The Defections

In his study Korea: The Politics of the Vortex, the late Gregory Henderson observed of Korea that "foreign threat[s]... produced both a perceived and a subconscious drive for unity." This need for unity manifests itself in several important ways in modern Korea. Xenophobia is common to both North and South. In South Korea there are particular concerns over mixed-race marriages and children and forms of behavior that contravene traditional Confucian values of homogeneity as well as pressure to not rock the boat.