One Korea Forum Concludes 2023 Global Peace Convention Track on Peace, Security and Human Rights

Since its founding in 2009, the Global Peace Foundation has advanced an approach to reunification that empowers the Korean people, brings focus to the human rights abuses and security threats posed by the North Korean regime, and sets forth a vision of a free, united, and prosperous Korea that reflects the Korean people’s shared history, values, and traditions.

GPF has hosted dozens of International Forums on One Korea, convened in the ROK National Assembly, the U.S. Congress, the Great Hurl in Mongolia, and capital cities in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

GPF has also organized rallies, K-pop concerts, seminars, and working groups in Korea and globally to build grassroots support for reunification.

The International Forum on One Korea on December 12, hosted as part of the 2023 Global Peace Convention in Manila, marked the conclusion of previous sessions on Korean security and human rights issues hosted virtually in November and December.

Jose Luis Yulo Jr., president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands

Addressing the International Forum in Manila, Jose Luis Yulo Jr., president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands and former president and CEO of the Philippine Stock Exchange, brought attention to the convergence of ideas in three recent publications: the 2014 book Korean Dream: Vision for a Unified Korea by GPF Chairman Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon; 2030: One World, One Community, One Family, by the former Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos; and “Five Pillars for Navigating the Future,” a recent pamphlet by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce.

“They all agree that unity, freedom and peace are the precursors of economic development,” he said. Can peace or economic development exist without freedom? Spiritual well-being, emotional well-being, health well-being, mental well-being, and finally material well-being—economic development—can all happen if we have unity, freedom, and peace.”

Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute

Economic prospects of reunification

Addressing the stark failure of the North Korean regime to minimally manage its economy and the many misconceptions relating to the economic burdens of reunification, Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, said North Korea ranks among the biggest economic losers in the post-war era.

North Korea, he said, is now subsisting on unreported barter, economic piracy, aid capturing, and Hobbesian entrepreneurship. “Should we really be surprised that the government with the world’s worst practices and policies also had the worst economic results in the world? Business climate matters.”

Answering the many daunting projections about the costs and burdens of reunification, Dr. Eberstadt presented an in-depth analysis of the economic implications of reunification, which he summarized in four points:

First, the longer reunification is postponed, the wider the gap between north and south, the bigger the task and the longer it will take. Second, North Korea’s present poverty is the entirely predictable consequence of three generations of extraordinary misrule by a worst-in-class dictatorship. Third, the economic reconstruction of Northern Korea will be an immense project. But if the returns on investment in this project are high, the project can basically pay for itself in the long run. And fourth, thanks to generation after generation of market-led modern economic development, both South Korea and the world as a whole are richer and more productive than ever before, better poised to mobilize and deploy the immense amounts of capital and know-how a successful Korean reunification will require.

Dr. Chong-Soo Park, former chairman of the Presidential Committee on Northern Economic Cooperation Through Economic Development

Dr. Chong-Soo Park, former chairman of the Presidential Committee on Northern Economic Cooperation Through Economic Development, warned that unification reached without preparation will become a disaster.

He said he proposed creating an international free-economic zone on the North Korea, China, and Russian border, which the United Nations had supported since 1991. All three countries have support this initiative, but western countries have largely been absent. He urged the UN to take an active role in supporting wider participation in such an economic zone. “Such an initiative can support the role of the UN and restore peace not only in Northeast Asia but also in the world,” Dr. Park said.

A new Korean nation

GPF Chairman Dr. Hyun Jin Moon, addressing the forum extemporaneously, reflected on the ideals of the 1919 Korean Independence Movement that established a precedent for freedom and self-determination of colonized peoples in the twentieth century. He said those ideals, based on the traditional Korean ethos of Hongik Ingan, or “living for the benefit of humanity,” were especially relevant today, “where the world is fragmenting into its own little spheres, dredging up old animosities, hatred, bitterness, a sense of victimized and victimizers.”

