The extraordinary removal and subsequent execution of Jang Song-thaek, the uncle and assumed mentor of North Korean President Kim Jong Un, are developments that have surprised analysts worldwide. The unprecedented announcement of Jang’s execution was unusual news from a country that is normally shrouded in secrecy. For the first time in nearly decades, North Korean leadership has overtly admitted to an attempt to overthrow its leadership.
Broadcast on Dec. 12 via the state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korean leadership denounced Jang as a “traitor” who sought to undermine the regime. Among the long list of alleged crimes, Jang was accused of engineering the disastrous 2009 attempt to overhaul the national currency system and of profiteering from his sponsorship of economic policies similar to China’s. Jang, 67 years of age, was convicted of treason in a special military court and executed on Thursday.
The complete details of Jang’s execution remain unknown, and the U.S. State Department has not been able to independently verify the news. However, the style and scope of the announcement itself suggest that the Kim regime is engaged in a widespread purge, attempting to consolidate the power of the young leader. Differing viewpoints exist as to what these recent events signal, whether it is a portent of increasing instability and tension in the region. Specialists at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) have offered their analysis to a variety of media outlets.
Shorenstein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin, Associate Director for Research Daniel C. Sneider, Korean Studies Program Associate Director David Straub, and 2013-14 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies Sunny Seong-Hyon Lee, who have extensive experience with Korea and are often cited as commentators on regional political leadership, have been cited in national and international news reports.
Former Shorenstein APARC Korean Studies Fellow (2010-11) Sang-Hun Choe has written the lead story for the New York Times. Sneider was quoted in the newspaper report in USA Today World. Straub and Lee weigh in on the matter with two other experts in an article in NK News, a news agency at the forefront of North Korean news coverage. In a recent Financial Times Chinese edition, Lee examined why North Korea still looked "normal" after the death of Jang and analyed whether such a facade can be sustainable. On Dec. 12, Shin was interviewed in MK News on Jang’s removal from power, the article is available in Korean only.
Shorenstein APARC will continue to monitor the situation and will provide updated analysis as additional details unfold.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un salutes to the members of the honour guards as he and his uncle, Jang Song Thaek (R), attend a commemoration event at the Cemetery of Fallen Fighters of the Korean People's Army in Pyongyang on July 25, 2013, as part of celebrations ahead of the 60th anniversary marking the end of the Korean War.
On Dec. 9, President of the Republic of Korea Park Geun-hye and senior South Korean foreign affairs leadership hosted experts from the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) at the Blue House for dialogue on peace and security issues in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.
President Park sought the expertise of Shorenstein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin and numerous other Center experts, including Korean Studies Program Associate Director David Straub and 2013-14 Visiting Koret Fellow in Korean Studies Ambassador Kathleen Stephens, who are often cited for their research on contemporary U.S.-Korea relations. The meeting was reported in South Korea’sJoong Ang Daily, also recognizing Park’s visit to Stanfordin 2009. The press briefing is available at the Blue House website.
Following this meeting, on Dec. 10, Shorenstein APARC co-hosted The Eleventh Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum with the Korean National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul. The Forum focused on North Korea policy, the U.S.-ROK alliance, and the current dynamics in Northeast Asia.
Started in 2006, the Forum brings together distinguished South Korean and American scholars, experts, and former and civilian officials to workshop on issues of national interest to both countries. The Forum is now convened semi-annually and the location shifts between the two locations – Seoul and Stanford. To encourage candid conversation, the Forum follows the Chatham House Rule which respects the confidentiality of individual contributions during dialogue.
A report summarizing the objectives and outcomes of the Eleventh Annual Korea-United States West Coast Strategic Forum is forthcoming.
In this eleventh session of the Strategic Forum, former senior American and South Korean government officials and other leading experts will discuss current developments in the Korean Peninsula and North Korea policy, the future of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, and a strategic vision for Northeast Asia. The session is hosted by the Korean Studies Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, in association with Korea National Diplomatic Academy, a top South Korean think tank.
