Sun Myung Moon
November 10, 1981
Edited Excerpt
Sejong Cultural Center, Seoul, Korea
The Tenth ICUS
I am deeply grateful that you have come to Korea to attend the tenth International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences. Here in Korea you may find reminders of the sacrifices made by the sixteen nations that participated in the Korean War.
As Korea is divided into North and South, it is a sorrowful country but one of great significance. I sincerely hope you will take a deep look at Korea and Asia and come to understand them well. I also hope you will understand the speech I am about to present in a profound religious context and not in a political context.
World civilization has developed as it has spread around the globe. The continental Egyptian civilization was succeeded by the Greek and Roman peninsular civilizations, which gave way to the island civilization of England, and eventually to the continental American civilization. From there, civilization blossomed across the Pacific, with the island civilization of Japan, from which it has extended to East Asia, concentrating on an emerging Korean Peninsula civilization. The civilization focused here in Korea is one of a high dimension, and it will play a central role in creating a new world.
Japan, an island country, was the first to allow Western civilization to establish itself in Asia. The next age will be that of a peninsular civilization, focused on the Korean Peninsula, where the Eastern and Western civilizations are merging. The historian Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) pointed out that civilizations, like the four seasons of a year, go through cycles of rising and falling. Today the age of the Atlantic civilization is passing and the age of the Pacific civilization is emerging.
Korea's neighborhood
If we look at Korea's geopolitical situation, we see that this small country is located between the four great powers of the United States, Japan, China and the Soviet Union. The United States is currently expending great effort to counter the expansionist Soviet Union. In Europe, the Soviet Union occupies half of a divided Germany; in Asia, it has split Korea into North and South, keeping the North within its sphere of influence.
Primarily in Asia, especially in Korea, and not in Europe, these four great powers confront one another. Because of this, America is obliged to pay attention to Asia, a continent far larger than Europe. Considering this situation, Korea will play a basic role in determining the outcome of confrontations between East and West and between North and South.
At this point, let us look at the practical possibility of this occurring. Koreans have a strong sense of justice and are quite religious by nature. They display their capabilities in many different fields. If they reach a deadlock in any situation, they cope with it and if necessary change direction boldly, courageously and adaptively. Koreans use these traits to achieve their objectives.
I was born among these Koreans.
The Unification Church has developed from this background. We in the Unification Church believe that as the fruit of this history we are to accomplish the worldwide mission of bringing the world's upper and lower classes closer together, with Asians as intermediaries. The Unification Church has sufficient spiritual attributes to accomplish this purpose. To this end, I am determined to do my best in all fields of endeavor and in all regions of the world.
From left to right: Receiving line welcoming ICUS participants: Mrs. Kaplan, Dr. Morton Kaplan, chairman of the board for this ICUS; True Parents, Dr. Pyong Do Yi, president of the Korean National Academy of Sciences and conference vice-chairman; Dr. Pak Bo Hi and Dr. Neil Salonen
God's love is the absolute value
To bring unity between the people of the upper and lower classes, we must encourage those in the upper class to embrace those in the lower class and then to be elevated together. To accomplish that, we need a central point of absolute value, which is God's love.
What, then, is the nature of God's love? It can dwell with members of both the upper and lower classes. Never unidirectional, this force moves in a spherical manner, capable of revolving freely from the highest point to the lowest. Wherever God's love appears, all people everywhere welcome it and it creates harmony in all places at all times.
God's love always possesses absolute value. If we have God's love, we are happy; we feel secure and fulfilled. With such love, though one may be in a low position, he or she still can love those in the upper class, and those who are affluent can love those in the lowest positions. In this way, God's love is infinitely free.
People with his love receive a great welcome wherever they go, which is why people willingly, wholeheartedly follow Unification Church members wherever they are. The Unification Church is proclaiming salvation through God's love. As soon as people come to realize that the new thought the unification movement is introducing is far more compelling than that of either communism or capitalism and that the love of God will make the kingdom of heaven on earth a reality, people will happily accept it.
To comprehend truly the world's situation today, we need to understand Korea's situation. God has a special will for Korea. We need to recognize that everything in Korea exists in a condensed form. For example, the two main trends of contemporary thought, democracy and communism, exist in Korea, and the four major religions, Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam, all have firmly established themselves. The four greatest nations of the world are confronting one another in Korea. Thus, everything or its representative form exists in Korea. In God's dispensation, Korea is responsible to harmonize and unite all these aspects.
Korea has to accomplish four great tasks, centering on the unification movement. One) uniting religions through an ecumenical movement; two) uniting thought by overcoming materialistic communism through a "victory over communism" movement; three) uniting cultures by establishing a new lifestyle combining the cultures of the East and the West; four) uniting economy through a new teaching.
With God's love as the absolute value, we in the unification movement will love all the people of the world even more than we do our own parents, brothers or sisters, thereby establishing a united world and realizing the kingdom of heaven on earth. With this, the creation of the new world that God and humankind have been longing for will reach perfection. Only with God's love can we achieve true and lasting peace and happiness.
