This study aims to reveal the perception about China among Koreans and to conduct in-depth studies on the history of Cold War by examining the Korean’s viewpoint toward the Cultural Revolution during the Cold War. With a purpose of conducting effect...
This study aims to reveal the perception about China among Koreans and to conduct in-depth studies on the history of Cold War by examining the Korean’s viewpoint toward the Cultural Revolution during the Cold War. With a purpose of conducting effective research, this study made an analysis of daily papers such as 『Chosun Ilbo』, 『Donga Ilbo』, 『Kyounghyang News Paper』and 『Hankook Ilbo』, along with magazines such as 『Sasanggye』, 『Saedae』, 『Chungmek』, 『Shindonga』and 『Chungkyoungyoungu』. Second, the study focused on the American cultural policy toward Korea and it conducts the comparison study between Korean and Taiwanese cases. The research results so far can be summarized into the following two : data collection and processing and related research.
(1) Data collection and processing : Articles and papers regarding the Cultural Revolution and 'the Communist China' were thoroughly collected. An analysis on the collected data yielded the outcomes as follows. Most of the daily papers viewed the Revolution as a power struggle inside 'the Communist China'. Despite the involved storyline of the event, all the daily papers covered the Revolution as it progresses sharing a common view about the Revolution with a description as a power struggle. The articles mainly focused on the criticism about the leaders in the party and their loss of position, emphasizing that the core of the Revolution was the power struggle within the party. Those daily papers predicted that the 'Communist China' will continue to pursue a hard-line policy against America even after the death of Mao. All of the daily papers described the Red Guardism as negative, e.g., destruction of civilization and tradition, demolition of morality, contempt of human life, bloodshed and riot, and extreme anti-foreign ideas. They argued that the appearance of the Red Guards will put 'the Communist China' in panic, isolating the nation diplomatically. Moreover, the papers predicted that the victory of Lin Biao in a power struggle will ignite the aggressive movement of the nation toward neighboring countries. However, the Chosun Ilbo took different position in reporting the early situation of the Revolution. As the paper follows historic and cultural background of the Revolution, it shed lights on the relationship between the revolution and the establishment of communism society.
(2) Understanding of the Revolution among Korean intellects and the network about Cold War literature : As an expert of 'the Communist China' in Korea, I published a paper about the case of Kim Jun-yop before. Considering the integrity of the final paper, I summarize his case as follows. First, he understood the Revolution as a kind of power struggle. When the Revolution broke, he viewed the revolution as an ideology alteration to build a communist society, rather than a simple power struggle. However, he said that the nature of the Revolution became tarnished as it progresses eventually becoming power struggle. Second, he regarded 'the Communist China' as a threatening existence and an opponent to watch out, since he thought the Chinese diplomatic policy is not only hegemonic, but also is likely to intrude Korea. My understanding is that such his belief is due to his own experience in the Korean War and his interpretation about the Chinese modernization based on the Modernization Theory. Third, his activities are located in an academic network during the Cold War. Receiving financial aid from the Ford Foundation, his research was greatly affected by the American cultural policy toward Korea and East Asia. The Ford Foundation supported the area studies in the East Asian region by providing large amount of research subsidy to Korea and Taiwan making the countries the center of East Asian area studies.