 Okay good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the second seminar or webinar in the center of Korean Studies for this academic year and this term. So my name is Anders Carlson. I'm the chair of the center. I will also act as the chair of today's seminar. We're very happy to have with us Dr. Sun Pil Jin who currently is a teaching and research postdoctoral fellow in Korean Studies at Edinburgh University. So welcome back Dr. Jin. Dr. Jin has his both MA and PhD here from SOAS, an MA in history and then later PhD in Korean history and he received his doctorate in 2016 and also then during his time here at SOAS he actually was a research fellow for the center for two years organizing what then would have been the physical seminars and doing other things both for the center. So Dr. Jin is a specialist on the diplomatic history of East Asia in the late 19th early 20th century but then also the political situation in Korea around that time. His talk today is going to be based on his forthcoming book that's going to be published by the University of Hawaii Press coming out sometime in July and this would be based on his PhD here from SOAS and Dr. Jin will talk for about half an hour so and then there will be plenty of time for questions afterwards. So please if you could ask the questions come to your mind put the questions in the Q&A box try to avoid to put it in the chat box or please in the Q&A box and then after the talk we'll read those questions that have come into the Q&A box and of course continuously you can put more questions and follow-up questions into to that box. So please Dr. Jin if you would like to start your talk. Thank you Dr. Carlson. Thank you Dr. Carlson for inviting me back at SOAS. I would also like to thank all the members of the Center of Korean Studies especially Dr. Yeon Jae-hoon, Dr. Shadow Holic, Dr. Grace Cole and Dr. Owen Miller. I should note that my research fellowship was possible owing to both Dr. Carlson and Dr. Yun's kindness to hire me for two years and it was also thanks to the fellowship I was able to use the funding to work on this research. So thank you again. So as Dr. Carlson just said my presentation today focuses on Korean neutralization which is based on my PhD research that I completed at SOAS. So the formal title of my upcoming book is Surviving Imperial Intricks Korea's Struggle for Neutrality Amid Empires from 1882 to 1907 and this book is the first major study on Korean neutralization both in English and Western language. As you can see from the slide there's a reason why I think Korean neutralization although it is a historical event can also have significant repercussions for those working on social science such as international relations. This is because although my research covers periods of the imperial tensions and significant geopolitical intrigues during the high time of imperialism since I incorporate theories related to international relations such as balance of power and neutralization. This is why I believe my research can now only offer some new insights I hope both for historians working on diplomatic history and imperial history but also international relations scholars who may want to look at some historical case studies both to test and to improve upon their theories on international relations and this is because for my own research and recent trends one of the things that I found quite lacking in the field of international relations especially in the West is that this tendency to overlook useful case studies in East Asia many of them tend to be focused on mirror-centric examples. So I hope my modest attempt to reach a Korean neutralization can help those scholars working on international relations to look at my book and to reassess their insights on international relations as well. So you may wonder because the timing is a bit distant from the late 19th to early 20th centuries my book may not be relevant for contemporary times however as I will discuss later there are reasons I think why a study of Korean neutralization can still serve as an important lesson for both for scholars and policy makers as well. So I'm sure many of you here are quite familiar with international relations theories but just in case you are less familiar or you already know but by what I just want to briefly go through then some definitions or concepts related to neutralization because this is the central part of my research. So when we say neutralization basically we are talking about international status where stakeholder countries can grant neutrality to countries, territories and even waterways and here what I mean by stakeholder countries there are usually major powers who have stake important geopolitical interests and sometimes also geo-economic interests in particular hospitals and to address their differences among their interests or to preserve certain parts of the world so that you can avoid unnecessary conflicts these stakeholder countries can select neutrality as an option. Now once you are neutralized, neutralized countries are expected to shoulder some burdens and they include ability to defend your territorial integrity through self-defense and their successful neutralization are meant to contribute to regional stability as for specific conditions for neutralization they are divided into largely subjective and objective conditions. Subjective encompass things such as countries leaders and people's support for neutralization and domestic and international rights and duties that these neutralized countries need to adhere to and then there is objective condition where the country's geographical position will determine whether that particular country is eligible for neutralization. Now many of you may think that neutralization is a rather obscure concept but if you look back into history of international relations there have been quite a number of cases where these stakeholder countries decide to grant certain countries or territories as neutralized parts and there are many examples but one of the some of the common examples include Belgium and Switzerland and coincidentally Korean neutralization is closely resembled to Belgium and Switzerland because if you follow through past neutralization proposals adopted by both within and outside Korea countries that are mentioned most frequently are Belgium and Switzerland. Of course there are other examples such as Luxembourg, Serbia, Netherlands and even Bulgaria although Bulgaria was never formally neutralized just being a buffer state but at the same time you could say that neutralized Korea if it did occur could have served as a buffer state between continental powers such as China and maritime powers such as Japan. So moving on when it comes to historical contexts surrounding Korean neutralization we can say that Korean neutralization was affected by three major rivalries firstly there was Sino-Japanese rivalry from 1882 to 1895 secondly Anglo-Russian rivalry from 1885 to 1887 and finally Russo-Japanese rivalry from 1895 to 1905. Now there's a reason why I chose these three periods and the reason being why for example Sino-Japanese rivalry started in 1882 and ended in 1895 is in 1882 there was political incident in the South in the Korean peninsula Imo-ku and through that coup China was able to maximize its political influence on the Korean peninsula even to an extent stationing its troops and sending its representative Yuan Shikai there and although Chinese troops withdrew after Tianjin Convention in 1884 with Japan until China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 China was regarded both Korean and external observers as a country that had most influence over Korean affairs now why Anglo-Russian rivalry well although it only lasted around two years when Britain occupied Gomundo or Pearl Hamilton in English in 1885 this rivalry was very important because those of you who are familiar with the concept the great game at that time Britain and Russia was competing for regional supremacy including in Asia and as a global hegemon Britain regarded Russia as its chief rival in Asia and although Afghanistan has received a lot of attention from the scholars Korea too was also central attention and the reason why Britain for example occupied Pearl Hamilton was to preserve both its strategic and commercial interests in division by occupying this key island and to use this island to guard Russian expansion and I would also note that it was during this period when Britain occupied Pearl Hamilton that there was a greatest chance to realize Korean neutralization which was actually suggested by British foreign secretary which I mentioned later and then from 1895 to 1905 around 10 years although Japan briefly emerged as supreme power under Korean Peninsula Japanese power on division was curtailed by so-called triple intervention which was led by Britain sorry France Germany and Russia which was designed to stop Japanese expansion on the continent to Asia so from 1895 to 1905 when Russia lost in the Russo-Japanese war for around 10 years compared to say central Japanese rivalry as US minister to Korea Horace Newton island observed at that time there was no clear hegemon on the Korean Peninsula on the horizon so this meant then that both Koreans and non-Koreans were able to put forward various neutralization proposals to either preserve their strategic interests or preserve some sort of stability in the region or from the Korean perspective to preserve its fragile independence from the possible war between Japan and Russia and all throughout this period Korea was a periphery in the intention system which was led by core powers such as Britain France Russia and the late imperial power Japan so as a weak power neutralization was perhaps the only option worthwhile for Korean policymakers to consider at the time so there were numerous factors aside from major power rivalries affecting Korean neutralization and here I'm just introducing some of the major ones firstly there was international agreements and international agreements such as web air comrade and randon allowed both hegemonic powers such as the pen and rusher but also even Korea to use this breeding space to engage in more autonomous foreign policy including neutralization policy excuse me and secondly there is a political factions such as pro-china Japan Russia and neutralization so during this period the Korean court was divided into different factions and these factions aside from neutralization worked closely with major powers such as Japan Russia or Korea's perhaps oldest ally China now pro-neutralization faction was the newest political faction and this faction compared to say pro-china Japan Russia was free from the major power influence and they deliberately chose not to rely on specific power although from time to time they may look to certain powers such as France Britain and even Russia because they realized that you know to achieve neutralization they needed major powers support thirdly there was concession such as railroads and this was a time when not just Korea but many periphery or semi periphery states decided to dole out concessions to major powers and their justification was that if you have more major power intervention or interest on your country chances are you can play off those powers to preserve your autonomy or independence so by the same token the Korean court led by Emperor Ko Jong at that time decided to allocate certain concessions including railroads such as Gyeonggi railroads Gyeongin railroads Gyeongwon and Gyeongbu railroads all of which connected the Korean peninsula to either keep ports such as Busan or to border towns such as Gyeonghung which bordered Russia then there were loans that the Korean court had to tap and one of the famous loans that he tried to engineer was so-called Unnam syndicate and this Unnam syndicate was particularly important because this loan unlike other loan attends from say China-Japan because this was brought by French financiers and because France was considered a major part with no obvious interest in Korean territory Ko Jong and his aides especially those in pro-neutralization faction thought that they can use loans like Unnam to use such loans both to strengthen Korean economy and military but also to invite France to maintain its interest under Korean Peninsula which they hoped by turn when say crisis occurs France could perhaps exercise so-called good offices or intervene in Korea's behalf and finally I would also point out the role of telegraph lines and much like railroads these telegraph lines were connected to either ports or towns that would then travel to continent to Asia and these telegraph lines were very important because timely communication of diplomatic messages were vital for Korean court to relay and receive sensitive messages to major powers of course because this was a period of imperial intrusion there was no guarantee that even secure telegraph lines would work for Korea because in the beginning from China and later Japan these hostile powers although to be fair China was regarded as more friendly power being a citizen although it's I have to say that as we can see from the records even erstwhile pro-China faction members and even Ko Jong decided to reduce Korea's dependence on China because they observed how China switched from traditional role of benign surgery to more like a new type of imperial power which European powers seem to resemble and certainly Qing there's evidence to suggest that Qing China's role in Ko Jong Korea was different from say pre-Ko Jong era now moving on to Korean neutralization proposals as I said earlier there were attempts from both within and outside Korea specifically there were neutralization proponents from eight countries and they included China Japan Korea Britain France Germany Russia and the United States and many of these proponents were either policymakers intellectuals or even newspapers from say Japan and in fact the first attempt to neutralize Korea originated from Japanese newspaper called Yubin Ho Chi Shinbun not by Korean proponent although later on Korean proponents also suggested various initiatives to neutralize their country however like I said earlier regarding the Port Hamilton incident the most likelihood that Korea would have realized its neutralization was that suggested by British and this particular proposal was suggested by Earl of Rosemary and the photo right on his side