Senior Military Fellow John Chu was promoted to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army at Stanford last Friday, a position selectively afforded for distinguished service and leadership. Colleagues and Stanford affiliates attended the afternoon ceremony marking the occasion.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Karl Eikenberry led the proceedings and recognized Chu’s accomplishments in the Army and his tenure as a researcher at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

“We look over the course of John’s life and where he’s been, and it says so much good about him and the strengths of the United States of America,” Eikenberry said.

“As threats have changed, doctrine has changed and our national security has changed, John has continued to adapt. It says a great deal about him, our services and our country that he has been able to steadily make those shifts over the course of his career.”

Chu was born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the United States. He attended West Point and later achieved advanced degrees in environmental engineering and national security. Chu has had three tours of duty in Korea and served in Iraq as staff at the highest strategic level, among other posts.

At Stanford, Chu has been studying U.S. policy toward North Korea and strategic deterrence on the Korea Peninsula as a fellow at FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during the current academic year.

The fellowship program, supported by the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, provides military officers an opportunity for self-directed study under the tutelage of Stanford scholars. The program started under former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry. Five fellows came to campus this year; their brief bios can be found here.

Chu thanked his wife of eighteen years, Tina, and expressed gratitude to everyone who guided him over the years.

“You are the real heroes – the people I’ve worked with throughout my career,” Chu said, addressing the audience. “It is you that really deserves all the recognition, for I would not be here today without the support of many.”

Chu expects to deploy to Afghanistan as his follow-on assignment.

South Korea and the United States are “completely aligned” on North Korea strategy, the chief American diplomat in South Korea said to a Stanford audience on Monday.

Mark Lippert, who assumed the role of U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea in 2014, delivered remarks at a public seminar, “Perspectives on the U.S.-Korea Alliance,” organized by the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Arriving from the Washington summit of President Obama and Korean President Park Geun-hye, Lippert spoke of the success of the state visit. The U.S.-Korea relationship is in “as good a shape as it’s ever been,” and that secure foundation is allowing the two countries to forge ahead on shared challenges, including North Korea, trade and global health.

Mark Lippert expressed optimism about the U.S.-ROK alliance at a Stanford talk on Oct. 19, 2015.

He said the United States and South Korea are invested in getting to a place where the North Koreans will “come back to the table” for discussions on ending their nuclear program, noting the continuing viability of the Six Party Talks mechanism which has been stalled for more than five years.

Lippert also cited U.S.-Korea strategic cooperation on sanctions against North Korea, and defense capabilities aimed to deter the threat of a North Korea with nuclear and long-range missile capacity.

Looking ahead, “The United States strongly supports calls for reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” he said. Human rights, a free economy and a democratically elected government in the North would be a priority in that pursuit.

Lippert said the United States is supportive of inter-Korean talks and reunions for families separated by the Korean War, both announced earlier this year. On Tuesday, hundreds of South Koreans crossed the border to meet with North Korean relatives, who have been separated for more than six decades.

Partnering on the economic level was another key aspect of the summit, Lippert said, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was among items discussed. The United States, as one of 12 TPP member nations, would welcome an application from South Korea should they choose to pursue it, he said.

Lippert acknowledged that South Korea already has bilateral trade agreements with 10 out of the 12 TPP member nations, including one with the United States. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) came into force in 2012 and is moving toward full implementation, he said. The United States’ sixth largest trading partner is South Korea.

Following his formal remarks, Lippert took questions from the audience.

Michael Armacost, a Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, asked Lippert how Japan and China figured into the summit discussions following recent developments. In September, President Park attended a military parade in Beijing that marked the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II. She was the only leader from a democratic country at the event.

Responding on China, Lippert said the United States is supportive of South Korea engaging with China. “We don’t view this as a zero-sum game,” he said, likening South Korea’s regional relationships to a situation where “all boats rise” together.

Dafna Zur, a professor of Korean culture and literature, asked Lippert to talk about how his education informed his career in public service.

Lippert attended Stanford and studied political science and international policy studies.

His education, he said, was invaluable in preparing him for the diverse situations and people that a diplomatic career brings.

Lippert encouraged students to savor conversation and debate in the classroom. Participating in that kind of forum not only “makes you a more informed person” but also “sharpens your analytic skills,” he said.

Prior to becoming ambassador, Lippert held senior positions in the Department of Defense and the White House and served in the U.S. Navy.

Following the event, Lippert met with faculty members of Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies for a roundtable discussion, chaired by Kathleen Stephens, a distinguished fellow at Shorenstein APARC and former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea (2008-11).

