The Korean Odyssey

  * With the situation on the Korean Peninsula deteriorating, we need to freeze military training on both sides.  ⓒOhmynews   Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University Dialogue has long been missing on the peninsula, while the number of armed protests between the two Koreas only continues to increase. This article criticizes the South Korean government's policy of simply "patience" without any alternative plans and proposes a simultaneous suspension of North Korea's nuclear testing and South Korea-U.S. joint drills.   Can we call waiting for North Korea’s next nuclear test a ‘strategy’? Since the beginning of 2022, the South Korean government and media have been working themselves up predicting when North Korea will conduct a nuclear test and guessing at dates. For example, On September 28th, 2022, the National Intelligence Service reported to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee that North Korea could conduct a nuclear ...

  *The metaverse could be a game changer for peace on the Korean Peninsula. ⓒ iStock   Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University The concept of the “metaverse” first appeared in the 1992 science-fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The word ‘metaverse’ is a combination of "meta" (meaning to transcend) and "universe”. The metaverse refers to a third dimension digital, virtual space that replicates the politics, economy, society and culture already existing in our reality and gives people the opportunity to experience things they otherwise could not in ‘real life’. In this article, I would like to explore the possibility of and options for a metaverse on the Korean Peninsula as an inter-Korean digital border zone for exchange and cooperation.   The dream of a metaverse on the Korean Peninsula   The metaverse, first conceived of as an imaginary world in the 1990s, has since reappeared before us in the 2020s. Wi...

  * We need to come up with a new type of multilateral cooperation in which the U.S. and China can cooperate to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue together. ⓒ iStock Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University Recently, the atmosphere surrounding Korea and its neighbors has been quite unusual. Rather than an overarching trend influencing events in the regions, an array of different sources and trends are coming together to effect change in the region. In this article, I will analyze the situation in Northeast Asia from the perspective of the Korean Peninsula and discuss how best to respond.   The quiet resurrection of the Northern Triangle(North Korea-China-Russia) and the Southern Triangle(South Korea-U.S.-Japan) In the early 1990s, with the wind-down of the Cold War, the Roh Tae-woo administration in South Korea effectively broke down the confrontational structure on the peninsula(the so-called Northern Triangle vs. Southern trian...