is the photo of the British Foreign Secretary Earl of Rosemary at the time and he put forward this proposal on 14th of April 1886 amidst Britain's occupation of Port Hamilton primarily to secure Britain's position in East Asia now going a bit deeper in this neutralization proposal common though as I said earlier was strategically important for Britain in fact Britain's first sea lord Earl of Northbrook commented at the time commander was basically a base for the blockade of the Russian forces in the Pacific and Port Hamilton was according to in his own words advantageously situated for the command of the Korean channel so as you can see that Britain occupied Port Hamilton ostensibly to guard Russian expansion but clearly there was a reason why Britain engaged in this pre-emptive action to preserve its strategic interests rather than stop this alleged Russian expansion on the Korean Peninsula now Rosemary scheme was because that Russia was seen as a chief rival in Asia was to counter the country's sudden expansion in his own mind and it did benefit from two things firstly as reported by the British newspaper The Times at the time Lee Hong-jang the Chinese official in charge of Korean policy at the time actually suggested something similar along the line neutralization which is joint protection of Korea by Britain China and Japan and because joint protection of Korea can then lead to neutralization in the later stage you could say Rosemary's proposal could have received China's backing and his foreign office colleague James Bryce who was serving as under foreign secretary at the time testified at the parliament at the time that the laws of Korea would be equivalent for Britain as if losing Belgium which was already neutralized European country and whose neutralization was supported by major powers such as Britain of course as history demonstrated all Rosemary's proposal failed because despite his mediation no major powers including that of China refused to accept his proposal however it is still worthwhile to consider the possible scenario if his proposal actually succeeded so what if then his proposal succeeded I argued that Rosemary's proposal could have preserved balance of power in the far east it would have given more time for chosen Korea to engage in self threat self strengthening movement because without stable foreign policy it was very difficult for periphery states like chosen Korea to engage in wholesale domestic reforms because if your national security is not secured it's very difficult for any state that alone big state like chosen Korea at the time to engage or should I say to focus on domestic reforms and as James Bryce remarked chosen Korea could have become the Belgium of far east where it could act as stabilizing equilibrium among major powers that help avoid a regional war which as you know did break out later with the center japanese war and russia japanese war so so neutralization in the end failed and although there were attempts to neutralize Korea up even after a rosemary's very timely and well thought out proposal none of them actually had measure of success if even if it was possible compared to a rosemary's proposal of course this does not mean that Korean court or those interesting Korean legislation gave up such prospect in fact on January 21st 1904 as the cloud for as the russo-japan's war was drawing closer the Korean court worked with french charged the fair we call the fontaine who actually helped the Korean court to draft wartime neutrality declaration alongside blessing blessing from russian minister to create the time Pablo the Korean court was able to use telegraph office in china which actually acted as external communication office for Korean court at the time because Korean court could not rely safely on its own telegraph lines within Korea because it was under heavy surveillance from japan but despite all the odds Korean court was able to declare its wartime neutrality on this date January 1st January 21st 1904 and eventually russia did support for Korean wartime neutrality was which was very crucial because as you can can be seen from russian official documents the russian court thought neutralized korea would help not just vision of stability but also allow korea to maintain its independence from japan and you can see why the justification for fontaine's involvement in french diplomatic document and he specifically mentions that he thought neutralized korea albeit work even during wartime would help preserve some measure of balance of power in division now of course russia did lose from the russo-japan's war and this meant that thanks to the treaty of personal which united states mediated this meant that after the treaty japan effectively gained international support for its predominance on overall korea and japan was also blessed by renewal of anglo-japanese alliance in 1905 which specifically mentioned unlike the first anglo-japanese alliance in 1901 that basically japan was given go ahead to make korea a protected state and although russia refused to accept that korea lost its independence even after the treaty postman in fact russia even invited korea to attend the second hake peace conference which was held at hake in 1907 to discuss arm's control and other major strategic issues and the korean court felt encouraged and decided to send three envoys iwi-jong, isang-seol and isun to the hake to sue for major power support for permanent neutrality of korea by early 1907 it was evident that there was no major power left to support korea's neutrality including that of france and russia in fact before the second hake peace conference was held both france and russia decided to abandon any support for korea neutralization and enact their own separate agreements with japan so that japan russia and france can secure their own respective colonial interests in asia so unfortunately these three envoys were unable to attend this conference and had to use international media outlets such as new york times to air their case for korea neutralization and because there was no international consensus their proposals failed in fact it's safe to say that apart from lack of international consensus political instability and weak military strength of korea state at that time meant that there was no hope for korea neutralization except during the port hammerton incident when the reigning hakeman britain could have helped korea to become a neutral state and belgian's case was specifically that because unlike switzerland which successfully obtained its neutralization at congress of vienna in 1815 belgian's neutralization was actually a byproduct of major powers agreement so irrespective of belgian's own will or even its military strength which to be fair it did acquire later on belgian's neutralization was made possible because stakeholder countries agreed to do so so as i said current neutralization failed but why is this concept still relevant as you know in the last few years we have now entered a new era in international relations that is sinal u.s. by polarity and as norwegian scholar oman towin owen stein american opinion maker fardy zhakaria and other scholars who now say clearly that we have we now have two basically