Korea is a country that loves a good festival. These range from the beauty of Jinhae's Cherry Blossom Festival or the dazzling lights of Jinju's Lantern Festival; to the charming cultural ones such as Gwangju's Kimchi Festival or Jindo's Moses Walk; to the downright weird such as Cheongsando's 'Slow Walking Festival'.

Oh, and the epicness that is the Mud Festival.

While the cold weather and work dramas have meant my touring of Korea has been limited so far, the sudden (and much welcomed) warm change and finally having some money in my wallet has allowed me to get out of Busan and see a corner of Korea that doesn't hold my girlfriend's apartment. While I'll admit to not having the hugest interest in cherry blossoms, I was looking forward to getting out and seeing something new.

Our first glimpse of cherry blossoms

Kimberly getting into the spirit of things with a cherry donut

Kimberly and I left Busan at 9.30 and, after the fifty minute subway ride out to Nopo's bus terminal, grabbed a late breakfast from Paris Baguette. We even splashed out on a cherry donut in honor of the day's festivities. Our 11.20 bus to Jinhae never did show up, but when an 11.40 bus arrived we eagerly clambered aboard. While Kimberly wrestled with her luggage, the bus driver assured us that this was the bus to Jinhae. You can imagine our surprise then when the bus stopped and emptied out in the city of Masan - a good forty kilometers north of Jinhae.

A very stressed Kimberly put in a call to the rest of our companions, a large group of public school teachers who had rented vans for the drive down from Daejeon. Thankfully (?) they had run into atrocious traffic and we weren't holding them up in any way, so we quickly flagged a cab and forked over the 15,000 won ($15) that would take us to Jinhae. The bus might have been a cheaper option, but given the traffic and the lines to get on board - we'd probably have been lucky to make it there in time for dinner.

But arrive we did. Thirty minutes of crawling through bumper to bumper traffic highlighted just how popular the festival is and it also gave us some great opportunities to snap photos of the cherry blossom trees lining the roadside. I was quick to swallow my skepticism about the event as I snapped off dozens of photographs of the beautiful trees, the drifting petals, and the hundreds of people gazing about them in wonderment. It's often easy to overlook Korea's natural beauty. It's so artfully hidden behind generic apartment buildings, ugly tangles of power lines, and garbage rotting in the streets that it's a rare thing to stop, take a deep breath, and realize that you're in a truly stunning country.

After being dropped off Kimberly and I began to explore the many booths and food stalls choking the streets. Cherry blossoms might have been the main draw of the festival, but the people seemed more interested in the many products on display and the opportunity to eat street food, play carnival games, and soak in the atmosphere. I don't think I've seen such a large number of foreigners outside of the Mud Festival before either. Hell, there were even fair haired children and German tourists on hand!

Potato tornadoes! Delicious

Kimberly posing with a flower in her hair. There's photos of me doing the same floating around somewhere...

The Daejeon crew's continued delays meant they didn't get to the festival until around 4pm - by which time Kimberly and I had been robbed blind by an ajoshi reading palms, we'd stuffed ourselves full of sugar and carbs, and we'd posed stupidly for far too many photographs. When the Daejeon crew arrived it was time to make our way down the crowded 'sideshow alley' stretch of the festival. We stopped for delicious vegetable and squid pancakes in one tent (and a few of the more adventurous travelers started in on the soju in earnest) and then took our chances at games ranging from the traditional shooting gallery to a strange game of chance that seemed to rely solely on the whims of fish. Tasteless but colorful candy was bought and stuffed radish toys were won. Good times were had.

Kowsar tries his luck at the shooting range. I think he won a yo-yo.

It truly is a game of chance when your winnings lay in the non existent hands of fish

The contrast of blossoms with barbed wire just caught my eye.

With bellies full and the sun beginning to dip below the horizon, the braver amongst us decided to climb the 365 stairs up the mountain that overlooks Jinhae to take in the view from up top. With the city lighting up beneath us and the cherry blossom trees standing out against the increasingly dark skies and scenery, there were plenty of breathtaking photo opportunities before we got to the top. The temptation to not climb another two dozen or so stairs to the top of the tower on the mountain was hard to resist, but any spaghetti legs were totally worth the view from up there.

Pausing halfway up the mountain for a photo opportunity.

Yet more cherry blossoms!

