Abstract
After political democratization in South Korea and the Doi Moi reforms of Vietnam started and proceeded concomitantly from the late 1980s, South Korea and Vietnam formally resumed diplomatic relations in 1992, and have been rapidly strengthening their political, economic, as well as cultural ties ever since then. This special issue will look into various aspects of relations between South Korea and Vietnam from both contemporary and historical perspectives; by doing so, it intends to cast a new light on the complex layers of dynamism in East and Southeast Asian regions from a perspective that may not be reduced solely to China and U.S. contexts. Moreover, three of the articles included in this issue were presented at a joint-symposium titled “Interdependency of Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia: Migration, Investment and Cultural Flow,” organized by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University and the Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies, and held at Gyeongsang National University, Jinju City, in June 2009. Considering the growing interest in Southeast Asian Studies in South Korea, we hope that this issue will contribute to further collaboration between Korean, Japanese and Southeast Asian scholars working in the field of Southeast Asian Studies.
