• Date: July 17^th, Wednesday, 2019, 11:00-16:30
• Location: International Convention of Asia Scholars 11, Leiden, the Netherlands

Korea Foundation and Seoul National University Asia Center

Roundtable Session 1. Korean Peninsula on the Move: Lessons from Post-socialist and Reunified Countries 1: Political and Economic Aspects of Transition, Reunification, Integration and the Korean Peninsula

Wed, July 17, 2019 11:15 – 13:00 at Kamerlingh Onnes B0.25

Roundtable Session 2. Korean Peninsula on the Move: Lessons from Post-socialist and Reunified Countries 2: Social and Cultural Experiences of Post-socialist Countries and the Korean Peninsula

Wed, July 17, 2019 14:45 – 16:30 at Kamerlingh Onnes B0.25

SNUAC proceeded two roundtable talks on the unification experiences of past socialist states under the title, ‘Korean Peninsula on the Move’, at International Conference of Asia Scholars 11 (ICAS11) on July 17th.

The first session began with congratulatory speeches by Lee Yun Young (Korean Ambassador to the Netherlands), SooJin Park (Director of SNUAC) and Sihyung Lee (President, The Korea Foundation). The session discussed the political/economic aspects of the transition, unification and integration of the Korean peninsula based on the experiences of unification in past socialist states, with presentations by professors Jens Holscher (Bournemouth University), Laszlo Casba (Central European University), Kyung Hoon Leem (Director of SNU Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Dept. of Political Science and International Relations), Jehoon Park (Incheon National University) and Tat Yan Kong (University of London).

The afternoon session was hosted by Professor Suhong Chae (Dept. of Anthropology), and professors Hy V. Luong (University of Toronto), Di Wu (University of London), Jaesok Kim (Dept. of Anthropology), Philo Kim (SNU IPUS), Hyondo Park (Myongji University) surveyed the sociocultural aspects in the unification experiences of past socialist states, then discussed their significance in the unification process of the Korean peninsula.

The participants and the audience members had a heated discussion on whether DPRK will join the peaceful unification process by voluntarily giving up nuclear armament upon being threatened for its own security, whether Koreans, who had experienced a war unlike Germans who didn’t, will be able to reach the unification at heart, and whether the bottom-up economic change related to the recently observed ‘jangmadang‘ in DPRK will bring a systematic reform.

The event concluded with closing remarks by Sihyung Lee (President, The Korea Foundation) and Hyun-Chin Lim (Professor Emeritus, SNU Dept. of Sociology).