GPF Chairman Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon

He also questioned the assumptions of the unification paradigm of a modern, cosmopolitan South absorbing the impoverished, soul-crushing North.

“I beg to differ in terms of the reality of the South,” he said. The Korean economy and its social demographics, and the chaebol system [of family-owned conglomerates] that stifles innovation, is not sustainable, the GPF chairman said. South Korea has the highest unemployment rate among the developed nations, he noted. With one of the best educated, most highly sophisticated and technical workforces, it reflects the weakness of the current system.

“That is why I was never a proponent of South Korea eating up North Korea and bringing it under the South Korean fold,” Dr. Moon remarked. “No, the Korean Dream unification framework is the creation of a new nation because we recognize, with eyes open, that both systems are flawed; and that we as Koreans, if we have a dream that we can share and dream together, can really create a new nation that is better than the sum of the two parts. That is what the Korean dream is about.”

The International Forum on One Korea was co-convened by the Global Peace Foundation, the One Korea Foundation. Blue Banner, Action for Korea United, and the Asia Institute.

The Global Peace Convention is a bi-annual convening of the Global Peace Foundation. Peace and Security was among eight tracks presented virtually and in-person from November 1-December 14, concluding with an in-person convening in Manila, the Philippines.

Learn more about the 2023 Global Peace Convention and GPF’s One Korea Global Campaign.

2021 International Forum on One Korea Plenary
Keynote Address
Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon
August 12, 2021

“The following address was delivered by Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon at the 2017 International Forum on One Korea held in Seoul Dragon City Hotel – Seoul, South Korea on December 7, 2017.

Distinguished partners of the Global Peace Foundation, honorable National Assembly members, all the sponsoring organizations and agencies that are participating in this conference: Congratulations for this noble effort. Let’s give everyone a round of applause.

As the previous speakers have suggested, we live in precarious times. That is especially true here in South Korea. Many of us are numb to the situation since we have been dealing with the threat of potential conflict on the peninsula ever since the armistice in 1953. So, it’s very easy for us to fall back into the old frameworks of thinking within which we have endured the last 70 years. But today we need to be aware that the entire calculus has changed.

I am a student of history. In my senior year at Columbia University, I wrote my honors research paper on the interwar years between 1945 and 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War. In fact, this has been an interest of mine ever since I was a young boy because my family was steeped not only in Korea’s fight for liberation under the colonial yoke of Japan, but also thereafter in trying to bring peace on the peninsula. As a student, I earnestly sought to understand what were the fundamental issues that arose after Korea achieved liberation from Japan. Because although Korea is an ancient civilization that goes back 5,000 years, the division of the Korean peninsula has been a reality that Koreans on both sides of the border, North and South, have been living with for the last 70 years. And yet, when Koreans speak of these issues today, they speak within that recent framework, within the narrative of division.

“The separation of the Korean people was not the desire of the Korean people. It was a foreign construct…”

What happened after 1945 is a tragedy when you look at Korean history from its beginning up to that point in human history. The separation of the Korean people was not the desire of the Korean people. It was a foreign construct imposed on the Korean people at a time when they hoped that a nation that had been subjugated and stripped of its identity, and a people that had their hopes shattered, could finally realize the dream that had animated them and their ancestors for 5,000 years. The division of the Korean people is the expression and consequence of that tragedy. And yet, today, South Koreans look upon this division as if it is a reality that they are bound to accept.

Along with awareness campaigns for peaceful reunification, Action for Korea United provides humanitarian aid through projects like 1000 Won, giving bread to children in North Korea.

When I started this Korea reunification movement in 2010, the first key issue that we had to address was how to build a vision that allows the Korean people, together with all sincere well-intentioned individuals, parties, and nations that want to resolve the problem on the Korean peninsula to recognize, first and foremost, that the ideological construct of the Cold War was no longer relevant, not only for the Korean people, but for this age in which we live. What we needed was a vision that could unite the Korean people, North and South, that was not tainted by any foreign constructs, but was uniquely Korean, and that defined the identity of the Korean people.