superpowers china and united states ruling the as uh maintaining as extra team most strongest voice on international relations it gives an opportunity for geographically and strategically located countries like south korea which has now become middle power because unlike say chosen korea which clearly was too weak to maintain its independence south korea today is 10th largest comic power by gdp nominal terms and according to international ranking such as that provided by global firepower index south korea's military strength is now considered something along the line of six or seven most powerful so while south korea is not strong enough to invade say major powers like china russia japan and of course the u.s is our right now it is strong enough to maintain its independence and a successfully neutralized korean peninsula can compensate its past weakness of geopolitics and use its newly gained status to explore it geoeconomics as you can see from the map and the reality of the korean companies engaging in multilateral trade with countries and investment in erstwhile enemies such as china and russia and even it's difficult neighbor japan we can see clearly that due to very close supply network and south korea's newly gained status as a respectable middle power it is now in position to use if possible newly gained status i.e. neutralization to exert its influence on the global stage now even with this explanation you may remain quite skeptical whether neutralization has any value you may think it's just a pipe dream however recently number of opinion makers have stepped forward and suggested neutralization so for instance in 2017 amidst nuclear crisis surrounding north korea former british foreign office diplomat and the then chinese china studies scholar at harvard rhodetic mech facore suggested neutralize korean peninsula as an option to gain china support for denuclearization and ultimately unification of korea a year later former singaporean diplomat kishio bakthani wondered in his book has the west lost it which basically discusses china's rise as a new hegemonic power much like mech facore he suggested that neutralization should be entertained as unification of korea and i would also include my own contribution for east asia forum and in this op-ed piece i suggested we could strive for a multi-step process to facilitate both denuclearization of the korean peninsula and ultimately permanent neutrality now i'd like to end today's lecture by stressing why permanent neutrality still makes sense not just on the korean peninsula but other strategic hospitals in a book named beyond nato michael or helen brookings institute scholar suggested that about three years ago in his book that because eastern europe has entered a new normal which is there is no clear hegemon in this case russia and nato led united states where no single power can exert exclusive voice on strategic hotspots in eastern europe he suggested or helen that in his book that we should consider permanent neutrality as a new option and i should also mention that ohana is not the only one for example former u.s. secretary of state larry quinton also suggested that in order to secure afghanistan's independence she floated the idea of permanent neutralization of afghanistan so that neutralize afghanistan can serve as a buffer state to secure its independence amidst major powers surrounding the country so the reason why i'm mentioning both eastern europe and afghanistan is is that to show that this idea of permanent neutralization has been surface as policy discourse by opinion makers and scholars alike and this gives it another reason why both korean policy makers and those abroad as well as scholars to seriously consider neutralization as an option and of course although there's no domestic consensus in korea at this time i think just like in the case of belgium it can be suggested by outside powers like china or even within south korea where over the years both policy makers and scholars can work together and business community too because business community plays an important role in vision economy to make a case for neutralized korean peninsula which not only can secure its independence but act as a bridge between maritime powers such as japan and united states and content of powers such as china and russia so my humble hope and wish is that in the years to come perhaps scholars and policy makers can be visited the failed neutralization of korea during joseon and to learn from their mistakes so that we can avoid making same mistakes in the future thank you for listening and i'm happy to take questions thank you so much dr jinn that was very brief summary of the very rich manuscript that i i know that you're working on uh so i'm i'm i'm sure through the discussions we will be able to get much more out of what you've been doing and looking into this question so please if i could ask if you have any questions any comments anything if you could please put that in the q&a box and then i as as chair will forward those questions to dr jinn as as you're doing that and to get some discussion going i will start by by asking you a few questions and for you dr jinn this will probably bring about this kind of things that we discussed when when you when you worked on your on your dissertation uh so i think for for many people it might be those kind of novel things that that you're talking about whether we don't really read about neutralization for for korea in this period of course that is because in the end it never materialized so i i think and i said that before when you're working on your phd yeah you have a good point in saying well it never happened but still we we can learn things by looking into these efforts they would wear the motivations that these various actors had when when they proposed for this to happen in the end the the kind of angle that you have in this talk now is okay so the significance what we can learn from this so what what insights we can get from this is something that we can apply to to contemporary times but i i would like to go back when i consider your work to be a work of history in a sense so yeah it never happened it never really materialized in korea but but still looking into these efforts what can that tell us how can that contribute to the study of of neutralization in that time period so like the 19th into the early 20th century because of what could you work contribute in that sense it would be interesting to hear what can you add by looking into the into the korean case another thing and of course this is all speculative but you're engaged in a little bit speculation yourself in sense of saying what could have happened if when we did have the occupation of port hamilton if that came about so what do you think was lacking so in the end why did not that happen so you bring out there could have been a lot of kind of positive results or consequences of that so one one thing that would have to be speculative i guess in a sense but but why what was missing what didn't that was the closest it got in this time period so i didn't it really happen and i mean one of the strengths i think of of your work is the way in which you looked at materials in in archives