The Reality and Future of Northeast Asia

North Korea has been very hostile toward South Korea these days. Because such Korea writes the same words and says the same things. In other words, the fate of the North Korean government could be determined by South Korea through 'conformity' that goes beyond mere practical interaction. Even if the North Korea–U.S. negotiations unfold and South Korea is sidelined, I will not shed a tear, not even if I die. Because I understand every situation. South Korea will have to wait patiently. If North Korea simply comes to the negotiating table with the United States, everyone in this world will be better off.

 

When discussing AI, you should not get dragged into trivial details. Because artificial intelligence has no political sense. In other words, AI does not understand human psychology.

The Fear of a Shared Language

Conformity, Courage, and Why the Non-China World Is the Larger One

Lee Hyeong-chun · Independent Columnist | October 2026

1. The Power of Unanimity, and the Power of One

In the 1950s, Solomon Asch ran a simple experiment. Participants had to pick which of several lines matched a reference line. The answer was obvious to anyone. Yet when a planted majority confidently gave the same wrong answer, participants went along in roughly a third of the critical trials, and about three in four betrayed their own eyes at least once.

Less remembered is the other finding. When just one person broke ranks, conformity collapsed — even when that dissenter gave a different wrong answer. Conformity draws its power not from the size of the majority but from its unanimity. A single crack frees everyone.

2. Why People Conform Faster to Evil

Human beings sense before they reason. The senses seek pleasure, and they prefer pleasure that arrives now. The pleasure of joining in wrongdoing is immediate: the laughter of shared ridicule, the warmth of belonging, the relief that someone else is the target. Neuroscience has linked the satisfaction of watching an envied person suffer to the brain's reward circuitry, and the same circuitry responds when people punish a norm-breaker.

Goodness has its pleasures too, but they arrive late, quietly, and alone — and the cost must be paid first. Evil pays out at once and sends the bill to someone else. That asymmetry in time decides the speed of conformity.

The most dangerous evil wears the robe of justice. Those who join a witch hunt see themselves not as villains but as enforcers of righteousness. If evil came wearing its own face, people would follow it far more slowly.

3. Cowardice Is a Narrow Calculation

In a company with a serious grievance, employees stay silent. They have not lost their reason; their reason is working precisely. Speak up and you are marked; speak up and nothing changes. Organizational researchers call this "organizational silence."

A line often attributed to Peter Ustinov holds that courage frequently springs from a lack of insight, while cowardice usually rests on good information. It is witty, and half right. Rushing into danger without seeing it is not courage but recklessness. As Aristotle argued, courage lies between cowardice and recklessness. The courageous person holds the same information as the coward and chooses differently.

Nor is the coward's information truly good. It is merely narrow. It weighs the penalty at the next performance review with great precision, but leaves off the scale the cost of an organization rotting in silence, and the cost of betraying oneself. Cowardice is a narrow, precise calculation; courage is a wider one. Whoever breaks the silence accepts discomfort. He weighed the discomfort of speaking against the discomfort of silence, and found the latter heavier.

More frightening still is when reason itself takes evil's side. What Hannah Arendt saw in Eichmann was not madness but the face of a functionary diligently calculating his career.

4. The Calculation of Those Who Know the End

What widens the calculation? I found my answer at the side of a dying family member. We all walk the same road in the end. The position, reputation, and security we struggle to protect will be let go regardless. As the Buddhist teaching of emptiness (śūnyatā) holds, once we see there is no fixed thing to cling to, the fear of loss loosens its grip. What remains is to do one's best, by one's own will, as a being born into a body.

Awareness of death does not automatically produce courage. Social psychologists report that people reminded of their mortality often cling harder to their group and turn harsher toward dissent. Death avoided makes us shrink; death accepted sets us free.

We must not cling to results, but we must have a goal. A life is like a ship setting sail. A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are built for. Columbus sailed because he had a goal: India. Yet he died believing he had reached Asia. A goal launches the ship; attachment to the expected result blinds the eyes.

5. What Kim Jong-un Fears Is a Shared Language

Now put the same question to Pyongyang. At the Ninth Party Congress in February 2026, Kim Jong-un announced a "final, momentous decision" to fix relations with South Korea as those between the most hostile of states. He dismissed Seoul's conciliatory gestures as a deception and vowed to exclude the South from the category of compatriots forever. In March, before the Supreme People's Assembly, he formally designated the South as the most hostile state — while leaving the door to Washington open, on condition that his nuclear status be accepted.

