Issues of history, values, memory, and identity in the U.S.-South Korea relationship
". . . History, values, memory, and identity are significant elements
that can influence the 'soft power' of an alliance built on 'hard
power,' and policy makers of both nations should not overlook their
importance," says Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Stanford Korean Studies Program, in
the chapter that he contributed to the recently published book U.S. Leadership, History, and Bilateral Relations in Northeast Asia.
In
his chapter "Values and History in U.S.-South Korean Relations," Shin
discusses developments in the types of issues that the United States and
South Korea have collaborated on in recent years--including free trade
agreements, Iraq and Afghanistan military operations, and policy
coordination toward North Korea--and the significance of issues of
history, values, memory, and identity--such as inter-Korean
reconciliation and memories of U.S. military maneuvers in Korea--that
have given the U.S.-South Korea relationship a "more complex and
multidimensional" nature.
Published by Cambridge University
Press in October 2010, the book was edited by Gilbert Rozman of
Princeton University's Department of Sociology.