Skip to 0 minutes and 9 seconds What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about South Korea. You may think of Korean Pop music like Gangnam Style or delicious Korean food such as Kimchi and Bul Goh Gi or rich history and traditions or superfast internet and mobile service. all of them sounds very interesting ; but in this course we will think about South Korea’s foreign and security policy and global political conditions with which Korea is faced a topic that might sound a little bit more difficult and complex than K-pop but hopefully as interesting as Gangnam Style.
Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds Welcome to Korea in a Global Context. My name is Yong-Soo Eun. I am an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies here at Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea. Throughout this course, I will be your guide and your lead educator. South Korea is located in Northeast Asia from which almost all security tensions in East Asia Gravitate. consider for example, the long-standing Sino-Japanese rivalry and the unresolved territorial disputes in East Asia. also the legacies of The Cold War still linger on The Korean Peninsula as the division of Korea and The persistent confrontation between the two Koreas clearly demonstrate. relatedly the security threats posed by North Korea’s nuclear tests and Long-Range Missiles cannot be taken lightly.
Skip to 1 minute and 40 seconds however from international economic perspective we do have quite different pictures and stories here. for example the share of Intra-Regional Trade between South Korea, Japan and China increased from 12 percent in 1990 to 24 percent in 2014. In addition China, Japan and South Korea constitute together more than 23 percent of the global population and the three countries’ aggregate GDP account for around 20 percent of Global GDP. so in this very dynamic and important region, South Korea can play very important roles given its geographical location and technological as well as economic power. also the consider very close economic and financial relationships between China and South Korea and the strong security tie with Washington that Seoul has been maintaining.
Skip to 2 minutes and 39 seconds In this course we will think about what challenges and opportunities South Korea faces and critically analyse How regional and global politics would affect and would be affected by South Korea’s external behaviour. In doing so, our focus will be placed on major state actors of the Asia-Pacific region such as the United States, China, Japan and North Korea and their foreign policy strategies and actions. once again thank you for joining this course. and I hope that you will find it interesting and useful in making better sense of South Korea’s foreign policy and global politics.
