A Weapon or a Default Option?: Nationalism, Weaponized Interdependence, and South Korea’s Strategies for Mutual Prosperity in East Asia

Join the Department of Social Sciences for this Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series event featuring guest speaker Key-young (Kay) Son, a professor at the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University.

Semiconductor nationalism or techno-nationalism has affected the world of economic interdependence. Son will discuss a trade war between Korea and Japan over semiconductor issues, exploring tit-for-tat actions and counteractions and showing how they led to mutual losses. He'll also consider the policy implications of the Korea-Japan trade conflicts and suggest some ideas for how to ensure mutual prosperity in East Asia. Among them, Son suggests creating an East Asian semiconductor community, like the European Coal and Steel Community, as a long-term initiative for East Asian integration.