The intensifying strategic competition between the United States and China has put substantial pressure on South Korea concerning several strategic issues. The U.S.-China rivalry is only likely to continue with the upcoming American presidential election in 2024.

As the South Korean government has recently tilted toward the United States, China wants South Korea to take a more balanced approach in its policies between the two countries. China is also expressing concern on matters of interest to it, such as the THAAD deployment, supply chain reset, and issues of the Taiwan Strait and the regional status of Xinjiang.

As Ambassador Jung-Seung Shin will argue, South Korean foreign policies should be based on its national interests and reflect its identity and the values its people share. Therefore, according to Shin, South Korea should not only make efforts to further strengthen the KORUS alliance for the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region, but to properly manage its relations with China.

Featured Speaker

Ambassador Jung-Seung Shin joins the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as Visiting Scholar and Payne Distinguished Fellow for the 2023 winter quarter. He previously served as Ambassador for the Republic of Korea to the People's Republic of China from 2008 to 2010, and currently serves as Chair Professor at the East Asia Institute at Dongseo University. While at Stanford, he will be conducting research on the strategic relationships between Korea, China, and the United States.

Discussant

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, nuclear dynamics, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she works as a strategic planner at INDOPACOM.

She has published widely, including in International Security, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, Survival, and Asian Security. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member.

Moderator

Gi-Wook Shin is the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea; the founding director of the Korea Program; a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and a professor of sociology, all at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations. 

Shin is the author/editor of more than twenty books and numerous articles. His recent books include South Korea's Democracy in Crisis (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Demographics and Innovation in the Asia-Pacific (2021); and Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy from Asia (2020). His new research initiative examines potential benefits of talent flows in the Asia-Pacific region, where countries, cities, and corporations have competed with one another to enhance their stock of "brain power" by drawing on the skills of both their own citizens and those of foreigners.

This event is part of the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Lecture Series. 

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations. Their descendants endowed the annual lecture series at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.

The Payne Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking, a broad, practical grasp of a given field, and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges.