CISAC's Nick Hansen and Jeffrey Lewis have revealed new satellite imagery that indicates North Korea is likely restarting is nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Pyongyang committed to shut down the nuclear site in 2007.
Hansen and Lewis concluded in a story on the popular blog about North Korea, Jeff Lewis on BBC: North Korea's Yongbyon reactor 'nearing operation', that white steam seen from an electrical power building on Aug. 31 indicates that the electrical system is about to come online. Energy is generated from the heat released by the nuclear reactor, which uses steam to power turbines.
Lewis spoke with the BBC, commenting that: "The reactor looks like it either is or will within a matter of days be fully operational, and as soon as that happens, it will start producing plutonium." He also added that this development could increase North Korea's bargaining power in negotiations, and add a sense of urgency to issues on the Korean peninsula.
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Satellite imagery from August 31, 2013 shows steam emanating from an electrical power building at Yongbyon. | DigitalGlobe/ISIS
Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall E310
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Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
(650) 725-4237
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shlee72@stanford.edu
2013-14 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies
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MA, PhD
Sunny Seong-hyon Lee, a journalist based in Beijing, China, is the 2013-14 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Reseach Center.
Dr. Lee has lived in China for 11 years, including as chief correspondent and later as director of China Research Center of the Korea Times. He served as an internal reviewer of the North Korean reports by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on multiple occasions. A fluent Chinese speaker and writer, he is a frequent commentator on China-Korea relations as well as on North Korea in Chinese newspapers and on TV. He has also appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, and the Chinese state CCTV.
Dr. Lee taught at Salzburg Global Seminar, gave lectures to members of Harvard Kennedy School, the Confucius Institute, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Tsinghua University, Guo JI Guan Xi Xue Yuan, Korea Economic Institute, The Korea-China Future Forum, the Korea Journalists’ Association, and the Korea-China Leadership Program of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.
Dr. Lee will use his Pantech Fellowship at Stanford to write a book manuscript on the latest China-Korea relations, especially since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He will also engage Stanford audiences and members of the public through lectures and research meetings.
Dr. Lee received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s degree from Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies University, and a PhD from Tsinghua University, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on North Korea, examining the media framing of North Korea by analyzing the journalist-source relationship. He is also a non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, and a 2013 Korea Foundation-Salzburg Fellow.
Dr. Lee’s recent writings include:
“Firm Warning, Light Consequences: China’s DPRK Policy Upholds Status Quo” (The Jamestown Foundation)
Established in 2004, the Pantech Fellowship for Mid-Career Professionals, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (known as the Pantech Group), is intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea.
The Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) announces that Dr. Sunny Seong-hyon Lee, a long-time journalist based in Beijing, China, will be the program’s 2013–14 Pantech Fellow.
Dr. Lee has lived in China for 11 years, including as chief correspondent and later as director of China Research Center of the Korea Times. He served as an internal reviewer on the North Korean reports by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on multiple occasions. As a fluent Chinese speaker and writer, he is a frequent commentator on China-Korea relations as well as on North Korea in Chinese newspapers and TV. He also appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, and the Chinese state CCTV.
Dr. Lee taught at Salzburg Global Seminar, gave lectures to members of Harvard Kennedy School, the Confucius Institute, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Tsinghua University, Guo JI Guan Xi Xue Yuan, Korea Economic Institute, The Korea-China Future Forum, the Korea Journalists’ Association who wanted to specialize in China, the Korea-China Leadership Program by Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.
Dr. Lee will use his Pentech Fellowship time at Stanford writing a book manuscript on the latest China-Korea relations, especially since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He will also engage Stanford audience and members of the public through public lectures and research meetings.
Dr. Lee received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s degree from Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies University, and a PhD from Tsinghua University, where he completed doctoral dissertation on North Korea in which he examined the media framing of North Korea by analyzing the journalist-source relationship. He is also a non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, and Korea Foundation-Salzburg Fellow for 2013.