PARTICIPANTS
United States:
Michael Armacost, Distinguished Fellow, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University
Karl Eikenberry, Distinguished Fellow, Shorenstein APARC
Siegfried Hecker, Professor, Management Science and Engineering; former co-director, CISAC, Stanford University
Thomas Fingar, Distinghished Fellow, Shorenstein APARC
T.J. Pempel, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Gi-Wook Shin, Professor, Sociology; Director, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University
Daniel Sneinder, Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein APARC
David Straub, Associate Director, Korean Studies Program, Shorentein APARC
Kathleen Stephens, 2013–14 Koret Fellow, Korean Studies Program, Shorenstein APARC
Reports of the detention and eventual release by North Korean authorities of an 85-year-old Palo Alto retiree, Merrill Newman, spurred a wave of media interest. Newman, a Korean War veteran, had decided to go on a tour of North Korea, apparently in part to revisit the place where he had served more than 60 years ago.
He was accompanied by a fellow retiree, Bob Hamrdla, also a Palo Alto resident. According to accounts provided by Hamrdla, Newman was taken off the plane as he was leaving the country after a nine-day tour. During his detention, Newman was videotaped reading an apology, in which he accepted responsibility for “hostile acts” and requested forgiveness.
After 42 days in custody, Newman was released and arrived back in the United States on Dec. 7. Newman was greeted by his family and spoke briefly to reporters, recognizing the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang for securing his release, before heading home. The full details that led to Newman’s detention still remain unclear.
Both local and national media rushed to understand these events, first reported in detail by the San Jose Mercury News (Nov. 20). Reporters sought out expertise at Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, speaking to Associate Director for Research Daniel Sneider and to Korean Studies Program Associate Director David Straub, who both have long experience with Korea and have been frequently cited as experts.
Sneider was cited in newspaper reports in the San Jose Mercury News (Nov. 20) and the Los Angeles Times; was interviewed on local radio, and also interviewed for broadcast on the evening news programs of the CBS, ABC and NBC networks local affiliates. Straub was quoted by NK News, a leading agency specializing in coverage of North Korea, also cited by the Washington Post. Most recently, Sneider was cited in the San Jose Mercury News (Dec. 7) upon the confirmation of Newman’s release.
The sixth annual Koret Workshop will convene to examine the obstacles to and opportunies for increased North-South Korean cooperation.
In light of changing circumstances on the Korean Peninsula, including the inauguration of new leaderships in both Seoul and Pyongyang, the workshop will take a fresh look at previous, existing, and proposed or possible joint North-South cooperative projects.
This event is made possible through the generous support of the Koret Foundation.
Pyongyang is moving ahead on all nuclear fronts: It announced in an April 2 statement that it will adjust and alter the use of existing nuclear facilities to simultaneously stimulate the economy and build up nuclear armed forces, implying that it will promote both commercial and military nuclear programs. It is expanding its missile launch facilities. It has at least one new nuclear test tunnel prepared for another test. It has restarted its plutonium production reactor and continues on the construction of the experimental light water reactor, likely to begin operation in late 2014 or early 2015. It appears to have doubled the size of the modern centrifuge facility in Yongbyon. These developments have set back progress toward restarting the six-party talks. Dr. Siegfried Hecker, drawing on his experiences in North Korea and technical analysis, will review the status of North Korea's nuclear program and suggest a path to resolving the nuclear crisis.
Siegfried Hecker served as co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2007 to 2012. He directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986-1997 and served as senior fellow until 2005.
CISAC
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shecker@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Research Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
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Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Hecker served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.
Dr. Hecker’s current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy, and plutonium science. At the end of the Cold War, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. In June 2016, the Los Alamos Historical Society published two volumes edited by Dr. Hecker. The works, titled Doomed to Cooperate, document the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation since 1992.
Dr. Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on cooperation with young and senior nuclear professionals in Russia and China to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism worldwide, to avoid a return to a nuclear arms race, and to promote the safe and secure global expansion of nuclear power. He also continues to assess the technical and political challenges of nuclear North Korea and the nuclear aspirations of Iran.
Dr. Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.
Among his professional distinctions, Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the 2020 Building Bridges Award from the Pacific Century Institute, the 2018 National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies, the 2017 American Nuclear Society Eisenhower Medal, the American Physical Society’s Leo Szilard Prize, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.
