“Incomplete Peace: Sino-American Rapprochement and the Transformation of the Korean Question, 1969-1975” (Hosei University Press. 2010)

Dong-Jun Lee (HK Research Professor, Asiatic Research Institute(ARI), Korea University)

I am profoundly honoured to have been selected as a winner of the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. First of all, I would like to thank the trustees, selection committee members and staff of the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Foundation. I can’t help but saying that it would have been impossible without the help of the many mentors I have been fortunate enough to have in my life. Among them, I am most grateful to my thesis adviser Masaaki Yokota, professor of Tohoku University, who has supported me through all the years of my research on the Korean problem.

Military tension on the Korean Peninsula still persists, although the Cold War officially ended more than twenty years ago. What are the major stumbling blocks preventing historical progression from the current, uneasy status quo? This book aims to provide some answers to this question. Its main focus has been on the dynamic relationship between Sino-American rapprochement and inter-Korean relations, and the transformation of the Korean division system in the first half of the 1970s. In retrospect, the Korean division system was reshaped under the strong influence of Sino-American rapprochement during the d?tente era, and the legacies of power politics are palpable even today on the Korean Peninsula.

I have to admit that I couldn’t fully answer the aforementioned question, and the Korean division system now stands at another critical crossroads. To create a permanent peace regime, we, researches in this field, need to combine inexhaustible creativity and theoretical foresightedness and I intend to be part of this long-term endeavour.

Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude again to all of you. This prize is a tremendous encouragement to my academic journey. Thank you very much.

Profile
Dong-jun LEE was born in Andong, Korea in 1969. He earned his LL.D. in transnational law and policy from Tohoku University in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and a research fellow of Japan Foundation. Currently he is HK (Humanities Korea) research professor at the Asiatic Research Institute (ARI) of Korea University in Seoul. His research interests include Northeast Asian international relations and Cold War history, with a particular focus on the “Korean problems.” Previously, he was a staff reporter of the Hankook-Ilbo for 11 years. He was the winner of the 8th Asia-Pacific Research Award (Iue Prize) in 2009 and received financial support for publishing his Ph.D. dissertation by the American Studies Foundation in 2010.