The political policies between the two Koreas since the Korean War have resulted in exclusive senses and this aspect affected to politics, society, education and so forth over the last half century or so. Those affected exclusiveness recently appears ...
The political policies between the two Koreas since the Korean War have resulted in exclusive senses and this aspect affected to politics, society, education and so forth over the last half century or so. Those affected exclusiveness recently appears in sport too, therefore the sports exchanges between the two nations has now almost disappeared from the scene under the modern and present political conflicts.
As witnessed in the case of Germany, sports exchanges can play enormously important role to achieve unification of the two Koreas. It was the research intention to understand the transformation of sports policies in two Koreas and to explore changes of sports exchange since the Korean War. The main purpose of the study, therefore is to find out appropriate approaches to the sports exchange towards the two divided Koreas. An inter-subjective discussion has been made analyzing primary and secondary sources. The research outcome are as follows.
Firstly, the President Chung Hee Park attempted sport exchange with the North intending nationalistic oriented policy and it was aimed to focus on elites' intensive cultivation considering winning always against the North. This could not accelerated active exchanges moreover, it in fact hindered the exchanges with the North.
Secondly, the President Doo Hwan Jeon announced 'national conciliation and democratic unification' and he intended to promote unification policy during his reign. However, the military based government had a limit to continue the policy towards the unification through sport. Moreover, the international politics during the early 80s was in the Cold War and the Korean situation was influenced.
Thirdly, during the reign of Dae-jung Kim, his intention towards the unification was often criticized due to various concerns including the misuses of supported material. However, his Sunshine Policy to embrace the North in fact contributed to an active sports exchange between the two Koreas. Various types of competitions and sports events were taken place constantly promoting the national homogeneity.
Overall research discussion and result may be able to contribute to finding sound methods to conciliate and to express the Korean national homogeneity in the global society. Therefore relevant researches needs to be carried out for an appropriate way of sports exchange and it may be expected that the sports exchanges will be setting a strong stone for the democratic unification in the near future.