Activities

The United Nations, Indo-Pacific, and Korean Peninsula: An Emerging Security Architecture (Dec. 17. 2021)

<The United Nations, Indo-Pacific, and Korean Peninsula: An Emerging Security Architecture>- Date and time: Dec. 17. 2021. 09:00-19:00 (KST)- Online seminar using Webex- Host: KACUNS, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Research Foundation of Korea- Subject The 1, 2 Session. The UN and the Competing Worldviews The 3 Session. The UN and Indo-Pacific Security Architecture The 4, 5 Session. The UN, its Frameworks and Korean Peninsula

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2022.02.21

Global Technology Competition and Korea's Middle Power Strategy (Nov. 16. 2021)

<Global Technology Competition and Korea's Middle Power Strategy>- Date: November 16, 2021 (Tuesday) 09:00-17:30 (KST)- Venue: Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry- Hosted by: Korea Academic Council on the United Nations System, KAIST Korea 4th Industrial Revolution Policy Center- Discussion topics: 1 session. Competition for technological hegemony between the US and China and its implications for middle power 2 sessions. World Politics of New Technology and Korea's Foreign Policy and Security Strategy 3 sessions. Geopolitical challenges and multilateralism in the era of the 4th industrial revolution and the US-China strategic competition 4 sessions. The U.S.-China Technological Hegemony and Korea's Diplomatic Security as Seen by the Media<Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRgdKJ3DQks>

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2022.02.21

[Joseph Nye] US - China Competition for Hegemony: the Role of Technology (KAIST-KACUNS Conference)