The proud few who made it to the top and lived to tell the tale.

A stunning sunset from atop Jinhae Tower

By the time we weary few returned to the bottom of the mountain it was almost full dark and time for some real food. We piled into the vans and began the ninety minute (thanks to traffic) drive back to Masan where we'd be staying in the pimped out Ice Motel. I've stayed in my fair share of cheap love motels and this one took the cake. Twin PCs in every room, a Wii in one room, jacuzzis in every room, and a fucking stripper pole in the smoker's room! A stripper pole!

See? A honest to God, no fooling STRIPPER POLE!

Kimberly enjoys an exotic foreign delicacy known as 'McDonalds'

Sleeping options were limited with nineteen of us in four rooms...

And jumping on the bed brings things to a fitting end.

After figuring out who would bunk with who and who would have the honor of sleeping on the floor, it was time to head out for food. The logistics of handling a trip for eighteen people had begun to weigh on our fearless leaders, Jon and Sarah, and so we opted for the simple option of McDonalds for dinner followed by a Family Mart run for booze and snacks. Truth be told though, most of us weren't really in a partying mood any more. If Kimberly and I were tired - I dread to think how the Daejeonites were feeling after their six hour drive and 7am starts. Still, good conversation was had over beers before heavy eyelids called an end to proceedings.

We all slept in the following morning and that meant we didn't get a chance to see any more of Jinhae. I hopped a bus back to Busan and the Daejeon crew piled back into their vans praying the ride home wouldn't take six hours. I'm pleased to say it was closer to four.

Whether you're a would-be botanist, a photography nut, or just a sucker for crowds and junk food - the Cherry Blossom Festival is a fun day trip. The night in Masan definitely isn't something you need to do if you just want to soak in the sights, but given how choked the roads to and from Jinhae had been - it might have counted in our favor to avoid the them for an extra twelve hours or so.

For more information you can check out the official site of the festival here or the Korean Tourism website. It's not a must see, but it's a fun day out and a great way to welcome spring.

Well, it’s a whole lot more complicated than a one-page or less a week quiz can deal with!

I would identify Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, and Xinjiang as the three territorial issues most likely to affect the PRC’s relations with its Asian neighbors. I think the most important factor that influences Beijing’s relations is its conception of its own territorial integrity and sovereignty. After that, there are two other factors that are less important, defense and economic value. I also think the attitude of its rivals is also important.

Taiwan’s existence strikes right at the core of the PRC’s political and legal sovereignty, is the first line of perimeter defense, and contends with Chinese territorial and economic claims directly. Historically, the only other issue that has superseded Taiwan was the DPRK’s invasion of the ROK in June, 1950. It also involves the United States, and would definitely invite international attention.

The Korean peninsula involves the Koreas, for which their respective conceptions of sovereignty are directly affected. China would have to choose between its economic and security interests, as well as defend its northeastern border. A war on the Korean peninsula would also involve the United States, and also invite international participation.

Xinjiang also involves China’s territorial integrity and affects Beijing’s ability to make claims in Kashmir, Central Asia, and Tibet.

I was impressed by China’s diplomatic efforts with ASEAN regarding the Spratly’s and Paracels, and with India regarding their borders. I also think for all the unfortunate events surrounding its relations with Japan in the East China Sea, that both countries seem to be negotiating their claims. Japan seems to value negotiation over contention, and might perceive more clearly the risks to its own place in the international community or domestic peace of an unpopular conflict. Even if China sees the islands as a defensive perimeter, Taiwan is far more important. I would not rule out an accident involving Daioyu or the Spratly’s creating a security. I think Beijing is willing to negotiate disputes involving economic gains, but refuses to compromise over its conception of its core boundaries and sovereignty.

Hold that Taiwan thought!

I would identify the “five principles of coexistence” and the conception of a harmonious society as the two most significant, if problematic, of Chinese security and foreign policy. I would argue that the apparent conflict between China’s aspirations and pragmatism is a result of a certain notion of the relationship between the state, society, and individuals inherent in Chinese philosophy.

