Change in North Korea: Pyongyang Façade or More

Friday, October 3, 2014
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
(Pacific)
Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall 3rd floor, Stanford University

Since Kim Jong Un came to power, interest in North Korea (DPRK) has increased but it is difficult to judge whether the growing range of media reports and the commentaries based on them are accurate or not. Spending almost 30 months in the DPRK from March 2012, mainly in Pyongyang but also making visits outside, offered an opportunity to collect up-to-date materials, especially photographs, which may offer an insight into the changes taking place. These might offer a new angle to be considered and hopefully stimulate further discussion about what is really happening in the DPRK now.

Mike Cowin, former deputy head of mission at the British Embasy in Pyongyang, joined the Korea Program at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research  Center as the 2014–15 Pantech Fellow. He is a specialist on Korea and Japan, has been a member of the Research Cadre of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the United Kingdom since 1988. He has also served in the British embassies in Tokyo from 1992 to 1997, in Seoul from 2003 to 2007, and in Pyongyang as deputy head of mission since March 2012.

He has spent most of his career in London working on policy related research, providing advice to relevant policy desks and acting as the interface between the FCO and academic and research institutions.