JoongAng Daily

“The next chapter in social media”

 

Emanuel Pastreich

September 1, 2015

 

It has always saddened me that although Korea led the development of social networks early on, it failed to make its flagship Cyworld into a global leader.

Unfortunately, Cyworld had no vision for itself as a global player and only belatedly launched an English-language version. It ultimately pulled out of the American market in 2010, and today Facebook, launched in 2004, has become the most favored social network worldwide, including in Korea.

But today we are on the edge of a new revolution in social networks, and Korea once again has an opportunity to establish itself as the global leader. Social networks are becoming extremely popular in countries like Vietnam, Mongolia and China. Yet, Facebook is not properly customized to the needs of local cultures and takes a one-size-fits-all approach to social networking.

The next generation of social networks should be run as a utility administered by a consortium of nations in the same way that a highway is run by local and central governments. Social-networking companies should use that infrastructure to build creative content.

A global consortium of governments for social networks can provide the large-scale investment needed to lay down the foundation for something beyond the means of any one corporation. Because the infrastructure, including the administration, will be built as a public service, we can be sure they will be developed with a long-term vision to address important societal issues.

Read more

JoongAng Daily

“Korea’s Unique Position for Military Reform”  

August 10, 2015

Emanuel Pastreich

 

 

 

The United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor hosts the biannual RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) Exercises in June and July, an immensely successful program that encourages global military cooperation and helps to reduce regional tensions in East Asia

The RIMPAC Exercises invite representatives of military forces from the entire Pacific Rim to participate in military exercises that promote enhanced interoperability between forces and improve readiness for a wide range of military scenarios. The most important result of the RIMPAC Exercises has been the growth of personal relations and practical military-to-military partnerships throughout the region at the working level.

Significantly, the People’s Liberation Army Navy was invited to participate in the 2014 exercises, marking the first time China has joined a large-scale naval drill organized by the United States.

In spite of headlines in newspapers about a “new cold war,” multilateral military cooperation remains a strong trend globally, in part because emerging security threats, like cyber warfare, by their very nature are complex and demand multilateral responses.

This new environment offers a tremendous opportunity for Korea as a middle power to become a leader in military innovation and reform. Korea is no simple middle power, after all. Korea is perhaps the first country without a tradition of imperialism to reach such a level of influence in technology, trade and culture. And Korea does so while maintaining good relations with all the major powers and with many developing nations.

Korea should organize a new variation on RIMPAC that will bring together working-level officers from Pacific Rim nations for exercises that will build a new level of trust in the region and make military exercises an opportunity for unity, rather than creating new tensions.

Such a new RIMPAC exercise should focus on emerging security issues and could extend participation to include the nations of Southeast and Central Asia.

The overwhelming security threat for Asia today is climate change and the new role of the military in mitigation of climate change. Adaptation to the resulting broad security threats would be an ideal theme for a Korean-led RIMPAC exercise.

In light of the recent report on the rapid rise of sea levels by the renowned NASA scientist James Hansen, formulating a global response to the threat of climate change has become a priority for all militaries, particularly the navy.

The Climate Change RIMPAC exercises would focus on drills for the response to security challenges related to climate change including, but not limited to, evacuation, disaster relief and reconstruction following storms and floods. Recent super-typhoons like Nargis (2008) and Haiyan (2013) demonstrate that climate change is overwhelmingly the greatest threat to security in Asia, and such storms will increasingly inch north as climate change progresses.

In addition to military exercises, the Climate Change RIMPAC should include global competitions by militaries of Asia for new environmentally friendly technologies.

The example of the U.S. Department of Defense’s “Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security,” or SPIDERS, program is a good example of what could be done. The SPIDERS program conducted in 2013 the world’s first-ever test of a micro-grid handling an input of 90 percent renewable energy.

The military representatives at the Climate Change RIMPAC could compete for prizes for new technologies in fields like solar and wind power, electric batteries, power grids, environmental conservation and the use of intelligence and surveillance technologies to monitor and respond to the changing state of the oceans using a multilateral platform.

Such competitions will have even more impact if they are held together with an international conference, where the invited militaries can present papers about their advances in fields related to climate change. Topics like recycling, energy efficiency, water security, electric motors and the prevention of desertification could be subjects for presentations.

Such a Climate Change RIMPAC could be an excellent topic to bring at the Barack Obama-Xi Jinping summit in November this year. When President Obama visited Beijing last year, the two leaders firmly stated their commitment to closer military cooperation and a joint response to climate change. The Climate Change RIMPAC would be a concrete step to bring together both issues.

The proposal for a Climate Change RIMPAC could segue to the Paris Climate Change Conference planned for December, where world leaders will be pressed to come up with concrete responses to the growing fears of climate change’s impact on the entire world.

