William Brown (Bill) is an economist and senior research analyst with CENTRA Technology, Inc. of Northern Virginia, specializing in North Asia-area economics. He is also a member of the adjunct faculty of George Mason University's graduate school of public policy where he teaches courses on Asian economic development and international trade.

Bill has extensive experience as an economic analyst in the US government, having worked in the Chief Economist's Office of the Commerce Department, as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Economics in the National Intelligence Council, and as an eco-nomic analyst in the CIA's Office of Economic Research where he focused on his research on the North Korean and Chinese economies. He served for two years in the US Embassy in Seoul and has traveled extensively in the region, including a trip last summer across the DMZ into North Korea.

Mr. Brown writes occasionally for the Chosun Ilbo in Seoul and speaks on Korean and Chinese issues to a number of Asian and US audiences. He holds an M.A. in economics from Washington University, Missouri with most of his Ph.D. work completed, and a B.A. in International Studies from Rhodes College, Tennessee. He grew up in Kwangju, South Korea as the son and grandson of Presbyterian missionaries and speaks and reads some Korean and Chinese.

Hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum as part of its ongoing seminar series on North Korea.

A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP to Rakhi Patel at rpatel80@stanford.edu by Tuesday, May 5. Only recently have scholars begun to invest a substantial amount of effort in researching the history of the "forgotten" region of P'yóngan Province in Korean historiography. These works, which focus mostly on the period before the Hong Kyóngnae Rebellion of 1812, mainly investigate particular historical experiences of this region that culminated in the cross-class rebellion. These works are extremely valuable for a number of reasons. They represent the first comprehensive historical research on the northwestern region of the Korean peninsula, currently a part of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea). Most of these studies start with the notion that there was no yangban aristocracy in P'yóngan Province -- a prevailing perception of late Chosón literati, and one that rationalized social and political discrimination against people from this region. One of the main goals of this study is to challenge this perspective through a close reading of the writings of Paek Kyónghae (1765-1842), a literatus from P'yóngan Province, to illuminate his perceptions and responses to regional discrimination and his cultural identity as a man from a politically and socially condemned region. This discussion offers a microscopic examination of the bilateral relations between the center and the periphery through Paek's life experiences. Particularly because Paek Kyónghae lived as a yangban official through the major social and political disruption posed by the Hong Kyóngnae Rebellion -- to which regional discrimination against the people of P'yóngan Province in terms of political advancement by the central court provided an ideological justification -- his views and personal choices partly explain how the existing regime survived the rebellion.

A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP by 12:00pm, Wednesday, April 21 to Rakhi Patel. In the last three years, partly as the result of the efforts of a burgeoning conservative movement, the issue of human rights in North Korea has attained greater prominence in the statements and policy positions of the U.S. government. The administration connects this shift in emphasis in U.S. policy to its calls for greater moral clarity in foreign policy. At the same time, the administration has clearly enunciated its desire for regime change in North Korea, and the human rights issue has served as a method of cultivating public support for this policy, both domestically and internationally. Toward this end, the administration has revived a Cold War foreign policy approach from the 1970s and 1980s that connected human rights to economic and security issues--exemplified in the Jackson-Vanik amendment linking trade to emigration levels for Soviet Jews and the inclusion of human rights issues in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The application of this model to North Korea demonstrates a failure to understand the differences between Eastern Europe and East Asia in general and the nature of civil society under Soviet communism and North Korean juche. It also fails to draw any useful lessons from the experience of the European Union and South Korea in dealing with Pyongyang on human rights. The unquestionably dire human rights situation in North Korea--and the character of its government and society--requires a set of policy approaches that need updating from the Cold War period and adaptation to the North Korean and East Asian context. John Feffer's most recent book is North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories, 2003). He is also the editor of the Foreign Policy in Focus book Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Policy after September 11 (Seven Stories, 2003). His other books include Beyond Detente: Soviet Foreign Policy and U.S. Options (Hill & Wang, 1990) and Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions (South End, 1992). His other edited collections include Living in Hope: People Challenging Globalization (Zed Books, 2002) and (with Richard Caplan) Europe's New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict (Oxford University Press, 1996). His articles have appeared in The American Prospect, The Progressive, Newsday, Asiaweek, Asia Times, TomPaine.com, Salon.com, and elsewhere. He is a former associate editor of World Policy Journal and has worked for the American Friends Service Committee, most recently as an international affairs representative in East Asia. He serves on the advisory committees of FPIF and the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea.