Editor’s Introduction: South Korean Technical Aid and Scientific Cooperation

Popular images associated with South Korea's economic resurgence following the Korean War tend to be associated with the period of Park Chung-hee (1961Chung-hee ( -1979)), and especially, with the late 1960s and early 1970s.Among the images that might be cited here are the Gyeongbu Expressway (1968)(1969)(1970) and the various projects linked with the Korean shipping and steel industries, including POSCO, in the southeast, both of which emerged around this time. 2Even as it covers some of this familiar ground, the intent here, is slightly different, a special issue of IJKH offering two papers on South Korea, and one on North Korea.The aim here is to shift attention to the entire peninsula, and along with that revised emphasis, to a related set of questions concerning engagement with external partners and neighbors, focusing on questions of scientific and technical aid, along with scientific diplomacy.As with economics, there is an existing narrative for these concerns, but it tends to come much later, especially with the democratic transition of the late 1980s.For Korean science and technical aid, the historiography is domi-