• Title/Summary/Keyword: Regional Crisis

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PRC Maritime Operational Capability and the Task for the ROK Military (중국군의 해양작전능력과 한국군의 과제)

  • Kim, Min-Seok
    • Strategy21
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    • s.33
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    • pp.65-112
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    • 2014
  • Recent trends show that the PRC has stepped aside its "army-centered approach" and placed greater emphasis on its Navy and Air Force for a wider range of operations, thereby reducing its ground force and harnessing its economic power and military technology into naval development. A quantitative growth of the PLA Navy itself is no surprise as this is not a recent phenomenon. Now is the time to pay closer attention to the level of PRC naval force's performance and the extent of its warfighting capacity in the maritime domain. It is also worth asking what China can do with its widening naval power foundation. In short, it is time to delve into several possible scenarios I which the PRC poses a real threat. With this in mind, in Section Two the paper seeks to observe the construction progress of PRC's naval power and its future prospects up to the year 2020, and categorize time frame according to its major force improvement trends. By analyzing qualitative improvements made over time, such as the scale of investment and the number of ships compared to increase in displacement (tonnage), this paper attempts to identify salient features in the construction of naval power. Chapter Three sets out performance evaluation on each type of PRC naval ships as well as capabilities of the Navy, Air Force, the Second Artillery (i.e., strategic missile forces) and satellites that could support maritime warfare. Finall, the concluding chapter estimates the PRC's maritime warfighting capability as anticipated in respective conflict scenarios, and considers its impact on the Korean Peninsula and proposes the directions ROK should steer in response. First of all, since the 1980s the PRC navy has undergone transitions as the focus of its military strategic outlook shifted from ground warfare to maritime warfare, and within 30 years of its effort to construct naval power while greatly reducing the size of its ground forces, the PRC has succeeded in building its naval power next to the U.S.'s in the world in terms of number, with acquisition of an aircraft carrier, Chinese-version of the Aegis, submarines and so on. The PRC also enjoys great potentials to qualitatively develop its forces such as indigenous aircraft carriers, next-generation strategic submarines, next-generation destroyers and so forth, which is possible because the PRC has accumulated its independent production capabilities in the process of its 30-year-long efforts. Secondly, one could argue that ROK still has its chances of coping with the PRC in naval power since, despite its continuous efforts, many estimate that the PRC naval force is roughly ten or more years behind that of superpowers such as the U.S., on areas including radar detection capability, EW capability, C4I and data-link systems, doctrines on force employment as well as tactics, and such gap cannot be easily overcome. The most probable scenarios involving the PRC in sea areas surrounding the Korean Peninsula are: first, upon the outbreak of war in the peninsula, the PRC may pursue military intervention through sea, thereby undermining efforts of the ROK-U.S. combined operations; second, ROK-PRC or PRC-Japan conflicts over maritime jurisdiction or ownership over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands could inflict damage to ROK territorial sovereignty or economic gains. The PRC would likely attempt to resolve the conflict employing blitzkrieg tactics before U.S. forces arrive on the scene, while at the same time delaying and denying access of the incoming U.S. forces. If this proves unattainable, the PRC could take a course of action adopting "long-term attrition warfare," thus weakening its enemy's sustainability. All in all, thiss paper makes three proposals on how the ROK should respond. First, modern warfare as well as the emergent future warfare demonstrates that the center stage of battle is no longer the domestic territory, but rather further away into the sea and space. In this respect, the ROKN should take advantage of the distinct feature of battle space on the peninsula, which is surrounded by the seas, and obtain capabilities to intercept more than 50 percent of the enemy's ballistic missiles, including those of North Korea. In tandem with this capacity, employment of a large scale of UAV/F Carrier for Kill Chain operations should enhance effectiveness. This is because conditions are more favorable to defend from sea, on matters concerning accuracy rates against enemy targets, minimized threat of friendly damage, and cost effectiveness. Second, to maintain readiness for a North Korean crisis where timely deployment of US forces is not possible, the ROKN ought to obtain capabilities to hold the enemy attack at bay while deterring PRC naval intervention. It is also argued that ROKN should strengthen its power so as to protect national interests in the seas surrounding the peninsula without support from the USN, should ROK-PRC or ROK-Japan conflict arise concerning maritime jurisprudence. Third, the ROK should fortify infrastructures for independent construction of naval power and expand its R&D efforts, and for this purpose, the ROK should make the most of the advantages stemming from the ROK-U.S. alliance inducing active support from the United States. The rationale behind this argument is that while it is strategically effective to rely on alliance or jump on the bandwagon, the ultimate goal is always to acquire an independent response capability as much as possible.

