KEI Live

Over the past few years, Korea and Koreans have experienced incredible political, social, and diplomatic shifts.

It is hard keeping up with all these new developments as a Korea Watcher, so the task of reporting the daily news has been doubly challenging.

We are replaying an episode that we broadcasted in May 2018 with then-NPR Seoul correspondent Elise Hu who was present to cover the attack on then-U.S. ambassador to Korea Mark Lippert, the collapse of the Park Geun-hye administration, the transition to President Moon Jae-in, the Winter Olympics, and other key events.

In addition, Elise talks about the challenges that came with opening a news bureau in Korea and generally getting by in Seoul as an American. Our senior director Troy Stangarone led the interview.

Elise Hu is a still with NPR and is based out of Culver City, CA. You can find the Youtube series "Elise Tries" here: https://youtu.be/MJDiQQpGPW0

You can also follow her on twitter @elisewho

Even before the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, foreign policy practitioners and observers were talking about the difficulties of sequencing international sanctions relief for North Korea denuclearization and disarmament. Sure enough, North Korea demands more sanctions relief while Washington wants more disarmament. Following the disappointing conclusion to the summit in Hanoi, it feels like we are at an impasse despite the many summit meetings between President Trump, Kim Jong-un, and President Moon Jae-in over the past several months.

What is the right way forward?

Our guest, Daniel Wertz from the National Committee on North Korea, believes that the U.S. approach to negotiations with North Korea has been too inflexible – pointedly, he calls out the fact that the maximum pressure campaign launched against Pyongyang is meaningless if it does not translate to outcomes at the negotiating table.

The discussion builds on his recent Academic Paper Series report for the Korea Economic Institute, which you can find here:

http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/kei_aps_wertz_190409_final.pdf

Also, if you would like to sign up for KEI's newsletter - Korea View - please sign up in the link here:

https://keia.us11.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=adc207a44e9875eccbf423cd6&id=2b08a7c004

Recently released data from the Department of Commerce confirmed that the United States achieved record-level export of services to South Korea in 2018 - $24.5 billion. Combined with the trade in physical goods, the total bilateral trade deficit between the United States and South Korea is at an 8-year low. Now, there are eight more countries with a higher bilateral trade deficit with the United States than Korea, including France, Italy, and Taiwan.

Trade deficit with South Korea was something that President Trump highlighted during his presidential campaign – he blamed this on the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and in 2017 called for the agreement to be renegotiated. A new agreement was negotiated in 2018 but the newest data suggests that the old agreement may not have been the key driver or a widening trade deficit after all. 

At this point in time, we look back and replay an episode from September 2017 where KEI's panel of Phil Eskeland, Troy Stangarone, and Kyle Ferrier analyzed President Trump’s approach to the Korea-US free trade agreement and recommended against abruptly revising the treaty.

You can also read KEI's summary of the 2018 trade data here: http://blog.keia.org/2019/03/overall-u-s-trade-deficit-korea-drops-pre-korus-levels/

We imagine North Korea as a country that is carrying on not only a conflict left over from the Cold War, but also a decrepit legacy economy from the past. So when recent travelers reported seeing digital billboards at shopping malls in Pyongyang, it caught many international observers by surprise. Moreover, we see everyday people in Pyongyang using cellphones on the street.

We’ve known for a while that USB sticks are used to smuggle South Korean pop culture content into North Korea - so we knew that some North Koreans have computer devices. But what has become more evident in recent years is the extent to which mobile technology has been embraced not just illicitly by the North Korean people, but also formally by the state as part of its economic plan.

KEI's non-resident fellow Yonho Kim sits down with Korean Kontext to discuss the evolution of cell phone adoption in North Korea and how it has changed society, particularly in the economic space where mobile technology has revolutionized the nascent private sector. His recent paper on this topic for the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is available in the link below:

http://www.hrnkinsider.org/2019/01/north-koreas-mobile-telecommunications.html

KEI also recommends an accompanying paper titled "Information Technology and Social Controls in North Korea" by Scott Thomas Bruce from 2014, which you can find in the link below:

http://keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/2014_aps_scottbruce.pdf

While North Korea under the Kim regime has tried to maintain tight control of information sources within its borders, the North Korean populace in recent years has found creative ways to access outside media, which includes everything from foreign news broadcasts to the latest South Korean dramas.

