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Like Queen Seondeok bringing Abiji to Gyeongju

Published: 31 Oct. 2025, 00:04

Lee Sang-jai

The author is a deputy director of economic and industry news at the JoongAng Ilbo.

All eyes are turning to Gyeongju this week. From Friday, the ancient capital is hosting the APEC Summit, offering Korea a chance to showcase its culture and innovation to the world. With K-content — from food and film to beauty — at a global peak, and with Seoul and Washington having finally concluded a long-stalled tariff negotiation, the timing could not be better.

Yet one major question remains: how to protect and expand Korea’s future economic engines? Around the world, nations are locked in an AI war — a battle for talent and capital. The true race is not only about algorithms but about securing the best minds, as technological leadership will determine national power. The real competition has just begun.

A view of the HICO Convention Center and the International Media Center in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang, the venue for the 2025 APEC Summit. [NEWS1]

The most recent spark came from U.S. President Donald Trump. Last month, his administration raised the H-1B visa fee from $1,000 to $100,000 per person, a hundredfold increase. The H-1B visa has long functioned as a magnet for global STEM talent, but Trump argues it drains jobs from Americans.

Other countries immediately seized the opportunity. Britain announced that it would completely waive visa fees for top scientists and engineers. China introduced a new “K visa” earlier this month for young foreigners with science or engineering degrees who participate in research or education. In addition, the National Natural Science Foundation of China now offers scientists under 40 settlement grants of up to 3 million yuan ($410,000). Domestic backlash followed swiftly, with critics asking, “Why reward foreigners when youth unemployment is 18.9 percent?”

Korea, meanwhile, faces a severe shortage of high-end talent — and even the limited pool it does have is being lured overseas. In August, the Lee Jae Myung administration launched the “Brain to Korea” project, pledging to attract 2,000 foreign researchers, including Koreans abroad, over five years — about 400 a year, or roughly 33 a month — focusing on AI, semiconductors and batteries.

So far, the results have been meager at best. As of Oct. 29, only nine foreigners — 17 including family members — had received the top-tier F-2 visa, which allows free employment and residence, and even permits accompanying family or domestic helpers. Despite its generous terms, the program has attracted barely one or two applicants a month. Calls are growing for “radically easier entry standards” to reverse the trend (JoongAng Ilbo, Oct. 17).

The outflow, by contrast, is overwhelming. Over the past three years, an average of 2,200 Koreans annually have obtained U.S. H-1B visas. According to Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, Korea’s AI brain drain per 10,000 workers was 0.04, 0.30, and 0.36 in recent years. This means that today, roughly 100 Korean AI specialists are leaving the country every single month. In contrast, during the same time frame, only one or two foreign experts are coming into Korea.

The causes are clear: weaker research environments, rigid institutions, limited compensation systems, language barriers and a conservative corporate culture. Korea still lacks the conditions that make talent want to stay.

Here again, the lesson lies in Gyeongju. Nearly 1,400 years ago, Queen Seondeok of Silla (57 B.C. to A.D. 935) commissioned the towering nine-story wooden pagoda at Hwangnyong Temple, which is said to have stood 80 meters tall — a structure as iconic then as Seoul’s Namsan Tower or Lotte World Tower are today. The project was led by Abiji, an architect from Baekje (18 B.C. to A.D. 660), who was assisted by 200 Silla artisans.

Completed in 645 but lost to fire during the Mongol invasions six centuries later, the pagoda symbolized the open-mindedness of the Silla Kingdom, which sent silk and treasures to its rival Baekje to recruit a “master engineer and artist.” Baekje, connected with the advanced southern dynasties of China, possessed superior architectural techniques. As historian Lee Ik-joo of the University of Seoul notes, Silla’s willingness to entrust a national project to a craftsman from a rival kingdom reveals a remarkably open mindset.

The nine-story pagoda of Hwangnyong Temple in Gyeongju once stood as a landmark of the Silla capital. The photo shows a lantern modeled after the pagoda displayed at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul on April 30, 2020, to mark Buddha’s Birthday. [YONHAP]

A later precedent came during the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), when King Gwangjong extended exceptional treatment to a Chinese scholar named Shuangji, who introduced the civil service examination system that reshaped Korea’s bureaucracy. The king granted him a home and title, even inviting his father to live in Goryeo. His generosity sparked backlash. Seo PiL, father of the diplomat Seo Hui, protested, “Your Majesty shows excessive favor to one who came from China. Whose emperor are you?” History does not record Gwangjong’s response — but it shows what leadership once required: openness, confidence and vision.

Those qualities are what Korea needs again. To compete in the global talent race, it must rediscover the spirit of Gyeongju — of Queen Seondeok inviting Abiji, and King Gwangjong rolling out the red carpet for Shuangji. Without such openness, Korea risks watching its brightest minds leave the country while the world builds its future elsewhere.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.