Why this obsession with severing ties? Part of it is calculation: to sweep Seoul, the persistent voice of denuclearization, off the table where nuclear status is negotiated. But deeper lies fear. What the regime fears is not South Korea's army but its language. Pyongyang has enacted, one after another, the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture, the Youth Education Guarantee Law, and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Law. Speaking in a South Korean manner is itself punishable. The law confesses what the regime fears.

A neighbor who shares your speech and script is a channel of conformity. The North Korean system rests on a vast unanimity, and as Asch showed, unanimity falls to a single different voice. Ideology appeals to reason; South Korean dramas and songs seep in through the senses. If the senses come before reason, the outcome of that contest is not in doubt. If Kim senses this, even dimly, sealing the door is rational from where he stands.

This is the old strategy of yuanjiao jingong — befriend the distant, confront the near — but inverted: not to conquer the near neighbor, but to push it away. And the South is dangerous not merely because it is close and large. China is larger and just as close, yet it is no enemy. South Korea is close, large, and the same. That is the problem.

6. Sequence Is the Answer

How, then, should unification come? I believe it must come after North Korea has built its own economy. There is no reason for both Koreas to suffer before then. That is why I have offered economic counsel to the North for so long.

The sequence runs like this. Washington and Pyongyang draw closer; sanctions ease; the North opens. Its economy reaches a certain level. Only then can Kim stand before the mirror, and only then can the South draw slowly nearer. The regime survives, and China finds no gap through which to intervene. That is why South Korea being bypassed at a US–North Korea summit is the second-best outcome. Not the best — but a road opens.

There is a danger to watch. If Washington and Pyongyang cap only the long-range missiles that threaten the American homeland and leave untouched the forces aimed at the South, second-best becomes, for Seoul, second-worst. Seoul may sit outside the room, but it must watch the table.

Nor is a unification pulled together by conformity necessarily a good one. East Germany collapsed amid longing for the West, yet after reunification many East Germans felt like second-class citizens. North Koreans must be able to walk toward unification at their own pace.

7. China and Russia: The Same Division, Different Arithmetic

The worst variable in this picture is China. A unified Korea allied with the United States reaching the Yalu River would be a security threat to Beijing. But the problem is not only security arithmetic. China's hegemonic drive grows out of one-party dictatorship. Democracies have mechanisms for correcting bad policy. America erred in Vietnam and Iraq, but its own press exposed the errors, and public opinion and elections changed course. China has no such mechanism; the character of the regime becomes the conduct of the state. This is not a verdict on 1.4 billion Chinese people. Our judgment of people who cannot choose their own government must be the same as our judgment of the people of North Korea.

China also carries an old worldview: dì dà wù bó (地大物博) — a land so vast and rich it needs nothing from outside. In 1793, the Qianlong Emperor answered a British trade mission, in effect, that his empire lacked nothing. Half a century later, that confidence was shattered in the Opium War. Today's China still depends on the outside world for oil, food, and advanced semiconductors. The gap between believing oneself complete and actually depending on others is what breeds miscalculation. Believing it grows alone, China sees its neighbors not as partners but as followers.

Russia is different. Russia needs the Korean Peninsula. The development of its Far East, and the route by which Siberian gas and rail reach the sea, run through Korea. In the 1990s, through the "Brown Bear" (Bulgom) program, Moscow repaid Soviet-era loans to Seoul in weapons, building up South Korea's own arsenal. Its transfer of military technology to the North today is, in Putin's arithmetic, simply giving to both sides. Since the 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, I read Putin's design as drawing the North closer to Moscow than to Beijing, so that the whole peninsula might eventually serve as a partner in Russia's postwar revival.

But what Russia wants is two Koreas, not one. A peninsula that cooperates without unifying lets Moscow deal with each side separately and keep things on its own terms. China prefers division because it needs a buffer; Russia, because it wants leverage. Russia is useful for easing the North's dependence on China, but it is no partner for unification.

Even so, Russia's structure ultimately points away from China. Around eight million people live in the Russian Far East; across the border, about a hundred million live in China's three northeastern provinces. That Russia now looks subordinate to China is a temporary product of war and geography. The structure is pressing for change.

8. Diversification, and the Gathering Against China

Russia is hostile to the West, and Europe is no longer as close to America as it once was. The world is entering an age of diversification. But this scattering will not last. If a scattered world gathers again around one axis, that axis is China. America is, for the most part, a hegemon guarding what it already has; China is a hegemon dreaming of what it does not yet have. A dreaming hegemon unsettles its neighbors, and unease breeds alliance.

In the future, the world will divide into China and the non-China world.