International Monetary System Reform and the G20 (국제통화제도의 개혁과 G20)

  • Cho, Yoon Je
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.153-195
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    • 2010
  • The recent global financial crisis has been the outcome of, among other things, the mismatch between institutions and the reality of the market in the current global financial system. The International financial institutions (IFIs) that were designed more than 60 years ago can no longer effectively meet the challenges posed by the current global economy. While the global financial market has become integrated like a single market, there is no international lender of last resort or global regulatory body. There also has been a rapid shift in the weight of economic power. The share of the Group of 7 (G7) countries in global gross domestic product (GDP) fell and the share of emerging market economies increased rapidly. Therefore, the tasks facing us today are: (i) to reform the IFIs -mandate, resources, management, and governance structure; (ii) to reform the system such as the international monetary system (IMS), and regulatory framework of the global financial system; and (iii) to reform global economic governance. The main focus of this paper will be the IMS reform and the role of the Group of Twenty (G20) summit meetings. The current IMS problems can be summarized as follows. First, the demand for foreign reserve accumulation has been increasing despite the movement from fixed exchange rate regimes to floating rate regimes some 40 years ago. Second, this increasing demand for foreign reserves has been concentrated in US dollar assets, especially public securities. Third, as the IMS relies too heavily on the supply of currency issued by a center country (the US), it gives an exorbitant privilege to this country, which can issue Treasury bills at the lowest possible interest rate in the international capital market. Fourth, as a related problem, the global financial system depends too heavily on the center country's ability to maintain the stability of the value of its currency and strength of its own financial system. Fifth, international capital flows have been distorted in the current IMS, from EMEs and developing countries where the productivity of capital investment is higher, to advanced economies, especially the US, where the return to capital investment is lower. Given these problems, there have been various proposals to reform the current IMS. They can be grouped into two: demand-side and supply-side reform. The key in the former is how to reduce the widespread strong demand for foreign reserve holdings among EMEs. There have been several proposals to reduce the self-insurance motivation. They include third-party insurance and the expansion of the opportunity to borrow from a global and regional reserve pool, or access to global lender of last resort (or something similar). However, the first option would be too costly. That leads us to the second option - building a stronger globalfinancial safety net. Discussions on supply-side reform of the IMS focus on how to diversify the supply of international reserve currency. The proposals include moving to a multiple currency system; increased allocation and wider use of special drawing rights (SDR); and creating a new global reserve currency. A key question is whether diversification should be encouraged among suitable existing currencies, or if it should be sought more with global reserve assets, acting as a complement or even substitute to existing ones. Each proposal has its pros and cons; they also face trade-offs between desirability and political feasibility. The transition would require close collaboration among the major players. This should include efforts at the least to strengthen policy coordination and collaboration among the major economies, and to reform the IMF to make it a more effective institution for bilateral and multilateral surveillance and as an international lender of last resort. The success on both fronts depends heavily on global economic governance reform and the role of the G20. The challenge is how to make the G20 effective. Without institutional innovations within the G20, there is a high risk that its summits will follow the path of previous summit meetings, such as G7/G8.

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호스피스와 종교적 죽음이해

  • Sin, Min-Seon;Kim, Mun-Su
    • Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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    • v.6 no.1
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    • pp.1-11
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    • 2006
  • There are various understandings how to define death. In the context of medicine, death is defined as the irreversible change of the tissue according to the cessation of circulation and respiration. According to the psychologists, a person need to accept the finiteness as a human being and remain conscious that the death is not avoidable. And they say if a person doesn't regard death as unavoidable reality of life he or she will not confront the humanistic death and after all will die like animals. In philosophy, death is viewed as an unwelcome reality in the end of the journey of life. Sociologists usually understand that the society is the organization composed with living persons and human beings which construct and transmit the culture from generation to generation between the both ends of life and death. In society, the generation is changed, maintained, and developed through the phenomenon of death. Although death of human being is natural event in society, the death of a specific person brings a sense of loss, crisis, and anxiety to the communities like family, regional society, nation, and the world. In this context, death is not confined to personal dimension and it can be regarded as a social problem. It is valuable to summarize the religious perspectives on the meaning of death for the better hospice care. In shamanism, there are basic idea that although the flesh of human being disappears, soul never die. If human dies, the flesh of human being disappears but soul never disappear and come back to the origin of soul as it is called chaos. So in shamanism, it is said that shaman can solve the mortified feeling, restore the broken harmony, send the soul to comfortable space- the origin, and guarantee the blessing of descendents. Buddhists regard the death as an essential component through the cycles of life. Through this cycle, human being exits as an endlessly transmigrating being and the death is just a restoration to the original status. In Confucianism, the view on the death based on the philosophy of the "Yin and Yang" and "Five elements". In Buddhist tradition, many believers said the philosophy of "Death is the same as life". Unlike usual thoughts that a god governs "life and death" and "fortune and misfortune", Confucianists deny the governance of a god and emphasize the natural orders in which every phenomenon in the world moves according to the principle. Confucianists understand the death as a natural order with this principle. In Confucianists' belief, the essence of human being remains in their own descendent's lives after the death of ancestor, so in Confucianism there is no concept of immortality of the soul. In the history of Christianity, death has been defined generally as the separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body. In the earlier days of Old Testament, the death is regarded as a disappearance of just a flesh and human never disappear and always live in the relationship with God. Later days in Old Testament, we can find the growing concern for the life after the death because of the entrance of the theodicy. In the New Testament, the death is not regarded as the normal process of the human life and regarded as the abnormal status in which death come to human because of sin as a decisive factor and it should be conquered. In fact, the most of us afraid death because not of the fear of death itself but of the sense of the emptiness and regrets. so many people often make the monument hoping to live forever. But Christian usually regard this behavior as a sinful act because human being usually think themselves as a master of their life and attempt to become immortal in this kind of trial mortal. But if we live with God, we cannot confront such a condition because we aware limits as a mortal human being and entrust everything on Him and want to live according to His guidance. Therefore, in the Christian tradition, the death is regarded as accomplishment of life, fruits of life, invitation to the eternal life, and the last stage of human growth. For human being, the death is the great step of maturation as a human in the final stage of life.

