leadership as a leader's activity of influencing followers to achieve goals under certain circumstances, we need to know about his or her growth, thoughts, and political legitimacy in order to figure out his or her leadership. Comparing the North Korean leaders is not only helpful in clarifying the similarities and differences in their leadership, but also valuable in understanding policy implications of the incumbent Kim Jong Un regime.

The purpose of this essay is to review the reinterpretation of Ahn Jung-geun(안중근) and his killing of Ito Hirobumi(이등박문) in North Korean history. Until today he has been ranked as a famous Korean independence activist in both South and North Korea, however he has also been criticized on the basis of ‘terrorism’ in North Korea. This essay is to analyze the change of North Korea’s perception of Ahn Jung-geun by analysis of historical books, journal articles, and history textbooks. Attention is especially paid to the relation of the interpretation with the political environment. In the early stages, North Korea negatively understood An Jung-geun’s behavior by using the concept of ‘patriotic terrorist movement’(애국테러운동). But in the late 1950’s ~ early 1960’s North Korea’s attitude to An shifted to sympathy for the motive. Hereafter, Ahn Jung-geun‘s behavior was reinterpreted as a ’punishment of the chief instigator’(침략원흉 처단). Consequently, Ahn Jung-guen was reevaluated as a symbol of Korean’s resistance against the Japanese aggressors. In domestic politics the process of the reinterpretation has been proactive by Kim Il-Sung and the process of the reinterpretation was also intended to upgrade the political status of Kim Il-sung as leader.

This paper analyzes the US’s policy towards Central Asia from the perspective of the neo-realist system theory which states that the international system is likely to decide and hold influence over an individual state’s foreign policy. It can be said that a uni-polar system has been established since the collapse of the Cold War across the world; particularly in Central Asia where the multi-polar system was formed. Over the last two decades the US policy towards Central Asia have shown some clear changes towards the US’s gradual acceptance of the multi-polarity in the region even though it started from the uni-polarity and unilateralism. This change resulted from the US recognizing that her superiority is no more effective in protecting its security from terrorism and radicalism in the region, thus there’s no other way but approving Russia and China’s role in the region in order to seek cost sharing for maintaining stability. As US’s cost for cooperation with Central Asian states has been increasing under the multipolar system in the region, US’s Central Asian policy is paying more attention to cooperation with Russia and China rather than in competition with them. With the 2014 withdrawal of US troops in Afghanistan the US’s retreat could bring insecurity to Central Asia.