from from a lot of different countries so in in general just opening up maybe a little bit broader than the issue of neutralization so so looking into that kind of archival material newspaper materials from all of these different countries just in general what was the understanding of korea at the time and was it of concern or was it extremely peripheral or what kind of understanding did the people have of korea i think that could be interesting to hear as well so i see that question starts to pop into the q and a so i'll stop there and if you could just see a few words on that and then we'll get to the questions in the q and a box yeah so thank you dr cousin for your very kind comments i suppose by looking at multi-lingual archives which you said i did consult and personal documents as well my overall impression was that although by varying degrees but many of them were largely either ignorant or overlooked korea's importance as a geopolitical puzzle so although there were exceptions with ample by the likes of william franklin sense who was an american advisor to gojo and if you look at his personal documents which occur it's clear to see that unlike other westerners who are very critical of gojong's leadership he thinks that gojong did his best to preserve korea's independence and his documents also testify to predict the barriers that prevented korea's state to engage in new charge and diplomacy including japanese tempering of korean telegraph lines now you can also look at japanese documents on emil bonasson who was a french legal advisor to japanese court and bonasson also by the way suggested korean neutralization and to his credit i think he did possess a new young's picture of korean peninsula and since as important component in regional stability so that kind of answers your second part and what can we learn from looking at the past the korean neutralization proposals for contemporary history at the time i think well i mean although my research does focus on neutralization because it also covers major power bribery surrounding it as well as influencing factors such as international agreements and loans and railroads etc so even if let's say you have no interest whatsoever on korea or even east asian you can still use korean case studies for example korean attempts to make loans or railroad this concession diplomacy with major powers with that of say egypt so for example those of you who are familiar with egypt's history in the late 19th century kind of like similar to korea at the time egypt was nominally independent but under the otton empire's um okay let me rephrase it so otton empire was nominally it's sozarin just like a ching china at the time but in reality was much more complicated because by the late 19th century you have imperial powers like britain and france moving in to egypt and their domination initially started with making loans to egypt and of course the now famous suez canal was a creation of french and frenchmen and although this was built by the french um technical know-how that's where the name the suez suez the french construction company came from suez canal it was the british court british prime minister disraeli at the time who decided to invest substantial portions of money to buy some stakes in the strategic assets so you so that can serve as useful case study how comparing egypt and korea and i think going back to rhodesbury's proposal in the interest of time i did not go deeper but the reason why it failed is that first of all no major powers were interested so china despite being approached twice by rosemary refused to respond uh favorably so because china at the time was negotiating with russia to um so in return for britain's withdrawal from comando or port timetan the idea was that russia would not call it korean territory and china will ask some kind of gerund toad to make sure that the russian expansion on the korean peninsula would not happen so china's interest was more into preserving its sovereignty over korea and strike a separate deal with russia rather than working with britain to bring the korean peninsula a neutralized place i think it should have happened but i suppose this is another case classic case of where um major powers interests collide and that unfortunately that failure overlooked this real possibility that korean peninsula could have mutualized and hopefully preserved regional stability but as you say it's a speculation nothing is guaranteed but i think it's useful for historians to consider not just strictly the past cases and just assess for me but imagine the what if scenarios because i think because i stated earlier that my research is still relevant i think to this day it is important so even more so that we engaging with some creative thinking where instead of just looking at the historical events as as it is but imagine what was the geopolitical complicities that led to such conclusion yeah that's that's where i put it thank you thank you very much so now i will forward the questions from the q&a box and the first question is from veronica veronica bergstohler and the question is how did neutralization proposals by japan initially fit into its strategic interest in the region and imperial ambitions so initially the reason why i put on for the likes of yubin yubin ho chi shinbon so this neutralization was the day japan realized that compared to china its strategic presence on the korean peninsula was weak so in order to weaken china's influence over korean peninsula and by extension division that's why japan suggests neutralization so it's not that it is not the case without both that japan as early as 1880s were confident that they can colonize uh korea because as i just said until china's defeat it was pretty much an agreement that china was the uh i don't say hegemon in the east age among the east asian powers although the recent scholarship has shown that after 1880s china was losing its primacy to japan but people were not certain it took the world to finally confirm that okay japan is the new asian power so until then china was regarded as strongest power in asia so japan too had no option but to try something different and that's where neutralization came along okay thank you i hope that answered your question vronica and the next question from sakuri mattushevsky and this is a question about the concessions that you mentioned at the beginning so first this is an important project your concluding remarks make me think about the role of imperial exploitation the role that plays in your argument you mentioned concessions as a way for korea to play the imperial powers but isn't there an aspect of concessions that implies or runs on exploitation uh in that way if any was korea sovereignty compromised in the neutral position yes thank you for your question and you're right that of course is an element of exploitation and but realistically at the time jojong korea was too weak to develop on his own he still needed external assistance in fact even major japan um had to spend some years to engage in some wholesale self-straining to end for example unfair unequal treaties with western powers so if even japan had to undergo that process you can imagine how even jojong korea had no choice but to engage in external uh accept external assistance so of course they knew that if they just dole out those concessions and wait for with major powers intervention then yes you'll be exploited so as a compromise solution was that in the meantime they will look to various western powers so i mentioned very low concession for example these strategic concessions concessions were not just given to one power so for example one one railroad would be given to france a french interest another one to japan another one to russia and in the meantime by the early 1900s especially the korean court itself was trying to figure out a way to develop this railroad domestic but it was simply very difficult because korean economy was very weak so i think you have to sometimes you have to work with what you got and sometimes your option is unattractive but sometimes that is the only way yeah okay thank you the next way it is an anonymous question yeah and it brings us back to contemporary times and the question is what is the popular thought surrounding neutralization of neutralization in korea at the moment well i think i mentioned towards the end of a lecture that there is no domestic clear domestic consensus even within korea so popular opinion is that unfortunately in my view just look to america as primary partner of course like people recognize that whether we like it or not china is the most important market for south korean goods so there's a realization that we need to maintain good relationship with china but neutralization is not considered a attractive option for for many however about two years ago i had an opportunity to visit south korea's ministerial foreign affairs to attend their seminar and the speaker the speaker uh professor bak tagyu as so-called nash university he discussed the possibility of neutralization of korea by looking at neutralization proposal proposed by president dwight eisner during the korean war and the reason why he mentioned that is to show that it is simply not true that neutralization is just is a korean phenomenon that you can and he's he specifically mentioned this to show that even the americans if they if they think it was beneficial entertained optional neutralization and judging from the reaction of diplomats i think was quite it didn't go down very well because not surprisingly because many of them are screwed in pro u.s mindset and i don't know how i don't know and of course like majority of u.s south korean scholars are pro u.s and the media as well but i think there comes a time in history including korean history where very minority opinion can change history i don't know you're familiar with this korean diplomat named sohi and in early 11th century korea it was korean at the time was invaded by uh uh liao and the liao army uh which was led by the soseong i don't know what the chinese pronunciation i cannot remember chinese pronunciation but his name was soseong in korean and of him and sohi sat down together and then so he convinced him that if you withdraw your army and you feel um allow us basically to use to contemporary dragon to maintain strategic autonomy between liao and song we will not take side with song which was the ultimate rival of liao and liao general soseong accepted that and although there was another war followed between liao and korea because korea was relatively strong enough to defend itself just like south korea would argue now korea was able to maintain what in 21st century term known as mutual diplomacy so and the reason why i mentioned sohi is that even during at the time the korea court sohi was probably the only one as far as i know that uh convinced the korea king at the time with that to negotiate rather than surrender to liao's demands and that small decision changed history not just for the korean history but northeast asian history as a whole because autonomous or independent korea between song and liao meant that there was a balance of power and division so i hope that answers your question that by hope and i'm not a i'm not optimistic that you'll be taken up anytime soon but maybe in the longer term more and more voices within south korea will say that yeah let's consider this as an option in fact the late president kim dae jung after he stepped down he gave a lecture and he said he said the ultimate goal for south korea's foreign policy should be to maintain neutral posture among four major powers china japan russia and united states so kim dae jung was regarded kim dae jung diplomacy was very respected even in the eyes of michael green who is a conservative uh u.s scholar based at c.s center for c.s is motion to see so again i stress to you that uh it may not be popular now but we cannot rule out what will happen let's say 20 or the 30th time so again it's a speculation but this is my view thank you thank you i think you've made your view quite clear and maybe you can produce more co-eds and things to that effect next it's a question from alexandra leonzini so did the neutrality discourses prevalent in the late 19th early 20th centuries influenced similar discourses in korea following liberation i seem to recall that there were student voices calling for neutralization in 1961 as well uh to tell the truth because my research focused on late 19th to early 20th centuries i'm less familiar with the post liberation period but my sense is it may have because the first president of south korea leeson man his phd dissertation at princeton was basically achieving korea's permanent neutrality by relying on united states of course his dissertation is different from mine because mine is like focuses on not just america but also korea's ties with china russia britain japan etc so he looks into more holistic picture whereas leeson man's idea was rely on the america to achieve neutrality and the important thing is that after he became president he never entertained the option of neutralization so i think he may have it may have an impact but i don't think it had a huge impact to be honest but i may be mistaken okay thank you i hope that answered your question alexandra and then hugo in mushroom how do you position yourself to the problem of historicism as the societal and political structures of 19th century have changed to this day then very interesting talk all in all yes how do you position yourself to the problem historicism historicism yes um it is something that i will have to constantly think about when i engage in historical speculation of like what is if had succeeded and why they failed etc but i think to me history is a conversation between past and present so yes as mark train said history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme after all that's what he said right so i'm not advocating any way that okay let's just look at what happened in 1907 or 1886 and say okay this is what happened we can cut and paste and then we can try again no it's i'm not just saying that but because south korean elections on korea is much stronger position economically militarily and technologically and one thing that i think really makes the current south korean more advantages is that south korean companies are investing in both in china and russia the erstwhile