The book I authored in 2014 under the title of the “Korean Dream” was an effort to build that vision. Now remember, up until that time, there was no Korean Dream. In that book, in dealing with the issue of Korea’s reunification, I touched upon the history of the Korean people, most importantly, the founding mythology upon which the Korean people’s identity and national sense of destiny was formed. Hongik Ingan, which is known to all Koreans, became a word that was recognized by the rest of the world, and it articulated this national destiny and vision around which I wrote that book. The book was a vision of a unified peninsula, and of a unified people that has the shared destiny to serve all humanity and set the example of a model nation for all nations to follow.

We have heard speakers from the international community. They have pointed out very clearly that, today, we live in precarious times. Right now, the United States and North Korea are on a course headed towards conflict. During the historic trip of the American president to Asia, and especially to South Korea, he articulated the agenda of his administration, that the United States will not allow North Korea to become a nuclear threat to the United States or any of its allies. What that means, we have yet to see.

Of course, Kim Jong Un’s administration, like his father’s and his grandfather’s, has been looking towards the development of nuclear weapons. Yet, the commitment to pursue nuclear weapons and, with them, the ability to attack the United States has accelerated exponentially during the Kim Jong Un administration. They are steadfast in their commitment to develop a nuclear North Korea. Under this scenario, there are only two options: Either through some type of diplomacy North Korea stops its nuclear program, or there is conflict.

Dr. Madhav Das Nalapat, Director of Geopolitics and International Relations and UNESCO Peace Chair at Manipal University in India, speaks at the International Forum on One Korea 2017

So, the issues that Dr. Nalapat raised in his address are very real. Yet, being a person who believes in God and in providence, and especially as someone who has faith in the destiny of the Korean people, I believe that there is another option. I believe that this crisis can become an opportunity that can finally end the cruel chapter of a divided Korea that has been imposed upon the Korean people. I believe that this is a moment in time when Koreans can take charge of their own destiny, when we can design and define our own future, a future not of division but where we are united as one, and where we realize the providential charge inherent in the vision of Hongik Ingan, to live for the benefit of all humanity.

If you are a student of history, you know there are moments in time that can define an age. I believe we live in such a time. For the first time in the geopolitics of this region, the most influential nations are recognizing the importance of the peninsular issue. As a Korean who lives in America, for the first time in my memory, and as a student of American history, for the first time in American foreign policy, there is a fundamental shift. Korea is no longer an afterthought but has become the most important priority in American foreign policy.

So instead of talking about opinion, let’s talk about facts regarding what is happening geopolitically in this region today. For the first time in this region’s history, the United States has got China to agree to financial banking sanctions against North Korea. Never was there this level of cooperation between the two most important powers within the region. I believe these banking and financial sanctions will have huge implications for North Korea.

We need to begin by realizing that North Korea is a rogue state that has been engaged in activities that all the civilized nations of the world have condemned North Korea for. That will not change. Within North Korea today, we are witnessing the rise of the black market. Instead of looking at this as a negative, I view it as a positive, very much like what happened in the Soviet Union, where the free world sanctions on the Soviet Bloc led to the rise of black markets. This then led to the inflow of information to the people of the Soviet Union, leading them to understand that their system was not as good as the systems of the West.

Today, we have multimedia technology that did not exist 10 to 20 years ago. Today all you need is a smart phone and you have access to the rest of the world. What will happen with the rise of the black market in North Korea? Every dictatorial regime fears most not having control over its own population. You are going to see the erosion of the Kim regime, not from outside pressures, but from within. This is the opportunity for South Korea. The world is now watching the Korean peninsula. Everybody is wondering how to move forward. Even with America’s commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula–they still have not developed their policy yet. Everything is in the air, and this is where the opportunity lies. And that is why vision is so important.

