The Korean Odyssey

  * AFC Women’s Champions League semifinal match between Naegohyang Women’s FC and Suwon FC Women is underway.   ⓒ Il Young Jeong Il Young Jeong Senior Research Fellow_Institute of Social Science_Sogang University This is the story of the AFC Women’s Champions League, which electrified fans at Suwon Sports Complex in May. The tournament, which generated unprecedented sellout crowds, passionate support, and numerous talking points for a women’s football competition, concluded with Naegohyang Women’s FC lifting the trophy. This column seeks to take a calm and measured look at what Naegohyang Women’s FC’s visit to South Korea has left behind. Now that some of the excitement has subsided, it is worth reflecting on the significance of a visit that was as controversial as it was remarkable.   An Unanticipated Trip to South Korea At the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in February, North Korea reaffirmed that inter-Korean relations should be defined as those be...

  * Participants at the Korea Peace  Rally  chanting slogans “NO WAR! YES PEACE!”   ⓒ Il Young Jeong Il Young Jeong Senior Research Fellow_Institute of Social Science_Sogang University “Are the Two Koreas Still Technically at War?”   Yes. North and South Korea are still in a state of war. The Korean War, which broke out on June 25, 1950, was suspended with the signing of the Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953. Since then, the war has never officially ended. The Lee Jae-myung government is currently pursuing a “Policy of Peaceful Coexistence on the Korean Peninsula.” In essence, the policy aims to create “a Korean Peninsula where North and South peacefully coexist and grow together.” Compared with the Yoon Suk Yeol administration — which heightened tensions with North Korea through hardline rhetoric symbolized by the slogan “Immediate, Strong, and Until the End” — tensions on the peninsula have clearly eased. Yet few would describe the current situation as...

Criticizing the Discussions on Korean Peninsula Unification  by Kim Jong-un, Yoon Suk-yeol, and Im Jong-seok * The Forgotten Dialogue Between North and South Korea: Is Unification an Impossible Dream?   @iStock Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Science_Sogang University There was a movie titled The Good, the Bad, the Weird , set in Manchuria during the Japanese colonial period. Recently, another trio has emerged on the Korean Peninsula: the dangerous one, the ignorant one, and the strange one. These terms refer to Kim Jong-un, Yoon Suk-yeol, and Im Jong-seok.  Kim Jong-un, the "Dangerous One“ North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claims his development of nuclear weapons is for self-defense. However, he now threatens the people of South Korea, saying he could launch nuclear weapons toward the South. By denying the ethnic kinship between North and South and threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula, Kim Jong-un is indeed a “dangerous one.” Furthermore, Kim po...