In the waning days of the Clinton administration, the momentum for engagement with North Korea, building from the earlier agreement to freeze its nuclear program and a moratorium on ballistic missile launches, accelerated to the brink of full-scale normalization of relations. The U.S. presidential election in 2000 brought that diplomatic freight train to an abrupt halt.

Will the 2008 election bring yet another dramatic change in U.S. Korea policy?

The answer, based on the published positions of the two candidates and conversations with his senior Asia policy advisors, seems to be NO. There are important differences of emphasis in the approaches of both candidates, which I will discuss, but the bottom line is that both men are likely to pick up where President George W. Bush leaves off.

There are two fundamental reasons why U.S. policy toward Korea – and more broadly in Northeast Asia --- will not change dramatically. First, Asia will continue to suffer from a deficit of presidential attention. The arc of crisis – Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- will necessarily still command, as it has for almost 8 years, the attention of senior American policymakers. Even that will have to fight for space with the growing global financial crisis.

Second, both candidates agree on the broad outlines of an Asia policy, one that does not depart radically from the one pursued by the Bush administration. As a senior McCain advisor put it to me: “There is not a huge difference on Asia between Obama and McCain.” Privately, Obama advisors also stress that there will not be a huge break with current U.S. policy.

Both campaigns are critical of the lack of attention paid to Asia and the need for the U.S. to be more proactive to strengthen existing alliances and to join the discussion about new forms of regional integration. Both candidates support the need to engage, rather than confront, a rising China. Both men call for the U.S. to pay more attention to management of our alliances with South Korea and Japan. And both Obama and McCain support the North Korean nuclear negotiations carried out by President Bush in his second term, although privately both campaigns are critical of the deal that has been struck.

If there are differences, they can be found in two areas – support for the Korea US free trade agreement and the willingness to directly engage North Korea and its regime.

Free Trade and the KORUS Free Trade Agreement

If there is one single issue regarding Korea on which Senators Obama and McCain clearly part company, it is the future of the free trade agreement negotiated with the Bush administration. Senator McCain is an unambiguous supporter of the FTA, not only as a trade pact but also as a symbol of the broader partnership between the U.S. and South Korea.

Senator Obama also supports free trade but is critical of this and other agreements, such as NAFTA, for failing to ensure market access and the protection of labor rights and the environment. Privately, Obama’s advisors understand the symbolic value of the FTA to the alliance, but they plan to ask Seoul to reopen talks on market access, particularly for the automobile industry. Their position reflects the importance of trade unions and the role of some key states – Michigan most of all – in the election outcome. Even if Obama loses, the Democrats are likely to strengthen their control of Congress, making approval of the FTA difficult under any circumstances.

Negotiating with Pyongyang: Back to the Future?

Both the McCain and the Obama camps publicly back the Bush administration’s negotiations with Pyongyang, but both are also privately critical, though for different reasons.

The Obama team is heavily populated by former Clinton administration officials who were involved in the negotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea. They see the current deal as an inevitably flawed bargain, the result of the refusal of the administration to seriously engage the North directly until it had crossed the red line of nuclear weapons testing. With little leverage, not least the credible threat of coercion, we are left with containing the plutonium production of the North, and hoping that a grand bargain down the line can yield full denuclearization.

Obama recognizes the need for “close coordination and consultation with our allies South Korea and Japan,” as one of his advisors put it in a published interview, and supports continuing the Six Party Talks. But the emphasis is clearly on direct talks with North Korea, though conducted with a principled toughness that the Bush administration has not exhibited in its final months in office.

That readiness to conduct direct negotiations, up to conclusion of a peace treaty with Pyongyang and full normalization of relations, is where the two candidates part company. The Republican nominee is clearly uncomfortable with direct dealings with Pyongyang – his position resembles the first term of the Bush administration more than the second in that respect. His advisory team combines realists, mainly veterans of the Powell State Department, and neoconservatives, reproducing the divisions that thwarted coherent policy-making in that first Bush term.

In the end, the views of McCain himself may be decisive. He was an opponent of the Agreed Framework, an agreement he characterized as “appeasement.” He maintained this stance into the Bush administration, vocally opposing any direct negotiations with the North Koreans as long as they maintained the right to develop nuclear weapons. He has been critical as well of the main deal struck by President Bush in his second term – “I didn’t believe in the KEDO agreement that President Clinton made and I don’t believe in this one,” he said in January.

