Sunhyuk Kim:Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: Comparative Implications from Europe
The main purpose of this article is to identify and articulate those conditions that would promote reconciliation in Northeast Asia, by deriving relevant implications from the historical experience of Europe. It illustrates how numerous elements foster and facilitate reconciliation among individual countries in ways that carry over into prospects for building regional political communities in Europe and Northeast Asia. We analyze how decades of reconciliation initiatives from West Germany and then the reunified Germany helped launch and advance the project of European economic and political integration. Then we present a starkly different picture in Northeast Asia by examining the region’s tortuous and unfulfilled path toward reconciliation. Top-down, state-centered approaches to reconciliation are not sufficient; greater involvement is needed in Europe and Northeast Asia from civil society organizations to foster more deeply rooted models of reconciliation that substantively involve broader publics at multiple levels and prompt meaningful and sustained citizen dialogue.
Hyug Baeg Im:The Role of Korea in the Coming "East Asian Mediterranean Era"
The purpose of this study is to discuss the political changes in East Asia and the role of Korea in the East Asian Mediterranean era. In twenty-first century, the global power is shifting from Pax Americana to East Asian Mediterranean era in which Korea, China, U.S, Japan and Russia compete, cooperate and prosper. The advent of the Mediterranean era gives East Asian countries both opportunities and constraints. The opportunities include the spread and deepening of political, economic, cultural regionalism, and the increase of the intra and inter-regional communication as a consequence of the spill-over effect of IT revolution. The constraints include the low institutionalization of regionalism, the rise of nationalism and the unresolved nuclear issue in North Korea. The political problems such as territorial disputes and nationalism are also the serious impediments to the rise East Asian Mediterranean era. Moreover, East Asian countries have different attitudes towards whether the U.S. be included in East Asia or not. (“Minimalist East Asia” vs “Greater East Asia”) To overcome these problems, the role of Korea is very important because Korea is the bridge state (peninsular state) connecting continental power and maritime power in East Asian Mediterranean. To be the East Asian bridge state, Korea has to strengthen U.S.-Korea alliance for making the balance of power with China, Japan, Russia and North Korea. Korea has to increase the intra-regional trade and investment in East Asia and thus contribute to the deepening of East Asian regionalism. Ultimately, the increased role of Korea will facilitate communication, tolerance, coexistence and diversity among East Asian countries and thus move up the advent of East Asian Mediterranean era.
JINILL KIM:Principles of Unconventional Monetary Policy: A Comparison between the Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank
In responding to the Global Financial Crisis, U.S. both the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and the European Central Bank (ECB) have introduced various kinds of “unconventional” monetary policy measures. This paper compares the backgrounds and principles of the unconventional monetary policy conducted by these two central banks.
FRB’s unconventional measures can be classified into two groups: ones for financial stability and the others for economic stability. The first group of measures — introducing new liquidity supply facilities, intervening MMF markets, for example — has been basically guided by the Bagehot’s dictum. Operation twist and quantitative easing fall into the second group of measures, which has been adopted in order to influence longer-term interest rates directly while the short-term policy rate is stuck at the effective zero lower bound. FRB appears to acknowledge the sequentiality of conventional and unconventional measures as long as economic stability is concerned: first conventional then unconventional measures, and in exit, unwinding unconventional measures first before stating to raise the policy rate.
In contrast, ECB makes it clear that unconventional measures have been designed and implemented focusing on its primary objective: maintaining price stability. As a result, ECB has emphasized equal treatment of all commercial banks within their ability to provide collateral, rather than following the Bagehot’s dictum, in providing liquidities. In fact, ECB mainly uses open market operations (longer-term refinancing operations, in particular) and provides whatever amount of liquidity to commercial banks at its policy rate as long as collaterals are secured. In addition, ECB has a different view on the relationship between conventional and unconventional measures: unconventional measures can be deployed before the policy rate hits the zero lower bound, and the policy rate can be raised before unconventional measures are withdrawn.
These differences in principles for unconventional measures seem to reflect institutional and financial-market structure under which the two central banks operate.
Vermeersch, Sem:Fact and Fiction of the Tribute System: Reconsidering the Song-Goryeo Relationship
The so-called “Tribute System” became famous in Western academic circles through John K. Fairbank’s The Chinese World Order (1968). It brought attention to a model of international relations that was based on an unequal relationship between the partners, a model in which China invariably played the role of the center of civilization. Of course Fairbank and the contributors to this volume were very much aware that this is an ideal system, and that practice was often at odds with the ideal. Yet the work also puts forward the Qing-Joseon relationship as the most perfect realization of that ideal. Many scholars have since added more nuance to the picture of Sino-Korean relations in the Joseon period, but the image of Korea as a perfectly obedient “vassal” to China is still hard to dislodge.
Especially for the period before Joseon, namely the Goryeo period (918-1392), there is still a lack of research to clarify the difference between ideal and reality in diplomatic relations. A good example of that is the Illustrated Account of Goryeo 高麗圖經, a work written by the Chinese envoy Xu Jing Youngseo Baik徐兢 in 1124. It describes Goryeo as desperate to re-enter relations with Song China, and desperate to obtain Song China’s advanced culture, but it was prevented from doing so by the northern empires of Khitan Liao and later Jurchen Jin. These empires had forced Goryeo to become their vassal and break relations with Song China. Previous scholars such as Michael Rogers have taken such statements literally, and surmised that Goryeo loathed the “barbarian” northerners and desired to return to the “civilized” Song.
My research shows that such viewpoints fail to differentiate between diplomatic protocol and the reality of actual diplomatic relations. At the time of Xu Jing’s visit, Goryeo had already decided it would not renew relations with Song China, and was not too impressed with its overindulgence in ritual protocol. But Goryeo was very adapt at using the “tribute system” rhetoric to its own ends, and my paper will therefore focus on how the system was manipulated in practice based on Goryeo’s actual position in the power balance of the time. I will also look into the question of how a correct understanding of historic power relations can contribute to an understanding of the modern Korean states’ diplomacy
李奎泰:构筑南北韩和平体制和韩国政府的“东北亚和平合作构想”- 兼论东北亚和平机制问题
南北韩关系，从国际法的角度来看，目前还没有脱离了1953年的“停战体系”。“韩战停战”以来，南北韩之间或国际社会之间不断地有了与“南北韩”或“北南朝鲜”的“和平体制”问题相关的提议和争论。但是经过60多年，南北韩之间虽然有了250回的政治谈判和48回的军事谈判，也有签署了33个政治方面的协议书和10个军事方面的协议书，仍然还没有突破了“停战状态”。南北韩各方都有“和平体制”的提议，但是因双方的“安全困境”的困扰和北韩核武问题等多方面的原因而难以妥协各方可满足的和平机制。目前韩国政府推进的“东北亚和平协力构想“和“南北韩信赖进程”的战略，虽然语词有点不同，但其含义就在于想构筑南北韩之间“和平体制”的机制并以开拓南北韩和平之路。北韩也时常提出“北南朝鲜”的和平关系的提议。本文将讨论过去60多之间的南北韩和平体制有关的各种提议和争论，并加以分析目前韩国政府推进的“东北亚和平协力构想”对南北韩和平机制的含义和问题，同时浅论其对于东北亚未来和平发展的含义。
