2022, Vol., No.32

JAPAN SPACE 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.29

pISSN : 1976-1481
https://journal.kci.go.kr/japanspace

The perception that Japan is alienated from the peace process on the Korean Peninsula can serve as a major obstacle since it limits the role and consensus formation capability that Japan can contribute to. This paper focused on the essential problem that Japan’s role in the peace process of the Korean Peninsula is limited or marginalized while it is a major partner of the process. In addition, the paper tried to answer the puzzle through analyzing Japan’s perception of the Korean Peninsula and limitations and dilemmas of its policy toward North Korea. Japan’s policy toward North Korea, based on its maximal pressure strategy, has been a stumbling block to its flexibility in the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. It has also used a parallel strategy of dialogue and pressure, but superficial measures such as easing the terms of the talks without changing the policy have failed to make the North Korea back to the table.

This study examines the meaning of Tsushima Domain’s dispatch of Saihan(Tsushima Domain’s director for Diplomatic Negotiations) separately in addition to Kanshu(the head of Waegwan) in negotiations with Joseon by analyzing the prior discussion and actual aspects of Oiljabmul(relief supplies) negotiation in 1736. There are two main effects of dispatch of Saihan. First, Saihan could draw cooperation from the Dongnaebu side. When Saihan was dispatched, Dongnaebu actively cooperated to return Saihan quickly to Tsushima. Next, Saihan could enable the Joseon Dynasty take action. When the Joseon government received a report on the dispatch of Saihan, they recognized that Tsushima Domain was putting emphasis on the negotiations. Through this recognition, the negotiations could be concluded quickly. These effects could not be expected from Kanshu, a resident of Waegwan. In the mid-18th century, Saihan could effectively lead negotiations with Joseon by the “position itself” rather than “who is appointed”.

This paper examines the intersection of Science fiction(SF) imagination and Cold War (un)consciousness in the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on Sakyo Komatsu’s Nihon Apache-zoku(1964), which is said to be Japan’s first fullfledged SF novel. Komatsu Sakyo’s Nihon Apache-zoku depicts the civil war and division of Japan. It is a work inspired by the “Apache tribe(Apachezoku)” that appeared in Osaka in the late 1950s and built a SF imagination. The “Apache-zoku” were a group of Zainichi Koreans who made a living by infiltrating the abandoned Osaka Artillery Arsenal and selling buried scrap iron. In the late 1950s, Zainichi Koreans could make a living selling scrap iron because of the special demand from the Korean War. In this novel, Komatsu satirizes Japanese society by portraying another “postwar Japan” imagined as an alternative future for “the ruins,” and the description of Apache-zoku involves a number of Cold War rhetorics. However, unlike the paranoid anxiety that dominated the U.S. and South Korea during the Cold War, the work maintains a humorous tone throughout. This indicates that Japan was in a safe zone where a sense of distance from raw violence caused by the Cold War was secured.