9. The Non-China World Is the Vast and Abundant One

China holds about 6.4 percent of the world's land area and roughly one-sixth of its population. Add Russia's resources, America's technology and finance, India's population, Europe's institutions, and the manufacturing of Korea and Japan, and the non-China world is far vaster and richer than China. The moment China believes itself a complete world, it makes an enemy of a larger and more complete one.

The power of conformity is strong. But unanimity falls to a single dissenter, and narrow calculation loses to wider calculation. Pyongyang behind its locked door and Beijing that would grow alone will face the same question in the end: remain a ship tied in harbor, or set sail.

The non-China world is dì dà wù bó. And in the end, what is right prevails.

References

Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book III.

Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70(9), 1–70.

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323–370.

de Quervain, D. J.-F., Fischbacher, U., Treyer, V., Schellhammer, M., Schnyder, U., Buck, A., & Fehr, E. (2004). The neural basis of altruistic punishment. Science, 305(5688), 1254–1258.

Moon, C., & Choi, E. (2026). North Korea searches for a path out of international isolation. East Asia Forum. https://eastasiaforum.org/?p=2348712

Morrison, E. W., & Milliken, F. J. (2000). Organizational silence: A barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 706–725.

Peyrefitte, A. (1992). The Immobile Empire (J. Rothschild, Trans.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2015). The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. New York: Random House.

Takahashi, H., Kato, M., Matsuura, M., Mobbs, D., Suhara, T., & Okubo, Y. (2009). When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: Neural correlates of envy and schadenfreude. Science, 323(5916), 937–939.

Cookie News (2026, March 24). Cho, J. "Blue House: hostile rhetoric does not help peaceful coexistence; Kim calls South Korea 'most hostile state'" [in Korean]. https://www.kukinews.com/article/view/kuk202603240087

Korea Institute for National Unification (2026). 2026 Korean Peninsula Outlook [in Korean]. Seoul: KINU.

Kyongbuk Maeil (2026, February 26). Hwang, I. "Kim Jong-un: Lee government's conciliatory stance is a deception; South to be excluded from the category of compatriots forever" [in Korean]. https://kbmaeil.com/article/20260226500095

Kyunghyang Shinmun (2026, February 26). Kwak, H. "All-in on nuclear-state status; a stronger 'iron wall' against an obstructing South Korea" [in Korean]. https://www.khan.co.kr/article/202602262036005

Newsis (2026, February 26). Nam, B. "Kim Jong-un calls South Korea 'eternal enemy,' warns of 'complete collapse'; signals dialogue to the US" [in Korean]. https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20260226_0003527758

News Tomato (2026, March 24). Lee, S. "Kim Jong-un: South Korea 'most hostile state'" [in Korean]. https://newstomato.com/ReadNews.aspx?no=1295360

Weekly Kyunghyang (2026, August 22). "Kim Jong-un: Putin in September, Trump in November?" [in Korean]. https://weekly.khan.co.kr/article/202608221346001

동북아시아의 현실과 미래

북한은 요즘 한국에 매우 적대적이다. 그건 한국이 같은 글과 같은 말을 쓰기 때문이다. 즉 현실적인 교류를 넘어서는 ‘동조’에 의해서 북한 정부의 운명이 한국에 의해서 좌우될 수도 있기 때문이다. 만약 북미 협상이 전개되고 한국이 패싱된다 할지라도 나는 죽어도 아니 눈물 흘리오리다. 모든 상황을 이해하기 때문이다. 한국은 인내심을 가지고 기다려야 할 것이다. 북한이 미국과 협상 테이블에 나서기만해도 모두가 좋아질 것이다.

인공지능과 토론할때면 지엽적인데로 끌려들어가지 말아야한다. 인공지능은 정치감각이 없기 때문이다. 즉 인공지능은 인간의 심리를 모르기 때문이다.

 같은 말의 공포

동조, 용기, 그리고 비중국의 지대물박

이형춘 · 독립 칼럼니스트 | 2026년 10월

1. 만장일치의 힘, 한 사람의 힘

1950년대 솔로몬 애쉬는 단순한 실험을 했다. 길이가 다른 선분들 가운데 기준선과 같은 것을 고르는 문제였다. 답은 누구 눈에도 뻔했다. 그러나 바람잡이 다수가 일제히 틀린 답을 말하자, 피험자들은 결정적 시행의 약 3분의 1에서 다수를 따라갔다. 넷 중 셋은 적어도 한 번 자기 눈을 배신했다.

