Can anyone say that South Korean society and politics have become "transformed" since the 1987 democratic opening and transition? This statement is "admittedly ambitious" as a claim "because an endpoint of transformation can never be attained with certainty," the speaker argues.  After a successful democratic transition, South Korea’s next challenge lies in consolidating its democratic gains and building durable political institutions, requiring full compliance with democratic norms by all major political forces and interest groups in civil society. This on-going quest for liberal democracy, not easy for South Korea’s Sixth Republic, will be explored in Professor Kihl's presentation.

Young Whan Kihl is currently a visiting scholar in the Korean Studies Program at APARC. He is Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at Iowa State University. Professor Kihl taught courses on International Relations, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Behavior, and Comparative Foreign Policy at Iowa State University, 1974-2006, and served as Chair of the Department of Political Science, Juniata College, 1963-1974.  He was editor-in-chief of The International Journal of Korean Studies from 2004 to 2008 and was on the editorial advisory board of International Studies Quarterly from 1998 to 2004.  He has written numerous books on Korean politics, both North and South. Included in the list of his recent books are: North Korea: the Politics of Regime Survival, 2006 (coeditor) and Transforming Korean Politics: Democracy, Reform, and Culture, 2005.

Professor Kihl received a BA in Political Science and Economics from Grinnell College and a Ph.D. in International Politics and Organizations, Comparative Politics (Asia), and Political Behavior from New York University.

Since the inception of reform and opening-up thirty years ago, China has established a record of astonishing economic achievements and is, or will soon be, surpassing Japan as the world's second largest economy, something few people would have imagined three decades ago.

The information and communications technologies (ICT) industry is the backbone of the Chinese export driven growth strategy, which many argue as the primary driver of China's economic growth. Recent ICT policy initiatives demonstrate China's shifting strategy in pursuing a different path for the next phase of economic growth.

Promoting indigenous innovation and strengthening information security may be considered the two major thrusts of Chinese ICT policy initiatives. Technical standards, IPR treatments, government procurement, and special industry incentives are some examples of the former domain; internet filtering, compulsory certification of information security product, and encryption control are examples of the latter.

Many of these initiatives are controversial in the international trade arena. However, the real challenges of these policy initiatives concern whether they work to achieve the Chinese government's goal of maintaining sustainable growth. This presentation will attempt to evaluate these challenges.

Dr. John C. Chiang was appointed as Director of Global Innovation Research Center at Peking University in June 2008. He joined PKU in February 2006 as Professor in the Department of Management of Technology at the School of Software and Microelectronics. Dr. Chiang is also President of USITO, the organization representing five major US IT industry trade associations and close to 50 individual U.S. IT companies in China, a role he has held since October 2008.

Dr. Chiang came to China in 2000, joining Motorola China as Deputy GM of the infrastructure business unit, spearheading its post-WTO strategy. He then moved to Motorola China HQ, serving as Senior Director of Strategy and Business Development. In 2003, he served as Director of Motorola China R&D Institute, and in 2004, he became the founding president of Motorola (China) Technologies, Limited.

From October 2006 to September 2008, Dr. Chiang was a Partner in DragonBridge Capital, a U.S.-based merchant bank with China as its primary serving market.

Dr. Chiang was born in Beijing, raised in Taiwan, and received the Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1975. He received the EMBA from Georgia State University in 1989.

After his academic career, Dr. Chiang joined Bell Laboratories in 1979, and later held progressive technical and managerial positions at Racal-Milgo, Hayes, and GTE. He was Senior Vice President of Operations at KG Telecom and led the launch of the first private mobile services in Taiwan, during 1997-2000.

Dr. Chiang currently also serves as the Vice Chair of the China Association of Standards and as an Investment Advisor to the Beijing Municipal Government.

The exploration of visual archives related to Korean history has grown at an exponential rate over the past decade.  While photographs ostensibly hold the possibility of tranforming the captured ephemeral moments into the fixity of celluloid perpetuity, they can have profound effects on changing memories of the past, and collapsing time and space.  This lecture examines the history and the meanings of photography in modern Korean history through the two dual prisms of "wormholes" and "phantom zones."

Lynn is the AECL/KEPCO Chair in Korean Research at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia.  He is also the editor for the journal Pacific Affairs which has been published continuously since 1928.  His research covers a range of topics relating to modern and contemporary Korea (both South and North), and Japan.  His publications include Bipolar Orders: The Two Koreas Since 1989 (2007); "History of Gendered Migration in the Two Koreas," Harvard Asia Quarterly (2008); "Moving Pictures: Postcards of Colonial Korea," International Institute of Asian Studies Newsletter (2007); and "Vicarious Traumas: Television and Public Opinion in Japan's North Korea Policy," Pacific Affairs (2006).

Lynn received a B.A and an M.A from University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.