McCain, according to an interview with one of his senior Asia advisors, would “seek a return to the core principles of denuclearization known as CVID, or complete, verifiable, irreversible, dismantlement.” The demand for CVID was the watchword of the Bush administration’s earlier stance, in effect a call for Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear option as a first step. But that demand was dropped after Pyongyang called the Bush administration’s bluff by exploding a nuclear device in October, 2006.

McCain also wants to “broaden our policy goals related to North Korea” beyond nuclear issues, to including human rights, economic and political reform, and reduction of the conventional military threat from North Korea, goals also set out at the outset of the Bush administration. McCain has repeatedly referred to the North Korean regime, and its leader, Kim Jong Il, in harsh terms and embraced a policy of “rogue state rollback.”

Realistically, however, McCain offers no credible, practical means to reach these goals. He reserves, as does Obama, the option to use force. But concretely he comes back to the strategy of pressing China to bring North Korea to heel. Unfortunately the Bush administration also relied on China and found there were clear limits to Beijing’s ability to control or its willingness to press its North Korean client. In the end, McCain may have little option but to follow Bush to Pyongyang’s doorstep.

One Caveat – Events Matter

Despite the powerful impetus to maintain continuity in U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula, no matter whom is elected in November, there is one important caveat to keep in mind – events matter. Unplanned, and unforeseen, developments could force Korea to the top of the President’s agenda. Already we have seen the reports of Kim Jong Il’s serious illness trigger fresh concerns about a possible collapse of political authority in Pyongyang. A simultaneous rush by China, South Korea and the United States to fill a vacuum of power in the North could upset all calculations. For South Korea, and President Lee Myung-bak, it is always best to prepare for the unexpected.

Clear evidence suggests the importance of health service provider payment incentives for achieving efficiency, equal access, and quality, including attention to primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. “Pay for performance” may be on the cusp of significant expansion in Asia, and reform away from fee-for-service has been underway for several years in several economies. Yet despite the policy relevance, the evidence base for evaluating payment reforms in Asia is still very limited.

China in particular has been undertaking significant reforms to its health care system in both rural and urban areas. With the expansion of insurance coverage and need to resolve incentive problems like “supporting medical care through drug sales,” there is an urgent need for evaluating alternative ways of paying health service providers. Evidence from policy reforms in specific regions of China, as well as other economies of the Asia-Pacific, can provide valuable evidence to help inform policy decisions about how to align provider incentives with policy goals of quality care at reasonable cost.

To illuminate these questions, the Asia Health Policy Program and several collaborating institutions are planning to convene a conference on health care provider payment incentives on November 7-8, 2008 in Beijing. The conference will highlight and seek to distill “best-practice” lessons from rigorous and policy-relevant evaluations of recent reforms in China and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific.

The organizing committee – including health economists from Shorenstein APARC, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Seoul National University – reviewed submissions in June 2008 and accepted sixteen. The conference papers cover payment issues in Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Tajikistan, the Philippines, and the US, and the disciplines of economics, health services research/health policy, public health, medicine, and ethics. Topics include institutionalized informal payments; the impact of global budget policies on high-cost patients; public-private partnerships; public-sector physicians owning private pharmacies; evidence-informed case payment rates; payment and hospital quality; bonuses and physician satisfaction; physician prescription choice between brand-name and generic drugs; and differences in pharmaceutical utilization across insurance plans that pay providers differently (fee-for-service versus capitation).

Policymakers from China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Health will also speak at the conference. Selected research papers will be published through the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center either in a special volume or in a special issue of an English-language health policy journal.

As the world’s most dynamic and rapidly advancing region, the Asia-Pacific has commanded global attention. Business and policy leaders alike have been focused on the rise of China, tensions on the Korean peninsula, Japan’s economic recovery and political assertiveness, globalization and the outsourcing of jobs to South Asia, Indonesia’s multiple transitions, competing forces of nationalism vs. regionalism, and the future of U.S.-Asia relations.

What is the near-term outlook for change in the region? How might developments in the economic, political, or security sphere affect Asia’s expected trajectory? And how will a changing Asia impact the United States? These were among the complex and challenging issues addressed by a faculty panel from the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) and the Eurasia Group at the Asia Society in New York on January 23, 2006.

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Q. COIT BLACKER: WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT, CHALLENGING ISSUE YOU SEE?

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A. HARRY HARDING:

In China, we are seeing a darker side of the Chinese success story. Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, China's role in international affairs is on the rise, and China is an increasingly responsible stakeholder in an open, liberal global economy. Yet, the world is now seeing the problems China's reform program has failed to resolve. China's new five-year plan seeks to address a number of these issues, providing a plan for sustainable economic development that is environmentally
responsible and addresses chronic pollution problems, for a harmonious society that
addresses inequalities and inadequacies in the provision of medical care, insurance
and pension systems, and for continuing technological innovation, as part of China's
quest to become an exporter of capital and technology.

