To develop the leadership skills of future leaders
The study of spatial politics

All spaces where humans live are objects of geography.
Political geography is an academic discipline that contributes to the construction of alternative political spaces by identifying the characteristics and problems of various political phenomena occurring in real space.
Since the emergence of critical geopolitics in the 1990s, the concept of political geography has changed significantly and new topics have emerged, but discussions on the traditional themes of political geography, which focused on the state and territorial environment, remain valid.
This book is an introductory text written by Professor Choi Byeong-du, an authority in the field of geography, combining the diverse topics and narrative systems of traditional geography and new political geography in an easy-to-understand manner.

Political geography is a fascinating and interesting major field of geography.
The topics covered in political geography are very diverse.
Questions ranging from 'Why are the statues of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and King Sejong placed in Gwanghwamun Square, and why do civil society movements frequently occur in this square?' to 'Why did Russia invade Ukraine, and why is the trade dispute between the United States and China escalating tensions surrounding the Taiwan issue?' are all major topics of political geography.
These political phenomena imply spatial and environmental aspects in some sense, and the spatial and environmental factors implied in them also influence the political process.
_From “Publishing a Book”

Political geography is a fascinating and interesting major field of geography.
The topics covered in political geography are very diverse.
Questions ranging from 'Why are the statues of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and King Sejong placed in Gwanghwamun Square, and why do civil society movements frequently occur in this square?' to 'Why did Russia invade Ukraine, and why is the trade dispute between the United States and China escalating tensions surrounding the Taiwan issue?' are all major topics of political geography.
These political phenomena imply spatial and environmental aspects in some sense, and the spatial and environmental factors implied in them also influence the political process.

--- From "Publishing a Book"

The political geography of Dokdo, which is unfolding around the sovereignty of Dokdo, fundamentally shows that political geography is a discipline that deals with the interrelationship between geography and politics.
That is, political geography examines the relationship between the spatial and environmental characteristics (morphological and natural/human environmental characteristics) of objects or events occurring on the surface of the Earth and the political processes (or power relations) implied in them.
Furthermore, political geography demands an understanding of the complex changes in geographical processes resulting from the interpretation of economic, socio-cultural, and historical facts, the conflicts of interest surrounding them, and their multi-scale operation at local, national, and global levels, as well as the impact of the spatial and environmental characteristics of geographical entities on politics.

--- From “Chapter 1: Concepts and Development of Political Geography”

The Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, established in Shanghai on April 11, 1919, inherited the legitimacy of the Hanseong Provisional Government, which was formed through the representative conference of the 13 provinces of the Korean Peninsula at the time, and also integrated provisional governments established in various overseas locations to form the unified Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea on September 11 (Yoo Jun-gi, 2009).
There is some debate as to whether the Provisional Government was established on April 11 or September 11, but what is clear is that, although the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea did not establish a fully modern state, it was an attempt and process to realize the concept of a nation-state.
The provisional government continued to carry out certain activities after liberation, but was dissolved in 1948 with the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea.
There was controversy over whether the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea should be recognized as a modern state government in the history of the formation of the Korean nation or as an independence movement organization.
However, it is clear that the Provisional Government not only declared its will to achieve independence from Japanese imperialism through the revision of the Provisional Constitution in September 1919 based on the Provisional Charter announced in April 1919, but also officially declared the birth of the Korean nation as a modern nation-state by declaring that the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea resides in the people.

--- From “Chapter 2: Formation of the State and Territorial Unity”

Environmental determinism has attracted considerable academic and popular attention in recent years.
Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) became an instant hit.
This book examines why civilization developed first in the Old World, while it did not develop beyond a certain level in the New World or other regions.
According to his argument, Eurasia's geography and environment led to the development of agriculture, which in turn led to population growth and increased population pressure, which intensified competition between nations and groups, leading to the development of firearms and iron weapons.
Not only that, but livestock farming led to the spread of infectious diseases, which caused widespread disease and resulted in numerous deaths, but also made it easier to conquer the New World, which had no resistance.
Although these arguments attracted attention because they offered a macroscopic and comprehensive explanation for the origins, spread, and uneven development of civilization, they were criticized for being based on environmental determinism, for their linear diagram of cultural development, for their reductionist approach to human civilization, and for their errors of overgeneralization.

--- From “Chapter 3: The Natural Environment and Politics of the Nation”

The number of people forced to leave their homes in 2022 will have quadrupled since 2010, exceeding 100 million.
These include 26 million international refugees under the protection of the UNHCR, 58 million internally displaced persons, 4.91 million asylum seekers, and 4.34 million stateless persons.
Their countries of origin are Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar (1.2 million people), and their receiving countries are Turkey, Colombia, Germany, Pakistan, and Uganda.
The return rate of international refugees is less than 5%, as most refugees' countries of origin are experiencing political turmoil and experiential hardship.
Moreover, only about 10% of the world's refugees are accepted in European or North American countries, and most of the rest remain in low- and middle-income countries. This shows that the North-South imbalance is serious not only in the countries of origin but also in the countries of acceptance of refugees, deepening the global refugee crisis and the vulnerability of refugees to human rights issues.

--- From “Chapter 4: The Humanities and Politics of the Nation”

In some cases, territorial disputes are recognized by the parties involved and negotiate a resolution, but in others, even if one country does not recognize the issue as a dispute, another country may highlight it for its own interests, gradually turning it into a "dispute."
A representative example of this is the conflict between Korea and Japan surrounding the Dokdo issue.
South Korea, which effectively controls Dokdo, officially maintains that there is no territorial dispute, but Japan's attempts to create a dispute are becoming increasingly blatant.
… … Although the San Francisco Peace Treaty concluded between Japan and the Allied Powers in 1951 after liberation did not mention Dokdo, the Korean government included Dokdo within the Peace Line Declaration (officially known as the Presidential Declaration on Sovereignty in the Adjacent Sea) announced in 1952.

--- From Chapter 5, Border and Territorial Management and Disputes

The hybrid strategy or interrelationship between geopolitics and geoeconomics can be directly observed in the international politics unfolding in East Asia.
For example, in 2011, US President Obama said that the geopolitics of the 21st century would be determined in the Asia-Pacific region, and that the United States must be there.
The theme of Xi Jinping's first official speech after being elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012 was the "great revival of the Republic of China," and in 2013 he announced the establishment of the "Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)" and the Belt and Road Initiative.
The United States, concerned about China's rise to superpower status, not only initiated a direct trade dispute with China in a geopolitical sense to check it, but also sought to establish an Indo-Pacific alliance system encompassing South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and India to contain China.
The establishment of this world political system is sometimes called a second Cold War, as it reproduces the continental-maritime power confrontation that formed the basis of the previous Cold War system.

--- From “Chapter 9: World Political Geography of the Cold War and the Post-Cold War”

While recent North Korean studies still employ many of the methods previously employed, such as the totalitarian approach, comparative political method, internalist approach, and comparative socialist method, researchers referred to as the "fourth generation" are mobilizing alternative methods for North Korean studies, such as the everyday life research method, actor network theory, and urban history research method.
These studies share a commonality in that they seek to examine the real lives of North Korean residents based on enriched data, such as interviews with North Korean defectors.
In other words, fourth-generation studies are significant in that they reflect on the fact that existing totalitarian approaches and structural-functional theories, which commonly analyze the superstructure, failed to predict the transition of the socialist bloc, and they seek to adopt the perspective of “history from below” in order to elucidate the latent energy within the people.

--- From Chapter 10, Political Geography of East Asia and the Korean Peninsula