Stanford University

The North Korean Crisis: Human Stories and Taking Action

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Mass famines, like those of the 1990s that killed a million people, are projected to happen again in North Korea. At any time, more than 220,000 people are held in the prison system, where "torture, assault, rape, infanticides, forced detention and public executions" are commonplace. The state medical system is in severe disrepair, allowing treatable diseases like tuberculosis to claim tens of thousands of lives per year. Unfortunately, North Korea's political and economic isolation often impedes those interested in reducing the hardships endured by the North Korean people. In "The North Korean Crisis: Human Stories and Taking Action," four experts on North Korea will discuss the North Korean humanitarian crisis and importantly, outline ways for members of the Stanford community and beyond to take action.

Presented by the Stanford Korean Students Association and sponsored by ASSU Speaker's Bureau, Korean Student Association at Stanford, Korean Studies Program, CDDRL, Steve Kahing

Bechtel Conference Center

Dr. Sharon Perry Senior researcher at the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine Speaker Stanford and North Korean
Jung Gwang Il Director of NK Gulag for Democracy Speaker A Seoul based-NGO
David Hawk Former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA Speaker
Dan Chung Communications Director of Crossing Borders Speaker
Conferences

North Korea and the Sinking of the South Korean Navy Vessel "Cheonan"

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David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program, discussed the historical context of North Korea's apparent sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette "Cheonan" on March 26 with the loss of 46 lives. Straub said that North Korea's second test of a nuclear device had profoundly affected American and global thinking about North Korean intentions. "Now the conclusion of most people, including in the Obama administration," Straub underlined, "is that they can't see the North Koreans giving up their nuclear weapons on terms that would be acceptable to anyone."
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The Fourth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

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In this fourth session of the Forum, former senior government officials and other leading experts from the United States and South Korea will discuss current developments in North Korea and North Korea policy, the future of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, and a strategic vision for Northeast Asia.

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Bechtel Conference Center

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Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

A Brief History of the U.S.-ROK Alliance and Anti-Americanism in South Korea

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This paper reviews the history of relations between Korea and the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to early 2008. The paper focuses on the growth and expansion of anti-American sentiment in South Korea-and the social movements to which this sentiment gave rise-after Korea's liberation in August 1945. Its primary argument is that anti-American sentiment and movements in South Korea were a product of the country's domestic politics. Two political forces are discernible in South Korea: "conservative-rightist" and "progressive-leftist." The former generally adopts a pro-America and anti-North Korea stance, while the latter tends to be anti-America and pro-North Korea. A significant portion of the progressive-leftist forces regard the United States as a barrier to Korean reconciliation and the unification of the Korean peninsula. During the George W. Bush administration, this group perceived that the United States was preparing to go to war against North Korea. During the period when the conservative-rightist forces assumed political power, the progressive-leftist forces were suppressed, through laws and even state violence. When the progressive-leftist forces controlled the government, between 1998 and 2008, when democratization was well underway, legal restrictions were substantially lifted and state violence could not be exercised. Accordingly, this group could-and did-express its anti-U.S. sentiment more freely.

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Shorenstein APARC
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Hakjoon Kim

China's increasing influence on North Korea

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David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program, discussed China's increasing influence on North Korea with The New York Time's reporter Choe Sang-hun. Straub said that China's primary purpose in boosting trade and other ties with North Korea was not increased influence per se but the avoidance of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Contrary to official rhetoric on both sides, he noted, the two countries remain wary of each other.
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Appointment of 2010-2011 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies Program

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The Korean Studies Program (KSP) of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce that Mr. John Everard will join the Center for the 2010-2011 academic year. Mr. Everard's research will be on North Korean life and society. During his fellowship at the Center, he will hold seminars related to his research project and will be involved in various projects on Korea.

With frequent appearances on BBC discussing North Korea, Mr. Everard, former British Ambassador to North Korea, 2006-2008, will bring extensive knowledge of North Korea, China and South America to APARC.  He served as British Ambassador to Uruguay in 2001-2005, and was head of the Political Section in Beijing 2000-2001.  He was responsible for political relations with the troubled states of West Africa and managed mutinational efforts to restore democracy to Bosnia, 1995-1998.  He became the youngest British Ambassador to Belarus in 1993.

Mr. Everard studied French, German and Chinese at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and studied Chinese history and economics at Bejing University. He holds an MA from Manchester Business School.

Pantech Fellowships, generously funded by Pantech Group of Korea, are intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea. We invite individuals from the United States, Korea, and other countries to apply.

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North Korea's radio waves of resistance

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Peter M. Beck
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This WSJ article by Peter Beck originally appeared as Shorenstein APARC Dispatch in April 2010

North Korea is usually described as the "most isolated country on earth," its people effectively cut off from the outside world. My research tells a different story-that perhaps one million North Koreans are secretly listening to foreign radio broadcasts. The number of listeners is believed to be growing, which is all the more amazing when one considers that North Korean authorities only distribute radios with fixed dials, assiduously jam foreign broadcasts, and send citizens caught listening to foreign radio to the country's notorious gulags for as long as ten years.

Over a dozen radio stations from the United States, South Korea, and Japan currently broadcast to North Korea. Voice of America (VOA), one of the most popular stations, has been broadcasting to the North since 1942, while the equally popular Radio Free Asia (RFA) began its Korean broadcasts soon after being created by Congress in 1997. VOA focuses on news of the United States and the world, while RFA concentrates on the two Koreas. RFA also carries commentaries by two Korean speakers who grew up in the former Soviet Union and Romania. RFA serves as a substitute for the lack of a "free" station in North Korea, but unlike a typical "surrogate station"-which would be staffed largely by émigrés-RFA only employs one North Korean defector.

South Korea's "Global Korean Network" has been declining in popularity since it ceased to focus on North Korea and adopted a decidedly soft approach after the election of Kim Dae-jung as president in 1997. However, three stations run by North Korean defectors have sprouted up over the past few years, led by Free North Korea Radio (FRNK). These stations employ stringers in North Korea who can communicate by cell phone or smuggle out interviews through China. As a result, information is flowing in and out of the North more rapidly than ever. For example, when major economic reforms were undertaken in 2002, it was months before the rest of the world knew. In contrast, when the regime launched a disastrous currency reform on November 30, 2009, FNKR filed a report within hours.

How do we know that North Koreans are actually listening to foreign broadcasts? First, on dozens of occasions, authorities in Pyongyang have used their own media to attack foreign broadcasters. The North reserves the insult "reptile" exclusively to describe foreign broadcasters. In late March 2010, the regime likened defector broadcasters to "human trash." Ironically, this diatribe also contained the first official mention of the currency revaluation, so broadcasters have clearly struck a nerve. If they were in fact irrelevant, the regime would ignore them instead of lavishing them with free publicity.

Broadcasters to North Korea frequently receive heartbreaking messages from North Koreans in China, thanking them for their efforts. One listener described RFA as "our one ray of hope." More importantly, over the past several years, thousands of North Korean defectors, refugees, and visitors to China have been interviewed about their listening habits. An unpublished 2009 survey of North Koreans in China found that over 20 percent had listened to the banned broadcasts, and almost all of them had shared the information with family members and friends. Several other surveys confirm these findings. While we cannot generalize the listening habits of a self-selected group to the general population, it is not unreasonable to conclude that there are more than a million surreptitious listeners. The North Korean regime is not only losing its monopoly on the control of information; defectors also cite foreign radio listening as one of the leading motivations to defect.

Despite valiant efforts and growing impact, much more could be done to improve broadcasting to North Korea. VOA and RFA only broadcast five hours a day, and the defector stations limp along with shoestring budgets, due to a pervasive indifference within South Korea.

President Obama's human rights envoy for North Korea, Robert King, has pledged to expand funding for Korean broadcasting. For its part, Pyongyang claims that foreign broadcasts are part of the Obama administration's "hostile policy" toward the North. Only time will tell if these efforts will lead to change we can believe in-both in Washington and Pyongyang.

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Behind the plot to assassinate North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop

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David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program, discussed the reported infiltration of North Korean agents into South Korea to kill senior North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop. Straub said that Hwang's former closeness to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Kim's late father Kim Il Sung probably made Kim Jong Il regard Hwang's outspoken criticism of North Korea as a personal betrayal.
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Into the Fire

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The Korean Studies Program is pleased to pre-screen a major new Korean film, subtitled in English, about the Korean War to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. The film, "Into the Fire," is based on an actual event. During the desperate early days of the war when regular South Korean and American soldiers were tied down elsewhere, high school students defended the South Korean port city of Pohang. The movie is both an action film and a drama about the character development of these young men as unlikely heroes. Taewon Entertainment produced the film; the director is a veteran Korean filmmaker, New York University-trained John H. Lee. To put the film in historical and cinematic context, the film screening will be followed by a panel discussion.

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Cubberley Auditorium
485 Lasuen Mall
Stanford University

Chi-hui Yang Director, San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Speaker
Scott Foundas Associate Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center; Contributing Editor, Film Comment Speaker
John H. Lee Director of the film Panelist
Kwon Sang-woo Actor Panelist
Kyung Hyun Kim Associate Professor, East Asian Language & Liturature, and Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine Panelist

Daniel C. Sneider

Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Lecturer in International Policy at the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy
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Daniel C. Sneider is a lecturer in international policy at Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy and a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford. His own research is focused on current U.S. foreign and national security policy in Asia and on the foreign policy of Japan and Korea.  Since 2017, he has been based partly in Tokyo as a Visiting Researcher at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, where he is working on a diplomatic history of the creation and management of the U.S. security alliances with Japan and South Korea during the Cold War. Sneider contributes regularly to the leading Japanese publication Toyo Keizai as well as to the Nelson Report on Asia policy issues.

Sneider is the former Associate Director for Research at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. At Shorenstein APARC, Sneider directed the center’s Divided Memories and Reconciliation project, a comparative study of the formation of wartime historical memory in East Asia. He is the co-author of a book on wartime memory and elite opinion, Divergent Memories, from Stanford University Press. He is the co-editor, with Dr. Gi-Wook Shin, of Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia, from Routledge and of Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies, from University of Washington Press.

Sneider was named a National Asia Research Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Bureau of Asian Research in 2010. He is the co-editor of Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia, Shorenstein APARC, distributed by Brookings Institution Press, 2007; of First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier, 2009; as well as of Does South Asia Exist?: Prospects for Regional Integration, 2010. Sneider’s path-breaking study “The New Asianism: Japanese Foreign Policy under the Democratic Party of Japan” appeared in the July 2011 issue of Asia Policy. He has also contributed to other volumes, including “Strategic Abandonment: Alliance Relations in Northeast Asia in the Post-Iraq Era” in Towards Sustainable Economic and Security Relations in East Asia: U.S. and ROK Policy Options, Korea Economic Institute, 2008; “The History and Meaning of Denuclearization,” in William H. Overholt, editor, North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War?, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 2019; and “Evolution or new Doctrine? Japanese security policy in the era of collective self-defense,” in James D.J. Brown and Jeff Kingston, eds, Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia, Routledge, December 2017.

Sneider’s writings have appeared in many publications, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Slate, Foreign Policy, the New Republic, National Review, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Oriental Economist, Newsweek, Time, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and Yale Global. He is frequently cited in such publications.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Sneider was a long-time foreign correspondent. His twice-weekly column for the San Jose Mercury News looking at international issues and national security from a West Coast perspective was syndicated nationally on the Knight Ridder Tribune wire service. Previously, Sneider served as national/foreign editor of the Mercury News. From 1990 to 1994, he was the Moscow bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, covering the end of Soviet Communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. From 1985 to 1990, he was Tokyo correspondent for the Monitor, covering Japan and Korea. Prior to that he was a correspondent in India, covering South and Southeast Asia. He also wrote widely on defense issues, including as a contributor and correspondent for Defense News, the national defense weekly.

Sneider has a BA in East Asian history from Columbia University and an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Daniel C. Sneider Moderator, Associate Director for Research, APARC, Stanford University Moderator
John R. Stevens Lt Col. USMC (ret), Commanding Officer of Able Company, 1st Bn, 5th Marines when the 1st Marine Bridgade arrived in Pusan on August 2, 1950 Speaker
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Nuclear review shows bipartisanship

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The release last week of the Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review brings long overdue attention to the vital issue of U.S. strategic posture. Issues raised in the NPR and START have reinvigorated a crucial national nuclear dialogue that has been missing.

As the chairman and vice chairman of Congress's bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission, which issued its report last May, we have watched with great interest the administration's steady progress this past year on its Nuclear Posture Review and the START negotiations.

Themes from our report run through the Nuclear Posture Review and are embodied in the new START agreement. While debate and disagreement must be part of the crossfire in this renewed nuclear dialogue, we want to emphasize important dimensions of both the Posture Review and START treaty that figure prominently in our bipartisan report.

Now that the NPR is completed, we see that it is compatible with our recommendations. The review gives a comprehensive and pragmatic plan for reducing nuclear risks to the United States. We believe it offers a bipartisan path forward - while allowing for healthy disagreements on specific issues.

And it incorporates many of our points - such as pursuing a quick and modest reduction of nuclear weapons with Russia and sustaining the nuclear triad of land-based ICBMs, sea-based SLBMs and bombers. It also recognizes that nuclear weapons safeguarded U.S. security during the Cold War by deterring attack and that we will need them for deterrence in the foreseeable future, as long as others also possess them.

We also see that the NPR puts special emphasis, as our report recommended, on improving the nation's complex nuclear infrastructure and enhancing programs to recruit and keep the nation's best scientific minds. The administration's commitment to increase investment in our national laboratories also ensures that they continue their important role in sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal and in solving many other problems facing the nation.

The review is correct to make preventing nuclear terrorism and proliferation the top priority, while also seeking to strengthen deterrence and to reassure U.S. allies and recognizing the importance of strategic stability with Russia and an emerging China. Our commission reached the same conclusions.

The NPR's changes in U.S. declaratory policy - especially the assurance that Washington "will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear parties to the Nonproliferation Treaty that are in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations" - go beyond our recommendation that the U.S. retain "calculated ambiguity."

It is, however, a sensible variation on a theme that the U.S. should support nonproliferation while preserving deterrence for itself and its allies.

We also note that the NPR chose, as we advised, to avoid adopting a "no first use" policy for nuclear weapons while narrowing the scope of possible first use to "extreme circumstances" - language that was in our bipartisan report.

We believe that the substantial edge the U.S. has developed in conventional military capabilities, which the NPR notes, permits this country to sharply reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. But we caution those who make light of this major U.S. strategic advantage and its implications.

We support the NPR's call for the U.S. not to develop new nuclear weapons now. Our report similarly called for a case-by-case approach to extending the life of today's warheads. And we agree that the focus should be on safety, security and reliability - not developing new military capabilities.

The NPR echoes our call to negotiate a worldwide end to the production of new fissile materials - the key ingredients of nuclear weapons.

Our final report strongly endorsed the U.S. deterrence policy to cover our allies and partners with the U.S. nuclear umbrella - an objective the NPR also embraces.

The report suggested deploying proven missile defenses against threats such as North Korea and Iran but emphasized, as the NPR does, that these defenses should not be so big as to encourage Russia to add warheads to counter them, which would only undermine efforts to reduce nuclear weapons. We included China as well as Russia in this.

But in two areas, we believe the NPR might have fallen short of the mark.

First, we understand that the review considered declassifying additional information about the size and composition of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. It should have done so. This would demonstrate U.S. leadership on the transparency that is needed to secure nuclear materials globally and to bolster strategic stability with Russia and China.

Second, the NPR called for the consideration of conventional "prompt global strike" capabilities. But it did not explain whether these systems would have a niche role against small regional powers such as North Korea or be an ultimate substitute for nuclear weapons in deterrence with Russia and China.

We feel the former is the only sensible approach. Keeping this issue ill-defined creates needless anxiety in Moscow and Beijing that could lead to future problems.

Even with these two caveats, the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review makes important strides in charting a sustainable bipartisan path forward for the United States.

Healthy disagreement over some NPR specifics should not obscure the valuable contribution it makes to advancing U.S. security interests - resting, as it does in part, on our bipartisan 2009 Strategic Posture Commission report.

William J. Perry served as secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. He was chairman of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. James R. Schlesinger was the nation's first energy secretary and served as secretary of defense from July 1973 to November 1975. He was vice chairman of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.

 

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President Barack Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Hu Jintao of China, during the Nuclear Security Summit at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., April 12, 2010.
Lawrence Jackson
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