Nationalism And Anti-Americanism In South Korea

Anti-Americanism is a prominent phenomena in post-war international politics, among which the one in South Korea has taken on particularly attractive characteristics. Yet this area has not been fully worked over in domestic research. A deep investigation into the anti-Americanism in South Korea and a reflection of the nationalism in the age of globalization definitely bears theoretical and realistic importance. Anti-Americanism sprang up and went on the upsurge in the 1980s, by focusing on this period, this dissertation tries to probe into the cause, effect, organization and mechanism of the South Korean anti-Americanism and provide an in-depth and systematic study from the nationalism perspective.Methodologically, the dissertation combines the theories, perspectives and methods from historical and sociological field, which is, to exam both process and results of the movement. This approach, on the one hand, enables a complete unfolding of the origin and evolvement of the South Koreans'anti-Americanism and nationalism, and on the other hand makes it possible to penetrate into the various related fields, organization, and mechanism in the campaign. With the help of the approach, an overall picture of the movement can be better displayed, and a summary and reflection of it can also be made.This dissertation is divided into six chapters. The first two chapters provide historical background for the anti-Americanism in South Korea. Based on the analysis of the South Korean national characteristics and the origin and change of the nationalism, the first chapter points out that South Koreans not only have an intense sense of pride and superiority but also keep a profound consciousness of suffering and danger. It is based on the modern movements of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialist that South Korean nationalism, the progressive trend of thought and movement, originated, which aims to fight for national independence and a united country. The second chapter suggests that the succumbing and depending on America in military force and economy have basically resulted in its anti-Americanism by reviewing the history of the Korean diplomatic relationship. The third chapter expounds its origin and evolvement in Korea, outlines its different patterns and stages, and sums up the different characteristics that Korea has from other countries. This chapter also gave an all-sided investigation of the Guangzhou event, examines how the direct cause of the uprising of anti-Americanism in the 1980s has triggered the following-up national movement. Chapter four introduces the chronicle evolvement of the history in the 1980s'anti-Americansim in South Korea and provides a detailed depiction of the major events, the main participants, social classes and its influences. With the above analysis, chapter five is devoted to a transverse discussion of various social aspects related to the Korans'anti-Americanism. It has been approached and studied from military, political, economical and cultural perspective respectively and consequently the writing reveals that the spring up and upsurge of the movement comes into being as a result of multiple causes:the existence of American military force in Korea, the support of the domineering politics of Korea from America, the suppress of the economy, the pervasion into culture and thought and increase awareness of national self-confidence and self-determination. Chapter six examines this movement from the social perspective. It takes into consideration the change of the social structure since the taking off of the economical development, the rising up of the young generation, the main participants of young students, the formation mechanism of the movement and the strategy and tactic used.The dissertation concludes that the anti-Americanism in South Korea results from the Korea-U.S relation and Korean continuous evolvement of the conception of the United States. As a social movement, it exists as a mass movement, mainly held by young students, and also a national one, intricate and self-defensive. It is also proposed that this movement perfectly complement with the revival of nationalism in this country. Threaded with both chronicle and transverse study, this dissertation has displayed an all-sided reflection of the possible direction of the international relations and nationalism, under the trend of globalization. In addition, the writing points out the limitation of the movement while confirming its reasonability.