The “five principles of coexistence” give China’s security and foreign policy coherence. In South Asia, Lawrence Saez and Crystal Chang argue that the “rhetoric” of the “five principles of coexistence” has “not changed substantially” and “has regained prominence”. (China, the Developing World, and the New Global Dynamic, Dittmer and Yu, ed., p.87) Dittmer argues that such rhetoric “…is to some degree a performative utterance, encouraging and helping to define a constituency to which it can appeal for support in various international projects requiring international support.” (p. 203) Thomas Kane concludes that observers “…must be cautious about predicting China’s leaders might apply these principles in specific cases. Nevertheless, one should remain aware that the Chinese have such principles and are not likely to abandon them.” (Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition, Liu, p. 112)

In South Asia, China confronts a geostrategic situation in which it shares borders with two adversaries, India and Pakistan. China’s interest in building a warm-water port at Gwadar, Pakistan is an example of the fourth principle, “equality and mutual benefit”. Although India and China co-authored the “five principles”, India provides an example of how China has tried to adhere to the “five principles” and failed, but yet still tries to improve relations, a policy Saez and Chang term “reluctant competition”. In Central Asia, China prefers stability to democratization or Russian dominance, an example of the third principle, non-interference. Yu argues that China’s has also emphasized rhetorically the aspirational rhetoric of the “five principles of coexistence” in its relations with Africa. The Zambia-Tanzania railroad (TAZARA) is an example of mutual benefit. As in Central Asia, China has supported authoritarian regimes, such as Zimbabwe and Angola for mutual benefit and opposed western demands for democratization. In Southeast Asia, Jorn Dosch argues that China-ASEAN relations have created a rough stability mutually advantageous to all parties. (Dittmer and Yu, ed., p. 76)

India and Central Asia strain the idealism of the “five principles” because of the concepts of the state, society, and individuals in Confucian philosophy. Thomas Kane identifies the “hardheaded” approach Chinese leaders take to government power. (Liu, p. 105) Institutions supersede individuals, and government supersedes all other institutions. Defense is one of the state’s two most important duties. In both Central and South Asia, China’s aspirations for Gwadar, oil pipelines, and trade routes conflicts with millennial fears about invasion from the northeastern peoples – that in itself helped to legitimate a stronger state role. A modern example of this fear is the influence of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism upon Uighur separatists in Xinjiang. China tolerates American military action against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In the end, only a strong Chinese state can guarantee peripheral stability in a region where China must balance commercial openness with security. That security allows China to negotiate more openly in Southeast Asia over secondary sea-based trade routes and to be so generous in Africa where geostrategic concerns are less important than commercial ones.

He really likes those “five principles”!

The People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s defense policy has shown remarkable continuity from its establishment in 1949 to present. The PRC, according to Robert S. Ross, is “neither belligerent nor benign”, and a spoiler that is too weak to be a regional hegemon, but could destabilize the Asian region. (Liu, pp. 141-2) I also found insightful Thomas J. Christensen’s remark, that China is “the high church of realpolitik in the post-Cold War world.” (Liu, p. 59) In this view, China has acted to balance American and Russian policies throughout its history. Finally, Christensen argues that China’s view of “historical legacies and national perceptions” (Liu, p. 62) accounts for any deviation from orthodox balancing behavior.

The first and still most important change in Chinese defense policy arose from 1972 normalization of diplomatic relations between the US and the PRC and the establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1979. The US eventually severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan, allowing for trade relations between the PRC and Taiwan. But China is opposed to Taiwan’s legal independence, and the US supports Taiwan with military hardware. More broadly, the 1972 normalization set up the PRC as a spoiler distinct from Russia. Normalization has facilitated the remarkable burst of diplomatic activity in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union, centered around ASEAN, SCO, FOCAC, and China’s rise as a supplier of peacekeeping forces. But, it has also led to the deployment of missiles aimed at Taiwan, violence in Tibet, frustrations over American policy in Central Asia, and increased defense spending.

Next, in 1991, Russia and the PRC established diplomatic relations through the “Joint Statement on the Basis of Mutual Relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation”. China and Russia agreed upon a perspective stressing opposition to what both considered American designs to global hegemony. Since June, 2001, this rapprochement has manifested itself in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Between 1991 and 2001, the PRC became concerned about Japanese-American relations, because of the Clinton administration’s 1994 pronouncements about its security alliance with Japan. Chinese leadership is divided over Japanese military modernization, theater missile defense, and American withdrawal. Liberals view the US as a restraining influence on Japanese re-militarization and regional hegemony, whereas conservatives fear the US cannot stop Japan from becoming a problem. Subsequently, in 1997, in Washington, the PRC ceased accusing the US of hegemonic designs, stopped arming Iran, and agreed to curtail nuclear proliferation activities. It’s within this context, that the US and China have cooperated over DPRK crises, including hosting multiple rounds of Six-Party Talks.

