Thu, 3 September 2015
In the early 2000s, North Korea became increasingly isolated internationally, acquiring nuclear weapons technology while diplomatic channels such as the Six Party Talks came to a halt. During the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, Washington’s policy towards Pyongyang focused on demonization and confrontation rather than engagement – famously placing North Korea on the so-called “Axis of Evil” – and was repeatedly criticized by experts and policymakers alike. Yet the question remains whether the United States deserve the blame – and whether this criticism might paint a one-sided image. To learn more about the American views and policy towards North Korea during the Bush years, we had the honor of talking to Victor D. Cha who was in the White House at the time. He worked as Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council between 2004 and 2007 and also served as Deputy Head of Delegation for the United States at the Six Party Talks in Beijing. For this episode, we talked about his time in the Bush administration and his views on the current situation surrounding North Korea. Professor Victor D. Cha is director of Asian Studies and holds the D.S. Song Chair in Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University. He has published articles in numerous academic journals, including International Security and Foreign Affairs, and is a frequent contributor to various media such as CNN, the New York Times and Time. His most recent book, The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future was selected by Foreign Affairs as a best book of 2012 on the Asia-Pacific. Professor Cha holds a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, and Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University and in Philosophy, Politics, and Economy (PPE) from the University of Oxford |
Wed, 26 August 2015
Modern international relations are a direct result of a series of Treaties ratified in Westphalia during the 17th century. The “Westphalian Peace” enshrined the rights of states to claim sovereignty over their domestic affairs and territories -- and thus promoted the fundamental principle that all states, no matter how weak or powerful, are equal in international law. The advent of the West has made these Westphalian principles the global norm of international affairs; and Asia is no exception. What is often forgotten, however, is that Asia before the arrival of the Western powers was under a fundamentally different system -- in effect a hierarchical order in which China held the highest status. Thanks to its might and advanced Confucian culture China was at the center of a system where there could be no equality among nations; yet where emulation and cooperation were possible, trade thrived and, importantly, stability could be found. This is the argument of Professor David C. Kang, who kindly agreed to be our guest for this episode. Together, we look back into the ancient regional order of premodern Asia and explore whether the history of Asian international relations can inform us as to the present state of affairs in the region -- and maybe even help us make sense of China’s rise. David C. Kang is Professor of International Relations and Business at the University of Southern California, with appointments in both the School of International Relations and the Marshall School of Business. He is also director of the Korean Studies Institute and the East Asian Studies Center. Professor Kang’s latest book is East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (Columbia University Press, 2010). He is also author of China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007); Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines (Cambridge University Press, 2002); and Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (Columbia University Press, 2003), co-authored with Victor Cha. Professor Kang has published numerous articles in top academic journals, and his co-authored article Testing Balance of Power Theory in World History was awarded “Best article, 2007-2009” by the European Journal of International Relations. David Kang has also written opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. He received an A.B. with honors from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Berkeley. |
Tue, 18 August 2015
On April 16th 2014, the MV Sewol, a ferry bound for the island of Jeju, capsized off the coast of Jindo County, the South-westernmost region of South Korea. Out of the 476 people on board, 304 died – most of them from Danwon High School in the city of Ansan. The Sewol disaster is one of the biggest human catastrophes in South Korea’s recent history and has triggered a significant amount of perplexity and soul-searching among its citizens. How could a disaster of this magnitude occur in such a technologically advanced country? Why were the rescue efforts so uncoordinated and inefficient? Is South Korea’s “palli palli” (fast) culture to blame; putting profit ahead of people’s safety? The families of the victims have been looking for answers ever since and continue to demand that an independent inquiry shed light on what really happened. Our guest for this episode, Jun Michael Park, has been following the Sewol families in their struggles, documenting their lives in the aftermath of the tragedy and their quest for truth and justice. We talk about his work, what the Sewol families are trying to achieve, and how we can explain the hatred far-right groups have demonstrated against them. Jun Michael Park is a documentary photographer and visual storyteller from Seoul. He has worked for Der Spiegel, Welt am Sonntag, Cicero Magazine and Brand Eins in Germany, as well as Greenpeace East Asia, Save the Children, Asia Society Korea Center and many more. Jun is a winner of a Silver Award in the Press-Feature Story category at Prix de la Photographie Paris (Px3) 2015 and is selected for this year's Eddie Adams Workshop in New York. |
