Seung-Ook Lee

The Production of Territory in North Korea: ‘Security First, Economy Next’

One of the prevalent stereotypes about North Korea is that it is the worlds most isolated country. This view derives from North Koreas ruling ideology – juche – which calls for territorial isolation from external influences. For this reason, any territorial strategy like the introduction of special economic zones is generally regarded as an inevitable economic choice forced upon it. However, I argue that it is not that North Korea has no choice but to open its territory due to economic suffering but that North Koreas own territorial imperative, ‘security first, economy next,’ determines how it produces territory. To do so it deploys various territorial strategies such as de-bordering, re-bordering, and zoning. In this sense, North Koreas production of territory manifests Jean Gottmanns idea of territory first as shelter for security and next as a springboard for opportunity.

China’s new territorial strategies towards North Korea: security, development, and inter-scalar politics

This paper analyzes China’s North Korea strategy, focusing on its territorial practices and representations. Traditionally, China’s territorial visions of North Korea mainly reflected geopolitical imperatives. However, China has recently remobilized its territorial strategies in geoeconomic terms. The study shows that China’s territorial strategies are to enhance geopolitical security through geoeconomic means. To grasp these dynamics, this paper examines three territorial features: China’s geopolitical visions, regional development projects, and the scalar politics of its North Korea policy. The central finding is that China’s North Korea strategy cannot be reduced to any single dimension, as these three facets are closely intertwined.

Geopolitical economy and the production of territory: The case of US–China geopolitical-economic competition in Asia:

Recent work in political geography and Marxist, critical political economy has refocused attention on the interrelations between political economy and geopolitics. This paper examines the contributions of Antonio Gramsci to the theory of geopolitical economy and the production of territory. Doing so enables two key insights. First, explaining the production of territory requires unraveling multiple—sometimes competing—levels of geopolitical and geoeconomic power relations. It follows that geopolitical economy requires historicizing the practices of territorialization. The second point is that the practice of territorialization is today everywhere bound up with the project of producing and reproducing capitalist (i.e. class) social relations, including the capitalist form of the state as a social relation. To support this claim, we examine recent US–China hegemonic competition in regional, geoeconomic strategies—US’s “Trans-Pacific Partnership” and China’s “One Belt, One Road” Initiative.

A Geo-Economic Object or an Object of Geo-Political Absorption? Competing Visions of North Korea in South Korean Politics

Abstract The so-called Sunshine Policy launched by the liberal regime of South Korea brought about a significant transformation in its visions of North Korea. Through it, North Korea became an “object of development.” This was something different from the previous idea of North Korea as a politico-military target. However, to conservatives, North Korea remains within the politico-military realm as an object of territorial and ideological absorption. As a result, political conflicts in South Korea in the conception of North Korea – between a geo-economic object and an object of geo-political absorption – entail competitive appropriation of the discourse of “China’s colonisation of North Korea” and affect the way North Korean territory is produced.

Mapping Human Terrain in the Joint Army–Navy Intelligence Study of Korea (1945)

The concept of human terrain has become a prominent element of U.S. military strategy. It is a means to capture the cultural–geographical qualities of an enemy or target population. An early effort to map human terrain is found in the Joint Army–Navy Intelligence Study (JANIS) of Korea (1945). We argue that the JANIS report on Korea was paradigmatic for the U.S. militarys contemporary geographical work and offers insights into the cultural politics of human terrain mapping. This explains why the JANIS text is cited by the National Geospatial-Intelligence College (NGC) today as an historical model. This article not only offers a window into the history of geography counterinsurgent but also shows that geography has been entwined with empire.

Free trade agreements and “economic territory” as a geoeconomic imaginary in South Korea

ABSTRACT Since the early 2000s, the discourse of “economic territory” has surfaced in conjunction with economic neoliberalization in South Korea. This paper argues that economic territory as a geoeconomic imaginary not only facilitated the expansion of free trade agreements as an accumulation strategy but also served as a hegemonic project which masked the nature of an accumulation strategy as a class project and consolidated political legitimacy by manipulating nationalism. To examine this linkage, it critically draws upon the idea of cultural political economy (CPE) developed by Lancaster-based sociologists Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum. This paper offers a fresh and more substantial interpretation of South Korea’s political economy and opens up new analytical space for CPE.