[Feature: Outlook for Japan-Korea Relations] Sang-joon Kim: 50 Years of Exchange Between Yonsei and Keio—Cooperation Between Japanese and Korean Private Universities

2022/05/09

Exchange and cooperation between universities across nations exist on a different dimension from intergovernmental cooperation or economic exchange. While political and economic exchanges are characterized by the exchange and expansion of interests, university exchange is an exchange for the expansion of civil society's awareness and new ways of thinking. This can be understood in the same context as why the institution of the university arose for reasons different from other social organizations. The university, an academic community of teachers and students, began in the West around the 11th century. As medieval Europe changed, commerce developed around cities and the self-awareness of citizens grew, leading to the emergence of universities. With the appearance of universities, a new worldview and view of humanity, distinct from the Middle Ages, were formed. Subsequently, universities became the source of intellectual production for the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the civic spirit. Ultimately, universities contributed greatly to solving the very fundamental problems facing the world.

Yonsei University and Keio University are traditional private universities in Korea and Japan, respectively, and both played the role of "progenitors" in conveying enlightenment thinking to traditional society. Yonsei University traces its roots back to Gwanghyewon, Korea's first modern hospital, established on April 10, 1885, during the late Joseon Dynasty.

It was established after the Joseon government accepted a proposal from Dr. Allen, a medical missionary at the hospital, and was renamed Jejungwon two weeks after its launch. Reverend Underwood, a missionary, arrived in Korea just before the opening, assisted with the medical work at Jejungwon, and began educational and missionary work. The medical and educational work of these two men, based at Jejungwon, became the roots of Yonsei as it exists today.

It was in 1970 that Yonsei University and Keio University signed an academic exchange agreement. This was five years after the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea in 1965. It can be understood that the delay in signing the exchange agreement between Yonsei University and Keio University was influenced by many social factors at the time.

While Yonsei University was established before Japanese colonial rule, the vast majority of Korean universities were established after liberation from colonial rule in 1945. During the colonial period, it was rare for universities to be established. After 1945, universities began to be established in earnest, but the universities established most frequently in the 1950s were national universities. Until the 1970s, many Korean universities were still in their infancy, and it was difficult to imagine exchanges with overseas universities. Economically, Korea mainly focused on selling domestic products to overseas markets through export-oriented industries. The government suppressed the consumption of foreign currency by citizens, and overseas travel by citizens was controlled. It was not until 1982 that overseas travel was completely liberalized in Korea.

It was during this period when Korean society was postponing its opening that Yonsei University came to sign an exchange agreement with Keio University. In fact, Yonsei University and Keio University began their exchange in 1964, just before the normalization of Japan-Korea relations. A friendly soccer match between Yonsei University and Keio University was held in Japan. The agreement with Keio University came to have a very symbolic meaning. Yonsei University looked abroad for the first time and began to actively engage in exchanges with universities in other countries, and Keio became part of that. Meanwhile, during the Cold War, when U.S. influence on Korean society was absolute and anti-Japanese sentiment still remained, Yonsei University boldly moved forward with promoting exchanges with a Japanese university.

In October 1970, the "Exchange Program Agreement" between Yonsei University and Keio University was signed between President Park Tae-sun of Yonsei and President Saku Sato of Keio. The agreement from that time, currently kept in the archives of the Yonsei University Museum, includes the following content:

Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea and Keio University, Tokyo, Japan hereby make it known to all of those concerned that both shall maintain the exchange programs with due regard of such that may contribute to the better understanding of respective cultures, educational cooperation, and exchange of knowledge, experience, personnel and others in various fields of academic studies.

Both institutions agree, through their lawful representatives to draw up and exchange such agreement that stipulate the detailed programs to promote the afore-said purpose.

