Taekwondo as a Martial Art of Peace

The following is an excerpt from my PhD dissertation (2016). Since I just copied and pasted it here, it is missing a proper introduction and conclusion, and I didn't bother to go search for and also copy the references that are cited in the body of this text. In other words, as is, it is a "bad" essay. I just thought it is an interesting quick survey of Taekwon-Do's peace promotion activities that some people might find interesting.

Taekwondo is a relatively young martial art. The term “Taekwondo” was only coined in 1955. Nevertheless, from early on there was an ambitious expectation to use Taekwondo as a tool to promote (world) peace as we can see in the writings of some of the original nine Kwans that eventually became Taekwondo.

Park Chul Hee, co-founder of the Kang Duk Won admonished the martial artist to ceaselessly train both “mind and body to build an indomitable spirit” and that one should be “a brave man who dash at the cause of justice, dust off the evil mind and worthless thoughts, enlighten evil doers and show the right path . . . , build a sound character, and make contribution to the world peace and prosperity of civilization” (sic) (Park, “Pasa Gwonbeop” 1957, in Kukkiwon, 1st Class, 85). Choi Hong Hee of the Oh Do Kwan called Taekwondo a means of “moral re-armament” in the first English book on Taekwondo (1965, p. 14). He highlighted that Taekwondo is not to be used to “provoke fights, rather to help the weak” (1965, p. 18). Lee Won Kuk the founder of the Chung Do Kwan, wrote in his “Taekwondo Manual” (1968) that students ought to “love peace, [and] protect justice and humanitarianism” and he emphasized that practitioners “initiate no fight with others,” and stressed a self-defence precept “that prohibits making the first move” (in Kukkiwon, 1st Class, 86). 

Similar sentiments are reflected in the Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do; for instance, one precept of Taekwondo’s Moral and Ethical Guidelines (Johnson, 2014, p. 180; Choi, 1999, Vol. 1, p. 89) advocates practitioners to “[b]e gentle to the weak and tough to the strong.” Likewise, the Taekwondo Student Oath calls on practitioners to “never misuse Taekwondo,” but instead to “be [champions] of freedom and justice” with the aim to “build a more peaceful world” (Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do, 1999, Vol. 1). Rhee Ki Ha (2012), known as the “Father of British Taekwon-Do,” goes so far as to describe Taekwondo as “the physical, spiritual and mental practise of human rights and human equality” (p. 12).

Taekwondo also has a history of so-called goodwill tours, to foster positive relations between (Korea and other) countries. The first goodwill tour was of a Taekwondo team from the army of the Republic of Korea to Vietnam and China in 1959 (Kimm, 2013, p. 180,181). Within a few years Vietnam requested Korean instructors to formally teach Taekwondo to certain units of the Vietnam military (Kimm, 2013, p. 194, 195). In 1965 Choi Hong Hi led the “Kukki Taekwon-Do Goodwill Demonstration Team” to Germany, Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and Singapore (Kimm, 1998), which was the beginning of Taekwondo’s spread around the world, and of many similar tours to come. In 2007, Korean-American Taekwondo grandmaster Jung Woojin helped to organize a goodwill tour of a North Korean Taekwondo demonstration team to the United States that visited five major American cities (Huus, 2007). A second goodwill tour by the North Korean demonstration team to the United States happened in 2011. Grandmaster Jung described its purpose as “a peaceful cultural exchange . . . to build friendship and encourage peace between the two nations of North Korea and the U.S.” (2011). Similar visits have also occurred between South Korea and North Korea. In 2002 a team from South Korea visited the North and shortly afterward a team from the North visited the South. Then again in 2007 a North Korean team visited the South and performed demonstrations in Seoul and Chuncheon (Kpride, 2015). During the 2015 WTF Taekwondo Championships in Russia, a Taekwondo demonstration team of mostly North Korean athletes shared the stage with South Korea’s WTF demonstration team during the opening ceremony (Baik, 2015). 

In 2008 the WTF initiated the World Taekwondo Peace Corps, with the theme “World Peace through the Great Taekwondo Spirit” and after its initial success, the World Taekwondo Peace Corps Foundation was established in 2009 (WTF, “Taekwondo Peace Corps”). In 2010 WTF president Choue Chungwon showcased the Taekwondo Peace Corps at the UN-IOC Sport for Development and Peace Conference, in Geneva, where the aim of “building a better and more peaceful world” was emphasized. The Taekwondo Peace Corps functions mainly as a Korean volunteer organization that dispatches young Korean Taekwondo athletes and instructors to various parts of the world where they teach and demonstrate Taekwondo and promote Korean culture. The official World Taekwondo Peace Corps-website (2010, “Introduction”) refers to their methodology as “soft power in diplomacy”, referring to the political-scientist Joseph Nye's (2004) concept of persuasion through appeal (“soft power”) as opposed to persuasion through coercion (“hard power”). Because of the Taekwondo Peace Corps initiative, the WTF was nominated for “International Sports Federation of the Year” in 2012 (WTF, 2012). In 2015, during the opening ceremony of the 5th International Symposium for Taekwondo Studies, WTF president Dr Choue emphasised the uniqueness of Taekwondo as a combat sport that support “sports through world peace,” and announced that the United Nations and IOC plans to follow the example of the WTF Taekwondo Peace Corps to establish a United Nations and IOC World Peace Corps (Choue, 2015).