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The world should be deeply concerned about developments on the Korean peninsula. Two pressing issues are U.S. relations with South Korea and the nuclear crisis with the North. It is not clear when or whether we will see a solution. Time may be against the United States on the issue. China and South Korea are not necessarily willing to follow the U.S. approach; without their cooperation, it is difficult to secure a successful solution. The younger generation emerging in South Korea does not see North Korea as a threat. Our own relations with South Korea are strained and we are viewed as preoccupied with Iraq and Iran, as North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons.

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In Southeast Asia, a key problem is uneven development, both in and between the political and economic spheres. Potentially volatile contrasts are seen throughout the region. Vietnam is growing at 8 percent per year, but will it become a democracy? It has not yet. Indonesia has shifted to democracy, but absent faster economic growth, that political gain could erode. Indonesia's media are among the freest in the region;
multiple peaceful elections have been held--a remarkable achievement--and nearly all Islamists shun terrorism. Older Indonesians remember, however, that the economy
performed well without democracy under President Suharto. Nowadays, corruption
scandals break out almost daily, nationalist and Islamist feelings are strong, and the
climate is not especially favorable to foreign investment. While Burma's economy
lags, its repressive polity embarrasses the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). How long can the generals in Rangoon hold on? Disparities are also
international: dire poverty marks Laos and Cambodia, for example, while the
Malaysian and Thai economies have done well.

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Japan is a "good news/bad news" story. The good news is that Japan has found a new security niche since the end of the Cold War. Previously, when a security problem loomed "over the horizon," they expected us to take care of it while, if prodded, they increased their financial support for U.S. troops stationed in Japan. During the first post-Cold War conflict in the Persian Gulf, Japan had neither the political consensus nor the legal framework to permit a sharing of the risks, as well as the costs, and this cost them politically. Since then, they have passed legislation that permits them to participate in U.N. peacekeeping activities, contribute noncombat, logistic, and other services to "coalition of the willing" operations, and even dispatch troops to join reconstruction activities in Iraq. Clearly, their more ambitious role is helping to make the U.S.-Japan alliance more balanced and more global.The bad news is a reemergence of stronger nationalist sentiment in Japan and more generally in Northeast Asia. In part this is attributable to the collapse of the Left in Japanese politics since the mid-1990s. This has left the Conservatives more dominant, and they are less apologetic about Japanese conduct in the 1930s and 1940s, more inclined to regard North Korea and China as potential threats, more assertive with respect to territorial issues, less sensitive to their neighbors’ reactions to Prime Ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine, and more eager to be regarded as a “normal” nation. Many Asians see the United States as pushing Japan to take on a more active security role and, in the context of rising Japanese nationalism, are less inclined to view the U.S.-Japan alliance as a source of reassurance.

Q. COIT BLACKER: WHAT ARE THE COMPETING AND CONFLICTING TENSIONS BETWEEN REGIONALISM AND NATIONALISM?

A. HARRY HARDING:

In China, there has been a resurgence of nationalism over the past 10 to 15 years. Since the end of the Maoist era and the beginning of the reform movement, the leadership has embraced nationalism as a source of legitimacy, but this is a double-edged sword. It places demands on the government to stand up for China’s face, rights, and prestige in international affairs, especially vis-à-vis Japan, the United States, and Taiwan, at times pushing Beijing in directions it does not wish to go.

A. DONALD EMMERSON:

In Indonesia, it is important to distinguish between inward and outward nationalism. Outward nationalism was manifest in Sukarno’s policy of confrontation with Malaysia. ASEAN is predicated on inward nationalism and outward cooperation. Nationalist feelings can be used inwardly to motivate reform and spur development. But there are potential drawbacks. Take the aftermath of the conflict in Aceh. The former rebels want their own political party. Hard-line nationalists in the Indonesian parliament, however, are loath to go along, and that could jeopardize stability in a province already exhausted by civil war and damaged by the 2004 tsunami.

A. GI-WOOK SHIN:

Korea is a nation of some 70 million people, large by European standards, but small in comparison to the giants of Asia, especially China, India, and Russia, making Korea very concerned about what other countries are doing and saying. Korea is currently undergoing an identity crisis. Until the 1980s, the United States was seen as a “savior” from Communism and avid supporter of modernization. Since then, many Koreans have come to challenge this view, arguing that the United States supported Korean dictatorship. Koreans are also rethinking their attitudes toward North Korea, seeing Koreans as belonging to one nation. This shift has contributed to negative attitudes toward both the United States and Japan

Q. COIT BLACKER: GENERATIONAL CHANGE IS ALSO A MAJOR ISSUE IN CHINA, THE DPRK, AND JAPAN. WHAT DOES IT BODE FOR POLITICAL CHANGE?

A. MICHAEL ARMACOST:

Japan has had a “one and a half party system” for more than half a century. Yet the Liberal Democratic Party has proven to be remarkably adaptive, cleverly co-opting many issues that might have been exploited by the opposition parties. It is clearly a democratic country, but its politics have not been as competitive as many other democracies. As for the United States, we have promoted lively democracies throughout the region. But we should not suppose that more democratic regimes will necessarily define their national interests in ways that are invariably compatible with ours. In both Taiwan and South Korea, to the contrary, democratic leaderships have emerged which pursue security policies that display less sensitivity to Washington’s concerns, and certainly exhibit little deference to U.S. leadership.

A. GI-WOOK SHIN:

In both North and South Korea, a marked evolution is under way. In the South, many new members of the parliament have little knowledge of the United States. Promoting mutual understanding is urgently needed on both sides. In the North, the big question is who will succeed Kim Jong Il—an issue with enormous implications for the United States.

A. DONALD EMMERSON:

Indonesians have a noisy, brawling democracy. What they don’t have is the rule of law. Judges can be bought, and laws are inconsistently applied. The Philippines enjoyed democracy for most of the 20th century, but poverty and underdevelopment remain rife, leading many Filipinos to ask just where democracy has taken their nation.

A. HARRY HARDING:

China has seen a significant increase in rural protests. There has been an increase in both the number of incidents and the level of violence. People are being killed, not just in rural areas, but also in major cities like Chengdu. We are seeing a new wave of political participation by professional groups, such as lawyers and journalists, galvanizing public support on such issues as environmental protection, failure to pay pensions, confiscation of land, and corruption. A new generation has been exposed to the Internet, the outside world, and greater choice, but it is not yet clear at what point they will demand greater choice in their own political life.

WHAT WOULD YOU ADVISE THE PRESIDENT ON U.S. POLICY TOWARDS ASIA?

In the lively question-and-answer session, panelists were asked, "Given the chance to talk to the U.S. President about change and improvement in U.S.-Asia policy, what would you say?"

MICHAEL ARMACOST: I am struck by a mismatch between our interests and our strategy in Asia. In some respects our Asia policy has become something of an adjunct of our policy toward the Middle East-where we confront perhaps more urgent, if not more consequential, concerns. Asia is still the most dynamic economic zone in the world; it is the region in which the most significant new powers are emerging; and it is where the interests of the Great Powers intersect most directly. Also, it is an area where profound change is taking place swiftly. We are adapting our policies in Asia to accommodate current preoccupations in the Muslim world, rather than with an eye to preserving our power and relevance in Asia.

HARRY HARDING: It is striking how much Asian nations still want us around- as an offshore balancer and a source of economic growth. Yet they want us to understand the priorities on their agenda as well as our own. We are seen as obsessed with terrorism and China. We should exhibit more support for Asian institution building, as we have with the European Union. We also need to get our own economic act together-promoting education, stimulating scientific research and technological innovation, and reducing our budget deficits-and quit resting on past laurels. Requiring Japan to accept U.S. beef exports and then sending them meat that did not meet the agreed-upon standards has been a setback for our relations, since the Japanese public regards the safety of its food supply as critically important.

DONALD EMMERSON: Most opinion-makers in Southeast Asia are tired of Washington's preoccupation with terrorism. To be effective in the region, we must deal-and appear to be dealing-with a wider array of economic, social, and political issues, and not just bilaterally. The United States is absent at the creation of East Asian regionalism. For various reasons, we were not invited to participate in the recent East Asia Summit. Meanwhile, China's "smile diplomacy" has yielded 27 different frameworks of cooperation between that country and ASEAN. We need to be more, and more broadly, engaged.

MICHAEL ARMACOST: The establishment of today's European community began with the historic reconciliation between France and Germany. I doubt that a viable Asian community can be created without a comparable accommodation between China and Japan. Some observers believe that current tensions between Tokyo and Beijing are advantageous insofar as they facilitate closer defense cooperation between the United States and Japan. I do not share that view. A drift toward Sino-Japanese strategic rivalry would complicate our choices as well as theirs, and I hope we can find ways of attenuating current tensions.

