In the year of 1998, When the delegation of Hyundai business group visited Pyongyang, the agreement to develope the Keumkang mountains had been made between Mr. Chung Joo-Young, the honorary chairman of the Hyundai business conglomerate and the author...
In the year of 1998, When the delegation of Hyundai business group visited Pyongyang, the agreement to develope the Keumkang mountains had been made between Mr. Chung Joo-Young, the honorary chairman of the Hyundai business conglomerate and the authorities concerned of the North Korea. From November 18, 1998 to June 16, 2000 about 250 thousands of South Korean Peaple have visited the Keumkang mountains. It is the first and largest scale exchange between South and North Korea through mordern history.
Owing to the project of development of the Keumkang mountains, peace and reconciliation mood has been built up between the two sides. Also, in many areas such as sports and arts, politics, economy, and so on, various kinds of exchange has been increased, while military tension has been weakened.
As collaboration for the development of the Keumkang mountains and it's joint marketing are the first and largest scale joint-venture project between South and North, it is assured that the project will create a friendly and amicable effect on the mind of South and North Korean people. Especially, the project will have an significant and productive effect on the South Korean people in many respects.
The purpose of this research is to verify the hypothesis that the cooperation of tourism exchange between South and North Korea has changed the attitudes and opinions for unification among South Korean people. Therefore, this research is composed of the following three parts basically.
First, it clarifies three dimensions of impacts of the project: those are, socio-cultural effect, political-military effect and economical effect.
Second, it analyzes socio-cultural influence on the attitudes and opinion of unification, especially the recovery of national identity.
Third, it analyzes how the project affect the unification corlsclousrless among Korean people in politics and military aspects.
This research has been conducted in both ways of literature review and of social survey. For literature review, it examines the unification policy of both Koreas, various sorts of exchange, the political function of tourism, other cases of tourism exchange, and the characteristics and problems of co-operation of tourism exchange between South and North.
For social survey, A sample of 500 citizens of the metropolitan area were surveyed. The summary of the research findings are as follows:
First, as a whole, the most part of Korean people evaluated the achievements of the project affirmatively. In socio-cultural aspect, the project has a significant effect on the recovery of national identity. In other words, it is appeared the fact that the project has helped the recovery of "One Korea consciousness" and improved national reconciliation mood.
Second, in politics and military aspect, the project has weakened the antagonism between South and North Korea government and among Korean people. While the project has improved the gradual recovery of mutual confidence. Accordingly, it is assumed that the project brought forth the historic success of "The Summit Conference"(June 13, 2000) between South and North Korea.
Third, in economical aspect, the porject as a collaboration of economy has played a significant role among Korean people. It made a significant contribution to the North Korea to get out of serious economic difficulties. It is thought that the North Korea will have adopted various sorts of active policies for economical development, such as building up an industrial complex in West coastline area and a manufacturing industry center, tourist convenience center in East coastline area surrounding Keumkang mountains area.
In short, collaboration for the development of the Keumkang mountains and its joint marketing has have a very affirmative effect on the unification consciousness of Korean people. The most part of Korean people has evaluated the project as a significant achievements and productive, symbolic, peace-building business for re-unification in near future. Owing to the Keumkang mountains, Korea will come to have another chance for peace, reconciliation, exchanges in many areas and a good prospect for "One Korea, One people".