Embedded photo: Mark Lippert speaks at Stanford on Oct. 19, 2015. Photo credit: Heather Ahn.

In a new book, David Straub explains why massive anti-American protests erupted across South Korea in 2002 and considers whether it could happen again.

South Korea is often seen as a pro-American ally, a model country that went from a poor, postwar nation into a maturing democracy in just four short decades.

But despite a historic alliance between South Korea and the United States, anti-Americanism flared throughout the Asian nation between 1999-2002 when a series of events and longstanding tensions aligned, according to Stanford researcher David Straub.

“It was a sort of venting of steam,” said Straub, an associate director at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

“Many Koreans at the time were grossly overinterpreting issues and incidents involving the United States. And this was because they were viewing the U.S.-Korea relationship through a lens of historic victimization by other nations, including the United States,” he added.

Straub, who held a thirty-year diplomatic career in the State Department, headed the political section of the American embassy in Seoul during those years and was deeply involved in managing problems in the bilateral relationship.

Boiling point

Since the end of the Korean War, the United States Forces Korea (USFK) has been stationed in Seoul – now about 28,500 uniformed personnel.

In June 2002, a USFK vehicle struck two Korean students in a tragic accident. In December of that same year, after a U.S. court martial found the drivers of the vehicle not guilty of wrongdoing, hundreds of thousands of people protested in Seoul and other major Korean cities. Not only did activists partake but ordinary citizens too, he said.

Straub said the South Korean public had been “unintentionally primed” for such a reaction to the USFK traffic accident; it was the “spark that lit the firestorm” after years of escalation. A series of events led-up to the mass protests, they included:

• A few months before the USFK traffic accident, a Korean athlete was disqualified at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City during a speed skating competition. American athlete Apolo Anton Ohno instead won gold after a disputed call.
• A non-governmental organization in May 2000 revealed that USFK personnel dumped formaldehyde into a drain that ran into the Han River in Seoul.
• In Sept. 1999, the Associated Press published its first investigative story examining the Nogun-ri incident of 1950, when hundreds of Korean refugees were killed in an alleged massacre by U.S. service members.

Asymmetry of attention

Straub said the shaping of Koreans’ views of Americans and fanning of tensions could be attributed in part to an “asymmetry of attention” on the part of the Korean and American publics to the U.S.-Korean relationship.

While the Korean public put tremendous focus on U.S.-Korean relations and the presence of U.S. military personnel in Korea, the American public was unaware of Korean attitudes and feelings, he said.

Similarly during the 1999-2002 period, Korean media reported hypercritical views of the United States and USFK, while the American media paid far less attention.

In negotiating with U.S. officials, South Korean officials would often allude to strong Korean public opinion and demand U.S. concessions. With no American public opinion on Korea issues to point to, U.S. officials were at a major disadvantage, Straub said.

U.S. officials would sometimes note opinions shared by members of Congress, he said, “however, for Korean officials, those claims weren’t as powerful as having a social movement literally on the front doorstep.”

In plain terms, the United States is much larger than South Korea. This very imbalance – which translates to military and economic power – added to Koreans’ assumption that they were “getting the worse end of the bargain,” he added.

“Most Koreans saw Korea as a victim of great powers,” Straub said. “It’s not just the media. It’s more than that, it was – and still is – a shared national narrative.”

Koreans’ sense of national vulnerability is magnified by their historic victimization to neighbors. South Koreans do not want to become a de facto tributary state of China or a colony of Japan again, he said.

Will anti-Americanism return?

USFK incidents were a main focus of Korean attention during the 1999-2002 period, and while there is always a possibility of problems arising, the intensity is gone now, Straub said.

“Some steam is under the lid again,” Straub said. “But I don’t think it’s nearly at the level like it was back then. I’m doubtful that we’d see an exact repeat.”

The media landscape in South Korea has improved and shifted away from its earlier position of “criticize the United States first and ask questions later,” Straub said.

Today, South Korea and the United States are in good standing at the government-level and among the people. President Obama and Korean President Park Geun-hye have an established rapport.   

What troubles Koreans now is North Korea, a Japan focused on collective defense, and the strategic rivalry between the United States and China and its possible implications for Korea, he said.

“South Korea being sandwiched between the United States and China – based on a perception that China is going to be the world’s dominant power – is a real worry for many Koreans,” Straub said, and a large number of Koreans – albeit still a minority – feel that their country must find a more equidistant ground between the two.