이 실험에는 덜 알려진 결과가 있다. 반대자가 단 한 명만 있어도 동조는 급격히 무너졌다. 그 반대자가 정답이 아닌 다른 오답을 말해도 그랬다. 동조의 힘은 다수의 크기가 아니라 만장일치라는 조건에서 나온다. 균열 하나가 모두를 자유롭게 한다.

2. 사람은 왜 악에 더 빨리 동조하는가

인간은 이성 이전에 감각을 가진 존재다. 감각은 쾌락을 원하고, 쾌락은 즉각적인 쪽을 고른다. 악에 동조하는 쾌락은 즉시 온다. 누군가를 함께 조롱할 때 터지는 웃음, 무리와 하나가 되는 소속감, 표적이 내가 아니라 저 사람이라는 안도감이다. 남의 불행에서 느끼는 고소함이 뇌의 보상 회로와 연결된다는 연구가 있고, 규범을 어긴 자를 처벌할 때도 같은 회로가 반응한다는 실험이 있다.

선행에도 쾌락은 있다. 그러나 그것은 늦게, 조용히, 혼자 온다. 비용은 내가 먼저 치러야 한다. 악의 쾌락은 즉시 오고 비용은 남이 치른다. 이 시간의 비대칭이 동조의 속도를 가른다.

가장 위험한 것은 정의의 옷을 입은 악이다. 마녀사냥에 가담하는 사람은 자신을 악당이 아니라 정의의 집행자로 여긴다. 악이 악의 얼굴로 온다면 동조는 훨씬 느릴 것이다.

3. 비겁은 좁은 계산이다

회사에 큰 불만이 있어도 직원들은 입을 다문다. 이들은 이성을 잃은 것이 아니다. 오히려 이성은 정확하게 작동한다. 말하면 찍히고, 말해도 바뀌지 않는다는 계산이다. 조직 연구는 이를 '조직 침묵'이라 부른다.

흔히 피터 유스티노프의 말로 알려진 문장이 있다. 용기는 통찰력의 결핍에서 나오지만 비겁은 대개 훌륭한 정보에 기초한다는 것이다. 재치 있지만 절반만 맞다. 위험을 모르고 뛰어드는 것은 용기가 아니라 무모함이다. 아리스토텔레스가 말했듯 용기는 비겁과 무모함 사이에 있다. 용기 있는 자는 비겁한 자와 같은 정보를 갖고도 다른 선택을 한다.

비겁의 정보는 훌륭하지도 않다. 좁을 뿐이다. 이번 인사에서 받을 불이익은 정확히 재지만, 침묵이 쌓여 조직이 무너지는 비용과 스스로를 배신한 대가는 저울에 올리지 않는다. 비겁은 좁고 정확한 계산이고, 용기는 더 넓은 계산이다. 침묵을 깨는 사람은 불편을 감수한다. 그는 말하는 불편과 침묵하는 불편을 함께 쟀고, 후자가 더 무거웠을 뿐이다.

더 무서운 것은 이성 자체가 악의 편에 서는 경우다. 한나 아렌트가 아이히만에게서 본 것은 광기가 아니라, 성실하게 자기 경력을 계산하던 관리의 얼굴이었다.

4. 끝을 아는 자의 계산

무엇이 계산을 넓히는가. 나는 가족의 죽음을 곁에서 지켜보며 그 답을 얻었다. 우리는 모두 결국 같은 길을 간다. 그렇다면 지키려 애쓰는 자리와 평판과 안전은 어차피 내려놓게 될 것들이다. 불교의 공(空)이 가르치듯 붙잡을 실체가 없다는 것을 알면, 잃을 것에 대한 두려움이 느슨해진다. 남는 것은 육체를 가진 존재로 태어나 의지대로 최선을 다하는 일뿐이다.

물론 죽음의 자각이 저절로 용기를 낳지는 않는다. 사회심리학 연구는 죽음을 떠올린 사람들이 오히려 자기 집단에 더 매달리고 이견에 더 가혹해진다고 보고한다. 피하는 죽음은 사람을 움츠리게 하고, 받아들인 죽음은 사람을 자유롭게 한다.

결과에 집착해서는 안 되지만 목표는 있어야 한다. 인생은 출항하는 배와 같다. 항구에 묶인 배는 안전하지만, 배는 그러려고 만든 것이 아니다. 콜럼버스는 인도라는 목표가 있었기에 출항했다. 그러나 그는 죽을 때까지 자신이 닿은 곳이 아시아라고 믿었다. 목표는 배를 띄우고, 결과에 대한 집착은 눈을 가린다.

