Jeju, Island of World Peace

Although it has been a long time, I still can’t forget the red flags flying around Jeju International Airport in April 1991. The flags were “The Red Banner”, featuring a golden sickle and hammer on the red field, the flag of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev, then president of the Soviet Union, visited Jeju to attend the first ever South Korea-Soviet submit. To the people of Jeju, who had to make great sacrifices during the turmoil of the Cold War, this historical change came as something both embarrassing and somewhat confusing.

The world’s oldest trade route connecting the East and the West is 'the silk road.' In effect, there are three kinds of trade routes crossing Eurasia: the Steppe Route in the north, the Silk Route in the center, and the Sea Route in the south. Generally, the silk road refers to the route located in the central part. The silk road was named after the fact that Richthofen, German geologist, found that silk was the main trade goods in this road. The road is also called 'the Oasis Road'

In January 2005, the South Korean government declared Jeju the “Island of World Peace.” Evidently, the designation was made considering the geographical distinctiveness of Jeju Island as well as its elevation in status to a special self-governing province. Based on this consideration, the government has given Jeju the “Island of World Peace” title for the purpose of recognizing and publicizing the island as a globalized space beyond the national territory

This article seeks to find answers concerning the future of Jeju from peace and human rights. The future of the island may vary. The future should include economic prosperity. The bountifulness of Jeju is an indeed appealing aspect of the island. On top of economic prosperity, Jeju may develop in various forms in the years to come. Therefore, it would be shortsighted to take action, focusing only on economic prosperity. Just as important as economic prosperity are peace and human rights more importantly, it is the happiness and well-being of every single individual and those who cherish Jeju that we should pay attention to.

As the North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit held in February, garnering a lot of attention at the beginning of this year, ended up with no deal being made, the inter-Korean relations, which seemed to be heading for peace and reconciliation following the third round of summit talk, has been brought to a standstill. As such, the actions of local governments that were preparing for exchange and cooperation with North Korea also had to come to a halt.

One of the pillars of the peace city concept of the city of Osnabrück/Germany was and still is the German author Erich Maria Remarque. Remarque was born in Osnabrück in 1898, served on the Western Front during World War I, and published his anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front in 1929. The book became a world-wide success, so far unseen in global literary history. Together with the famous 1930 filming of the book by Lewis Milestone, today, All Quiet on the Western Front is a global icon of pacifist culture as is Picasso’s painting Guernica or Robert Capa’s Spanish Civil War photography Fallen Soldier.

This essay is influenced by an older article by one the most prolific thinkers in peace studies, Johan Galtung, whose h-index of 72 gives him an incontestable name in the field: “Three Approaches to Peace: Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding” (1976) is a work still cited four decades after its original publication. Galtung’s basic idea was that conventional approaches to ending violent conflict through “peacekeeping”

The Okinawa Islands are an island chain located southwest of the Japanese mainland which include Okinawa-honto, the largest island, as well as about 160 other small islands. The area is well known as a resort paradise with many tourists visiting it each year from across Japan and other countries as well, particularly South Korea and China. However,

We have observed that the year 2018 saw dramatic changes in North Korea’s relationships with its neighbors. Compared to 2017, during which everyone was concerned about the possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula, we have had much less tension this year. The inaugurations of President Moon Jae-in and President Donald Trump the year before had laid the foundation for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to undertake a markedly different approach to North Korean diplomacy in 2018

As President Moon Jae-in took office, the South Korean government began delivering peace messages to North Korea. The 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics enabled South Korea, North Korea, and the United States to hope for the resumption of talks and tackle the Korean Peninsula’s security issues in a fundamental manner. The diplomatic progress between South Korea and North Korea, between the U.S. and North Korea, and between North Korea and China, which continued in the last year, was, in retrospect, a series of unexpected events.