Finally, a Climate Change RIMPAC could also be an opportunity to establish an international think tank in Korea dedicated to this emerging topic: the military’s role in the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

Although this topic is guaranteed to attract increasing attention in the years ahead, there is no such think tank in existence. Because of the global consensus on climate change, a think tank focused on military reform as part of a response to climate change would offer a neutral space in which military leaders could meet for discussions on a variety of topics without any fear of political fallout.

Considering the Green Climate Fund and Global Green Growth Institute are here in Korea, the country has unique credentials to host a Climate Change RIMPAC and set up a think tank focused on military reform and the response to climate change.

Korea needs to take advantage of its technical expertise, its military know-how and the geopolitical positioning necessary to respond to a rapidly growing threat.

 

Chosun Ilbo

July 9, 2013

“An African American’s Perspective on the Korean Wave”

Emanuel Pastreich

I received an unexpected email in February 2013, from a young woman who was studying public health at Harvard University. Mariesa Lee Ricks explained that her mother was Korean and that she had a great interest in Korean culture. Mariesa said that she hoped to find out how K-Pop and Korean social media can play a role in bringing positive messages to youth around the world.

Mariesa added that she hopes to visit Korea to carry out research. I wrote back to her telling her that I would be in Boston soon for a business trip and we agreed to meet up while I was there.

I did not recognize her at first. I was taken aback for a split second when she introduced herself because she turned out to be African American, and I had imagined a half-Korean, half-Caucasian woman who looked like my daughter Rachel. I was impressed that Mariesa did not display the slightest sense of discomfort or uncertainty in the few seconds that it took me to get over my embarrassment. She was clearly an extremely mature and composed woman with a strong sense of herself.

We sat down at the café for a cup of coffee and muffins and Mariesa started to tell me how her research was far more than academic interest, but part of a vision for her own cultural and ethical mission and an extension of her experiences since childhood. The Korean Wave was an essential part of a search for greater diversity and acceptance of both herself and others. She imagined it as something far larger than just the catchy songs of Psy.

Read more

JoongAng Daily

“The future of Korea’s rural towns”

July 22, 2015

Emanuel Pastreich

 

I was recently taken on a trip by a friend to a tiny village nestled in the mountains near Kumsan, South Chungcheong. We drove along winding roads lined with pine trees for some time until we found ourselves standing in front of a cluster of modest houses built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

These wooden houses lining the ridge of a mountain were not well-maintained. Rusted pipes and broken windows were visible between the thick underbrush and vines that threatened to swallow them. But even more striking than the state of the disrepair of the buildings, was the age of the villagers. Villagers in their 70s helped those in their 80s and 90s with their groceries and cleaning because there simply was not anyone younger around. The lack of proper maintenance was because cleaning was too strenuous a task for them.

Read more

 

GLOBAL ASIA SUMMER 2015 (Vol. 10, No. 2)

Breaking Out of the Rut:

Broadening the Spectrum for Engaging North Korea

By Seok-Hyun Hong

 

ALTHOUGH THERE was much speculation that a breakthrough in North-South relations might be in the offing after high-ranking North Korean officials made an impromptu visit to the Asian Games at Incheon in October 2014, tensions of late have ratcheted up again, especially after the United States imposed further sanctions in response to allegations that North Korea was behind the hacking of Sony Pictures. Now, with talk of designating North Korea again as a spon­sor of terrorism, there is concern that another period of heightened tensions is about to begin.

But might it not be a smarter strategy to create a virtuous rather than a vicious cycle, one that could turn this all-too-predictable process around? The true lesson of the recent uptick in tensions is not that we should increase pressure on Pyongyang, but rather that we have to move beyond the current approach to engagement with North Korea.

For the last 20 years, South Korea and its partners have engaged North Korea through a variety of limited forums such as the Six-Party Talks, reunions for family members separated on either side of the DMZ and limited humani­tarian activities by non-governmental organi­zations (NGOs). As the world is rapidly trans­formed by globalization, the tremendous poten­tial of East Asia is being slowed down by this inability to fully integrate North Korea into the international community. The time has come for a creative and broad approach to engaging North Korea that can move beyond the current stalemate and open up new vistas for a peaceful and integrated Northeast Asia.

As China emerges as a truly global power and the US tries to define its rebalancing in Asia, this is a critical moment for creating a broad dia­logue with Pyongyang that includes more actors, and offers more potential directions for future development. This essay provides an overall analysis of the current situation and presents a few concrete proposals for innovative engage­ment that can change the way current problems are perceived. By changing these perceptions, the foundation can be laid for a more fundamen­tal institutional integration of the region that reflects the economic realities of this century. The first step is to change the manner in which we engage North Korea.

Read more