Asian Tradition and Cosmopolitan Politics: Dialogue with Kim Dae-jung

391 Pages·2017·3.777 MB·English

by  coll.

i
Asian Tradition
and Cosmopolitan
Politics
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Asian Tradition
and Cosmopolitan
Politics
Dialogue with Kim Dae-jung
Han Sang-Jin
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
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Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB
Copyright © 2018 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 978-1-4985-2814-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4985-6788-6 (electronic)
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Foreword ix
John Dunn
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xvii
Han Sang-Jin
PART I: TWO PRESIDENTS ON PEACE IN EAST ASIA 1
1 East Asia in the Twenty-First Century 3
Kim Dae-jung
2 Forging the Future through Competition and Cooperation 9
Kim Dae-jung
3 New Threats to Peace Today 17
Kim Dae-jung
4 Why Do We Need a Civilized Dialogue? 23
Richard von Weizsäcker
5 Japan, East Asia, and Global Peace 31
Richard von Weizsäcker
6 Toward the Age of Pacific Civilization 37
Kim Dae-jung
7 A Dialogue with Two Presidents 45
Kim Dae-jung, Richard von Weizsäcker and Han Sang-Jin
v
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vi Contents
PART II: WHY DO I BELIEVE IN GLOBAL DEMOCRACY? 61
8 Why Do I Believe in Global Democracy? 63
Kim Dae-jung
9 Democracy Is Our Destiny: The Message of the
1960 Student Revolution 77
Kim Dae-jung
10 Popular Sovereignty: My Encounter with Gwangju 1980 89
Kim Dae-jung
11 Five Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty 95
Kim Dae-jung
12 Democracy Will Eventually Win in Burma 99
Kim Dae-jung
13 The Sunshine Policy and Peace 103
Kim Dae-jung
14 Dawning Era of “Universal Globalism” 115
Kim Dae-jung
PART III: ASIAN TRADITIONS AND GLOBAL
DEMOCRACY: DIALOGUE WITH SEOUL
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS 119
15 Democracy in Asia and Human Rights 121
Kim Dae-jung
16 Kim Dae-jung and Lee Kwan Yew: How to Interpret
the Polemics? 157
Choe Soo-Young
17 Confucian Traditions and Democracy: Are They Compatible? 163
Kim Tae Hoon
18 Kim Dae-jung’s Interpretation of Asian Democratic Traditions:
A Critical Appraisal 171
Ryu Seung-Hyeong
19 Buddhist Traditions and Kim Dae-jung’s Democratic Theory 175
Chang Won-Seok
20 Democracy and Factional Conflict: Kim Dae-jung’s
Interpretation of Korean History 181
Baek Jeong-Hun
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Contents vii
21 Is Information Society a Blessing? An Assessment
of Kim Dae-jung’s View 189
Kim Yeon
22 Human Beings and Environment: Kim Dae-jung’s View
on the Unity of Nature and Man 195
Kim Hyun-Soo
23 The Tidelands Policy and Kim Dae-jung’s Notion of Global
Democracy 201
Rhew Hosahng
24 Cyberspace and Human Rights 209
Kim Joohyung and Park Joon-Yeon
PART IV: COSMOPOLITAN VISION WITH ASIAN IDENTITY 217
25 Confucian Pathway to Cosmopolitan Democracy:
Reconstruction of Loyalty and Filial Piety 219
Kim Dae-jung
26 What Is Good Governance in the Twenty-First Century? 233
Kim Dae-jung
27 Cosmopolitan Dialogue for American Leadership: Dialogue
with Harvard Students 247
Kim Dae-jung
28 World Peace through IT Revolution 253
Kim Dae-jung
29 Eurasian Iron Silk Road: A New Vision 259
Kim Dae-jung
30 Toward Human Welfare and Happiness 267
Kim Dae-jung
31 My View of Christian Way of Life: Divine Question and
Human Suffering 271
Kim Dae-jung
PART V: LAST WORDS FOR THE SUNSHINE POLICY 283
32 Messages to the Leaders and the People 285
Kim Dae-jung
33 The Lessons from the Inter-Korean Relation in Current Crisis 289
Kim Dae-jung
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viii Contents
34 The Current Nuclear Issues and Rediscovering
China as Peace Builder 293
Kim Dae-jung
35 Be a Conscience in Action! 299
Kim Dae-jung
36 The Last Interviews 305
Kim Dae-jung
37 Rethinking the Sunshine Policy: President Kim Dae-jung
and His Vision of Peace and Unification in Korea 319
Moon Chung-in
PART VI: CONCLUSION 327
38 Reflection on the Last Year of President Kim
Dae-jung’s Life: A New Communicative Ethics
for Peace in the Twenty-First Century 329
Han Sang-Jin
Index 343
About the Editor and Contributors 347
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Foreword
Kim Dae-jung: A View from
the Far Abroad
John Dunn
Three great political leaders have dominated the dramatic history of the
Republic of Korea.1 Two, Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-Hee, are long
dead. Only one, Kim Dae-jung, is still a living presence in the land his
achievements have helped to create. All three are still fiercely controversial.
But each contributed something of massive continuing value to the future of
the country they loved with a fierce but not uncritical pride which Koreans
so readily sustain in them, through all its turmoils, hazards, and discomfi-
tures. Syngman Rhee left an unmistakably independent country, purpose-
fully open, for all its ancestral misgivings, to the wider capitalist world. He
kept it free from communism (or whatever category you think now fits the
regime of the DPRK). Park Chung-Hee presided over the creation of one of
the world’s most dynamic modern economies and laid the foundations for
the kinds of lives most of its citizens live today. But his legacy, like that of
Syngman Rhee, is still tainted indelibly with the levels of repression which
he deployed to retain power and enforce his will, and by the cruelties inflicted
on those who dared to challenge him. Their achievements live on in the lives
of Koreans today, but so too do the costs of the means which they employed
to secure them.
Every serious politician has to devote his or her life largely to the quest for
personal power in order to achieve anything durable. In contrast to each of his
striking predecessors, Kim Dae-jung held power far more briefly and exer-
cised far less power, governing as a democratically elected president (with-
out an overall majority), through (or sometimes despite) a democratically
elected legislature, and for a constitutionally predefined period. Anyone who
attempts to govern Korea makes many enemies and, sooner or later, loses
popularity at a remorseless pace. If you inspect his presidency as a closed epi-
sode, in contrast with the democratically elected presidents who immediately
ix
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