Based on this agreement, the international office representatives of both schools agreed to exchange at least one researcher and one graduate student each year, and to exchange videos and journals related to various majors annually. The first participant in the Yonsei-Keio exchange was Professor Masao Okonogi. Professor Okonogi studied abroad at Yonsei and experienced President Park Chung-hee's October Yushin in 1972. Since then, he has taught Korean politics at the Keio University Faculty of Law and has dedicated his life to the expansion of Korean studies in Japan.

It appears that the student exchange program did not proceed all at once despite the signing of the agreement between Yonsei and Keio after 1970. A 1976 letter from Keio University President Hiroshi Kuno to the President of Yonsei University begins with the sentence, "For the past several years, Yonsei University and Keio have experienced difficulties in proceeding with the exchange program." To vitalize the student exchange program, the letter promises that Keio will waive tuition for Japanese language courses for undergraduate students and provide a monthly living allowance, and for graduate students, it will provide a tuition waiver along with a monthly living allowance and a settlement allowance upon arrival. The letter concludes by hoping for corresponding measures from Yonsei University.

Thanks to such efforts, the student exchange program became active, and the international office representatives of both schools began to get busy. It is presumed that the international offices at that time had not yet grown into the organizational systems for handling international affairs that they are today. Many of the letters exchanged between Yonsei and Keio, currently kept in the Yonsei University archives, concern the convenience of professors and students participating in the exchange program. They cover details such as who made the decisions, how to solve visa problems, and when they would arrive, all of which were communicated via international mail.

In the 1980s, the relationship between Yonsei University and Keio University continued primarily through these student exchange programs. What newly emerged in the late 1980s was Keio's use of resources from the Ministry of Education (at the time) for cooperation between Yonsei and Keio. One of the people who benefited from this was the author himself. Based on my experience, Keio University was granted authority and support by the Japanese government to select about 30 Ministry of Education scholarship students from around the world. Keio University allocated one of those slots each year to an international student from Yonsei University. Once Yonsei University decided on a student and sent them to Japan, Keio University would accept them, and they would become a scholarship student who could study there. I was able to study at Keio University as a Ministry of Education scholarship student dispatched from Yonsei University in 1988.

In 1990, exchanges began between professors of the Department of Political Science and International Studies at Yonsei University and the Faculty of Law at Keio University. Since the start of the student exchange program in 1970, many Yonsei University professors had visited Keio University, and at Yonsei University, Keio University was becoming the most familiar name among foreign universities. For Professor Lee Keuk-chan of the Yonsei University Department of Political Science and International Studies, becoming a visiting researcher at Keio University was his first-ever overseas visit. As exchanges between scholars became more frequent, exchanges at the department level were sought.

The oldest department-level (faculty-level) meeting that continues today is the exchange between the Yonsei University Department of Political Science and International Studies and the Keio University Faculty of Law. That exchange began in 1990 when Professor Tatsuo Yamada of Keio University and Professors Kim Dal-choong and Ahn Byung-joon of Yonsei University agreed to start a program for academic exchange among professors. From the beginning, the academic exchange placed more weight on the "meeting" itself rather than having the character of formal academic paper presentations.

Thirty years have passed since this program was launched. During that time, faculty members from both schools have met every year in Tokyo or Seoul. Generally, about ten professors visited each other, and almost all of them participated in the symposium. Various themes were discussed each year, but the content typically involved the Yonsei side explaining the political situation in Korea over the past year, while the Keio side explained the political situation in Japan. It could be seen as a deep political briefing, so to speak. International relations in Northeast Asia, including Japan-Korea relations, were also themes handled almost every year.

A major reason this meeting continued was that Professor Masao Okonogi, who had studied at Yonsei University in the 1970s, played a central role on the Keio side. Since Professor Okonogi's retirement, Professor Junya Nishino has taken over the responsibility for the exchange. In the case of Yonsei, it has become more formalized, with the Department Chair in charge of the program. Professor Junya Nishino, who was a student of Professor Okonogi, also studied at Yonsei University and obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science, just like Professor Okonogi.

