Speaking on June 17, 2010 in a television interview in South
Korea, Dr. Gi-Wook Shin, Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific
Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University, said, “No one can now
ignore or
overlook the importance of Asia.” He spoke of the rise of Asian
countries in
the past 50 years, particularly in the area of economics, and the
world’s
growing awareness of Asia. Dr. Shin discussed the important role that
Shorenstein
APARC and its Korean Studies Program (KSP) play in the field of Asian
studies,
noting that Shorenstein APARC’s unique focus on research, policy, and
the social
sciences distinguishes it from most academic Asian studies centers in
the
United States. He explained that not only do scholars from Shorenstein
APARC
carry out academic research, but they also “produce some policy reports
for the
American government and…try to promote dialogue between the U.S. and
Asian
countries.”
In his interview with Heart
to Heart (Arirang
TV) host Kolleen Park, Dr. Shin discussed the history of the field of
Asian
studies, noting the growing importance of Korean studies in the past 15
years. Dr. Shin said that in the past 100 years of Korean history are
found “the key elements that we talk about in the social sciences.” He
then asked, “How can we use
the Korean experience to generate a general model or theoretical
experience for
the rest of the world?”
Dr. Shin’s interview took place during his visit to South
Korea for the POSCO Asia Forum where he
was a keynote speaker. The theme of the
2010 Forum was the “Globalization of Asian Culture.” “Looking back, Asia
had a
great contribution to human society and human civilization,” Dr. Shin
said. His
motivation in addressing the attendees of the Forum, he explained was,
“I felt
that it was time to take Asia more seriously and think about how Asia
can
continue to make contributions to human society and civilization.”
Highlights from the POSCO Asia Forum, a summary of Dr. Shin’s new book One
Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (Stanford
University Press 2010), and Dr. Shin’s
thoughts on relations between the two Koreas are also covered in the
interview.