How do we build consensus, not only here in South Korea but among the international community, to find a solution to this global crisis? As a person of faith and as someone whose family has been committed to the reunification of the Korean peninsula, I think there is only one option. Beyond the two options that the North Korean regime and the United States are currently headed towards, there is a third way and that is the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. If we accept this as the desired end goal, then we can deal with the denuclearization issue in that context, but, more importantly, we close the chapter of the divided Koreas, and open up a new chapter of a united Korean people fulfilling their national destiny in line with the Hongik Ingan ideal to serve all humanity.

This is extremely important, and the onus for making progress lies upon South Korea. The problem with South Korea right now is the extent of the divisions over national goals and the many assumptions that South Koreans make that fall within that outmoded Cold War framework and does not take into account the current geopolitical crisis because they have been numbed to the realities of Korea’s division. That is why conferences such as this and initiatives such as AKU are so significant in the history of our people, because they bring vision and clarity to the way forward in this time of global crisis.

My hope is that the Moon Jae-in administration recognizes the historic opportunity that it has been afforded and sets as the national agenda of South Korea the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. This then becomes the only sound and reasonable alternative for dealing with the nuclear issue and, within this new geopolitical environment, nations start to formulate their policies in terms of how to deal with the Korean nuclear issue. More importantly, such an agenda will bring an end to the tragedy that was imposed upon the Korean people throughout the 20^th century; the tragedy of colonialism, and the tragedy of a divided peninsula due to the ideological conflict between communism and the free world.

Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon at the International Forum on One Korea in Seoul

I want to remind Koreans that in 1948, there was to be a national election for a united Korean government. Yet, those elections never took place, and the two governments of North and South Korea were formed instead, reflecting the ideological divide of the Cold War. If we look at the current existence of two nations within the context of Korean history, we have to recognize that this is but a transitory process. All Koreans, North and South, should recognize that the existence of these two governments was meant eventually to lead to a unified Korea and that these two governments represent a transitory process for the creation of one unified Korean nation.

I would like to remind my good friend, Dr. Nalapat, of one thing. I think it would be a grave mistake for the international community to recognize the national identity of North Korea. The position of the free world was that South Korea represented the Korean people, and, in the North, it has always been the intention of the grandfather’s regime, the father’s regime, and now the son’s regime to gain recognition as the legitimate representative of the Korean people from the international community. That should never happen. These two governments represent a transitory moment in the story of the Korean people. The end of that story should be the formation of a new nation that all Koreans, both North and South, can call their home and that upholds the fundamental values that the Korean people were founded upon, etched in the Hongik Ingan ideal. That is why I believe it should be the national policy of South Korea to lead in that effort and to pursue that agenda, regardless of which party, left or right, is in power. This should be the stated mission and goal of South Korea.

We stand, as I said, at an inflection point in history. Next year South Korea will host the Pyeong Chang Winter Olympic Games. It reminds me of 30 years ago when I, as a young man, representing the Republic of Korea as one of its athletes, participated in the Seoul Olympic Games. 1988 was a historic year for South Korea, because it also marked the first transition to a democratic political process. More importantly, South Korea became the central focus point where the world community, both the Soviet Bloc and the free world, came together for the first time after the boycott of the LA Games by the Soviet Bloc, and of the Moscow Games by the United States and the free world. Next year, the Olympics will be coming back to South Korea at the very moment that the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is at its hottest and global attention is once again focused on the peninsula. This is a historic moment, a most historic moment.

Then in 2019, we will celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union, represented in history by the breaking down of the Berlin Wall that divided east and west. Still more significant for Koreans, it marks the centenary of the March 1^st, 1919 movement for independence from which the founders of both South and North Korea emerged. When I wrote my book, the “Korean Dream”, in 2014, I looked to history and to vision to unite the two Koreas and free them from the Cold War framework that was imposed upon us. What better way to remind the Koreans in both Koreas of the hopes, the dreams, and the aspirations of the independence fighters who sought to create a model, ideal nation following the precept of Hongik Ingan.