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Varieties of Community Unionism: A Comparison between the Youth Community Union and the Arbeit Workers' Union in South Korea (커뮤니티유니온의 다양성: 청년유니온과 아르바이트노동조합의 비교연구)

  • Yang, Kyunguk;Chae, Yeon Joo
    • Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.95-136
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    • 2018
  • As the number of precariats grows, their poor labor rights and working conditions are becoming issues of major concern all over the world but how to represent their interests is still controversial. Basically, the union is the institutional mechanism for representing the labor rights. However, it is difficult for workplaceand enterprise-based unions to fully represent the labor rights of precarious workers. Recently, so-called community unions have emerged in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan as independent organizations representing the rights of non-standard workers. Community unions refer to labor unions which organize precarious workers across firms at the regional level. They are known to be suitable for covering the unemployed, job seekers, indirect employment workers, short-term contract workers, and small-firm workers. In South Korea, since the financial crisis in 1997, a dramatic increase in the number of precariats leads to emergence of new types of trade unions such as the Youth Community Union, the Arbeit Workers' Union, the Artist Social Union and the Korea Musician's Union. They have engaged in various activities to guarantee the labor rights of precariats. Recently, researchers have also tried to identify defining characteristics of these new forms of unionism. To expand research on trade unionism in South Korea, this study compares two different types of community unions: the Youth Community Union and the Arbeit Workers' Union. We believe that this attempt can contribute to the research on the alternative labor movement. For this purpose, this study starts with theoretical discussions on community unions, and compares the Youth Community Union with the Arbeit Workers' Union based on the five characteristics of community unionism: membership and organization structure, the recognition struggle, the type or scope of interest, solidarity with other civic organizations, and the repertoire of resistance strategies. Based on this comparative analysis, this study seeks to foresee the possibility of how community unionism will develop in South Korean in the future.

Rethinking 'the Indigenous' as a Topic of Asian Feminist Studies (토착성에 기반한 아시아 여성주의 연구 시론)

  • Yoon, Hae Lin
    • Women's Studies Review
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.3-36
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    • 2010
  • This paper is based on the certain point that 'the indigenous', which have long been occupied by the Asian patriarchy or the local communities, now calls for the repositioning in the feminist context. 'The indigenous', in one part, generally refer to the matured long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, or local communities, as a mode of a place specific way of endowing the world with integral meaning. In the narrow definition, it points to the particular form of placed based knowledge for survival, for example, the useful knowledge of a population who have lived experiences of the environment. In the other part, 'the indigenous' could be criticized in the gender perspectives because it has been served as an ideological tool for patriarchy and sexism, which have undermined women's body and subjectivity in the name of the Asian traditional community. That's why the feminists with sensitivity to the discourses of it, may perceive it very differently, still hesitating dealing with the problem. However, even if there are tendencies that the conservatives romanticize local traditions and essentialize 'the indigenous', as it were, it does not exist 'out there'. Then, it could be scrutinized in the contemporary context which, especially, needs to seek the possibility towards the alternatively post - develope mental knowledge system. In the face of global economic crisis which might be resulted from the instrumentalized or fragmented knowledge production system, it's holistic conceptions that human, society, and nature should not be isolated from each other. is able to give an insightful thinking. It will work in the restraint condition that we reconceptualize the indigenous knowledge not as an unchanging artefact of a timeless culture, but as a dynamic, living and culturally meaningful system towards the ecofeminstic indigenous knowledge. And then, indigenous renaissance phenomena which empower non-western culture and knowledge system and generate increased consciousness of cultural membership. Thus, this paper argues that the indigenous knowledges which have been underestimated in the western-centered knowledge-power relations, could be reconstructed as a potential resources of ecological civility transnationally which reconnect individuals and societies with nature.