Sino-American normalization has allowed the PRC both to increase its standing in East Asia, particularly among the ASEAN states, establish a relationship with African states, and foster multilateralism, most prominently through its peacekeeping and UNSC roles. The importance of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is manifested in its concerns about Taiwan, Tibet, and Central Asia and its role as an East Asian power by its concern for Japan, the DPRK, ASEAN, and various irredentist claims. This maturing burst of activity requires a modern military and an engaged Chinese state willing to take a long-term, global perspective. As a revisionist power, China has strong memories of invasions, and, as a developing state, China needs to maintain economic growth and its own territorial integrity. I am less fearful of aggression, as much as I am of another crisis concerning the DPRK or some island claim that will involve China with Japan or India.

I just like to shit on every country equally.

The “Taiwan Question” involves the issue of the legal and political identity of the government occupying the island of Taiwan, or Formosa. This issue, as Christensen observes, highlights the limitations of China’s realist perspective on foreign relations. (Liu, p. 65) The “Taiwan Question” highlights instead the importance for China and Taiwan of the memory of humiliation by foreign powers. More fundamentally, the “Taiwan Question” cuts to the core of the legal status of what many Chinese and Taiwanese still consider to be “China”. As for foreign policy, the “Taiwan Question” complicates relations with the U.S, whose own intransigence is another cause for the intractable nature of the situation.

The Dutch, Japanese, and the Chinese during the Ming dynasty have colonized Taiwan, and the story of how the Qing eclipsed the Ming who fled to the island echoes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s claims versus the Guomindang (KMT)’s as Taiwan’s sovereign. The Qing controlled Taiwan from 1683 to 1895, as which point the Japanese annexed Taiwan as stipulated in the Treaty of Shimonoseki ending the Sino-Japanese War. Taiwan became part of the Republic of China in 1945, following Japan’s defeat in World War Two. When, after civil war ended in October, 1949, the KMT lost to the CCP, the KMT fled to Taiwan, causing resentment among indigenous Taiwanese and older generations of Chinese, some of whom favored Japanese rule.

Since October, 1949, the legal status of the mainland and island territories has become a tribute to Confucian traditions of propriety and a matter of bitter diplomatic negotiation and military tensions. This is in no small part because the U.S. refused to recognize the PRC’s legal claim as legal sovereign and instead recognized the ROC on Taiwan. China’s seat on the United Nations and official recognition of China in 1979 resulted in a de jure solution, but de facto, China and Taiwan, as well as the U.S., managed to devise legal dodges, to continue either trading with each other, or even selling military equipment. The elections of an indigenous Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1988, and of a non-KMT president, Chen Shiu-bien, in 2000, has only added layers of convoluted rhetoric and legal vocabulary to the repertoire of all three states.

In the meantime, trade relations between China and Taiwan have deepened from civil war to an official ly recognized free trade agreement, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), air and sea links, linked postal services, and exchange of tourists, as well as the existence of an expatriate Taiwanese community in Shanghai. Beijing hopes that the success of Hong Kong and Macau will convince Taiwanese to accept some similar legal arrangement. As of 2010, though, the Taiwanese electorate is divided, with a significant plurality of Taiwanese people favoring Taiwanese independence, ROC independence, or merely the legal status quo. Only a minority favor unification, but are divided into pro-ROC and pro-mainland factions.

Although I think Chinese foreign policy with the non-Asian world has theoretical coherence due to the “five principles of coexistence”, relations with Taiwan are dominated by bitter outbursts, which the U.S.’s Cold War mentality only stokes further. Geostrategically, Taiwan threatens the mainland directly and a theater missile defense pact with Japan would limit China’s defensive perimeter with Japan. Concerning the “Taiwan Question”, William H. Overholt has argued that the “outcome will be determined by leaders, not by inevitable historical processes.” (Overholt, Asia, America, and the Transformation of Geopolitics, p. 154) I would argue that Taiwan will continue as a de jure problem until another de facto crisis, like the Korean War did in 1950, permanently eliminates the need for China and Taiwan to disagree.

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