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Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Asia-Pacific Research Center, says that Korea-China and Korea-U.S. relations are important in dealing with North Korea issues, at a recent lecture organized by the San Francisco Chapter of the National Unification Advisory Council.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets South Korea President Park Geun-hye in February 2014.
Martin Lau, President of Tencent, opened the conference with a keynote discussing Tencent's business model, international partnership strategies, and the social impact of internet on Chinese society.
In the second keynote address by Gary Locke, the U.S. Ambassador to the People's Republic of China, he shared his insights into China's recent advances in the technology sector, the Chinese government’s approach to managing the internet, and the risks and opportunities U.S. companies should consider before entering the Chinese market.
Charles Chao, CEO and Chairman of the Board of SINA, closed the conference with a keynote on how Weibo, one of SINA's most popular services, has made an unprecedented impact on Chinese society.
Growth and Innovation in Firms
Tencent started out in 1998 when China had four million internet users. Since then the market has grown 150 times to today’s 600 million users. Tencent’s equity market capitalization recently surpassed the $100 billion mark, and the company generates significantly more revenues than its higher-valued peer Facebook. In his speech, Lau modestly described the company’s “secret sauce number one” as “luck.”
We support the companies to make them successful, and in that process, we try to benefit from the know-how, we try to benefit from the growth, and we also contribute our know-how to these companies.
Martin Lau President, Tencent
Lau also elaborated how Tencent has created a supportive environment for startups to grow and develop. “…[O]ur approach is actually to back the founders, to say the founders will be the driving force of the company, so unlike Jack [Ma], who said ‘Yahoo is in my pocket,’ we don’t put any company in our pocket. We support the companies to make them successful, and in that process, we try to benefit from the know-how, we try to benefit from the growth, and we also contribute our know-how to these companies.”
In partnership with Innovation Works, Tencent invested another $1 million in August 2013 in a San Francisco startup Kamcord, which allows users to record and share mobile gameplays. While Tencent has been investing in startups in Silicon Valley, Chao gave an example of SINA Weibo’s recent experimental collaboration with a local home appliance manufacturer in China, Hisense. Weibo users can link their accounts to the Hisense air-conditioner, which can then be switched on and off remotely.
Charles Chao, CEO of SINA, talked to participants at the China 2.0 conference.
“We also send a lot of our devices to our users so each will measure the temperature outside their house constantly, and send it back to Weibo every hour so we will accurately predict or calculate the exact temperature of this location through this kind of collaboration,” Chao noted. “...[E]verybody’s talking about the Internet of Things ..... but nobody knows how to do it. So we are doing a lot of experiments to see whether by collecting data and by connecting people to objects, by connecting objects to objects, whether we can create data, and create opportunities in these areas,” he added.
Charles predicted that internet companies will continue to disrupt other areas, including finance (with micro-loans) and commerce. SINA’s valuation was boosted earlier in 2013 by Alibaba’s acquisition of an 18% stake in SINA Weibo. Today SINA is valued at over $6 billion.
Social Impact of Internet
It [Weibo] basically serves as a check and balance in society and makes Chinese society much better.
Charles Chao CEO, SINA
SINA Weibo, launched in 2009, has over 500 million registered users, and over 56 million unique daily active users. It continues to dominate the market as China’s leading micro-blogging platform. It would be no exaggeration to say that Weibo has transformed social interaction in China by bringing the public square to everyone’s smartphone. “[Weibo] allows every user in China to report, to publish, to share the content, the information directly, and also not only create content but also distribute content themselves through social relations and through the follower relationship… It basically serves as a check and balance in society and makes Chinese society much better,” Chao argued.
The message was echoed by Lau in his keynote. “...[A]ll these internet companies, a lot of them are making an impact on society in an incredible way, bringing people closer together, changing businesses, and also making society more transparent… I think together we are really making a lot of changes and impact on Chinese society and I think we are ready to make more,” Lau said.
Ambassador Locke also emphasized the importance of a free and open internet to China’s economy and society in his address. “Attempts to unleash the economic power of the internet while controlling the political and cultural content are ultimately counterproductive, and indeed at odds with each other,” commented Locke. “Restrictions on communications that limit the free flow of ideas, whether political, economic, or personal, will only serve to prevent countries from moving forward. Frankly speaking, the United States and China’s government have different views on these issues but we are constantly, consistently, and candidly discussing them.”