One reason why this anniversary can become a global phenomenon is because the March 1^st, 1919 movement inspired nationalist movements for independence around the world, and especially the young Mahatma Gandhi who later adopted the practices of nonviolent protest of the March 1^st movement to achieve the national independence of the Indian people from British colonial rule. If we understand this historical fact, we must realize that the Korean people laid a seed in the 20^th century that should blossom in the 21^st century, and lead the world to peace by solving the most important geopolitical issue in the world today, which is the crisis on the Korean peninsula. What better way to galvanize global opinion, and what better way for us as Koreans to reignite our sense of our own Korean identity and our sense of our destiny as one people and one nation undivided?

I want to invite all of you to participate in the One Korea Global Campaign activities that are tied to the centennial celebration of the independence movement that inspired the hopes of the Korean people. On this foundation we will pursue the development of a new Korean nation that can be an inspiration to the rest of the world.

Thank you very much.

Watch Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon’s speech:

Read Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon’s book: Korean Dream: A Vision for a Unified Korea

The following speech was delivered by Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon at the 2017 Economic Forum on One Korea held at the FKI Plaza in Seoul, Korea on December 8, 2017.

It is a great honor and a privilege to be back once again in my homeland of Korea and especially to be among such august members of the global community as well as leaders of business here in Korea. I hope that through this forum, it is impressed upon the leadership in South Korea that basically the calculus by which we evaluate our existence and purpose as a nation has changed; the status quo that has been the reality of this peninsula is no longer something that we can rely on in terms of how we look to the future and how this nation must move.

Instead of focusing on opinion, let’s talk about fact. The nuclear program in the North has now become an existential threat to the United States. So much so, that the United States no longer looks at the peninsula as an ancillary element of its foreign policy but as its primary focus. To a student of history like myself who studied American history in relation to its foreign policy in Asia, and particularly here in Korea, this represents a fundamental shift. The international attention that this is garnering is reflected in the media on a daily basis, not only in the United States, but also here in Korea. We here in South Korea need to understand this clearly, that the world has changed and, with it, the calculus in terms of which we engage with the North has also changed.

The United States is strongly committed to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as in its national interest, while Kim Jong Un pursues, in an unrelenting way, the nuclear capability to threaten the United States and the rest of the world. Experts are saying that they can only foresee two options in this scenario. Either North Korea stops their nuclear program on their own or through some diplomatic dialogue, which most likely they will not do; or there will be a military confrontation on the peninsula.

Yet there is, I believe, a third way. And that third way is the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. But in order for peaceful reunification to happen on the Korean peninsula, South Korea needs to take the lead. It has to have clarity in terms of its purpose at this crucial juncture in the history of the Korean people. We cannot be complacent.

In one sense, having to deal with seventy years of potential conflict has numbed us to the current realities that the Korean people are facing today. Just a few months ago when I was meeting with key leaders within the Korean government, their assumption was ‘business as usual,’ that there was no way a potential conflict could happen on the Korean peninsula. There are even some here in Korea today who think the status quo is the way to go. This is where I really want to challenge the key leaders and the business community here in South Korea, especially those who think in that way. They are not factoring in this new calculus due to the existential threat that North Korea poses, not only to the United States, but also to every single one of its allies and, beyond that, to the free world as a whole.

So, I am very glad that my good friend, Dr. Parker, came here and made everyone in this room sit up and take notice with his sobering picture of the risks we currently face in South Korea. I am glad you did that because what many of the leaders in South Korea, especially in the business community, are not factoring in, as they should be, is the potential for conflict on the Korean peninsula and what that will mean for South Korea.

So, one thing that we Koreans and especially the South Korean leadership needs to understand is that we no longer have the option to be complacent; that we are at a unique moment in time that can determine the fate not only of the Korean people, but of the entire world. There are two paths. Either there is peaceful reunification, or there is a potential conflict. This is why we stand at a critical moment when the Korean people collectively, not only here in the South but in the diaspora and eventually in the North, must champion the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. If we do that, then the global community, I am certain, will galvanize around that collective dream to support us in building one unified nation along the lines of our ancestral philosophy of Hongik Ingan, which is to build an ideal nation to serve all mankind.