5. 김정은이 두려워하는 것은 같은 말이다

이제 같은 질문을 평양에 던져보자. 김정은은 올해 2월 노동당 9차 대회에서 한국과의 관계를 가장 적대적인 국가 대 국가 관계로 정립하는 최종 결단을 내렸다고 밝혔다. 한국 정부의 유화적 태도는 기만극이며, 한국을 동족의 범주에서 영원히 배제하겠다고 했다. 3월 최고인민회의에서는 한국을 가장 적대적인 국가로 공인했다. 반면 미국에는 핵보유국 지위를 전제로 대화의 문을 열어두었다.

왜 이토록 한국과의 단절에 집착하는가. 핵보유국 지위를 협상하는 자리에서 비핵화를 외치는 서울을 치우려는 계산도 있다. 그러나 더 깊은 곳에 있는 것은 두려움이다. 그 대상은 한국의 군대가 아니라 한국의 말이다. 북한은 반동사상문화배격법, 청년교양보장법, 평양문화어보호법을 잇달아 만들었다. 한국식 말투를 쓰는 것조차 처벌 대상이다. 정권이 무엇을 두려워하는지 법이 고백하고 있다.

말과 글이 같은 이웃은 동조의 통로다. 북한 체제는 거대한 만장일치 위에 서 있다. 애쉬의 실험이 보여주듯 만장일치는 단 하나의 다른 목소리에 무너진다. 게다가 이념은 이성에 호소하지만, 한국의 드라마와 노래는 감각으로 스며든다. 감각이 이성보다 먼저라면 이 싸움의 승패는 정해져 있다. 김정은이 이것을 어렴풋이라도 안다면, 문을 걸어 잠그는 것은 그의 입장에서 합리적인 선택이다.

이것은 원교근공(遠交近攻)이다. 다만 가까운 나라를 치기 위한 원교근공이 아니라, 밀어내기 위한 원교근공이다. 그리고 한국이 위험한 이유는 가깝고 커서만이 아니다. 중국은 더 크고 똑같이 가깝지만 적이 아니다. 한국은 가깝고, 크고, 같다. 그것이 문제다.

6. 순서가 답이다

그렇다면 통일은 어떻게 와야 하는가. 나는 북한이 스스로 경제를 일군 다음에 통일이 와야 한다고 본다. 그 전에 남과 북 모두가 불편을 겪을 이유가 없다. 내가 오랫동안 북한에 경제적 조언을 해온 이유다.

순서는 이렇다. 먼저 북미가 가까워지고, 제재가 풀리고, 북한이 개방한다. 북한 경제가 일정 수준에 오른다. 그때 비로소 김정은도 거울 앞에 설 수 있고, 한국은 천천히 가까워진다. 정권은 지켜지고, 중국은 간섭할 틈을 얻지 못한다. 북미 정상회담에서 한국이 패싱되는 것이 차선인 이유다. 최선은 아니지만 길은 열린다.

경계할 점도 있다. 북미가 미국 본토를 겨냥한 장거리 미사일만 묶고 한국을 겨냥한 전력은 그대로 두는 거래를 한다면, 차선은 한국에게 차악이 된다. 서울은 협상장 밖에 있더라도 그 테이블을 지켜봐야 한다.

동조로 끌어당긴 통일이 반드시 좋은 통일도 아니다. 동독은 서독에 대한 동경 속에 무너졌지만, 통일 이후 많은 동독 주민이 스스로를 이등 시민으로 느꼈다. 북한 주민은 자기 속도로 걸어올 수 있어야 한다.

7. 중국과 러시아: 같은 분단, 다른 셈법

이 구도에서 가장 나쁜 변수는 중국이다. 미국과 동맹인 통일 한국이 압록강까지 오는 것은 중국에게 안보 위협이다. 그러나 문제는 안보 계산만이 아니다. 중국의 패권 지향은 공산당 일당독재라는 체제에서 나온다. 민주국가에는 잘못된 정책을 고치는 장치가 있다. 미국은 베트남과 이라크에서 잘못을 저질렀지만, 자국 언론이 그것을 폭로했고 여론과 선거가 방향을 바꾸었다. 중국에는 그 장치가 없다. 정권의 성격이 곧 국가의 행동이 된다. 이것은 14억 중국인에 대한 판단이 아니다. 자기 정권을 선택할 수 없는 사람들에 대한 판단은 북한 주민에 대한 판단과 같아야 한다.