KAIST/KACUNS ConferenceKeynote Speech US-China Competition for Hegemony: the Role of Technology By Joseph S. NyeHarvard University Theorists often argue that the changing balance of power between an existing hegemonic power and a rising challenger, and see the prospects of conflict arising from their failure to manage the hegemonic transition. For some, the problem lies in the rising power of a challenger like Germany before 1914, but for others the disaster of the 1930s was the failure of the rising United States to impose international order and help to provide global public goods. In one variant, the rising power comes on too strong; in the other too weak. Hegemonic transition theory provides a warning but not a recipe for how to respond to a rising China.Many observers believe that the rise of China will spell the end of the American era, but it is equally dangerous to over- or underestimate Chinese power. Underestimation breeds complacency, while overestimation creates fear – either of which can lead to miscalculation. History is replete with misperception about changing power balances. Net Assessment of the US-China Balance China has not yet replaced the United States as the world’s largest economy. Measured in purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy became larger than the American economy in 2014, but purchasing power parity is a valid economist’s device for comparing estimates of welfare, not for measuring power. For example, oil and jet engines are imported at current exchange rates, and by that measure China is about two-thirds the size of the United States. Moreover, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a very crude measure of power. Including per capita income gives a better index of the sophistication of an economy and American per capita income is about four times that of China. China’s huge economic scale matters. The United States was once the world’s largest trading nation. Today nearly a hundred countries count China as their largest trading partner, compared to fifty-seven that have such a relationship with the United States. China plans to lend more than a trillion dollars for infrastructure projects with its “Belt and Road” initiative over the next decade. China gains economic power from the sheer size of its market as well as its overseas investments and development assistance. Of the seven giant global companies in the important technology of Artificial Intelligence (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent), nearly half are Chinese. With its large population, the world’s largest Internet, and with its vast data resources China has enormous amounts of big data. Overall, Chinese power relative to the United States is likely to increase, particularly as it invests in advanced technology as described in the China 2025 plan and the goal to prevail in artificial intelligence by 2030. However, one should be cautious not to fall into technology determinism in a net assessments of power.China is a country of great strengths but also important weaknesses. The United States has some long-term power advantages that will persist regardless of current Chinese actions. One is geography. The United States is surrounded by oceans and neighbors that are likely to remain friendly. China has borders with fourteen countries and has territorial disputes with India, Japan, and Vietnam that set limits on its soft power. Energy is another American advantage. A decade ago, the United States seemed hopelessly dependent on imported energy. Now the technology revolution related to shale has transformed it from an energy importer to exporter. At the same time, China is becoming more dependent on energy imports, and much of the oil it imports is transported through the Indian. While it is investing in renewable energy technologies, they will not remove China’s vulnerability in the near term.The United States also enjoys financial power derived from its large transnational financial institutions as well as the role of the dollar. Of the foreign reserves held by the world’s governments, a little over one percent are in yuan, compared with 64 percent for the dollar. While China aspires to a larger role, and is advancing technologies of crypto currency, a credible reserve currency depends on other factors such as currency convertibility, deep capital markets, honest government, and the rule of law—all lacking in China. The yuan is unlikely to displace the dollar in the near term. The United States also has demographic strengths. It is the only major developed country that is currently projected to hold its place (third) in the demographic ranking of countries. Over the next decade and a half, the US workforce is likely to increase while China’s will decline. Chinese sometimes say they worry about “growing old before growing rich.” Given the demographic decline plus China’s low level of total factor productivity, some believe that despite its high savings rate and capital expenditure, China will not escape the middle income trap unless it is rescued by technology.Competition in TechnologyAmerica has been at the forefront in the development of key technologies (bio, nano, information) that are central to this century’s economic growth, and American research universities dominate higher education. In a ranking by Shanghai Jiaotong University, sixteen of the top twenty global universities were in the United States; none were in China. At the same time, China is investing heavily in research and development, competes well in some fields now, and has set a goal to be the leader in artificial intelligence. Some experts believe that with its enormous data resources, and lack of privacy restraints on how data is used, and the fact that advances in machine learning will require trained engineers more than cutting edge scientists, China could achieve its artificial intelligence goal. Given the importance of machine learning as a general purpose technology that affects many domains, China’s gains in AI are of particular significance.Moreover, Chinese technological progress is no longer based solely on imitation. The Trump administration punished China for its cybertheft of intellectual property, coerced intellectual property transfer, and unfair trade practices. The US insisted on reciprocity, arguing that if China can ban Google and Facebook from its market for security reasons, the US can take similar steps