Entering the 2000s, Yonsei and Keio began to promote cooperation that clearly changed from before, going beyond simple exchange programs. The two schools sought ways to share education without necessarily going through student exchange programs. This was the Digital Learning Program. In other words, attempts began to create an environment where more students could connect to the education provided by Yonsei or Keio without limits on the number of students. On the other hand, as a result of joint education, a double degree system was promoted. Utilizing the geographical proximity of Korea and Japan, expanded educational programs were promoted. Furthermore, efforts were made to expand the cooperation between Yonsei and Keio into East Asian educational cooperation.

Starting in 2001, the Yonsei University Institute of East and West Studies and the Keio Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) jointly launched an academic exchange program involving four universities: Yonsei University in Korea, Keio University in Japan, and two universities in China (Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Fudan University). This was a stage where major universities in Korea, China, and Japan built a network and explored the possibilities of joint education. A steering committee for the Distance Learning Program was established among the four universities to discuss educational content and schedules for real-time remote online lectures for which credits could be earned.

Academic exchanges were also conducted simultaneously. Looking at the themes for 2002, the presentation topics from the Korean side included an analysis of the 2002 Korean elections, Confucian capitalism and the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the future of Korea-U.S. relations. On the Keio University side, presentations were made on pluralistic governance including Japan's domestic, regional, and global levels, and even space as a new management domain. Presentations by Chinese professors included changes in China's political structure, marketization, and globalization. Along with this, workshops for graduate students were organized.

YKRF (Yonsei, Keio, Rikkyo, Fudan) is an organization for academic and cultural exchange between Korea, Japan, and China that began with an MOU signed by Yonsei University, Keio University and Rikkyo University in Japan, and Fudan University in China to commemorate the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. The main agenda of the YKRF Leadership Forum includes understanding issues in the Northeast Asian region, leadership development, promoting mutual understanding, and network formation, and it continues to this day.

On December 12, 2004, Yonsei University and Keio University signed a "Comprehensive Agreement Including the Establishment of Mutual Offices." This was cooperation at the private university level to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the normalization of Japan-Korea diplomatic relations in 2005. President Jung Kap-young of Yonsei University and President Yūichirō Anzai of Keio held a signing ceremony for the establishment of offices on each other's campuses as overseas bases and for double degrees. As a result, the Keio Seoul Office was established at Yonsei University and the Yonsei Tokyo Office was established at Keio University in 2005. The double degree program was implemented between the Yonsei University Graduate School Department of Sociology and the Graduate School Program in Area Studies.

In 2004, a symposium on distance learning between Korea, China, and Japan called "The Evolution of Digital Learning," a multilateral meeting, was held at the Keio University Mita Campus. Vice presidents and others from Yonsei University, Keio University, the University of the Philippines, the National University of Singapore, and Hanoi University participated. It was intended to build a network for new educational collaboration and distance education through IT. In particular, it was an attempt to expand the digital learning that Yonsei University and Keio University were trying to build to Southeast Asian countries.

While these multilateral programs were being conducted, Yonsei and Keio expressed the special meaning the two schools hold for each other by conferring honorary doctorates on their respective presidents. In 2014, President Jung Kap-young was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Economics from Keio University, and the following year, Keio University President Atsushi Seike was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Economics from Yonsei University.

Recently, the exchange programs between Yonsei University and Keio University seem to have faded somewhat in their presence. The reason is that both schools have developed various international programs, international students from all over the world gather at both schools, and the number of partner schools is increasing every year. Nevertheless, the meaning that Keio University holds for Yonsei University and the meaning that Yonsei University holds for Keio University is exceptional. No matter how many new friends one makes, old friends do not just fade; they shine even brighter. The two schools, which were entrusted with the role of enlightenment in traditional societies where connections were strong in Korean and Japanese society, have exchanged for a long time while recognizing each other's roles. That exchange has never once been affected by the twists and turns of Japan-Korea relations.