중국에는 오래된 세계관이 있다. 지대물박(地大物博), 땅이 넓고 물자가 풍부하니 바깥이 필요 없다는 믿음이다. 1793년 건륭제는 무역을 청하는 영국 사절단에게 청나라에는 없는 것이 없다는 취지로 답했다. 반세기 뒤 그 자신감은 아편전쟁으로 무너졌다. 오늘의 중국도 원유와 식량과 첨단 반도체를 바깥에 의존한다. 스스로 완결되었다는 믿음과 실제로 의존하는 현실 사이의 간극, 그것이 오판을 낳는다. 혼자 크는 나라라고 스스로 믿기에, 중국은 주변국을 협력자가 아니라 따라올 대상으로 본다.

러시아는 다르다. 러시아는 한반도가 필요하다. 극동 개발, 그리고 시베리아의 가스와 철도를 바다로 잇는 길이 한반도에 있다. 러시아는 1990년대 불곰사업으로 소련 시절의 차관을 무기로 갚으며 한국의 군사력을 키워주었다. 지금 북한에 군사기술을 넘기는 것도 푸틴의 셈법에서는 양쪽에 공평하게 주는 일이다. 나는 2024년 북러 포괄적 전략동반자 조약 이후의 흐름을, 북한을 중국보다 러시아에 가깝게 만들어 장차 한반도 전체를 전후 러시아 부흥의 조력자로 삼으려는 구상으로 읽는다.

그러나 러시아가 원하는 것은 남과 북이지 통일이 아니다. 통일 없이 협력만 하는 한반도라야 양쪽과 따로 거래하며 자기 뜻대로 영향력을 행사할 수 있다. 중국은 완충지대가 필요해서, 러시아는 지렛대가 필요해서 분단을 선호한다. 러시아는 북한의 중국 의존을 덜어주는 데 쓸모가 있지만, 통일의 조력자는 아니다.

그럼에도 러시아의 구조는 결국 중국의 반대편을 향한다. 극동 러시아에는 약 800만 명이 살고, 국경 너머 중국 동북 3성에는 약 1억 명이 산다. 지금 러시아가 중국에 종속된 것처럼 보이는 것은 전쟁과 지정학이 만든 일시적 결과다. 구조는 변화를 압박하고 있다.

8. 다각화, 그리고 반중의 결집

러시아는 서방과 적대적이고, 유럽도 예전처럼 미국과 가깝지 않다. 세계는 다각화의 시대로 들어서고 있다. 그러나 이 흩어짐은 오래가지 않을 것이다. 흩어진 세계가 다시 뭉칠 축이 있다면, 그것은 중국이다. 미국은 대체로 이미 가진 것을 지키는 패권이고, 중국은 아직 갖지 못한 것을 꿈꾸는 패권이다. 꿈꾸는 패권은 주변을 불안하게 하고, 불안은 결집을 낳는다.

미래에 세계는 중국과 비중국으로 나뉠 것이다.

9. 비중국은 지대물박이다

중국의 영토는 지구 육지의 약 6.4%, 인구는 세계의 6분의 1 정도다. 러시아의 자원, 미국의 기술과 금융, 인도의 인구, 유럽의 제도, 한국과 일본의 제조업을 합친 비중국은 중국보다 훨씬 지대물박하다. 중국이 스스로 완결된 세계라고 믿는 순간, 더 크고 더 완결된 세계를 적으로 돌리게 된다.

동조의 힘은 강하다. 그러나 만장일치는 한 사람의 반대에 무너지고, 좁은 계산은 넓은 계산에 진다. 문을 걸어 잠근 평양도, 혼자 크겠다는 베이징도 결국 같은 질문 앞에 선다. 항구에 묶인 배로 남을 것인가, 출항할 것인가.

비중국은 지대물박이다. 그리고 결국, 사필귀정이다.

참고문헌

경북매일 (2026. 2. 26.). 황인무. 「김정은 "이재명 정부 유화적 태도는 기만극, 동족 범주에서 영원히 배제하겠다"」. https://kbmaeil.com/article/20260226500095

경향신문 (2026. 2. 26.). 곽희양. 「'핵보유국 지위' 획득 사활…방해되는 한국엔 더 강한 '철벽'」. https://www.khan.co.kr/article/202602262036005

뉴스토마토 (2026. 3. 24.). 이석종. 「김정은 "한국, 가장 적대국"…정부는 북 인권결의안 '불참' 가닥」. https://newstomato.com/ReadNews.aspx?no=1295360

뉴시스 (2026. 2. 26.). 남빛나라. 「김정은, 韓 향해 '영원한 적' '완전 붕괴'…美에는 대화 손짓」. https://www.newsis.com/view/NISX20260226_0003527758

주간경향 (2026. 8. 22.). 「김정은 9월 푸틴, 11월엔 트럼프?」. https://weekly.khan.co.kr/article/202608221346001

쿠키뉴스 (2026. 3. 24.). 조진수. 「靑 "적대적 언사 평화공존에 도움 안 돼"…김정은 "韓 가장 적대적 국가" 강경 발언」. https://www.kukinews.com/article/view/kuk202603240087

통일연구원 (2026). 『2026 한반도 정세 전망』. 서울: 통일연구원.