Wed, 12 August 2015
The Democracy Index published by the British magazine The Economist ranks South Korea as a “full democracy”, ahead even of countries such as France or Spain. The CIA World Factbook also lists South Korea as a “fully functioning modern democracy”. Yet many experts and activists denounce what they consider to be a rise in authoritarian tendencies within the current Park Geun-hye administration, including: attacks on free speech, crackdowns on dissent and a general stalling of the process towards more liberties as well as better public management and stronger government transparency and accountability. At the same time, South Korea is party to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an international membership organization of more than 60 governments that have pledged to improve their democracy and transparency. Our guest for this episode, Geoffrey Cain heads the Korea research team of the OGP and kindly agreed to talk to us about the state of Korean democracy, improvements that should be made and Korea’s commitments within the framework of the OGP. In addition to his duties at the Open Government Partnership, Mr. Cain is an award-winning journalist focusing on Asian affairs and the two Koreas in particular. He is senior correspondent for GlobalPost and has written for various outlets including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Far Eastern Economic Review, TIME and Foreign Policy. His reporting was a finalist for a 2015 Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award. A former Fulbright scholar, Mr. Cain holds an MA (Distinction) from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a BA from The George Washington University, which he attended on a music scholarship. |
Tue, 4 August 2015
Much of our knowledge about North Korea comes from a limited number of sources: documents made public by foreign governments, defector testimonies, correspondents in neighboring countries, and ultimately North Korea’s official news agency. But what about intelligence agencies? How do they manage to gather intelligence – and how much do they actually know about North Korea? For this interview, we had the privilege to host Dr. Sue Mi Terry who provided us with a unique look into the U.S. intelligence community and its attempts to deal with North Korea. Dr. Terry is a Senior Research Scholar at the Columbia University Weatherhead East Asia Institute and founder of Peninsula Strategies Inc., an advisory firm specializing in Korean issues. She has also served as the National Intelligence Fellow in the David Rockefeller Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Prior to her academic and consulting career, Dr. Terry served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council, and also served as Director for Korea, Japan and Oceanic Affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Earlier in her career, she served as Senior Analyst on Korean issues at the CIA Directorate of Intelligence, where she was a top-rated Korean linguist. Dr. Terry earned her PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She holds a Master’s in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from NYU. |
Tue, 28 July 2015
North Korea is commonly referred to as the “Hermit Kingdom”, a term that already implies how difficult it is to get a realistic idea of the country, its people and politics. One result of this inaccessibility is the proliferation of myths about North Korea, and as Professor Sung Yoon Lee from Tufts University argues, they have repeatedly misinformed the outside world’s thinking and behavior towards the country. We had the chance to interview Prof. Lee on the nature of said myths, their origins, and how to deal with North Korea. Sung-Yoon Lee is the Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is Research Associate at the Harvard Korea Institute and a former Research Fellow with the National Asia Research Program. He has published articles and op-eds in several academic journals and media outlets, including Asia Policy, Foreign Affairs, Korea Policy Review, The New York Times, and many more. Professor Lee earned his MA in Law and Diplomacy and his PhD from Tufts. |
Wed, 22 July 2015
According to the National Statistical Office, South Korea will become a “hyper-aged” society by 2025. The speed at which this demographic transition is occurring is already having major economic and social repercussions, which are bound to worsen in the coming decades. Issues such as the funding of pension liabilities, pushing back the mandatory retirement age, incentivizing companies to retain their older workers, and dealing with the ever increasing elderly population living below the poverty line are already on top of the political agenda. Population ageing is a very difficult topic to apprehend because it encompasses both philosophical aspects (such as the idea of solidarity between generations) and complex technical issues (for instance the arcanes of pension finance). We were very lucky to interview for this episode an expert with almost two decades of both research and practical experience in the field: Dr. Phang Hanam. Dr. Phang is the President of the Korea Labor Institute (KLI) and the Korea Pension Association. He is also Professor at Yonsei University, and was Minister for Employment and Labor between March 2013 and July 2014 under current President Park Geun-hye. In his former capacity as Senior Research Fellow at KLI, he authored several academic papers on demographic trends and pension systems in South Korea and the region, with a focus on old-age income security and productivity issues. After completing his B.A. at Hanguk University of Foreign Studies and earning an M.A. in Sociology from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Phang completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. |
