Since 1978, China has been regarded as one of the fastest changing countries in the world. For Korea, China has become not only the target of efforts to diversify its economic relations, but also a force whose changes in political, economic, societal, and cultural directions have exercised a decisive influence over Korea proper. In addition to China's importance from a functional standpoint, its quest to become a “global player" has resulted in removing its previous status as a subject of nominal curiosity, a status greatly fueled by its previous backwardness and stagnation, and solidifying its standing as a universal field of study.
Despite these changes in both China proper and in terms of its status within the global community, as well as the expansion of its multi-directional influence over Korean society, the theoretical basis, educational curriculums and contents which Korea has utilized to educate China specialists continues to be plagued by flagrant inadequacies. The failure of Korean education circles and academia to establish concrete curriculums and contents with which to educate China specialists can be traced back to the continued murkiness of the theoretical bases for China area studies. Traditional China studies carried out in the western world have not been carried out as part of mutual academic exchanges, but rather for colonial ambitions or to quench intellectual curiosity; moreover, these have been based on unilateral and subjective observations. Such studies have been based on the theoretical and philosophical background of an Orientalism anchored in such notions as exclusivity, backwardness, and stagnation. Such traditional perceptions of Chinese studies do not accept the emergence of Chinese studies as a universal field of study, and have been the root cause of the backward and stagnant manner in which the Korean educational system has trained its own China specialists. From a functional standpoint, in terms of producing China specialists, the Korean education system has failed to meet the actual demands for Chinese specialists emanating from government organizations and enterprises having to deal with China in negotiations. The stagnant nature of this education system has also meant that it has not been able to properly respond to the demand emanating from the academic sector for studies related to a global China.
To complement the inherent weaknesses of the system used to educate Chinese specialists, this study introduces a theoretical framework which is based on language and literary education, social sciences, and the development of the perception of China's path-depending historical background needed to study China as part of both multidirectional regional studies and as a global state. Specifically, this study emphasizes the segmentation of Chinese specialists into various fields of studies, and the specialized education needed to support this objective. The system used to educate China specialists required by modern society should meet specific educational goals; such as passing on the specialized language skills needed to discuss and write papers in the relevant language associated with the field of study; the education needed to develop the specific knowledge and analytical skills used in the related social sciences; and the macroscopic insight needed to perceive the structural characteristics of China from a historical standpoint. In addition, this study argues that the most important tasks when it comes to developing specialists who possess the language and analytical skills needed for this particular field of study, and the macroscopic vision needed to perceive China's characteristics from a path-depending aspect, are to establish effective university curriculums and to secure qualified professors. To establish effective university curriculums and secure the required professors, it is necessary to reorganize the existing curriculums for Chinese studies, and to develop methods which can be used to assess the quality of the programs offered in individual universities. More to the point, this study concludes that rather than being based on a regional studies concept derived from the social sciences, it would be more effective to use Chinese studies to educate ‘specialized' China specialists. The two benchmarked cases suggested below provide hints as to the future direction for the establishment of the specialized educational programs which Korean policy makers should concentrate on when educating Chinese specialists, and as pertains to the building of an employment support system which can maximize the functionality of students who graduated from such educational programs.
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