Lunch served to those who respond to Okky Choi by Wednesday, February 26 by 12:00 noon. You can reach Okky at 650-724-8271 or via email at okkychoi@stanford.edu.

As Secretary of the Technology, Trade, and Commerce Agency, Lon Hatamiya advises the governor and the legislature on all matters related to international business, serving as the voice of California's private sector in the State Cabinet. Appointed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999 and confirmed unanimously by the State Senate, Secretary Hatamiya is the first Asian-American to hold a cabinet-level position in California history. As the state's primary promoter of economic development, he directs numerous programs stimulating economic activity for international trade and investment, and under his leadership the Agency added the Division of Science, Technology, and Innovation, focusing on R&D and the commercialization of new technologies. Prior to his appointment as secretary, Mr. Hatamiya served as administrator for the Foreign Agricultural Service in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). He holds a degree in economics from Harvard University, and JD and MBA degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Over the last two years in Southeast Asia, acts of terror done in the name of Islam have divided analysts into two broad camps. Academic specialists on Islam in Southeast Asia have tended to emphasize the moderation of the vast majority of Muslims in the region and the local roots of so-called jihadist violence there. While not denying the moderation of most Muslims, Western journalists and officials have relied more on intelligence reports and detainee confessions to situate Southeast Asian jihadists within a global terrorist network organized and inspired by Al Qaeda. Compared with Western journalists and officials, scholars have also tended to portray Islam as a basically tolerant religion and to seek nonreligious explanations and motivations for seemingly Islamist violence. If the scholars have had faith in explanatory contexts--distinctively local, historical, cultural, socioeconomic, and political--their counterparts in media and policy circles have been more inclined to showcase conspiratorial texts: interrogation transcripts, recordings of clandestine conversations, and the selectively Koranic rhetoric of militant Islamists urging global jihad. Which of these contrasting perspectives is superior, analytically and as a basis for counter-terror policy? Are the perpetrators of apparently Islamist terror in Southeast Asia thinking and acting locally? Or globally? Is there a demonstrably Al Qaeda network in the region? If so, what sort of a structure is it? How does it operate? Can a "war" against it succeed? If not, what might be a better approach? Zachary Abuza is an assistant professor of political science and international relations at Simmons College. His most recent book is Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam (2001). Foreign-affairs journals that have published his work include Asian Survey and Contemporary Southeast Asia. He has spoken on Southeast Asian subjects before Congress, at the State Department, on Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour," and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Time, among other media. He received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1998. In 1995-96 he was a visiting researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Hanoi.

The Korean peninsula has been at the center of Cold War politics ever since its 1945 territorial division, and remains so even after the demise of the Soviet empire. After half a century of intense conflict and tensions -- including a major war -- the leaders of North and South Korea held their first summit in summer 2000, creating hope and enthusiasm for peace and unification on the peninsula. However, the current stalemate in inter-Korean relations and the recent tension over North Korea's nuclear program clearly indicate that a peaceful conflict resolution, let alone unification, will not come easily. The current situation also attests to the urgent need for a new forum that can address various issues related to inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S./Japan relations at the nonofficial, nonpolitical level.

We believe that early 2003 will be a critical moment in inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S./Japan relations. The new South Korean government will take office in late February 2003 and the newly created special economic zone in Shin-ui-ju is expected to be at work in a few months. Also, the recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to North Korea could lead to a new relationship between the two countries, and the Bush administration will be entering the second half of its term in early 2003.

All these developments, along with the recent revelation of North Korea's nuclear program, make the proposed policy conference timely and essential for (re) formulating new North Korean policies by South Korea, Japan, and the United States. The proposed conference will discuss policy issues toward North Korea among scholars and policymakers from the United States, Japan, China, and Russia, as well as South Korea. We seek to produce a policy proposal to be presented to the new South Korean government, as well as to the governments in Tokyo and Washington, D.C.