against Huawei or ZTE.However, a successful American response to China’s technological challenge will depend upon improvements at home more than upon external sanctions. American complacency is always a danger, but so also is lack of confidence and exaggerated fears that lead to overreaction. In the view of John Deutch, former provost of MIT, if the US attains its potential improvements in innovation potential, “China’s great leap forward will likely at best be a few steps toward closing the innovation leadership gap that the United States currently enjoys.” Immigration plays an important role in maintaining America’s technology lead. In 2015, when I asked former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew why he did not think China would pass the US, he cited the ability of America to draw upon the talents of the whole world and recombine them in diversity and creativity that was not possible for China’s ethnic Han nationalism. For example, a large number of high tech Silicon Valley companies have Asian founders or CEOs. An overly restrictive immigration policy could curtail those sources of technological innovation.US-China InterdependenceAfter the Great Recession of 2008 called American leadership into question and increased belief in American decline, Chinese leaders abandoned Deng Xiao Ping’s moderate policy of biding their time and became more assertive in ways ranging from building artificial islands in the South China Sea to economic coercion of Australia to abrogating guarantees to Hong Kong. On the trade front, China tilted the playing field with subsidies to state-owned enterprises and coercive intellectual property transfer. Trump clumsily responded with a tariff war that included penalties on our allies as well as on China, but he correctly defended against Chinese companies like Huawei whose plans posed a security threat. Some people in Washington began to talk about a general “decoupling,” but while is important to decouple some technology supply chains that directly relate to security, it is mistaken to think the US can decouple our economy completely from China without enormous economic costs. That interdependence is what makes the current relationship with China different from the Cold War. With the Soviets, the US was involved in a regular two dimensional chess game in which we were highly interdependent in the military sphere but not in economic or transnational relations. With China, the US is involved in a three dimensional game with different power distribution at each level. At the military level, the world is still unipolar and the US is the only global power, but at the economic level, the distribution of power is multipolar with US, China, Europe and Japan as major players, and on the transnational level of networks that are outside the control of governments (such as climate and pandemics), power is chaotically distributed and no one country is in control. A traditional strategy that focuses on one level is a path to loss in a 3D game. And when we look at the economic level, we have to remember that while symmetrical sensitivity can restrain conflict, asymmetrical vulnerability creates an instrument for wielding power. We have to plan carefully our horizontal moves on the traditional military board of chess (or weiqi if one prefers a two dimensional Chinese metaphor). However, if we ignore the power relations on the economic or transnational boards and the vertical interactions among the boards, we will suffer. A good strategy for China must avoid military or technological determinism and encompass all three dimensions of our interdependence and power.Cooperation among Democratic Countries As for economic relations, the rules will require revision. Well before the pandemic, China’s hybrid state capitalism provided an unfair mercantilist model that distorted the functioning of the World Trade Organization and contributed to the rise of disruptive populism in Western democracies. Today America’s allies are far more cognizant of the security and political risks entailed in China’s espionage, forced tech transfers, strategic commercial interactions and asymmetric agreements. The result will be some decoupling of technology supply chains, particularly where national security is at stake. Negotiating new trade rules can help prevent the decoupling from escalating. At the same time, global challenges like climate change and pandemics pose an insurmountable obstacle to sovereignty, because the threats are transnational. Regardless of policy for economic globalization, environmental globalization will continue, because it obeys the laws of biology and physics, not the logic of contemporary geopolitics. Such issues threaten everyone, but no country can manage them alone. As I argue in my book Do Morals Matter?, in this context, it is not enough to think of exercising power over others. We must also think in terms of exercising power with others, even when ideological values fundamentally diverge. The Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization help us as well as others.Middle powers could join together to create a trade agreement for information and communication technology that would be open to countries that met democratic standards. In short, one size will not fit all. In some areas like non-proliferation, peace-keeping, health and climate change we can find common institutional ground with China. In other areas, it makes more sense to set our own democratic standards. The door could remain open to China in the long run , but we should realize the run would be very long.Working with like-minded partners would increase the chances of liberal norms on trade and technology asserting themselves, notwithstanding the growing strength of China. Establishing a stronger consensus on global governance between the US and Europe is important, but it is only by partnering internationally with Japan, South Korea and other Asian economies, that we can ensure a more level playing field for their companies abroad by shaping global trade and investment rules and standards for technology. Taken together, the size of the economies of the democratic countries will exceed that of China well into this century if we pull together. But that will be a more important question than the technological development of China. In assessing the future of the US-China balance, technology matters, but alliances matter even more.