Implications of Shared Growth of Public Enterprises: Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Case (공공기관의 동반성장 현황과 시사점: 한국수력원자력(주) 사례를 중심으로)

  • Jeon, Young-tae;Hwang, Seung-ho;Kim, Young-woo
    • Journal of Venture Innovation
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.57-75
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    • 2021
  • KHNP's shared growth activities are based on such public good. Reflecting the characteristics of a comprehensive energy company, a high-tech plant company, and a leading company for shared growth, it presents strategies to link performance indicators with its partners and implements various measures. Key tasks include maintaining the nuclear power plant ecosystem, improving management conditions for partner companies, strengthening future capabilities of the nuclear power plant industry, and supporting a virtuous cycle of regional development. This is made by reflecting the specificity of nuclear power generation as much as possible, and is designed to reflect the spirit of shared growth through win-win and cooperation in order to solve the challenges of the times while considering the characteristics as much as possible as possible. KHNP's shared growth activities can be said to be the practice of the spirit of the times(Zeitgeist). The spirit of the times given to us now is that companies should strive for sustainable growth as social air. KHNP has been striving to establish a creative and leading shared growth ecosystem. In particular, considering the positions of partners, it has been promoting continuous system improvement to establish a fair trade culture and deregulation. In addition, it has continuously discovered and implemented new customized support projects that are effective for partner companies and local communities. To this end, efforts have been made for shared growth through organic collaboration with partners and stakeholders. As detailed tasks, it also presents fostering new markets and new industries, maintaining supply chains, and emergency support for COVID-19 to maintain the nuclear power plant ecosystem. This reflects the social public good after the recent COVID-19 incident. In order to improve the management conditions of partner companies, productivity improvement, human resources enhancement, and customized funding are being implemented as detailed tasks. This is a plan to practice win-win growth with partner companies emphasized by corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ISO 26000 while being faithful to the main job. Until now, ESG management has focused on the environmental field to cope with the catastrophe of climate change. According to KHNP is presenting a public enterprise-type model in the environmental field. In order to strengthen the future capabilities of the nuclear power plant industry as a state-of-the-art energy company, it has set tasks to attract investment from partner companies, localization and new technologies R&D, and commercialization of innovative technologies. This is an effort to develop advanced nuclear power plant technology as a concrete practical measure of eco-friendly development. Meanwhile, the EU is preparing a social taxonomy to focus on the social sector, another important axis in ESG management, following the Green Taxonomy, a classification system in the environmental sector. KHNP includes enhancing local vitality, increasing income for the underprivileged, and overcoming the COVID-19 crisis as part of its shared growth activities, which is a representative social taxonomy field. The draft social taxonomy being promoted by the EU was announced in July, and the contents promoted by KHNP are consistent with this, leading the practice of social taxonomy

Factors Affecting the Negative Perception of Public Hospitals among Local Residents (지역 주민의 공공병원에 대한 부정적 인식에 영향을 미치는 요인)

  • Eun Hye Choi;Jung Hee Cho;Kyoung Eun Yeob;Bo Hui Park;So Young Kim;Jong Hyock Park
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.34 no.2
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    • pp.211-221
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    • 2024
  • Background: The public health crisis caused by coronavirus disease 2019 emphasizes the need to expand and strengthen public hospitals. However, the overall perception of public hospitals remains negative. This negative perception can hinder the roles and functions of public hospitals, so this study aims to analyze the factors affecting negative perceptions of public hospitals. Methods: We used data from a survey on the public healthcare of Chungcheongbuk-do residents conducted by the Chungcheongbuk-do Public Health Policy Institute, and 1,916 adults aged 19 or older who responded to the survey were included in the study. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the impact of experiences with public hospitals use and evaluations of public healthcare and public hospital policies on the negative perception of public hospitals. Results: The experience of not using public hospitals (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-2.74) and negative evaluations of public healthcare and public hospital policies were found to significantly impact negative perceptions of public hospitals. In public healthcare policies, negative evaluations of the provision of essential medical care (aOR, 4.14; 95% CI, 2.59-6.62), regional disparities (aOR, 1.59; 95% CI, 1.02-2.49), coverage (aOR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.25-3.16), and quality of care (aOR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.50-3.80) were significantly associated with negative perceptions of public hospitals. In public hospital policies, negative evaluations of facilities and equipment (aOR, 3.74, 95% CI, 2.36-5.94), medical specialties and services (aOR, 1.91; 95% CI, 1.21-3.01), and quality of medical service (aOR, 2.71; 95% CI, 1.72-4.25) were also significantly associated with negative perceptions of public hospitals. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the need to improve perceptions of public hospitals by considering the experience with public hospitals use and evaluation of public healthcare and public hospital policies.