Sino-U.S. Links
During a recent meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the White House, Biden said that he believed China’s development was not only in the interest of the United States, but for the rest of the world as well.
Ambassador Locke also highlighted the importance of how the two countries handle global issues. “Whether it’s finding a cure to some of the most dreaded diseases of the world, or ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons, whether in North Korea or Iran and elsewhere, China and the United States have to be involved together. Indeed, the world is looking for leadership from both the United States and China to solve some of the toughest challenges and problems facing the universe.”
Expecting the Chinese system to work on American terms is a recipe for failure.
Gary Locke U.S. Ambassador to China
Despite finding agreement on some issues, China and United States still hold many differing views. The intellectual property (IP) challenge is one of them. "Expecting the Chinese system to work on American terms is a recipe for failure.” Locke added that some companies conclude that “the best way to avoid being ripped off in China it is to stay out of China—but besides missing a tremendous opportunity, companies that never set foot in China are not immune from having their IP infringed upon in China, and may later find infringing products making their way back to the United States or to third-world markets.”
Martin Lau, President of Tencent, and Marguerite Gong Hancock, director of China 2.0 at the China 2.0 conference.
Lau illustrated another example of difference between the countries in terms of the internet business sector. In China, online gaming is generating over $6 million in revenue. “To put it in perspective, that is actually more than display ads and search ads added together in China. Of course over time this will change, but it also tells you the kind of business mix in China, the opportunities and challenges that companies face in China, are actually very different from that in the US,” noted Lau.
The annual China 2.0 conference, now in its fourth year, attracted over 600 Stanford students and faculty along with current and rising leaders from China and Silicon Valley's tech, entrepreneur, and investor communities.
The panel and interactive discussions were focused on topics including Big Data, venture capital’s outlook on internet and digital media, China’s role in the global innovation network, cross-border venture finance, and Chinese mobile firms going global. These sessions brought together 20 founders, senior executives and leaders from: Asia Society, Baidu, Bertelsmann, DCM, Foursquare, Foxconn Interconnect Technology, FunPlus Game, GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, LinkedIn, Queen's Road Capital, Riverwood Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and WestSummit Capital.
Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at CISAC, writes in this commentary for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that North Korea's decision to restart its 5-megawatt nuclear reactor is a big step back for denuclearization.
"The most likely technical scenario is that the North Koreans will operate the restarted 5-megawatt reactor for two years with a full load of 8,000 fuel rods, cool this spent fuel and extract roughly 10 to 12 kilograms of plutnoium within three years," he writes.
Therefore, he expects Pyongyang to gain one bomb's worth of plutonium a year.
We have ample examples of efforts to "engage" adversaries, from Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik to Kissinger’s conception of détente and Kim Dae Jung’s Sunshine policy. Yet much more attention has been given to understanding the logic of sanctions than the logic of inducements. Drawing an array of new sources of information on the North Korean economy, from the direction of its foreign trade to two firm‐level surveys of Chinese and South Korean firms doing business in the country, we consider the political and economic logic of engagement. Like sanctions, the conditions under which engagement strategies are likely to work are subject to a number of constraints. Target governments appear well aware of the risks of engagement and there is only mixed evidence for claims that such engagement has transformative effects.
Dr. Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies and Director of Korea-Pacific Program (KPP) at the University of California, San Diego Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.
Stephan Haggard works on the political economy of developing countries, with a particular interest in Asia and the Korean peninsula. He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990), The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995, with Robert Kaufman), The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000) and Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, Eastern Europe (2000, with Robert Kaufman). His current research focuses on the relationship between inequality, democratization and authoritarianism in developing countries.
Professor Haggard has written extensively on the political economy of North Korea with Marcus Noland, including Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (2007) and Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (2011). Haggard and Noland co-author the "North Korea: Witness to Transformation" blog at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
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Stephan Haggard
Distinguished Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies; Director of Korea-Pacific Program
Speaker
University of California, San Diego
The U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, was surrounded by attendees at the China 2.0 conference.
Charles Chao, CEO of SINA, talked to participants at the China 2.0 conference.
Martin Lau, President of Tencent, and Marguerite Gong Hancock, director of China 2.0 at the China 2.0 conference.