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2022.01.10

“UN 10년의 평가와 한국 다자외교의 중장기전략” 학술회의 개최

한국유엔체제학회와 고려대 일민국제관계연구원은 2016년 12월 28일 공동으로 “ UN 10년의 평가와 한국 다자외교의 중장기전략” 제하의 학술회의를 개최하였다.이번 학술회의는 지난 10년간 보다 평화롭고 지속가능한 세계를 구축하기 위한 UN의 활동을 분야별로 평가하고 향후 한국의 다자외교 전략과 대(對) 유엔 외교의 발전방향을 모색하기 위해 마련된 자리로서 여러 유관 학자 및 전문가들의 활발한 논의가 이루어졌다.제1세션에서는 보다 지속가능하고 견고한 세계구축을 위한 노력을 주제로 SDG(Sustainable Development Goals)와 기후변화에 대응하기 위한 노력과 발전 방향에 대해 모색하였다.제2세션에서는 북핵문제, 평화유지활동과 인권보호 활동 등 보다 안전하고 평화로운 세계질서 구축을 위한 노력을 위한 방안에 대하여 논의하였다.마지막 세션에서는 한국의 다자외교 및 대(對) UN외교의 발전방향에 대한 토론이 진행되었다.

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2021.06.15

제 11회 PKO 발전 세미나

한국유엔체제학회와 국방대 국제평화활동센터는 2015년 9월 11일 숙명여대 100주년 기념관에서 ‘새로운 세대를 준비하는 한국 PKO의 미래’라는 주제로 제11회 PKO 발전 세미나를 공동으로 개최하였다.세미나에서는 외교· 안보· 국방 분야 최고의 전문가들을 초대해 ‘새로운 세대를 준비하는 한국 PKO의 미래’란 주제로 심도 있는 토의를 진행하였다.제 1회의에서는 “현장 임무수행으로부터의 교훈” 라는 주제로 한국 최초 민·관·군 협력 사례와 재해재난 긴급구호팀 활동 방안에 대하여 논의를 하였다. 제 2회에서는 “새로운 세대를 준비하는 한국 PKO 과제”라는 주제로 한국의 PKO 활동의 역량강화와 역할의 확대 그리고 개혁과제에 대하여 논의하였다.

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2021.06.15

제 12회 PKO 발전 세미나

한국유엔체제학회와 국방대 국제평화활동센터는 2016년 11월 10일 서울 중구 서울클럽에서 공동으로 제12회 PKO 발전 세미나를 개최하였다.‘대한민국과 아프리카 연합의 파트너십 증진을 위한 PKO 활동’을 주제로 열린 이번 세미나는 위승호(육군중장) 국방대 총장과 홍규덕 한국 유엔체제학회장의 환영사로 문을 열었다.세미나는 3개 세션으로 나눠 진행됐다.1세션에서는 ‘아프리카 지역에서의 PKO 경험’을 주제로 진행이 되었고 2세션에서는 ‘아프리카 연합과의 파트너십 구축: 왜 중요한가?’를 주제를 가지고 열띤 논의를 하였다. 이어 ‘위임명령과 민간인 보호를 위한 새로운 대안 모색’을 주제로 3세션이 진행되었다.

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2021.06.15

2017 ACUNS 서울 총회 안내

⊙개최 일시/장소: 2017년 6월 15(목), 16(금), 17일(토) 서울 숙명여자대학교 (2박 3일)⊙주관기관: 세계유엔체제학회(Academic Council on the United Nations)⊙운영기관: 한국유엔체제학회(Korea Academic Council on the United Nations), 숙명여자대학교□ 2017년 서울 개최의 의의 및 기대효과⊙세계유엔체제학회(ACUNS, http://acuns.org) 연례학술회의는 세계 각 지역에 유엔에 대한 관심을 촉구하고 유엔전문가들과 학자들 간의 교류를 증진하기 위한 장을 제공해 왔음.⊙특히 세계유엔체제학회 총회는 지금까지 아시아권에서 개최된 적이 없었으며 2017년 서울 개최는 아시아지역 최초라는 의미를 지님총회는 2년마다 한 번씩 열리며 한 번은 미국과 캐나다 지역에서 개최하고 격주년에는 미주지역이 아닌 해외지역에서 개최⊙2015년 네덜란드 헤이그에서 개최된 총회는 약 400여명의 유엔관련 학자들이 참여하였으며, 특히 네덜란드를 비롯하여 제네바에 주재하는 많은 유엔전문가들과 학자 및 관련기관 연구자들이 참여하였음. 또한 대학원생들이나 대학생들도 참여를 해 별도의 패널을 구성하기도 함.⊙2016년 총회는 뉴욕 포담대학교에서 6월 16일부터 19일까지 진행⊙2017년 서울 학술대회 및 총회는 ▴북한 핵 및 인권문제 해결과 통일기반 구축에 관한 우리 정부의 강력한 의지를 전달할 수 있으며, ▴유엔 발전을 위한 대한민국 정부의 중견국 리더십을 구현하고, ▴동아시아지역협력의 허브로서의 역할을 공공외교 차원에서 세계에 알릴 수 있는 유용한 기회임⊙또한 미래를 이끌어갈 우리의 젊은 세대들이 국제사회 주요이슈에 대해 관심을 갖고, 전문성과 꿈을 키워나갈 수 있는 교육과 경험의 기회를 제공해 줄 수 있을 것으로 기대됨.

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2021.06.15

KACUNS 학술회의_영문 Activities