KEI Live

On June 25, 1950, North Korea launched a surprise invasion of South Korea and started a war that is still technically ongoing. But it was – as North Korea’s Kim Il-sung presumed when he launched the all-out assault – almost a short war.

The North Korean invasion force was comprised of more than a hundred Soviet tanks and an air force – all armaments that had devastated the German army on the Russian front during WWII. By contrast, the South Korean army had no tanks and an airforce comprised solely of reconnaissance planes.

Predictably, South Korea’s capital Seoul fell in three days. And by August, the North Korean forces had nearly reached the southern port city of Busan – the last pocket of territory held by the Republic of Korea. And had it not been for the intervention of the United Nations forces, South Korea as we know it would not exist.

Our guest today, Colonel John Stevens is a veteran of the Korean War – he was at the Busan Perimeter, also called the Nakdong Line. He joins us today by phone to tell us about his experience in the war.

If you would like more information about the Korean War Memorial Foundation, please visit https://www.kwmf.org/

Please also read about Colonel Stevens' service in the Pacific theater of the Second World War in this article: https://nedforney.com/index.php/2018/09/28/john-stevens-marine-wwii-korean-war/

In light of the meeting between China’s leader Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un this week, we are rebroadcasting an episode from February on Beijing’s foreign policy objectives on the Korean Peninsula.

The visit by Xi Jinping comes on the 70th year of official diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea – a date that the Chinese leader made sure to emphasize through an op-ed in North Korea’s official state newspaper (see here: https://bit.ly/2Zzu8oW).

Our guest, Dr. Lee Seong-hyon, is the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies and Department of Unification Strategy at the Sejong Institute. He sat down with KEI’s Juni Kim to provide us with his views on how China approaches the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and its broader ambitions in the region vis-a-vis the United States.

The North Korean economy is changing – we know this because of widely reported growth of private markets since the famine of 1990s. But black markets and illicit activities are not the only drivers of this development. The North Korean state is also actively promoting reform through the development of Special Economic Zones.

Dr. Theo Clement sits down with KEI to explain the deep roots of North Korea’s reform efforts and how it influences and is influenced by geopolitics. And most importantly, a police recommendation for how China, South Korea, and the United States should work together to push North Korea towards real reforms.

You can find Dr. Clement’s paper titled “From Failed Economic Interfaces to Political Levers: Assessing China-South Korea Competition and Cooperation Scenarios on North Korean Special Economic Zones” here: http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/kei_aps_clement_190604_final.pdf

In May, The Korean-born Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin was named The National League Pitcher of the Month.

When you think of Asians and baseball, you might think first of Japan – with famous players like Ichiro Suzuki and Yu Darvish in Major League Baseball. But South Korea also has an illustrious domestic league with competitive players who are breaking ground in the United States. How did baseball get its start in South Korea and where is it going? KEI Senior Director Troy Stangarone and intern Haram Chung explain the political origins of the Korean Baseball Organization and the where it is headed on the international stage.

In March, a curious protest took place in Seoul. Private kindergartens were going on strike. Protests by industry groups or workers are not uncommon in South Korea, but something about the protest in the childcare sector struck a raw nerve. What was the industry protesting against? And where are the public kindergartens?

KEI Senior Director Troy Stangarone and intern Steven Lim answer these questions and address how childcare affects demographic trends. Steven Lim's recent Peninsula Blog article is a good accompaniment for this episode, and we highly recommend you check it out: http://blog.keia.org/2019/05/market-options-fail-children/

North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song demanded that the United States release a North Korean vessel that is currently held by authorities in American Samoa, warning that the detention of the vessel would imperil any future disarmament negotiations.

But wait, why is there a North Korean vessel in American custody in the first place?

To answer that, our guest today is Hugh Griffith, the author of the UN panel of experts report on international sanctions against North Korea.

(You can also find the full report here: https://www.undocs.org/S/2019/171)

In this interview, he tells Korean Kontext about how North Korea has been using ship-to-ship transfers to evade sanctions and how illicit cybercrime activities now bring in as much revenue for Pyongyang as its weapons sales.

It’s been nearly one year since the Singapore Summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un and the two countries are at an impasse. North Korea signals no intention of giving up its existing nuclear arsenal before sanctions relief and the United States has repeatedly underscored that no sanctions would be lifted until Pyongyang makes an irreversible step towards disarmament. But why is this happening? Didn’t North Korea come to the table because international sanctions had become too unbearable? In the face of what the North Korean state media has called the worst drought in 40 years, shouldn’t Kim Jong-un want a compromise?

Or perhaps, we need to reexamine our assumptions and look at the world from behind Kim Jong-un’s desk. How would an autocrat change what had been his country’s single-minded objective for decades?

Our guest, Ken Gause is the foremost expert on North Korea’s leadership. In this episode, he scrutinizes what we think we know about Kim Jong-un.

Ken Gause is CNA's senior foreign leadership analyst and directs the organization's Adversary Analytics Program. He spent the last 20 years developing methodologies for examining leadership dynamics of hard-target, authoritarian regimes. In particular, he is an internationally respected expert on North Korea who has written three books on North Korean leadership, including "North Korean House of Cards: Leadership Dynamics Under Kim Jong-un."

Please also find the video of KEI's public event with Ken Gause here: https://youtu.be/xpup38ee1Ds

What if our understanding of North Korea is inadvertently colored by the very resources that we rely on to deepen our knowledge of the country? What does this say about our policies towards North Korea, our coordination with South Korea on North Korea, and the discipline of international relations as a whole? 

Professor Jeffrey Robertson tackled these very questions in his latest paper for the Korea Economic Institute, titled "Is Pyongyang Different in Washington and Seoul? English and Korean Language Policy Discourse on North Korea."

In this interview, he addresses the most fundamental question in diplomacy: how do we go about engaging with a country that comes to the table with a different history, perceives events in a different context, and speaks a different language. 

You can find his article in this link below: http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/kei_aps_robertson_190423.pdf

His book “Diplomatic Style and Foreign Policy: A Case Study of South Korea” is available from Routledge. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1138334154/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_6.B1Cb6PTWAX5

Although it is happening more rapidly in South Korea, an aging society is a common feature in post-industrial societies around the world. With the number of retirees growing and the number of children dwindling, countries are faced with numerous public policy challenges: how to pay for public schools with smaller and smaller enrolments, how to provide a comfortable and fulfilling life for people after retirement, how to best pass on the knowledge accrued by older workers, etc. Carefully measured planning and public policy are required to address these challenges.

We are rebroadcasting an episode from 2017. Jenna Gibson interviewed executives at a company in South Korea called SAY that pairs senior citizen tutors with young students - a market-based solution to some of the challenges that aging societies face. 

Please also find in the link below, the article from the New York Times on how a rural town in southwestern South Korea is responding to low school enrollment due to demographic decline: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/world/asia/south-korea-school-grandmothers.html

In March, Seoul suffered from the worst air pollution on record. Enough that the South Korean government has officially designated the problem as a social disaster. But what is causing this high level of air pollution – and what exactly is ultrafine dust? And what does the Korean government plan on doing about it? KEI Senior Director Troy Stangarone and Yea Ji Nam are here to answer all these questions.

Yea Ji Nam's recent Peninsula Blog article is a good accompaniment for this episode, and we highly recommend you check it out: http://blog.keia.org/2019/04/fine-dust-impedes-south-koreas-economic-growth/

Please enjoy our very first episode of Korean Kontext Explainer.