cold war enemies you mean you could argue that korea's relations with china and russia is not that friendly however if you compare with sate korea's relations with china and russia or soviet union back in 1950s and 60s clearly i think even most conservative anti-china anti-russia forces would not dare to say we should cut off ties with china and russia or just forget and just just rely entirely with our relationship with america so because circumstances have changed in some ways advantageously but at the same time the reason why i'm pushing for current neutralization nevertheless is there is this geopolitical weakness that still hover around korean peninsula because it still is weaker than formation powers but because but luckily korea is stronger to defend itself and i would argue that maybe for my future update that korea neutralized korea can become like finland of east asia so just like finland managed to remain pro-western of the state between soviet union and united states maybe korean future unified korea can assume similar role yeah okay thank you and next it's a question from g leslie and it has to do with what kind of powers was such an agreement of neutrality have so the question is as belgium's neutrality was set aside in the first world war by germany and it is alleged that germany considered to occupy switzerland in the second world war how can one be sure that any neutrality helped by korea would only last for as long as was convenient to the powers if korea had been neutral in the second world war can we be sure japan would not have invaded so yeah well what kind of guarantee will what such an agreement have brought that that's excellent point and you're right that belgium's neutrality was violated eventually but please don't forget that um almost for almost like 90 odd years or so for 1830 to 1914 uh okay that's about like 70 or 80 years 80 years but while korea during that period loss is independence totally belgium's still able to maintain its independence and yes although it was invaded again like someone mentioned historicism you can you cannot assume that because belgium failed at the time that future uh neutralized korea would have also been invaded because each vision is different and there's no reason to believe that because belgium was invaded by germany therefore japan would have surely invaded korea during world war two again it's speculation but i think one of the mistakes for many scholars that make is that many us european examples and think that it's automatically applied for asian examples although i'm also guilty as charged because i used european examples but when i try to leave my study is to reapply european examples and then combine that with the conditions on the ground of totem korea so please feel free to disagree with me but i think history i think history is of any touch relation is about measuring failure but also speculating the possibility instead of just resigning to ourselves and think okay well it's not going to succeed it failed or it will fail anyway so we just not just try anything and stick to the same formula which i think does not work or did not work at the time or and in many instances in the past yeah thank you thank you but it is an important point being raised i mean it this agreement comes out of some kind of balance of power of course those constantly change so there seems to be difficult to have a kind of permanent agreement solution and for the moment this is the last question maybe please if you have any questions or comments please do put that in the q and a but for the moment the last one was again anonymous and the question is would the neutral south korea be guaranteed a safe existence from a north korea with sometimes inherently unstable leaders yes i'm glad that you mentioned north korea of course i think everybody in this room i would hope has no love for the current regime or its leadership however i'll put it to you this way if you look into past dependent documents and studies surrounding north korea it's simply not true that north korean leaders are just crazy people who just like to launch missiles and engage in provocative attacks i'm not saying they didn't but just like all national leaders they too have their own strategic intent why they engage such behaviors and one reason is that they are they feel very insecure about their survival and this is what and that means and and another end of course like um because the memory of a colonel is very alive another reason why this decided to develop nuclear missile is to maintain strategic autonomy even from its allied china but i would also point out that in 1930 1990s as the cold iron curtain was torn tearing down and core work was ending in europe and elsewhere the north korea actually approached united states and asked for diplomatic recognition to washington at that time turned it down and now that to me i think was costly mistake because if let's say uh china and soviet union recognize south korea which they did eventually and vice versa with japan and united states also recognizing north korea i think we could have not entirely solved but done a profound way in my view to mitigate north korea's constant fear about security threats because even though they may have nuclear weapons or missiles now but they know all too well the convention military and economy is still too weak and there are two ways to bring out regime change in north korea which i think you may have alluded because you say the regime is unstable but sometimes you have to again work it what you have it is simply unrealistic to assume that north korean state will collapse with more sanctions more pressure because the past decades have shown this is simply is not the case and as nixon the cold war warrior went to beiji and strike a deal with mao whose ideology was very different from nixon's and speaking of human rights i think we can all agree that mao's union rights record was not particularly fantastic either but nixon still had enough strategic force side to go to china and improve relations with china to counter russia and to and and to and to create new strategic equilibrium so i would argue that from the washington's perspective and this is something that rodentic make parkour and others also argue is that because china too has legitimate interests uh on new on the fear of mutualize of uh this unstable north korea or the sudden collapse of north korea in which in my view is not any it's not going to come anytime soon but even if it does happen it's simply wishful thinking to assume that given the current tension between china and the us that china will just tolerate unified korean peninsula with us military in presence it's just not going to happen imagine uh china station troops in mexico and do you think the americans will tolerate that of course not you just have and even look at the cuba cuba missile crisis again the united states did not start sit still man so we have decided to deploy nuclear weapons there so i would argue that instead of just demonizing north korea and picturing conscious black and white terms sometimes you have to engage in pragmatic pragmaticism and to bring about the change in a gradual orderly phase that would be