Tue, 14 July 2015
South Korea’s path to democracy was long and arduous; as historian Bruce Cumings concluded, there “may be no country more deserving of democracy in our time than the Republic of Korea”. While many initially assumed Korea would transition towards a liberal democratic system following the end of Japanese colonialism, decades of authoritarianism and dictatorship ensued. Despite being founded as such in 1947, it is only four decades later that South Korea became a democracy in practice with the election of President Roh in December 1987. While the 1980s was the decade that saw democracy eventually triumph, the role played by pro-democracy movements in the 1970s has all too often been forgotten. Despite General Park Chung-hee iron fist rule, several social movements and constituencies – students, liberal church groups, unions, lawyers and journalists – structured and organized themselves during those years, paving the way for the major successes of the following decade. This is the core argument of Protest Dialectics: State Repression and South Korea’s Democracy Movement (Stanford University Press, 2015), written by Professor Paul Y. Chang, who kindly agreed to be our guest for this episode. Professor Chang is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. He received his PhD in Sociology from Stanford University in 2008. He taught at Yonsei and Singapore Management University before joining the Harvard faculty in 2013. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Korea Institute at Harvard University and is affiliated with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Harvard Asia Center’s Council on Asian Studies. Professor Chang has published several book chapters and articles in various academic journals, including Mobilization, Sociological Forum, Asian Perspectives and the Journal of Korean Studies. |
Tue, 7 July 2015
Co-Founder, Urban Detail - on the traditional Korean house, the Hanok, in Korea's past and present Whether in Myeondong, Yeoido, or in the famous Gangnam - skyscrapers and design buildings abound in Seoul. The South Korean capital, a city in ashes at the end of the Korean War, has become within a few decades a vibrant city and a fine example of architectural innovation and modernity. What fewer people know, however, is that recently there has also been a renewed interest in Korean traditional architecture. The hanok, the Korean ancestral house, has become increasingly popular among South Koreans and the government is now actively promoting it, domestically and abroad. In order to learn more about the hanok, its characteristics and history, as well as its current position in South Korean society, we met with Daniel Tändler, an architect specialized in the renovation of hanoks in Seoul. Daniel Tändler initially studied Economics at the University of Göttingen before changing field and studying Architecture and Urban Planning at RWTH Aachen (University of Aachen) in Germany. After graduation, he worked for a Korean architecture firm, a guga, during several years and eventually founded Urban Detail - Seoul, a planning office for traditional and modern Korean architecture and design with two Korean partners. He has also contributed to the foundation of the Chamoori cooperative, a construction company focused on traditional Korean architecture. |
Tue, 30 June 2015
Japan’s conquests in Asia during the late 19th and early 20th century had very material objectives: to secure resources and extend Japan’s power and influence. There is no denying Japanese imperialism inflicted great hardship upon its victims, and Korea in particular. Japan took great care however in justifying its actions from a legal and normative perspective. The goal was to convince the western “Great Powers” of the time that Japan was a civilized nation, one of “them”, and should be treated accordingly – it was no longer a land to conquer but a fellow colonial power. From a social darwinist perspective, Japan’s decision to engage in colonization was a deliberate strategy to avoid the fate of countless other nations that had fallen under Western imperialism and in a single word: survive. Professor Alexis Dudden from the University of Connecticut is our guest for this episode. She wrote extensively about the discourses and legal rationales that Japanese scholars and government officials relied on to justify the takeover and subsequent colonization of its neighboring countries, with a focus of course on Korea. She published two seminal books: Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power (University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), which provided the groundwork for this interview, and more recently Troubled Apologies Among Korea, Japan and the United States (Columbia University Press, 2008). She is currently working on her third book, Islands, Empire, Nation: A History of Modern Japan, under contract with Oxford University Press. Professor Dudden received her BA from Columbia University and her PhD in history from the University of Chicago. She has published in various academic journals and news outlets, including the Journal of Asian Studies, Dissent and the New York Times. |