Most Koreans, however, still believe in the need for the continued presence of USFK personnel, at least for the time being, said Straub, and must be reassured of their strategic alliance with the United States.

Obama and Park are expected to meet in Washington in mid-October, and Straub said it will be used as an opportunity for both sides to reinforce the importance they attach to the alliance and to pressing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.

Links to related articles

NK News: South Korean anti-Americanism dwindles, but roots remain: diplomat

NK News: South Korean anti-Americanism: a thing of the past?

Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea, July 2015

Asia Times: American faces Seoul court over infamous unsolved murder

The Christian Science Monitor: South Korea: 20 years later, Californian son faces trial for Seoul murder

JoongAng Ilbo: Is anti-Americanism dead?

JoongAng Ilbo (Korean): 한미동맹은 빈틈없이 튼실한가 전 미국 국무부 한국과장의 진단

North Korea today threatened military action against South Korea if it did not end its propaganda broadcasts along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) within 48 hours. The broadcasts against the North are being systematically blared by loudspeakers over the border.   

South Korea resumed the broadcasts earlier this week after an 11-year hiatus, in retaliation for North Korea’s planting landmines just outside a South Korean DMZ guard post that crippled two South Korean soldiers on Aug. 4.

David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and a former Korean affairs director at the U.S. Department of State, offers insights on the situation. Straub also spoke on PRI's "The World" radioshow on Aug. 20, the audioclip and summary can be accessed by clicking here.

What’s behind the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula?

Fundamentally, the current situation is just another symptom of the underlying problem, which is the division of Korea into two competing states, with one of them—North Korea—having a Stalinist totalitarian system and a Maoist-style cult of personality. Since North Korea can’t compete with the South economically and diplomatically, it uses the threat of force or the actual use of it to try to intimidate South Korea. The North Koreans know that South Korea tends to “blink first” and step back because it is democratic and its leaders are concerned about civilian casualties.

The current situation is also related to the leadership transition in North Korea, with leader Kim Jong Un succeeding his father Kim Jong Il three years ago. Kim Jong Un still feels insecure, which is clearly evidenced by his execution of his powerful uncle Jang Seong-taek in 2013 and many other leaders there as well. To solidify support for his rule, he also manufactures a South Korean threat to rally his people behind him.

What does North Korea want?

North Korea’s immediate demand is that South Korea stop its propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ. The South Korean broadcasts criticize the North Korean system and its leaders, which is something that the North, with its cult of personality, can’t accept. But the South resumed the broadcasts only because the North Koreans recently snuck into the South Korean side of the DMZ and viciously planted landmines just outside a South Korean guard post. These were clearly intended to maim South Korean soldiers. They did just that, blowing the legs off two young men.

The North Korean regime’s long-term aim is not just to survive but also to get the upper hand on South Korea, and eventually try again to reunify the peninsula on its own terms. That explains why North Korea behaves as it does, rather than reform its system and reconcile with the South.

The North also demands an end to all U.S. and South Korean military exercises on the peninsula—even though the North has a much larger military than the South and U.S. forces there combined and is developing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Ultimately, the North wants to end the U.S.-South Korean alliance and see U.S. forces withdrawn from the peninsula, in the belief that it will open the way to eventual victory over the South.

Why did the South resume the broadcasts? Was it a good idea?

South Korea resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts in retaliation for the maiming of two of its soldiers on August 4th. Rather than retaliate by attacking militarily, the South resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts because the South Korean military knows that North Korean leaders hate them.

The South Korean military believes that North Korean leaders hate the broadcasts because they are effective in educating young North Korean soldiers and civilians in earshot about the nature of the regime and its leaders. The South Korean military seems to assume that the broadcasts are effective in that regard because they anger the North Korean leaders so much. But I think the reason the broadcasts anger the North Korean leaders is due to the cult of personality. The North Korean system can’t accept the idea of its leaders being criticized.

So I don’t think it was necessarily a wise step on the part of the South Korean military to resume the broadcasts. On the other hand, politically, by crippling two South Korean soldiers, the North Koreans had left South Korea with no option but to respond in some way. After the North Koreans killed fifty South Koreans in two separate sneak attacks five years ago, the South Korean government warned that it was not going to sit back the next time. The resumption of the broadcasts has further raised tensions but, frankly, given the danger of war on the peninsula, the South doesn’t have a lot of good ways to respond to North Korean provocations.

How serious is the situation?

North Korea has now threatened military action in 48 hours if South Korea doesn’t end the propaganda broadcasts. The North often makes threats. Usually, it doesn’t carry them out, but sometimes it does.