Asia's future
Through the unification movement, Korea is capable of bringing about unity in the four areas mentioned. Of them, the first three are well under way, and we now are focusing on the fourth area, the economic problem. Korea is developing economically at a rapid pace. Nevertheless, Korea still is striving to realize an advanced international level regarding its economic relationships.
How can we achieve this? To see Korea accomplish this goal is also the mission of the unification movement. For this purpose, I intend to initiate cooperation between Germany's high standard of mechanical technology and the industries of Korea. Spiritually, Korea and the unification movement already have linked Japan and the United States successfully. The United States and Europe share cultural links.
God especially blessed and helped Germany and Japan to recover economically after World War II in order to accomplish his dispensation. Japan has become a gigantic economic power. Even Germany has come to feel threatened by Japan's economic success. The only way for Germany to protect itself is to join with Korea, produce superior goods at reduced cost and market them in Japan and other places. Likewise, Germany needs to allow the Third World to participate in equal profit sharing. If Japan is included in the partnership, the road to global economic unity will open.
Realistically, as long as the hegemonic policies of communist forces continue to exist in the world, no such thing as the advent of world peace or economic unity is possible. If Korea, the United States, Germany, Japan and China unite, they could stand against possible invasion by the Soviet Union on a global level. Though it is a communist nation, at present China wishes to maintain friendly relations with Japan, the United States and Germany in the hope of modernizing itself as quickly as possible. Furthermore, viewed historically, China never would choose to get close to the Soviet Union.
The United States is strengthening its military preparations quickly to fight against the Soviet Union. It also is trying to join forces with Japan, Germany and China. However, Japan does not show any desire to build up its military capabilities, due to its past circumstances and internal situation.
An axis of defense
On the other hand, from a national perspective Korea is currently very enthusiastic about bolstering its military forces. The United States is considering whether Korea could function as the axis. Because Korea is too small by itself, America would consider creating an alliance between Korea and China so that together these countries could serve as the axis in the defense against the Soviet Union. However, China desires the development of its heavy industries. Because its foundation is rather weak, such development will require a long period and will not happen until sometime in the future.
Even if China tried to adopt the advanced industrial technology of a country like Germany, this feat would be beyond its capacity because it is geographically too far away and the differences between the two cultures are just too great. However, a better way is for China to choose to employ the service of the three million Koreans living in the northeastern parts of China.
In this way, China could make extensive use of Korean and German technology, which is why the Unification Church is trying to connect it to Korea and Germany. Korean residents living abroad link China, Japan and the United States. Based on Korea's historical record, showing that it never once has invaded another nation, China would accept without difficulty Korea's proposal to act in concert with it. So even if Japan does not desire to strengthen its own military preparations, China could produce these weapons; it possesses the necessary technology and skills.
We can now arrive at a definite conclusion. If Korea could fulfill this role together with the Unification Church, it could strengthen our defense against the Soviet Union by transferring the technology of Japan, Germany and the United States to China. Further, it could link the highest technologies to the Third World, helping to pave the road to world peace. All these countries will realize that it is mutually profitable for them to join with Korea as a mediator. The three East Asian countries could form an economic alliance, with the United States and Germany connected to them. In this way, I believe we can prevent the threat of Soviet communism and pave the way to victory. In this sense, Korea is becoming a new base for an East– West civilization and is emerging as the center of the Pacific civilization.
My proposal
In conclusion, I would like to make a proposal. It is to construct a Great Asian Highway zone that would run through China, Korea and Japan and eventually link the world by constructing a Great Free World Highway zone to connect the whole world. This would be a great international highway, around which freedom would be guaranteed. The highway would go through Mainland China, down the Korean Peninsula from north to south, through a tunnel or over a bridge to Japan, and north through the four main Japanese islands.
If this highway were constructed, the three Asian countries would be linked through the highway and become one. The economic and cultural exchange between them would be so robust that it would enable them to form an Asian Common Community. China also would agree to this, as would Korea and Japan, without a second thought. Then the United States and Germany would come to take part in it automatically.
If this plan were carried out according to the framework suggested here, free exchanges would become the norm among all the people of the East Asian countries. As a result, North Korea would give up any thought of unifying the peninsula militarily and would come to embrace peaceful ways of unification. Thus, by uniting the Asians in this way, eventually, connecting the upper and lower classes of the world, with Asians serving as mediators, would be possible.
In order to realize such an ideal concretely, the Korean diaspora in Japan, the United States and China could collectively form a technological development group. This automatically would align the policy directions of Japan and the United States.
Based on this new economic partnership, a highway that guarantees freedom could be extended worldwide. Through completing the unrestricted Asian highway and realizing the long-cherished ideal of uniting the upper and lower classes, people could migrate freely.
With Asia as its starting point, a realistic, united economic sphere could be established, connecting the East and West, North and South, in a new civilization. This would result in peace and a new world centering on God's love, which is the absolute value. In this transitional age, when Western civilization joins that of the East, meeting in a new Pacific civilization, I sincerely hope that all of you distinguished participants, coming from more than one hundred countries to this memorable International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences in Korea, will gain deep insight into these matters and offer your concrete cooperation.