Writing for NK News, Rob York reviewed Crossing Heaven’s Border (Shorenstein APARC, 2015), a book written by Hark Joon Lee, a South Korean journalist and filmmaker.

A project that began in 2007, the book is a firsthand account of the challenges facing North Korean defectors. Lee, reporting for the Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, initially published the stories as articles, and later as a documentary on the Public Broadcasting Service in 2009.

“Lee has written a gripping account of his time among the escapees, seeing sights few people will and seeing through a lengthy stint (from 2007 to 2011) in which the possibility of arrest – and even death – were distinctly possible," York writes.

The book, now available in English, details the experiences of North Korean defectors in China as illegal immigrants seeking news lives and in South Korea as new citizens navigating unfamiliar territory, and would-be defectors who remain in North Korea finding ways to survive.

“Lee’s lengthy account…presents a full range of humanity among these refugees,” York writes.

The review is available on the NK News website.

Bioengineering researchers have recently constructed the final steps required to engineer yeast to manufacture opiates, including morphine and other medical drugs, from glucose, drawing significant interest, and concern, from the media and academics in the science and policy fields, including at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).  

“Researchers are getting better at building biology based platforms to create a wide variety of compounds that are difficult, inefficient, or sometimes impossible to create by other means,” Dr. Megan J. Palmer told National Public Radio in the weekly Science Friday segment.

She highlighted how these platforms can enable production of potentially safer, cheaper and more effective drugs. “But one significant concern is if we create the full pathway to go from glucose to this intermediate and then all the way to things like morphine, this could feed into illicit markets and bolster new illicit markets.”

Image

The media this week has focused on comments by researchers who pointed out that the modified yeast could be used to manufacture heroin, a synthesized version of morphine. The prospect of “home-brewed heroin” has been prominently featured in news coverage.

There are significant concerns, says Palmer, but she cautioned that focusing solely on that possibility could lead to bad policy outcomes.

“There is a big opportunity for researchers, policy makers, and industry to work together to figure out what controls they can put in,” she said in a separate interview. “We have time to get ahead of this problem. We now have choices in how we build and regulate the technology. The challenge for regulatory and technical communities will be to avoid reactive quick fixes. It’s encouraging to see researchers engaging in these issues early on.”

The challenge will be to find ways for researchers, law enforcers, and policy experts to work together to build safeguards into the biology itself as well as into organizations and institutions. 

“We really need to think about security as a design principle,” Palmer said. She hopes to foster thoughtful and rigorous analysis of how the design of biotechnology impacts future governance options.

“This issue highlights beautifully the nexus between public policy and science and technology, which is where CISAC has already, and will continue to make important contributions,” said CISAC Co-Director David Relman. Dr. Relman is also the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University. 

CISAC recently hosted a seminar led by Stanford’s Dr. Christina Smolke that discussed technology advances that are resulting in alternative supply chains for drugs, with particular attention to opiates.

Dr. Smolke is also troubled by the over-emphasis of the risks associated with the potential technology. “I believe it’s inflammatory, biased, and not grounded in an accurate representation of the technology. However, the commentary focuses on the risks of the supply chain and proposes regulations/governance for such a technology, without implementing a process to engage various parties in discussions to thoughtfully assess risks, opportunities, and regulatory needs in this context.”

“I think we need to frame this issue in the context of the larger systemic challenges involving the rearrangements of supply chains enabled through bio-manufacturing and how we spread responsible norms and practices,” Palmer said. “We need to think about governance options in terms of human capacities and technical capacities. What safeguards can we engineer into our technologies, and in turn what safeguards can we build into our organizations and institutions?”

Stanford scholars are urging Japan to take advantage of an upcoming opportunity to show clear, heartfelt remorse for its actions surrounding World War II.

Making such amends will give Japan credibility as it seeks to assume a global leadership role well into the future, they say.

On Aug. 15, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will publish a short statement to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, which follows similar practices of his predecessors.

Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), which has long advocated wartime reconciliation in Asia, recently issued a 15-page report in English and Japanese featuring eight hypothetical statements suggesting what the Japanese prime minister might say in his August address. The report, which is available in both English and Japanese, was recently made available to academics, media and the general public and has already received interest from the Japanese media.

The wording of Abe's statement will be scrutinized by governments and experts in Asia and around the world, the Stanford scholars say. During WWII, China and Korea, as well as other Asian nations, endured brutal Japanese military occupations.

"Many have been speculating what the (Abe) statement will be like," wrote Takeo Hoshi, director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Center, and APARC associate director for research Daniel Sneider in the report.

For example, Hoshi and Sneider asked, will Abe follow the direction set by prior Japanese prime ministers by expressing remorse for the suffering of Japan's Asian neighbors while apologizing for past aggression and colonization? Future collaboration in world affairs is also important, they added.

"We asked our colleagues what they would say in the 70th anniversary statement if they were the prime minister of Japan, and to write their own version of the statement," Hoshi and Sneider wrote.

"Our goal is to understand the diversity of reasonable views on the issue of Japan's responsibility for the cruel and violent war and Japan's role in building a peaceful and prosperous world," Hoshi and Sneider said.

The Stanford experts who wrote the statements included Hoshi and Sneider as well as Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Peter Duus, a professor emeritus of Japanese history; Thomas Fingar, a distinguished fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute; David Holloway, a professor of international history and of political science; Yong Suk Lee, the SK Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute; and Harry Rowen, a professor emeritus of public policy and management.

For example, Fingar said in his version, "Let us also resolve to make the 80th anniversary of World War II the 10th anniversary of a more cooperative, more inclusive, and more secure region," and Hoshi wrote in his version, "To avoid any potential misunderstandings, Japan needs to recall past failures, remember the suffering of neighboring Asian peoples, and reaffirm the commitment to world peace more than ever."

On the subject of women, Lee's version noted, "The war and Japan's colonial rule created much suffering, but I would like to especially ask forgiveness to the women from many nations who suffered under colonial rule."

In August 2014, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center issued a report on a Stanford-hosted dialogue on World War II memories in northeast Asia. Heightened tensions the last few years among the governments of China, Japan and South Korea have revolved around territorial disputes and the way WWII is portrayed in speeches and educational materials.

"Each nation in northeast Asia and even the U.S. has selective or divided memories of the past, and does not really understand the views of the other side," said Stanford's Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Shorenstein center, in a 2014 Stanford news release.

Clifton Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

Responses to the project

Toyo Keizai, a leading Japanese business weekly, published all eight verisons in English and Japanese stating, "we hope this will provide an opportunity to bring about a wide range of discussion."

University of Tokyo professor Tetsuji Okazaki wrote about the project in the Asahi Shimbun (the article is in Japanese and also attached as a PDF below).