Asia has already risen by most hard-power measures. But without an understanding of the downsides of Asia’s rise, the conventional narrative is incomplete, misleading, and inaccurate. Chung Min Lee explores the fundamental dichotomy that defines contemporary Asia. While the region has been an unparalleled economic success, it is also home to some of the world’s most dangerous, diverse, and divisive challenges. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, he says, Asia’s rise doesn’t mean the demise of the West. Asia’s rise over the past four decades is one of the most significant geopolitical and geoeconomic developments in world affairs as evinced by China’s, and more recently, India’s, accelerated economic growth. Yet the conventional narrative of Asia’s rise is incomplete, if not misleading, given the fundamental dichotomy that defines contemporary Asia: a region with unparalleled economic success but also home to the world’s most dangerous, diverse, and divisive security, military, and political challenges. How the strategically consequential Asian states manage to ameliorate or even overcome traditional geopolitical tinderboxes across the Taiwan Strait, the Korean Peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent and new zones of strategic competition such as the South China Sea is to going to have a profound impact on the shaping of regional order well into the 21st century.
North Korea is poised at the crossroads of history. Which direction will its leader take? Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability. In The Hermit King, Asian geopolitical expert Chung Min Lee tells the story of the rise of the Kim Dynasty and its atrocities, motivations, and diplomatic goals. He also discusses the possible outcomes of its aggressive standoff with the world superpowers. Kim Jong Un is not a crazed "Rocket Man" or a bumbling despot; he has been groomed since birth to take control of his country and stay in power at all costs. He is now at a fateful crossroads. Will he make good on decades of threats, liberalize North Korea and gain international legitimacy, or watch his regime crumble around him? Lee analyzes the likelihood and consequences of each of these possibilities, cautioning that in the end, a humanitarian crisis in the region is all but unavoidable. The Hermit King is a thoughtful and compelling look at the most complicated diplomatic situation on Earth.
This study examines four alternative scenarios that would result in the unification of the Korean peninsula. The authors describe the defining characteristics of each scenario, potential indicators that would predict specific outcomes, some possible variations in paths to unification, and some operational implications for the U.S. Army under different conditions and circumstances. The four scenarios (peaceful unification, collapse and absorption, unification through armed conflict, and disequilibrium and external intervention) highlight both the increasing vulnerabilities of the North Korean state and the substantial uncertainties that attach to each outcome and to the potential U.S. policy respones.
In recent decades, Korean communication and media have substantially grown to become some of the most significant segments of Korean society. Since the early 1990s, Korea has experienced several distinctive changes in its politics, economy, and technology, which are directly related to the development of local media and culture. Korea has greatly developed several cutting-edge technologies, such as smartphones, video games, and mobile instant messengers to become the most networked society throughout the world. As the Korean Wave exemplifies, the once small and peripheral Korea has also created several unique local popular cultures, including television programs, movies, and popular music, known as K-pop, and these products have penetrated many parts of the world. As Korean media and popular culture have rapidly grown, the number of media scholars and topics covering these areas in academic discourses has increased. These scholars’ interests have expanded from traditional media, such as Korean journalism and cinema, to several new cutting-edge areas, like digital technologies, health communication, and LGBT-related issues. In celebrating the Korean American Communication Association’s fortieth anniversary in 2018, this book documents and historicizes the growth of growing scholarship in the realm of Korean media and communication.
This book provides a comprehensive assessment of the role of nuclear weapons in Asia since 1945, its implications for regional and global security, and the conditions under which more Asian countries might seek to acquire a nuclear capability in the future. It focuses in particular on understanding the nuclear proliferation networks that enabled small and middle ranking powers such as Pakistan and North Korea to pursue nuclear weapons programs. Three networks are included: the Soviet network which allowed for the proliferation of nuclear technologies to India, and also to North Korea the Chinese network which provided missile technology to North Korea, and nuclear technology to Pakistan the A.Q. Khan network which transferred nuclear weapons technology from Pakistan to North Korea, and missile technology from North Korea to Pakistan. Chung Min Lee considers the pressures upon other Asian powers to go nuclear, particularly Japan and South Korea as a response to the North Korea nuclear program, and Taiwan as a response to China; the role of key forces including the rise of new asymmetrical military capabilities in Asian militaries, and the complex interplay between failing states, weapons of mass destruction and transnational terror groups.