I know that there is a lot of talk, especially within academic circles, that the cost of reunification will be great and, therefore, it will affect the living standards of the average Korean. I completely disagree. Yes, there will be a short-term cost. But it is like any great endeavor. There is an initial cost in terms of investment but the returns down the road are well worth those initial costs. Goldman Sach’s did a study where they forecast that a united Korea will be the seventh largest economy in the world. I think it will be even better than that. So instead of talking about opinion, let’s talk about facts.

So, let me give you some facts, especially the business leaders at this forum, that we need to consider when we think about businesses in South Korea. The top ten chaebols in Korea control seven percent of its GDP. This is a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few. You have an unemployment rate of about ten percent of those in the age group between twenty and thirty, and yet the Korean worker is the best-educated in the world. Young people today — college-educated students or workers — have a hard time getting a job, even a menial job that was traditionally undertaken by those without a high level of education.

As a result, we now speak of ‘Hell Chosun’ in reference to the prospects for this demographic group indicating that they see no opportunity for themselves as they go forward. They don’t have a clue how to participate in the South Korean economy. They don’t have options. These are fundamental indicators of the basic inadequacies within the South Korean economy. The South Korean economy does not reflect a truly free market economic system. It reflects crony capitalism going all the way back to the authoritarian military dictatorship which chose winners and losers among enterprises. In the West, especially in America, we call that crony capitalism. And a lot of that is due to the structures within the Korean economy that favor those chaebols at the expense of everyone else.

I believe that there is a tremendous opportunity, given the crisis that we are facing from the North, to marry that situation to the true potential that exists within the Korean economy, which is the Korean people. The South Korean economy is going to face tremendous challenges in the future because we do not have the workforce to support our industries and our markets. As we become more industrialized, the mineral and other natural resources of the North will become an essential ingredient for injecting economic growth into the Korean economy. Most significantly, the twenty-five million people of North Korea will become the source of an expanded domestic market and labor force for the Korean economy as a whole.

So, the only way forward for the Korean people is reunification. If reunification can happen, not only will the South Korean economy have all the necessary ingredients to fuel the continuous growth engine that it is, but more importantly, it will remove from the Korean peninsula the threat, not only to the Korean people but to the rest of the world, of the North’s nuclear program. Finally, it will allow the Korean people to bring an end to this cruel chapter of division that mars our long, unified history and to be whole once again and to fulfill our national destiny to build a model nation that can serve all humanity. But if that is to happen, reunification has to be owned by every single Korean, not only here in South Korea, but throughout the diaspora and, ultimately, in North Korea itself.

Throughout 2018 and into 2019, the Global Peace Foundation, in partnership with Action for Korea United, is going to be advancing the One Korea Global Campaign. Based upon the vision outlined in my book, Korean Dream: A Vision for a Unified Korea, it will promote the idea of reunification around the world. We will frame the Korean issue as the civil rights issue of the twenty-first century. Just as Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence, inspired other nationalist movements after the end of World War II; just as Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights movement inspired people in other nations to deal with racial inequality; just as Nelson Mandela’s effort to end apartheid in South Africa taught the world to recognize the injustices of that separatist ideology based on race; the reunification agenda will be not only for the Korean people, but an example and inspiration for the entire world. When we consider the fate of the Korean people living in the North, deprived of rights and recourse to justice, not to mention opportunity, then this is indeed the civil rights issue of the twenty-first century. Its resolution through peaceful reunification should become the dream, not only of every Korean, but of every global citizen. So, I want to invite all of you to participate in contributing to the One Korea Global Campaign and spread the Korean Dream to the rest of the world.

Thank you very much.

Watch Dr. Hyun Jin P. Moon’s speech: