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Video Interview with Koret Fellow Andray Abrahamian

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We sat down with our 2018-19 Koret Fellow in Korean Studies Andray Abrahamian to discuss North Korea denuclearization and the approaching Trump-Kim second summit in Hanoi; Abrahamian's work with the nonprofit organization Choson Exchange that took him to North Korea nearly thirty times; his book that compares North Korea and Myanmar; and his fellowship experience. Watch: 

 

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There’s a Silver Lining in the Clouds Over the North Korea Negotiations

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Andray Abrahamian
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The failure of high-level discussions may force Washington and Pyongyang to start more effective working-level talks.

HANOI—On Thursday afternoon, as it became clear that lunch between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump was off and that there would be no signing of an agreement between their two countries, storm clouds briefly gathered over Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi.
 
In the nearby Metropole hotel, the mood had darkened as well. The summit between the leaders was supposed to kick off a process of some form of denuclearization, through which the two countries would try to build a better relationship. Eventually, the sides hoped, zero-sum “I win, you lose” politics would be replaced by win-win cooperation. 
 
But the United States and North Korea couldn’t agree on the value of the Yongbyon nuclear complex. In a press conference that took the place of the scheduled lunch and signing, Trump said the North Koreans had wanted all sanctions lifted in return for the closure of Yongbyon. At midnight, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho contradicted the U.S. president, saying that his team had only sought some sanctions relief as per five articles adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 2016 and 2017. A Trump administration official later confirmed that Ri’s description was more accurate. Regardless, the two sides couldn’t agree on the core issue, and the summit was abruptly adjourned.
 
Read the full article in Foreign Policy.
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Workers remove the U.S flag from a display that was erected for the DPRK-USA summit, ahead of the arrival of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Presidential Palace on March 1, 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam
Workers remove the U.S flag from a display that was erected for the DPRK-USA summit, ahead of the arrival of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Presidential Palace on March 1, 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam. | Carl Court/Getty Images
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Civil Wars, Intrastate Violence, and International Responses

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From October 22–23, 2018, the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative (USASI) at Stanford University, in conjunction with the Institute for China-U.S. People-to-People Exchange at Peking University and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), gathered scholars and policy practitioners at the Stanford Center at Peking University to participate in the “Civil Wars, Intrastate Violence, and International Responses” workshop. The workshop was an extension of a project examining the threats posed by intrastate warfare launched in 2015 and led by AAAS and Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The goal of this workshop was to facilitate frank discussions exposing participants to a wide range of views on intrastate violence and international responses.

The workshop was divided into sessions that assessed trends in intrastate violence since the end of the Cold War, examined the threats to international security posed by civil wars and intrastate violence, and evaluated international responses, including an analysis of the limits of intervention and a discussion of policy recommendations. Participants also had an opportunity to make closing comments and recommendations for future research.

This report provides an executive summary and summaries of the workshop sessions on a non-attribution basis.
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Why Walking Away from Kim's Deal May Have Been the Right Move

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Gi-Wook Shin
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President Trump caught the world by surprise once again yesterday with a decision not to sign a deal with his North Korean counterpart, Chairman Kim Jong-un, in Hanoi, Vietnam. While walking away is a common tactic in working-level negotiation, what happened in Hanoi was a rare case and the least expected outcome.

Read the full article on Axios.

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President Trump at a news conference following his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. | Tuan Mark via Getty Images
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Elizabeth Economy on Xi Jinping’s Third Revolution and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

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Noa Ronkin
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In her acclaimed book The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, Chinese domestic and foreign policy expert Elizabeth Economy argues that Xi Jinping’s dual-reform trajectories—a more authoritarian system at home and a more ambitious foreign policy abroad—provide Beijing with new levers of influence that the United States must learn to use to protect its own interests.
 
Economy, the C. V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, kicked off the China Program’s 2019 winter colloquia with a discussion of the transformations underway in China today and the future of U.S.-China relations.
 
Speaking to a packed audience, Economy described how, in the process of pursuing his vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese dream, Xi Jinping has upended much of Deng Xiaoping’s "second revolution" and has put in motion four significant strategic shifts in Chinese domestic and foreign policy.
 
The first shift is a move away from Deng’s consensus- and collective-based decision-making process back toward a more single-man, authoritarian role. The second is a reassertion of the Chinese Communist Party more deeply into the everyday political and economic lives of the Chinese people. The third is a creation of a virtual wall of restrictions and regulations that allows Xi and the rest of the Chinese leadership to control more closely what comes into the country and what goes out. The fourth shift, the most visible one to people outside China, is the move from Deng’s low-profile foreign policy to a far more ambitious foreign policy.
 
This foreign policy shift, said Economy, is especially noteworthy in three areas: first, in Xi’s move from staking claims around Chinese sovereignty to realizing them; second, in his Belt and Road Initiative; and third, in his effort to reform institutions of global governance so that they reflect Chinese values and norms.
 
How should the United States address these changes in China’s domestic and foreign policy? Economy listed four ways of response: first, cooperation, namely, collaborating with China on global problems such as those concerning public health or the environment; second, coordination with U.S. allies; third, countering China by pushing back on, for example, its South China Sea claims and incidents of intellectual property infringement; and finally, competing with China by investing domestically in areas including education and research and technological development.
 
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Podcast: Donald K. Emmerson on How Southeast Asian Nations Balance China-U.S. Relations

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As tension grows between China and the United States, its effects are felt across Asia. APARC's Southeast Asia Program Director Donald K. Emmerson sat down with Michael McFaul, FSI's Director and host of FSI's podcast World Class, to talk about why Southeast Asia in particular is caught in that rising tension between China and the United States and what can be done to prevent it from becoming a battle ground for a new Cold War between the two superpowers.

Listen to the conversation:

 

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U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun Delivers First Public Address on U.S.-DPRK Diplomacy at a Shorenstein APARC Event

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Noa Ronkin
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The United States is prepared to pursue “simultaneously and in parallel” all of the commitments outlined at the Trump-Kim Singapore Summit, said the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun at an event hosted by Shorenstein APARC on Thursday, January 31.
 
Biegun's remarks, delivered as he prepares to travel to South Korea for meetings with North and South Korean officials, were his first public address since he began his appointment in August 2018. On behalf of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Mr. Biegun directs all U.S. policy on North Korea and leads negotiations.
 
Just prior to the event President Trump said he will announce next week the site and date for the second summit he plans with Kim Jong Un at the end of February. Biegun noted that the U.S. is prepared to move forward “provided that North Korea likewise fulfills its commitment to final, fully verified denuclearization” and that “there are many challenges that make it especially complicated for the United States and North Korea to embark upon a diplomatic initiative of this magnitude.” But he also highlighted several areas of progress and concluded his remarks by saying, “Now is the opportunity. Now is the moment. The United States is ready to turn the vision outlined by President Trump and Chairman Kim at Singapore into reality.”
 
Mr. Biegun’s public address was followed by a conversation with Robert Carlin, a specialist on U.S.–North Korea relations and a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. The event concluded with a question-and-answer session. 
 
You can read a transcript of Mr. Biegun’s remarks.
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Stephen Biegun delivers remarks at Stanford at a Shorenstein APARC event.
Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service
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David M. Lampton

Shorenstein APARC Stanford University Encina Hall Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow
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David M. (“Mike”) Lampton is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at FSI and affiliated with Shorenstein APARC. Lampton (BA ’68, MA ’71, PhD ’74), an expert in Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations, is the Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Emeritus.   Lampton's current book project is focused on the development of high-speed railways from southern China to Singapore. He is the author of a dozen books and monographs, including Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (University of California Press, 2014, and second edition 2019) and The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (University of California Press, 2008). He has testified at multiple congressional and commission sessions and published numerous articles, essays, book reviews, and opinion pieces in many venues popular and academic in both the western world and in Chinese-speaking societies, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many others.   Over the course of his career, Lampton accompanied American public and private sector leaders to China, and Chinese leaders to the United States. Formerly President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, Lampton consults with government, business, and social sector organizations, and has served on the boards of several non-governmental and educational organizations, including the Asia Foundation for which he served as chairman. The recipient of many academic awards, he is an Honorary Senior Fellow of the American Studies Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, former Gilman Scholar at Johns Hopkins, and the inaugural winner of the Scalapino Prize in 2010, awarded by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in recognition of his exceptional contributions to America’s understanding of the vast changes underway in Asia.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun to Speak at Shorenstein APARC Event

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JANUARY 30 UPDATE
 
A live video stream of the discussion with Stephen Biegun will be available through Shorenstein APARC's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/stanfordsaparc.

 

Stephen Biegun, the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, will deliver public remarks as part of a discussion on the DPRK hosted by Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) on Thursday, January 31, at 12 p.m. As Special Representative, on behalf of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Mr. Biegun directs all U.S. policy on North Korea, leads negotiations, and spearheads U.S. diplomatic efforts with allies and partners.
 
Following his opening remarks, Mr. Biegun will be in conversation with Robert Carlin, an expert on U.S.-North Korea relations and a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. The event will conclude with a question-and-answer session. It will be held at the Koret-Taube Conference Center at the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn SIEPR Building.
 
The event is open to the Stanford community and the public, but a Stanford or government-issued ID must be presented for admission.
 
The event is on-the-record but off-camera: no photography or video recording will be allowed. Cameras will not be allowed inside the venue.
Media Advisory:
Journalists interested in covering the discussion on the DPRK with Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun should contact Shorenstein APARC’s Associate Director for Communications and External Relations Noa Ronkin at noa.ronkin@stanford.edu by 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 30, to register. At the venue, they will be required to present a press credential from an established news organization. Freelance reporters should email a letter from the news organization for which they work to Noa Ronkin by the January 30 deadline. The press area is limited and press seating is not guaranteed.
 
As noted above, the event is on-the-record but off-camera.
 
Attendees and media should enter the campus via Galvez Street and park at the Galvez Lot or other designated, paid visitor parking. See also Stanford’s parking map. No parking at the Stanford Oval is allowed.
View Event Page
 

 

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Sung Andrew Kim

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Sung Hyun "Andrew" Kim was a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) through December 2019. Previously he was William J. Perry visiting scholar at APARC. Kim, who retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2018 as a senior intelligence officer after 28 years of service, was assistant director of the CIA's Korea Mission Center, where he helped secure the foundation for the Trump-Kim summit of June 2018.  At Stanford, he will contribute to studies of current North Korea diplomacy in comparison to previous negotiations with the DPRK, a research scope that he refers to as "U.S.-DPRK summit of the century and the tide of history."  Kim will also participate in policy engagement regarding North Korea issues through Shorenstein APARC and its Korea Program.

Kim established the CIA's Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in response to a presidential initiative to address North Korea's longstanding threat to global security. As part of his role as head of the Mission Center, he managed and guided CIA Korean analysts in providing strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He accompanied CIA Director and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang in meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times. Formerly he served as the Agency's associate deputy director for operations and technology, leading all efforts to update operational technology and incorporate a state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula.

Earlier in his career, Kim served as the CIA's chief of station in three major East Asian cities, while also managing the intelligence relationship with politically and militarily complicated foreign countries and advancing U.S. interests. In recognition of his many contributions, Kim was honored by the Agency with the Director's Award (2018), Presidential Rank Award (2012), and the Donovan Award (1990). He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.

Visiting Scholar at APARC
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