Dr. Lee’s recent writings include:
“Will China's soft-power strategy on South Korea succeed?” (CSIS)
Established in 2004, the Pantech Fellowship for Mid-Career Professionals, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (known as the Pantech Group), is intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement but the situation on the Korean peninsula remains tense and uncertain. Eight months after stepping down as the Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Kim Sung-Hwan will address the difficult challenges to achieving sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Minister Kim will examine North Korea’s policies toward South Korea and the United States in light of major developments on the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953. He will also address international efforts to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. He will share his insights into the current situation in North Korea, including the differences in North Korea’s policies and behavior since Kim Jong Un succeeded his late father Kim Jong Il two years ago as the supreme leader. Minister Kim will conclude by offering his policy recommendations for dealing with the North Korea of today.
Minister Kim completed thirty-six years as a career diplomat in the Republic of Korea’s foreign service in March of this year. His final two positions in government were as Senior Secretary to the President for Foreign Affairs and National Security (2008 to 2010) and as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2010-2013). Earlier assignments in the ministry headquarters included vice minister (2010) and deputy minister for planning and Management (2005). From 2001 to 2002, he served as director-general of the North American Affairs Bureau, in charge of the Republic of Korea’s relations with the United States. Overseas, Minister Kim’s postings included service in the United States, Russia and India. He was Ambassador to the Republic of Austria and Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna (2006-2008) and Ambassador to the Republic of Uzbekistan (2002-2004). In July 2012, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appointed Minister Kim as a member of the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Minister Kim graduated from Seoul National University and studied at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. Currently, Minister Kim is Chair of the Institute for Global Social Responsibility and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University.
The Koret Distinguished Lecture Series was established in 2013 with the generous support of the Koret Foundation.
Philippines Conference Room
Sung-hwan Kim
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the Republic of Korea
Speaker
South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s visit to China this week attests to the magnitude and importance of geostrategic changes in Northeast Asia. Just a few years ago, such a visit might have been widely interpreted as a sign of tension in the U.S.-ROK relationship and an attempt by Beijing to undermine the alliance. Now it is viewed, correctly, as a natural and necessary meeting between leaders with many shared interests and common concerns, above all about the behavior and intentions of the DPRK.
When Presidents Park and Xi Jinping meet, each will have met recently with President Obama. Neither will have met with Kim Jong Un since assuming their current positions. The symbolism of this difference reflects the reality that Park, Xi, and Obama have far more shared interests than any of them has with Kim or his regime. Indeed, key objectives of all three summits include strengthening bilateral ties and preserving peace in the world’s most dynamic region.
Much of the Park-Xi agenda will be devoted to economic and trade issues and opportunities, and to other bilateral and global challenges. But both leaders recognize that North Korean actions pose the greatest threat to regional peace and the continued prosperity of their own nations. Their discussions should, and will, devote much time and attention to what each can do, individually, jointly, and with the United States, to persuade Pyongyang to change its dangerous and counterproductive behavior.
After testing three nuclear devices, Pyongyang is now openly threatening the United States with a pre-emptive nuclear attack and has engaged in nuclear proliferation with a number of countries. While Pyongyang says its nuclear program is directed only against the United States, many South Koreans believe that the North’s possession of nuclear devices emboldened it to launch two deadly conventional attacks on the South in 2010. What more might Pyongyang do, they fear, if it continues on its current path?
North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and delivery systems because it feels threatened from all sides and judges that, unlike the South, it has no reliable ally. But the real threat to the regime comes from within, not from without. Its misguided policies impoverish its people and prevent the DPRK from following a path of reform and opening to the outside world that has brought stability and prosperity to all of its neighbors, a path that Chinese leaders have urged on Pyongyang for over two decades.
Pyongyang’s leaders seem to have deluded themselves into believing that nuclear weapons will ensure both their security and economic prosperity—even though neither Washington nor Seoul had or has any intention to attack the North, and Pyongyang has long had the functional equivalent of weapons of mass destruction in its thousands of artillery tubes pointed at Seoul. They mistakenly think that Washington will eventually tire of resisting and accept the North as a nuclear weapons state, but no American president will establish diplomatic relations and support removing sanctions on North Korea until it verifiably abandons nuclear weapons.