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The Endless Road / Correcting Intelligence Through Exercise

About 30 years ago, realizing that my young mind was also in turmoil due to my parents’ war trauma, I immersed myself in exercise. Even with my father nearing the end of his life by my side, I did balance training, walking while keeping my eyes closed. I adopted the training method used by Park Jong-gil, who served as chief of the Blue House security office when the confrontation with the North Korean regime was at its peak, to defeat North Korean shooting hero Colonel So Gil-san at the Asian Games. And much later, I did more balance training on skates. Since I used it mainly to pull myself together rather than to compete, and because the North Korean issue has been on my mind, it was truly effective.

 

I exercised by skating, shooting, swimming, and weight training, but at times I even did manual labor in a blast furnace for the sake of exercise, so I truly longed for the immersion I had in sports. I was glad to be able to reform myself, who was extremely weak and prone to illness. Today, we discussed artificial intelligence, as well as ideological or religious immersion and immersion in exercise. We also exchanged views on the war and the recent state of martial law.

How an Intellect Cut Off from Feedback Collapses

On Flow, Fanaticism, and Korea's 2024 Martial Law

Lee Hyeong-chun · Independent Columnist

1. On the Ice

I went skating for the first time in a long while. The moment I stood on the ice, my worries fell away. The next morning I felt reborn, as if my mind had been formatted.

The reason is simple. Ice does not lie. Get your posture wrong and you fall. To stay upright you must pour all your attention into the present moment, and the worries that had been circling in your head lose their footing. The body drags the mind back into the here and now.

There was a time when I threw myself into shooting, skating, swimming and weight training to keep my composure. Looking back, the four share one trait: no human being is the judge. The target speaks through the point of impact, the ice through a fall, the water through your breath, the barbell through its weight. None of them cares about my beliefs or my rank. They do not flatter, and they hold no grudges.

2. Flow and Fanaticism: One Longing, Opposite Directions

Could it be, then, that fanatical attachment to ideology and religion, and even war itself, springs from a human longing for this kind of absorption?

The suspicion has grounds. Eric Hoffer argued that people who hurl themselves into mass movements want less the doctrine than an escape from themselves. Durkheim called the shared exaltation of ritual "collective effervescence." J. Glenn Gray and Chris Hedges recorded soldiers who missed the intensity of the battlefield for the rest of their lives. Even my own phrase, "reborn," is the language of religious conversion.

Yet the two run in opposite directions. In the flow Csikszentmihalyi described, self-consciousness vanishes for a while, and when it ends the self returns stronger. The fanatic surrenders the self for good. Exercise clears the memory; fanaticism replaces the operating system. After exercise the same person comes back, only lighter. The fanatic does not erase the past but reinterprets it: "I was living in darkness then." The past survives as evidence to be renounced, and sometimes as fuel for hatred of an enemy. And it is not the person who installs the new system, but the doctrine and the organization.

The decisive difference is where the feedback comes from. The ice gives feedback from outside reality. Fanaticism receives its feedback from inside a group that shares the same faith. So when reality says "you are wrong," the loop does not break; it tightens. Flow breaks the loop. Fanaticism swaps it for a larger one.

Voluntariness is no test. The fanatic, too, believes he chose freely. The difference lies in what one chooses to stand before. I chose to stand before a reality that would knock me down. The fanatic chooses to stand before an authority that affirms him.

3. When the Educated Break

We tend to assume fanaticism is the affliction of the unintelligent. The truth is closer to the reverse. Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog documented a striking overrepresentation of engineers among violent Islamist militants. Dan Kahan and his colleagues found that on politically charged questions, people with stronger numerical skills were more adept at reading data to fit their side's conclusion. Intelligence does not correct judgment; it serves as its defense attorney. That is why, when an educated mind breaks, the damage is worse.

The martial law declaration of December 3, 2024 is a case in point. The then president branded the opposition's string of impeachment motions and budget cuts a "legislative dictatorship" and invoked "anti-state forces." The grievance had political substance. But the leap from there to deploying troops skipped any reality check. The National Assembly voted to lift martial law within hours, and in April 2025 the Constitutional Court removed him from office, ruling that the declaration failed the constitutional requirements. He explained himself with perfect internal logic; those watching were driven to despair.

