South Korea and the Concept of War and Peace: Back to the Confucian Future?

Does Confucianism account for any part of the perceptions of international politics that Koreans possess? If it does, then how significant has its influence been on the historical process of the conceptual formation of Korean's concept of war and peace? First learned over two millennia ago, Confucianism finally became the sole ruling ideology under the Joseon Dynasty. Ever since, Confucian virtues--moralistic approach, education of men, and family-like international order with the Middle Kingdom at the center, among many--played dominant roles in Korean domestic politics as well as its foreign relations (Sino-Korea relations, almost exclusively). What seemed to last forever in East Asia, however, confronted a massive challenge and the fate of Koreans was not an exception. Korea's bandwagoning strategy within the Confucian world order could not function any more with the advent of the age of imperialism and the subsequent foreign penetrations. The Japanese imperialism collapsed in 1945 and the American form of liberal democracy was transplanted in the new-born Republic of Korea in the beginning of the Cold War. Nevertheless, Koreans maintained the Confucian way of thinking and life that they had inherited over the past several centuries. And Confucianism, though largely implicit, contin-ues to shape the concept of war and peace which again forms Koreans' view of international politics to date. This borne in mind, examining how Confucianism has constructed the Korean norms of international relations undoubtedly merits close attention of both scholars and policymakers in this age of post-Sunshine Policy in search of new foreign policy orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]