In recent weeks, North Korea has called for bilateral talks with both the United States and South Korea. While it characterized those offers as "unconditional," its own statements made it clear that it regards any talks as being premised on its being and remaining a nuclear weapons state, a condition it knows neither Washington nor Seoul can accept.
Before Pyongyang moves farther down a path that threatens peace and security while, ironically, achieving none of its own goals, Park, Xi, Obama, and other regional leaders must seek to persuade Kim to discard failed policies in favor of proven alternatives. At the same time, they must find ways to contain the danger his regime will pose to the region and global nonproliferation efforts until he has an epiphany.
President Park said this week that the upcoming Korea-China summit “comes at a more important juncture than at any other time in terms of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.” Without question, President Park’s summit in Beijing could well be one of the most consequential global diplomatic events of the year.
Thomas Fingar served as the U.S. deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and chairman of the National Intelligence Council; Gi-Wook Shin is director of Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; and David Straub is a former director of Korean affairs at the U.S. State Department.
Beyond North Korea takes a unique, multi-view approach to understanding traditional and non-traditional challenges to South Korea’s security, says a review in the latest edition of Pacific Affairs.
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A thermoelectric power plant in Seoul, November 2007. Energy and the environment are non-traditional security issues explored in Beyond North Korea. | Flickr / Doo Ho Kim
China is North Korea's most important ally, but relations between the two countries have appeared strained in recent months. David Straub spoke to Radio Free Asia about Pyongyang's decision to send a special envoy to Beijing in May.
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An Air Koryo plane parked at the Beijing Capital International Airport, September 2012. China is one of the few countries that the North Korean state-operated airline flies into. | Flickr / Gabriel Britto
For almost two decades, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) produced outstanding work in Korean affairs but lacked a separate program for Korean studies; by the turn of the millennium, however, it was clear that more attention and resources needed to be devoted to Korea. Between 1960 and 1990, capitalist South Korea had risen from the devastation of the Korean War to produce an economic “miracle on the Han River,” followed soon by full democratization. In the process, it became a global model of development. Meanwhile, North Korea was pursuing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles while maintaining one of the world’s last Stalinist systems, even outlasting the Soviet Union itself despite a devastating famine in the mid-1990s, and the regime’s threats presented a major concern to policymakers. Together, the two Korean states with radically different systems, competing for hegemony on the divided Korean Peninsula, constituted an unparalleled “natural experiment” for social scientists.
Since 2001 when Gi-Wook Shin was invited to found a program within Shorenstein APARC, the Stanford Korean Studies Program (KSP) has developed into a world-renowned center offering impactful programs addressing current, policy-relevant issues and events. KSP sponsors conferences and workshops that bring together leading Korea scholars and policymakers for meaningful dialogue. Special events afford the general public the opportunity to engage with distinguished practitioners as well as emerging scholars. KSP also supports fellowships, collaborates with a broad range of visiting scholars, publishes award-winning books and reports, and offers commentary to leading media.
Amassing talent to create a premier program
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From its one-person beginning a decade ago, KSP now has faculty members in sociology, history, and literature, with two more appointments pending. In addition, KSP has two full-time staff members and a research assistant. A Korean language lecturer and a Korean Studies librarian support program activities. KSP taps into the rich array of Stanford-based faculty and senior fellows who conduct policy-related research on Korea within FSI-affiliated centers and programs, and at the neighboring Hoover Institution.
KSP has sponsored collaborative research projects on a range of Korea-related subjects. The South Korean National Assembly Project considered the generational change under way in South Korea’s government and its political and ideological implications, specifically how such changes affect Assembly votes—and Korean policy—on major issues. Other projects focus on mass media and U.S.-Korea relations, including the ROK-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum, the Korean experience of historical injustice and reconciliation, and a book series on Korean democratization sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies. Findings from such groundbreaking projects are regularly presented at KSP seminars and conferences, and published as books and journal articles.