Asia has already risen by most hard-power measures. But without an understanding of the downsides of Asia’s rise, the conventional narrative is incomplete, misleading, and inaccurate. Chung Min Lee explores the fundamental dichotomy that defines contemporary Asia. While the region has been an unparalleled economic success, it is also home to some of the world’s most dangerous, diverse, and divisive challenges. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, he says, Asia’s rise doesn’t mean the demise of the West. Asia’s rise over the past four decades is one of the most significant geopolitical and geoeconomic developments in world affairs as evinced by China’s, and more recently, India’s, accelerated economic growth. Yet the conventional narrative of Asia’s rise is incomplete, if not misleading, given the fundamental dichotomy that defines contemporary Asia: a region with unparalleled economic success but also home to the world’s most dangerous, diverse, and divisive security, military, and political challenges. How the strategically consequential Asian states manage to ameliorate or even overcome traditional geopolitical tinderboxes across the Taiwan Strait, the Korean Peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent and new zones of strategic competition such as the South China Sea is to going to have a profound impact on the shaping of regional order well into the 21st century.
North Korea is poised at the crossroads of history. Which direction will its leader take? Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability. In The Hermit King, Asian geopolitical expert Chung Min Lee tells the story of the rise of the Kim Dynasty and its atrocities, motivations, and diplomatic goals. He also discusses the possible outcomes of its aggressive standoff with the world superpowers. Kim Jong Un is not a crazed "Rocket Man" or a bumbling despot; he has been groomed since birth to take control of his country and stay in power at all costs. He is now at a fateful crossroads. Will he make good on decades of threats, liberalize North Korea and gain international legitimacy, or watch his regime crumble around him? Lee analyzes the likelihood and consequences of each of these possibilities, cautioning that in the end, a humanitarian crisis in the region is all but unavoidable. The Hermit King is a thoughtful and compelling look at the most complicated diplomatic situation on Earth.
The meaning of “the millennium”—the thousand-year reign of Christ spoken of in Revelation 20—has been controversial for much of the church’s history, and even the main perspectives on the matter turn out to be more variegated than is often realized. This book takes the oldest of those options, premillennialism, and offers an excellent introduction to a variety of models of premillennialism currently available, including classical dispensationalism, progressive dispensationalism, historic premillennialism, thematic premillennialism, and historic premillennialism in Asian context. The product of collaboration between a systematic theologian and a New Testament scholar, this book provides a fascinating reference tool for anyone interested in what Scripture teaches about the last things of redemptive history, the Parousia, and the millennial kingdom.
Education reform has become a highly political issue in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) since the transfer of sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Lo and Hung focus on the political struggles among stakeholders, including the government of Hong Kong, the Catholic Church, parents, students, teachers, the central authorities of Beijing, and even the bureaucratic politics between Beijing, the Hong Kong government and the Examination Authority. They examine the key elements of education reform in the HKSAR, including language and curriculum reform, national security education, civic and patriotic education, the rise of the pro-Beijing education elites and interest groups, and the revamp of examination questions and examination authority. The entire education reform in the HKSAR has pushed the Hong Kong education system toward a process of mainlandization, making Hong Kong’s education system more similar to the mainland system with emphasis on political "correctness" in the understanding of Chinese national security, history and culture. Highlighting the political struggles among the various stakeholders, this book is essential for scholars of Hong Kong and China, especially those with an interest in the relationship between education and politics.
This invaluable second edition provides more in-depth discussions and examples in various chapters. Based largely on the authors' own in-class lectures as well as research in the area, the comprehensive textbook serves two purposes. The first introduces some traditional topics such as matrix formalism of geometrical optics, wave propagation and diffraction, and some fundamental background on Fourier optics. The second presents the essentials of acousto-optics and electro-optics, and provides the students with experience in modeling the theory and applications using a commonly used software tool MATLAB®.
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