Events
East Asia Institute (EAI) held the 46th Smart Talk Forum with Professor Bruce Jacobs from Monash University on Tuesday, March 22, 2016.
Prof. Jacobs is an expert whose research focus includes Chinese politics, Taiwan, and Asian democracy. In this forum, Prof. Jacobs analyzed the democratization of South Korea and Taiwan by emphasizing the historical similarities in democratic processes of the two countries to better understand the development and processes of Asian democracy. He compared the Gwangju Uprising, otherwise known as May 18 Democratic Uprising, and the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979, two of the prominent mass movement for democracy in South Korea and Taiwan respectively, to shed light on similarities and differences of two democracies.
It is equally important to look at historical experiences undertaken in both countries. While South Korea and Taiwan share Japanese colonial experiences, public perceptions of South Korea and Taiwan toward Japan are significantly different, with Koreans harboring a stronger sense of distrust toward Japan. This difference in public perceptions displayed by two countries toward Japan might indicate that Japanese colonialism could have influenced South Korea’s and Taiwan’s democratization differently. In addition to Japanese colonial experience, Prof. Jacobs listed geopolitical positions, cold war stalemate, some electoral experience under Japanese and postwar dictatorships, American political pressure, and the fall of President Marcos in the Philippines, to name a few, as significant factors that influenced democratization in South Korea and Taiwan. All these factors led to differences in two countries in terms of the level of violence during democratization, establishment of democratic government and political leadership, and the ability of Gwangju/Kaohsiung leadership to participate in democratic governments after democratization.
Topic
“Comparing Democratization in South Korea and Taiwan”
Presenter
Bruce Jacobs, Monash University
Moderator
Nae-Young Lee, EAI; Korea University
Discussants
Joel Atkinson, Institute for Poverty Alleviation and International Development, Yonsei University
Jin Seok Bae, EAI
Eunju Chi, Peace & Democracy Institute, Korea University
Kyong Jun Choi, Institute of Social Sciences, Sogang University
Sunil Kim, Kyung Hee University
Byung-Jae Lee, Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies, Yonsei University