The United States and South Korea are conducting an annual military exercise together in the South until the end of August—something else that the North Koreans are demanding an end to. Most experts feel that the North is unlikely to launch a major provocation while the American presence is bolstered and the U.S. and South Korean militaries are paying full attention. The North Korean leaders know they are weaker than our side, so they usually avoid frontal assaults and instead engage in sneak attacks, at times and places and in ways of their own choosing.

There is more uncertainty in recent years because of the aggressive and threatening behavior thus far of Kim Jong Un, who is young and inexperienced. He seems anxious about his position in the North and prepared to take risks to bolster it, including rallying the people behind him by raising tensions with the South. We also don’t know if the North feels freer to engage in major provocations because it has developed at least a handful of nuclear devices since its first nuclear test in 2006.

So I myself wouldn’t be afraid to visit Seoul now but the situation bears even closer watching than usual.

Two key challenges facing Northeast Asia are how to tame the power of nationalism and create shared memories of history, Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin wrote in The Diplomat. 

Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), urged action on the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II. Northeast Asians should use the commemoration as an “opportune occasion to reflect on their unfortunate past to learn lessons,” only then can the region become more peaceful and prosperous.

Shin and Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC’s associate director for research, lead the Divided Memories and Reconciliation research project which examines memories of the wartime experience in Northeast Asia and what steps can be taken to reconcile disputes over history.

One of their latest outcomes is the book Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies (April 2015), edited with University of Washington professor Daniel Chirot, that studies how wartime narratives are interpreted, memorialized and used in Europe and Asia.

The full article in The Diplomat can be accessed by clicking here.

The United Nations has thus far fulfilled its charter to prevent a third world war, but with 60 million refugees, continued bloodshed with unresolved civil conflicts and terrorism spreading like cancer, the world's leading peacekeeping organization must spearhead global action, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday at Stanford on the 70th anniversary of the international organization.

Ban, the U.N.'s eighth secretary-general, did not rest on any laurels during his speech at a public event sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). "I humbly accept criticism that the U.N. is not doing enough," he said. 

However, the situation could have been worse if not for the United Nations, he continued. "Without peacekeepers, or without the U.N.'s continued humanitarian assistance and advocacy of human rights, I'm afraid to tell you that this world would have been poorer, more dangerous and even bloodier without the United Nations."

Ban's visit to Stanford – his second to the university in less than three years – was part of a trip to the Bay Area to commemorate the signing of the U.N. charter. In 1945, representatives from 50 nations gathered in San Francisco to create the United Nations – an international organization aimed at saving future generations from the "scourge of war."

Today, the United Nations has grown to 193 member nations. Its challenges – from climate change and poverty to civil wars and terrorism – have never been greater, Ban said.

"This is a critical year; 2015 is a year of global action," he said. "The U.N. cannot do it alone. We need strong solidarity among government, business communities and civil societies, from each and every citizen."

The fact that so many young people around the globe are drawn to violent narratives is worrisome, Ban said. "Violent terrorism is spreading like cancer around the world."

The rise in terrorist activities stems from "a failure of leadership," he said. That's why the United Nations needs to develop a comprehensive plan of action to address extremism, he maintained.

The U.N.'s 70th anniversary coincidentally fell on a momentous day of tragedy and celebration around the world. Dozens were killed when terrorists launched horrific attacks across three continents – in France, Tunisia and Kuwait – fueling anger, sadness and fear of more violence.

But in the United States, celebrations rang out in response to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalizes same-sex marriages nationwide.

Ban, who has long advocated for equality and last year pushed the United Nations to recognize same-sex marriages of its staff, drew a round of applause when he heralded the court ruling as "a great step forward for human rights."

The June 26 event was co-sponsored by Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, with promotional co-sponsors Asia Society, Asia Foundation and the World Affairs Council of Northern California. 

May Wong is a freelance writer for the Stanford News Service.

Coverage and related multimedia links:

Remarks at Stanford University by Ban Ki-moon (U.N. News Centre, 6/26/15)

Photos of Ban Ki-moon at Stanford University (U.N. Photo, 6/26/15)

At Stanford University, Ban says U.N. ready to build a better future for all (U.N. News Centre, 6/27/2015)

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomes growing engagement of India, China (NDTV, 6/27/2015)

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks at Stanford, celebrates U.N.'s 70th anniversary (Stanford Daily, 6/29/15)

Hoover archival photographs featured at lecture delivered by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Hoover Institution, 6/29/2015)