A next generation of scholars
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KSP is devoted to training the next generation of Korea scholars by offering courses on Korea through various academic departments, working closely with the Center for East Asian Studies, which offers an MA in East Asian studies with a specialty in Korea. A writing prize in Korean studies was created in 2012, and KSP co-sponsors a Korea internship program and convenes popular overseas seminars in Seoul, enabling Stanford undergraduates to experience Korean politics, history, and culture firsthand. In collaboration with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, Stanford KSP is expanding opportunities for high school students to take online courses on Korea and for U.S. secondary school teachers to bring Korean studies into their curricula.
Each year, KSP offers outstanding opportunities for fellowships and visiting scholars from Korea and elsewhere. With generous fellowship support from the Pantech Group and the Koret Foundation, KSP has hosted over 100 alumni, including two former South Korean foreign ministers, former senior officials from the United States, South Korea, and China, and leading Korea scholars and experts. These visiting scholars participate intensively in KSP research, educational, and outreach programs, and continue their association with the program after leaving Stanford through an active alumni association.
Images:
John Everard, former British ambassador to Pyongyang and a Pantech Fellow, speaks on North Korea at the annual Koret Conference, part of the 2011 celebration of Stanford KSP’s tenth anniversary. (Credit: Rod Searcey)
Students from Seoul’s Hana Academy perform traditional Korean music for participants of the Hana-Stanford Conference on Korea. (Credit: Rod Searcey)
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A sunset view of Seoul, Korea's capital city and a thriving metropolis, December 2006. | Flickr user Trey Ratcliff
Sensitive wartime memories continue to resurface in Japan-South Korea relations, impeding important security collaboration efforts in Northeast Asia. Daniel Sneider describes the historical context and discusses recent events.
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Ships from the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Republic of Korea navy conduct a trilateral exercise, June 2012. | U.S. Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kaitlyn R. Breitkreutz / Released
A small group of Asia specialists at Stanford met for a retreat in the Wilbur Hall dorm complex in 1978, at the dawn of what later proved to be an era of transformative regional change, marked by the rise of Japan as an economic superpower and the early moments of China’s opening to the world.
By the end of the day, the seven scholars had set the groundwork for one of the university’s earliest interdisciplinary research organizations. Those early discussions led to the creation of the Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford–now the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC)–an institution dedicated to exploring the dramatic changes in the world’s most dynamic region. This month the center, part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), celebrated 30 years of connecting Asia and Stanford and helping to guide American policy towards the region.
The Center’s founders were among those gathered to reflect on this history of interdisciplinary cooperation among the university’s scholars. “We respected one another’s areas of expertise—we wanted to learn from one another,” recalled co-founder Daniel I. Okimoto, former Shorenstein APARC director and a professor of political science emeritus. “There was a kind of dynamic learning curve that we all moved along.” Okimoto, a Japan specialist, co-founded the center with John W. Lewis, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics Emeritus and a FSI senior fellow.
Shorenstein APARC has evolved into a flourishing research center with five active research programs focusing on China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and comparative health policy in the Asia-Pacific. It also boasts a South Asia Initiative and a vibrant Corporate Affiliates Visiting Fellows Program, which has grown alongside the center.
Shorenstein APARC has brought hundreds of visitors to Stanford from Asia over the years for academic exchange and policy dialogue, and it sponsors an increasing number of activities in Asia, such as conferences at the Stanford Center at Peking University, the Kyoto International Community House, and the National University of Singapore.
“If Shorenstein APARC did not now exist, Stanford would need to create it to keep abreast of today’s critical international issues,” said Walter Falcon, a former FSI director and a senior fellow at the institute.
The center kicked off its celebrations with a Jan. 17 talk by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and commemorated its anniversary with a May 2 symposium about the historic changes in the Asia-Pacific region over the past three decades.
"Shorenstein APARC's History," Directors' Panel, May 2
Originally established as the Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy, Shorenstein APARC counts its “official” beginning as 1983, the year it came under the administration of Stanford’s International Strategic Institute, which is now FSI. The Center for International Security and Arms Control, its sister organization and today the Center for International Security and Cooperation, joined the institute at the same time.
In 1992, the Forum became the Asia/Pacific Research Center in recognition of the growing scope of U.S. interests in Asia. The center was renamed in September 2005 after Walter H. Shorenstein, a prominent San Francisco-area businessman and philanthropist, who helped insure the center’s long-term success by establishing a permanent endowment.
Speaking during the May 2 symposium, Okimoto said the founding group realized the benefits of looking at issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, and understood the need for their own views to remain flexible.
In the twilight of the Cold War, Shorenstein APARC’s earliest research focused on Northeast Asia, then one of the most strategically and economically important regions for the United States. The center initially explored such issues as high-tech competition and security collaboration with Japan and the emergence of China’s budding economic reforms.
Center research has responded to the impact of developments in the region on U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the growth of regional integration and a counter rise of nationalism, to the spread of democracy, the torrid pace of economic growth and the explosion of cross border movement of people, culture and ideas in Asia. Current initiatives are dedicated to understanding the implications of Asia’s unprecedented demographic change, reconciling the unresolved legacy of World War II memories in Northeast Asia, and finding solutions to the challenges posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Shorenstein APARC maintains its own active publishing program, with books distributed through Brookings Institution Press, and a contemporary Asia series published in collaboration with Stanford University Press. Some of its most recent leading-edge publications have dealt with political and economic reform in China, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the issue of aging in Northeast Asia.
Center research initiatives come to life through talks and conferences, offering members of the Stanford community and public the opportunity to hear from prominent government figures, scholars, authors, journalists, business people and non-governmental workers. Its popular, long-running annual event series include in the Oksenberg lecture on U.S.-Asia relations, the Asia-Pacific Leaders Forum on critical regional issues and the Shorenstein Journalism Award, granted to journalists on both sides of the Pacific who are at the forefront of promoting mutual understanding.
In the past decade, Shorenstein APARC has hosted engaging talks by speakers ranging from top politicians such as President Jimmy Carter and South Korea’s first female president, Park Geun-hye, to key cultural figures including Clint Eastwood and Chinese independent media pioneer Hu Shuli.
Since its earliest days, the center has also regularly convened important policy-focused dialogues on a wide range of issues, bringing together scholars and government officials. Such closed-session dialogues include the early U.S.-Japan Congressional Seminars, which brought together members of the U.S. Senate and Japanese Diet, the current series of Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogues, convened each year to address key issues in the Asia-Pacific region with global implications, and a long-running policy dialogue with South Korean scholars and policy makers.
Shorenstein APARC remains deeply committed to teaching and outreach. In collaboration with the School of Humanities and Science’s Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies, it supports a summer East Asia internship program for Stanford undergraduate and graduate students. It also regularly partners with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education on innovative Asia curriculum units for K-14 classrooms.
“The key to Shorenstein APARC’s success is its well-focused mission and ability to look to the future, enabled by the extraordinary people who take part in its research, publishing, and outreach activities,” said Gi-Wook Shin, the center’s current director and a senior fellow at FSI. “As we celebrate our thirtieth anniversary, we honor a vision turned into successful reality, and head toward a bright future of possibilities for continuing our work to foster lasting, cooperative relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.”
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Shorenstein APARC directors past and present during the May 2 "Asia’s Rise" symposium (from l.): John W. Lewis, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics Emeritus; Daniel I. Okimoto, professor of political science emeritus; Henry S. Rowen, co-director, Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Andrew G. Walder, Denise O’Leary and Kent Thiry Professor; and Gi-Wook Shin, current Shorenstein APARC director. | Shorenstein APARC / Rod Searcey
