The Unification Church's long-cherished Korea-Japan undersea tunnel is regaining public attention after Rep. Chun Jae-soo of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea resigned as oceans minister last week. He stepped down amid allegations that the church bribed him and other politicians to win support for the project. Questions are mounting over why the church has spent more than four decades lobbying for a megaproject that the government has already concluded makes little economic sense. The tunnel plan dates back to 1981, when the church's founder, Moon Sun-myung, proposed the construction of a "Great Asian Highway" to link major Asian cities by road. "This would be a great international highway around which freedom is guaranteed," Moon said during the 10th International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences in Seoul. His proposal echoed the Japanese Empire’s ideas from the 1910s and 1940s to connect the island nation to the continent by land to improve wartime logistics. Former Korean presidents — including Roh Tae-woo, Kim Dae-jung, and Roh Moo-hyun — also raised the tunnel projec