Nat Kretchen, Deputy Director at the Open Technology Fund, participated in a panel here at KEI this week and discussed his research on North Korea’s developing information environment. Nat sat down with us afterwards to talk more about how everyday North Koreans access information and how the regime is fighting back against the increase of foreign media in the country.

Note: This episode was originally published on October 20, 2017

We are still digesting the series of summitry that took place in the past few months between North Korea, the United States, and South Korea.

We rightly recognize the historic nature of the president of the United States meeting with the North Korean leader. But more than 50 years ago, there was another meeting between big personalities over the issue of Korea that was just as historic but is all but forgotten today. And while the international environment has changed drastically since, the lessons that the meeting offers to summit goers today is critical.

Our guest today, KEI Vice President Mark Tokola, has just written an essay on this event using declassified state department documents.

You can find Mark Tokola's essay here: http://www.theasanforum.org/9324-2/

The second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on February 27 and 28 ended without an agreement. The key difference in the two leaders’ negotiating positions appears to have been over sanctions relief. If negotiations continue, further discussions on the sequence of sanctions relief are sure to arise.

At this moment, we wanted to rebroadcast an episode from December 2016, just as the United Nations was escalating sanctions against North Korea in response to their fourth nuclear test in January of that year. KEI’s Troy Stangarone sat down with one of the foremost experts on North Korean sanctions, Dr. Stephan Haggard, distinguished professor of political science and director of the Korea-Pacific Program at the school of global policy and strategy at the University of California San Diego. Their discussion explores the strengths and limitations of the sanctions regime, alongside what the international body hopes to achieve as a result.

As the complex negotiations between North Korea, United States, and South Korea continue, it is worthwhile to review what the current U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula looks like. For this, we are airing a special episode of the wonderful podcast the General and the Ambassador from the American Academy of Diplomacy. The episode features KEI President and former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens (2008-2011) and General Skip Sharp who served as the commander of the ROK-US combined forces during the same time.

They will discuss the evolution and trajectory of the U.S.-Korea relationship and specifically, reflect on the twin crises of 2010 – when the North Korean military scuttled a South Korea naval vessel in March and then shelled an island later that year.

You can find more episodes from the General and the Ambassador series at the American Academy of Diplomacy website:https://www.generalambassadorpodcast.org

Despite all the attention around the upcoming second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, we in the United States still know very little about North Korea, its people, and their aspirations. There is, of course, no public opinion polling. Single-party rule means that there is no platform where the Korean Workers’ Party carries out an in-depth discussion on the direction of the country.

There is one exception: literature. As a result, state-sanctioned short stories and novels are the windows through which the outside world can begin to understand what North Korea’s leaders envision as an ideal society.

Of particular interest, what of North Korea’s promise to deliver a strong and prosperous country by 2012? How are they messaging the party’s accomplishments?  Has it arrived - if it has, how does North Korea explain the economic challenges that people face? if it has not yet arrived - why should the people continue to have confidence in the Party?

Our guest today, Dr. Meredith Shaw, a researcher of North Korean literature from the University of Tokyo, will address these questions and more.

You can find her presentation at KEI here: https://youtu.be/uwUqeQMdwHM

You can also find her blog on North Korean literature here: dprklit.blogspot.com

As we approach the second US-DPRK Summit, the media in the United States is so focused on the dynamics between President Trump and Kim Jong-un that the interests and motivations of another key player has gone under-discussed: China.

It was Kim’s meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this year that alerted the world to Pyongyang’s intentions to advance the second Summit meeting with the United States. China is also North Korea’s most prominent economic partner.

And yet we do not give enough thought to how China may be approaching the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Our guest today, 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.

He also led a seminar discussion on this very topic at the Korea Economic Institute in October 2018 - which you can see in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qcVf-A8FzE