Dear honored guests and dignitaries from around the world:
Please accept my deepest gratitude for coming despite your busy schedules. Before we start the session about our project to build a large-scale industrial city in China, I would like to speak to you about my work.
Korea in a period of great transition
As you all know, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union can no longer continue. Phenomena such as glasnost in the Soviet Union, the struggle for democracy in China and reforms in Hungary, Poland and other Eastern European nations constitute a revolution. These events show that the communist system has reached its limits and that the East-West ideological confrontation is ending.
The economic unification of Western Europe that will take place in 1992 is a further example of the changes that are necessary. How can Korea deal with these changes? What direction does it need to take?
Because of its crucial strategic position, Korea has suffered throughout history as an object of empire building by powerful nations. The division into North and South has brought Korea to experience the global ideological confrontation within its own borders. The interests of four major powers -- the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union and China -- intersect on the Korean Peninsula. Such relationships and global problems historically have always directly or indirectly crossed paths on this peninsula, and so Korea is a microcosm of the world’s problems. Therefore, there is an inseparable relationship between the solution to the world’s problems and the solution to Korea’s problems. Still, the current movement toward openness and harmony in the world does not solve the problems of the Korean people automatically. I believe that the transformation of the divided Korea into a unified homeland, once it takes place, will have a direct bearing on the realization of world peace.
Special devotions for God’s ideal of peace
Dear honored guests, from an early age I was called by Heaven, and in order to realize God’s Will on earth I offered my life. Knowing well that the Korean people are central to the providence of God, I interpreted differently from others the meaning of the sufferings of this people throughout history. I am certain that transforming a divided Korea into the united homeland directly relates to the realization of world peace.
With the sun setting on the communist system and ideology, can we say that the free world is in a position to offer a philosophical alternative? How will we resolve the contradictions of Western countries that adhere to freedom and democracy? I have personally experienced the terrible fate of a divided people through the aftermath of the Korean War. I pledged before Heaven to devote my life to establish a philosophy that would lay the groundwork for North-South unification, and I pledged to prepare a worldwide foundation for it. For forty years I have worked to fulfill these pledges.
Can it be easy for us to mobilize the support of the nations around the Korean Peninsula -- the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union and China -- for reunification on the foundation of a strong philosophy of freedom and democracy, and thereby achieve peace on the peninsula? Would it not be fortunate if we could come up with a plan that would help Russia and China reconsider what has been their one-sided support for North Korea?
This presentation to announce the establishment of Panda Automotive is not a simple gathering about a company going into China. The project is not motivated by seeking a profit based upon an investment of capital. For thirty years I have offered special prayers and devotions (jeongseong), for the sake of China and the continent of Asia, placing God’s ideal of peace at the center. The process begins by opening doors through positive relationships. While helping China modernize through technical assistance, we have to create good-neighborly relationships.
The International Peace Highway and Korea-Japan Tunnel
In 1981, during the tenth International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, I revealed a plan for an international highway. I have made this plan known to leaders of 120 countries. It includes a tunnel designed to run from Japan to Korea, and will connect Seoul, Pyongyang and Beijing. Another branch is to be routed through Moscow and Western Europe, all the way to London. Another will connect to the Middle East and Africa.
In Japan, fifteen hundred members of the academic and business communities organized a tunnel research association in 1982. They are conducting political, economic, technological and geographical research and have already carried out exploratory excavations. The Chinese government is showing great interest and is in the planning stage of a one-thousand-kilometer stretch of highway between Dandong, on its border with North Korea, and Beijing.
Even in this period, when exchange with China has been very difficult, the Unification movement has sent numerous people to the People’s Republic to help with modernization. I established the Yanbian Scientific Technical College in northeast China, and we are sending it scientific equipment worth $500,000 every year. I am helping organize the exchange of visiting professors and also programs for Chinese students to study abroad.
The International Relief Friendship Foundation, which I founded, is sponsoring relief projects and sending American coaches to help the development of Chinese athletes. Also, we are giving Chinese scholars the opportunity to research Unification Thought, thereby supporting their efforts to address difficulties using new ideological perspectives.
Dear respected and honored guests! China is intransigent in its commitment to communism. When the June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre happened, the free world withdrew most of its investment from China. In that situation, I pushed ahead with plans to develop the Chinese automobile industry, and advised the person responsible not to waver at all but to push forward even more actively. On June 27, at the site in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, we had a major groundbreaking ceremony.
By offering a meaningful benefit to the Chinese leadership, which had found itself in a difficult position, I established a relationship of heart that served as a foundation to discuss the bigger issues. This all was to support the larger objective of cooperation in the Pacific Rim era.
Sharing good technology
I have long advocated the equal distribution of technology. Technology is a blessing from God meant to benefit all human beings. It is a great evil when advanced countries monopolize technological power and thereby put less developed countries at a disadvantage. It sows seeds of division and disharmony that undermine world peace. This is the reason I have, for decades, invested considerable resources toward the accumulation of technology. It has been to help the world.
For example, I acquired four large German companies that are unsurpassed globally, and have been developing them. These companies manufacture machine parts and tools, including those applicable to the production of automobile assembly fines.