This is my own interpretation, but a lifetime as a prosecutor may have shaped that habit of mind. A prosecutor fixes a conclusion and then stacks up evidence to prove it. Carry that habit into politics and the other side becomes not a negotiating partner but a defendant. Add the condition of supreme power. At the top, no one tells you when you have fallen. Inside a circle of loyalists and a closed information ecosystem, all feedback comes from within. It is the same structure as fanaticism.

Still, this case must not be filed away as one man's madness. Pathologizing an opponent makes the explanation easy, but it hides the fact that this mechanism works on everyone. Clever people among the critics of martial law can fall into the same trap on issues dear to their own camp. The problem is not one man's mind. It is intellect cut off from feedback.

4. Precedent as Collective Habit

Just as individuals have habit loops, so do nations. The Korean military had two precedents of success: May 16, 1961 and December 12, 1979. Soldiers seized power by force, and won. Where they should have fallen, they did not. Wrong feedback becomes habit.

But there is also a precedent of punishment. In 1993 the military's private faction, Hanahoe, was dismantled, and in April 1997 the Supreme Court upheld the convictions of former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo for mutiny and insurrection. The argument that "a successful coup cannot be punished" collapsed. It was a format at the level of the state.

The soldiers mobilized in December 2024 probably carried both habits: the old habit of obedience, and the memory of seniors who obeyed and were punished. Some commanders testified before the National Assembly that they did not carry out orders to drag lawmakers out of the chamber, and many observed that troops on the ground moved reluctantly. Their inner thoughts cannot be verified. But that hesitation can be read as feedback from thirty years earlier, finally taking effect. Looking at the same history, those who declared martial law remembered only the first precedent; many of the soldiers they mobilized remembered the second as well.

5. Is Time a Cure, or Forgetting?

Time heals. But time without institutions is not a cure; it is forgetting. Chun and Roh received special pardons in December 1997, eight months after their convictions became final. The loop cut by punishment was half reconnected by pardon. The message left behind was: you will be punished, but you will walk free in the end.

So the loop must be cut for a long time, and through institutions. When Germany rebuilt its armed forces after the Nazi era, it adopted the principle of the "citizen in uniform." German military law provides that soldiers need not obey orders that violate human dignity, and must not obey orders that would constitute a crime. And Germany did not declare this once and move on; it has repeated it through military education for decades.

In Korea, too, the martial law crisis prompted proposals to codify the right to refuse unlawful orders, to tighten the requirements for martial law and parliamentary oversight, and to restrict pardons for insurrection. They all point one way: to lay honest ice in advance beneath the feet of any soldier facing an unlawful order.

One skating session changes your mood. Composure settles into the body only through repetition. A single format changes how you feel; repeated training changes who you are. A nation is no different.

Conclusion: Intellect Alone Is Not Enough

The intellect is far too good at defending itself. The body keeps us in touch with reality, but even that is not enough, for a well-disciplined body can become a more obedient instrument of orders. We need honest ice in layers: a reality that knocks us down, people who tell us we are wrong, and institutions that can topple even power.

An intellect cut off from feedback will collapse. The trouble is that it never collapses alone.

Note on sources: The skating and exercise experiences are the author's own. The declaration and lifting of martial law, the Constitutional Court ruling, and the 1997 Supreme Court judgment and pardons are matters of public record. The interpretations of the prosecutorial mindset and of the soldiers' hesitation in 2024 are the author's inferences. This column does not assess how far post-martial-law reform proposals have been enacted.

References

Constitutional Court of Korea. (2025, April 4). Decision 2024Hun-Na8 (Impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol).

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.

Durkheim, É. (1995). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (K. E. Fields, Trans.). New York: Free Press. (Original work published 1912)

Gambetta, D., & Hertog, S. (2016). Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gesetz über die Rechtsstellung der Soldaten (Soldatengesetz) [German Legal Status of Soldiers Act], § 11 (Obedience).

Gray, J. G. (1959). The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

Hedges, C. (2002). War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. New York: PublicAffairs.

Hoffer, E. (1951). The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Kahan, D. M., Peters, E., Dawson, E. C., & Slovic, P. (2017). Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government. Behavioural Public Policy, 1(1), 54–86.

Supreme Court of Korea. (1997, April 17). Decision 96Do3376 (en banc) (Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo: mutiny and insurrection).