my answer thank you we've had one more question one more coming in and this is actually you're extending into what you've been discussing and this is from chao shin bang so just like king china was not willing to concede its power to neutralize korea like in that time how can the us concede its power to allow south korean utilization that's a very good question but another um again it's not going to happen in immediate future but i'm sure i've seen your chinese and in numerous recent studies not just from britain and japanese culture show that by the late 2020s even by nominal terms because already purchasing power terms u.s chinese economy actually larger than u.s economy so in the late 2020s it is forecast that china will overtake united states as biggest economy power and if you look at from history it after united states overtook britain as large as its economy eventually um britain whether we liked or not had to seed its hegemony to us of course there were there were two world wars but my point is that once you become the strongest economy power it is likely that you will have to seed your hegemony to another power now in my view another reason why i think the tradition is more feasible is that although i do mention now we are in the period of china us by polarity however we all we are also witnessing the rise of india and indonesia too so it's it's not just about two boys in the big two big boys on the block we also have other major powers and don't forget the role of middle powers such as vietnam and south korea so my point is just like in the northeast asia in the 11th century geopolitical scene is much more diverse which means that no single power in korean united states cannot just unilaterally assume that it will help its way i mean the fact that uh us decided to have india pacific strategy to shows that it knows that it cannot work on its own to counter china's rise in fact victor char who had a pleasure to who i had pleasure to listen to uh couple last week in the conference he mentioned too that even no country including united states is able to challenge china on its own so that would be my answer to you that uh whether we like it or not us will have to compromise yeah okay thank you we've had a contribution now from from john lee and it's a comment and a question uh so first so thank you sangpa for the interesting presentation two points first regarding the previous question regarding the post liberation period uh james jong su lee has argued that soviet policy in 1945 to 1948 may have been open to a neutral unified korea along the post cold war finland and austria model so indeed there must be wider applicability for the post liberation era comment and then the question number two i'm wondering how you situate the interests of korean local elites in the late 90s and early 20th century and whether there was any possibility of a concerted neutralization policy with widespread support of the local elite throughout korea in the era particular in light of yumi moon's interesting arguments regarding the populist outlook of the ilchin yeah thank you john well i actually never expected that you will attend my lecture thank you yeah uh very good comment and question yes it is true that i agree with professor when you meet that there was no there was there were elements of collaboration with a boundary or not even among korean elites so the reason why described earlier that there were different factions pro-china pro-russia pro-japan and perhaps the weakest problem translation is to show that there was no uh internal consensus even among korean elites at the time but then again ultimately korean utilization failed because korea was simply too weak but then korea was able to manage similar fate even though at that time too there was no clear consensus about korea's policy towards liao and son but the leader at the but to his credit the korea king at the time sungjong agreed to dispatch tohi even though his voice represented the very small minority of korea court at the time but that fateful decision made a change history so i fully subscribe to the notion that korean utilization except for the url rose varies proposal that it was perhaps destined to fail at that time however there's no reason to think that again that once you just adopt pessimistic toll and just dismiss any attempt however divided it was among korean elites to have mutualization yeah okay thank you and that was now the last question in the q&a box it's 20 past six so thank you dr jane for a very interesting talk uh oops sorry i'll have to thank you again we do have another question coming in into the q&a box uh and from anonymous attendant again uh slightly changing focus so under what future circumstances and under what conditions could north korea countenance or reunification that's a very good question and of course the current local leadership will not countenance unification at this moment but then i don't think south korean elites genuinely want reunification either and nor the south korean public so this denuclearization and neutralization is a long-term process that is why i referred to my op-ed piece on east asia forum specifically mentioned in that piece that this is a multi-step process this is not one step one step process where you have neutralization instantly so i think that at this moment of course they will not they will not like it but my hope is that over the years with more processes of trust building and engagement i think uh north korean leadership will be be more comfortable with the core peaceful coexistence and then after more some proper phases of interactions between the two careers and more rounds of the political and economic reconciliation i think we can still hope peaceful reunification but not something that where north korea just will actually adopt south korean system but something in hybrid so of course personally i want to unify korea to unify on the south korean system but i think we have to be realistic and achieve that whilst political system i think we should still strive for plural democratic system but economically and socially we can compromise a bit and engage with north korean state and its people and figure out a new way that can avoid another german scenario or in the worst case scenario japan and even hong kong and mainland china yeah so that's my take on that thank you okay thank you so whatever once again thank you so much for for an interesting talk and thank you all for listening and for all the pertinent and interesting questions and comments it's been a very interesting discussion session after this i hope you can all join us again next friday when it is dr adam bonnet with the talk and he's going to talk about how the chosen dynasty manage migrants or immigrants from from ming china learning the transition between ming and change and that will be another interesting talk so thank you so much everyone for for listening and once again thank you dr jane thank you very much i hope my combo attempt to um retrace virtualization uh contribute at least modestly on diplomatic history and international relations of east asia and thank you once again dr custom for your kind invitation and your questions too thank you thank you