Text Fwd: [Henry Em] Interview with Henry Em on Yeonpyeong Island

* Thanks to Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes on Dec. 21, 2010

'The U.S. media is gloating just a bit as North Korea backed down from another military confrontation with South Korea. Right on schedule the right-wing government, led by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak (nicknamed the bulldozer and the rat by his people), stepped up with another round of war games virtually on the North Korean border. These military exercises, coming regularly these days, are without a doubt being strongly encouraged by the Obama administration who themselves are taking on the role of playground bully when it comes to North Korea and Iran. Thank goodness North Korea was wise enough to show restraint as clearly the U.S. and their junior-partners in Seoul are not capable of doing so.'

_____________________________________________

Korea Policy Institute
Interview with Henry Em on Yeonpyeong Island

December 9, 2010

On November 22, 2010, military troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) and the United States began joint war-simulation exercises involving approximately 70,000 soldiers, 600 tanks, 500 warplanes, 90 helicopters, and 50 warships. On November 23, South Korean artillery units fired artillery for four hours into contested waters claimed by both Pyongyang and Seoul near the Northern Limit Line (NLL). Drawn unilaterally by the US Navy in 1953, the NLL is neither internationally recognized nor accepted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea).

North Korean artillery units responded by firing on a South Korean artillery base on Yeonpyeong Island. The South Korean marines responded by firing back at North Korean bases on the coast across from the island. On Yeonpyeong Island, a site with South Korean military bases and a fishing community of 1,300 residents, North Korean artillery killed two South Korean marines and two civilian contractors building new barracks on a military installation. The attack left eighteen others injured. North Korea has not yet disclosed its casualties, but one South Korean report indicates that one North Korean soldier was killed and two others were seriously wounded.*

(* This intro is substantively taken from the National Committee to End the Korean War's Fact Sheet on the West Sea Crisis.)

To make sense of why this dangerous and tragic situation occurred, the Korea Policy Institute interviewed Dr. Henry Em, Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at New York University (NYU). Dr. Em serves on the steering committee of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) and KPI's advisory board. His teaching and research interests include Korean historiography, nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism in twentieth-century Korea, transnational and cultural studies of the Korean War, and the Korean diaspora. Among other honors, Dr. Em was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Program Fellowship, as well as grants from the Freeman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His book Sovereignty and Modern Korean Historiography will be published by Duke University Press. His chapter on modern Korean historiography, forthcoming, will appear in volume 5 of the Oxford History of Historical Writing from Oxford University Press.

READ THE INTERVIEW