In this eighteenth 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 Korea Program in association with The Sejong Institute, a top South Korean think tank.

In this seventeenth 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 Korea Program in association with The Sejong Institute, a top South Korean think tank.

The report from this session is avaiable here to download.

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Please note that this event will take place in Beijing, P.R.C. at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

Some of the world’s most critical flashpoints are concentrated in the Asia-Pacific today. The 2017 Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum will examine East Asia’s geopolitical volatilities in the context of China’s rapid rise while assessing the evolving role of the United States in the region. The Forum will first include remarks by the Director of FSI and former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Michael A. McFaul, on the historical origins and contemporary consequences of President Trump’s worldview. A panel discussion will follow with leading policy experts, including the Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative, Shorenstein APARC, and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry; Associate Professor and Vice President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University, Yu Tiejun; William J. Perry Fellow in the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC and former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Kathleen Stephens; Executive Director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea and Dean of the School of International Relations at Nanjing University, Zhu Feng; and Shorenstein APARC Fellow at FSI and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of State of Intelligence and Research, Thomas Fingar.  The expert panel will examine the current state of U.S.-China relations in this increasingly turbulent region.

The Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum is an annual event established to raise public understanding of the complex issues China and other countries face in the course of rapid development. The purpose of the Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum is to foster engagement among government, academic, private sector and civil society leaders on pressing challenges of global importance that demand creative and innovative solutions.

This year’s event also marks the Tenth Anniversary of the China Program and the Fifth Anniversary of the Stanford Center at Peking University.

Agenda

2:00-2:15 PM                     Welcome remarks

2:15-3:15 PM                     Keynote Address: The Historical Origins and Contemporary Consequences of

                                               President Trump's Worldview, Ambassador Michael A. McFaul

3:15-3:30 PM                     Break

3:30-5:30 PM                     Panel Discussion: The United States, China, and the Asia-Pacific Region

                                                Amb. Karl Eikenberry

                                                Dr. Yu Tiejun

                                                Amb. Kathleen Stephens

                                                Dr. Zhu Feng

                                                Dr. Thomas Fingar

Please note that this event will take place in Beijing, P.R.C. at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

Abstract

Speculation about the course of cross-Strait relations after the upcoming 19^th Chinese Communist Party Congress ranges from greater PRC flexibility to substantially increased pressure on Taiwan. The Mainland’s persistent suspicion about President Tsai Ing-wen’s motives has only deepened with her appointment of avowed independence supporter Lai Ching-te as premier, especially because of the prospect that Lai could eventually become president. As a result, once the internal tugging and hauling leading up to the Party Congress has been settled, some people predict that Beijing will resort to military intimidation or even actual use of force to bring Tsai to heel. What are the PRC’s goals? What are Taipei’s? What role can and should the United States play in seeking not only to avoid conflict but to reestablish a reliable level of stability in cross-Strait relations and to prevent Taiwan from once more becoming a highly divisive issue in U.S.-PRC relations? Alan Romberg will address these issues in his talk on October 30^th.

Bio

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Alan Romberg is a Distinguished Fellow and the Director of the East Asia program at Stimson. Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues including 27 years in the State Department, with over 20 years as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. Romberg was the Principal Deputy Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Deputy Spokesman of the department. He served in various capacities dealing with East Asia, including director of the Office of Japanese Affairs, member of the Policy Planning staff for East Asia, and staff member at the National Security Council for China. He served overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Additionally, Romberg spent almost 10 years as the CV Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was special assistant to the secretary of the navy.

Romberg holds an M.A. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

This event is co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), both part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Abstract 

Scholars have credited a model of state-led capitalism called the developmental state with producing the first wave of the East Asian economic miracle. Using historical evidence based on original archival research, this talk offers a geopolitical explanation for the origins of the developmental state. In contrast to previous studies that have emphasized colonial legacies or domestic political factors, I argue that the developmental state was the legacy of the rivalry between the United States and Communist China during the Cold War. Responding to the acute tensions in Northeast Asia in the early postwar years, the United States supported emergency economic controls in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to enforce political stability. In response to the belief that the Communist threat would persist over the long term, the U.S. strengthened its clients by laying the foundations of a capitalist, export-oriented economy under bureaucratic guidance. The result of these interventions was a distinctive model of state-directed capitalism that scholars would later characterize as a developmental state.

I verify this claim by examining the rivalry between the United States and the Chinese Communists and demonstrating that American threat perceptions caused the U.S. to promote unorthodox economic policies among its clients in Northeast Asia. In particular, I examine U.S. relations with the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan, where American efforts to create a bulwark against Communism led to the creation of an elite economic bureaucracy for administering U.S. economic aid. In contrast, the United States decided not to create a developmental state in the Philippines because the Philippine state was not threatened by the Chinese Communists. Instead, the Philippines faced a domestic insurgency that was weaker and comparatively short-lived. As a result, the U.S. pursued a limited goal of maintaining economic stability instead of promoting rapid industrialization. These findings shed new light on the legacy of statism in American foreign economic policy and highlight the importance of geopolitics in international development.

Bio

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James Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He specializes in International Relations with a focus on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and relations across the Taiwan Strait. James also serves as the Senior Editor for Taiwan Security Research, an academic website that aggregates news and commentary on the economic and political dimensions of Taiwan's security.

This event is co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), both part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

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Six years after his succession to power, Kim has continued to defy international pressure, conducting four nuclear tests and firing eighty-five ballistic missiles. Recently, the world has witnessed an extraordinary, high-intensity war of words between President Trump and the North Korean leader. Military tension mounts higher than ever as we enter a new phase, arguably the most serious one in decades, in dealing with a dangerous and bellicose North Korea.

There are many questions: Will North Korea conduct an atmospheric nuclear test? When will their weapons program really be capable of hitting the continental United States? How will the U.S. government respond to that capability? Will the likely result be war on the Korean Peninsula? What about the China factor?

Ambassador Kim will discuss some of these questions through his personal experiences at the Six-Party Talks, the UN Security Council and through his contacts with North Korean officials.