In addition, I am continuing to support a state-of-the art electronics company in Japan to advance digital communications and creativity. Beyond Germany and Japan, in other developed countries I am expanding this foundation of technology for peace. Had I no such background providing such capability, I would not have been able to work hand in hand with China today.
My investment to build the industrial park for automobiles is more than a simple business venture. It is to educate the highest level of leaders in Beijing and to make a strong partnership with them as we enter a Pacific Rim era in Asia. This is ultimately to have a positive impact upon Kim Il Sung in North Korea.
I have never thought of this project in China as having any purpose other than our security and saving the nation. In 1976, after a massive festival in Washington, DC, I proclaimed that I would hold a rally in Moscow. With world-class scholars, religious figures, journalists and artists, I am now laying the foundation for this.
The Soviet Union should come forward to persuade Kim Il Sung
At my invitation, one of the top editors of the Novosti News Agency, together with five other leading Soviet journalists, are currently in Korea to see this country’s development firsthand. To assess the status of their communist economies, I asked them to go to Japan and pass through China and North Korea, where they did not want to go to. I asked them to do this so they could provide the North Korean leaders with a fresh impression of South Korea and, in that way, prevent a miscalculation by the northern regime.
A film production team making a one-hour documentary on Korea accompanied this group. When they go back to the Soviet Union it will be shown to the whole nation.
This coming November 26, on my invitation, the chairman of the National Broadcasting Company of the Soviet Union, the chairman of Novosti News Agency, and four others representing the Soviet media will visit America. At the beginning of this month, the director of the world-famous Kirov Ballet visited Seoul and promised to assume concurrently the directorship of the Universal Ballet Academy, which I founded in Washington, DC, and to support God’s Will within the Soviet Union.
From October 27 this year, there will be a seminar in Moscow sponsored jointly by the Russian Orthodox Church and the International Religious Foundation on church unity. Twenty religious scholars will attend the conference.
As a centerpiece, we are planning a World Media Association conference in Moscow in support of reforming and opening the Soviet Union.
Our creation of the Huizhou Industrial City in China at this point in time will yield benefits far into the future. It is just the first of four regions to develop general industrial cities in preparation for the Pacific Rim era. The other three regions are China’s Dalian-Andong (Dandong) region, the region connecting the Soviet Union’s Khabarovsk and China’s Harbin region, and the Vladivostok region of the Soviet Union.
We plan that North Korea will benefit from Sinuiju and the Dalian-Andong region, and that the Vladivostok region will benefit both the Woongi area of North Korea and the Yanbian area of China.
Through this series of activities and enterprises, Chinese and Soviet leadership will improve their understanding of our country and naturally influence North Korea directly and indirectly. By doing this they can realize the ideal of freedom and democratic unity for which we are hoping.
A leading role in the Asia-Pacific era
Honored guests, in ten years we will enter a new century. We have to put the twentieth century, marred by division and confrontation, behind us and enter an era of harmony and understanding in which high morals and values are respected. The era of Russian and American domination is ending and the age of Asia is dawning.
The Asia-Pacific era is beginning. As I have suggested, while it is of utmost importance to create these four industrial regions in preparation for this era, I am not interested in business or in something that one nation or one organization can accomplish. This enterprise requires the stimulus of a world-level foundation together with the unique contributions of multinational corporations. I repeat my assertion that I am the only person who can bring the powers of this world into oneness through a religious philosophy that views world peace as the realization of love.
Even at the sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears, I will push ahead. I hope that leaders in every field will participate and support this on a national level. I want to see Korea maintain a leadership position and go forward in the context of this plan, for it does not subsist on the level of one group or one religion. It will result in the reunification of North and South Korea and world peace. Through it I hope that you will help Korea lead the Pacific Rim era.
Considering the important role of the Korean Peninsula and Asia as a whole in the establishment of world peace, no world leader can casually ignore this area anymore. They have to participate in the development of this area. With a consciousness of history, I have advanced these plans for the Pacific Rim era.
Through the foundations laid in America, China and Russia, I am preparing an East Asia summit conference. A summit meeting of these four nations of the East and West at the Hannam-dong official resident in Seoul will establish the mood of peace in the world. Through that foundation and its afterglow, we will see Kim Il Sung take steps on the path toward true peace.
The new era’s guiding philosophy: Godism
Dear honored guests from around the world, humanity faces the task of resolving philosophical differences. On the basis of restored morality and international cooperation, we have to realize the ideal of a global family of love.
A new philosophy to lead the new age has to appear in Asia, which has spawned, after all, great spiritual cultures of the world throughout its long history. The teaching called Godism, which I am advocating and teaching throughout the world, is exactly this new philosophy.
The approaching Asia-Pacific era will be a world in which all people’s lives are integrated with each other, beyond culture and race. In this world, heavenly fortune will take us into an era of harmony. We will no longer view others as enemies, even if only for the sake of sustaining our own existence.
By living based on a proper value system, and having a firm philosophical foundation with God at the center, the Korean people have to become the leaders of the new age. We need to move beyond narrow interests and, with a realistic understanding of international relations, and by showing the power of a people’s unity, take the leading role in the Asia-Pacific era.
I once again thank the dignitaries from home and abroad who have come today. I conclude my remarks with my best wishes for God’s blessings upon your families and everything you do.
Thank you.