Stanford, Calif. - The visit this week of South Korea's new president, Lee Myung Bak, offers a rare opportunity to put the American-Korean relationship back on a more solid footing. President Lee, who won a decisive victory in last December's election, has expressed views on the security alliance, a bilateral free trade agreement, and policy toward North Korea that are thoroughly compatible with US interests. And Mr. Lee's authority was bolstered by his party's substantial victory in legislative elections April 9.

The question is whether Washington is poised to take advantage of this convergence of views.

For the past eight years, a major perception gap between Seoul and Washington has been painfully evident. Our governments often worked at cross-purposes in the six-party talks to denuclearize North Korea. Progressive governments in South Korea encouraged peaceful coexistence with the North through a pattern of unreciprocated engagement. For much of that time, the Bush administration sought to isolate and pressure Pyongyang into relinquishing its nuclear ambitions, and it made little effort to conceal its hopes for a regime change in Pyongyang.

When Washington decided to move its military headquarters out of Seoul in 2003, many Korean officials suspected that the Americans were just eager to get troops out of North Korean artillery range. President Roh Moo Hyun at times seemed interested in carving out a role as a balance wheel between the major powers in Northeast Asia. Meanwhile, the US was preoccupied by problems in the Middle East, and some American officials wondered if the US-Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance could long survive when one party dismissed the North Korean threat while the other viewed it as increasingly menacing.

Now comes Lee, a former mayor of Seoul and Hyundai construction executive with a reputation for tough-minded, pragmatic conservatism, eager to correct what he described as the misguided priorities of past ROK administrations. In a recent meeting with New Beginnings, a group of American policy experts on Korea, Lee appeared determined to accord priority to the alliance with the United States, exact a measure of reciprocity from the North, forestall major economic concessions to the North until it abandons its nuclear activities, and design a more ambitious global role for his country.

Surely Washington welcomes Lee's priorities. The tougher question is whether it can work effectively with him to translate shared aims into concrete results. This will pose three particular challenges.

First, on the nuclear issue, undeniably, bilateral talks with Pyongyang can facilitate diplomatic progress. There are dangers as well. Disconnects with the Japanese have deepened, and their officials occasionally complain about American "betrayals" in the discussions with Pyongyang. The North has consistently sought to use the negotiations to split the US and its allies. Success in the talks requires coordinated diplomacy between the US and the North's neighbors – especially with South Korea. In the past it often appeared that South Korean presidents worried less about Pyongyang's nuclear activities than Washington's possible reactions to them.

Today, there is the danger that South Korean conservatives may fear that Washington will ultimately acquiesce in North Korea's nascent nuclear status. No attempt to contain, let alone eliminate, the North Korean nuclear program can succeed unless the US and ROK governments work closely together. This will require a higher standard of candor and mutual trust in bilateral consultations than has been typical in recent years.

Second, the ratification of the Korea-US free-trade agreement (FTA) is a vital piece of unfinished business. Lee appears prepared to resume imports of US beef (halted due to mad cow disease concerns), essential to moving the FTA forward in Congress. Unfortunately, the Democratic presidential contenders are pandering to special interests on trade issues in a way they will probably later regret. Both sides have strategic and commercial interests at stake. The US stands to gain much more in increased exports from the FTA, while the Koreans hope that liberalizing foreign access to their economy will make them more competitive. So there is much to gain by nailing down this deal. A failure to complete it would be a significant strategic setback for our partnership.

Third, there is the question as to whether our political cycles will again diverge. For the past eight years, the US has been led by one of its most conservative administrations, while South Korea was headed by its most liberal president. Missteps were, perhaps, inevitable. And they have persisted, even though some effective work was done behind the scenes to forge cooperative arrangements on trade and force-deployment issues.

Lee's election signifies a conservative swing in South Korea's politics, while polls suggest the US may be moving in the opposite direction. Thus, a felicitous convergence of US and ROK official perspectives could prove fleeting. Yet the interests we share in expanded commerce, in modernizing our alliance, and in approaching the North with a joint strategy for "denuclearization" are compelling. They transcend partisan politics. They serve our respective national interests. The time to capitalize on them is now.

New Beginnings: Post-Election Prospects for U.S.-ROK Relations, a non-partisan study group of distinguished former American senior officials and experts formed by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the New York-based Korea Society, will release their report on how to revitalize the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance on Monday, April 14, in Washington, DC., followed by a presentation in New York on April 15.

The report is being issued on the eve of the arrival in the United States of newly elected and inaugurated President of the Republic of Korea Lee Myung-bak. The report provides an analysis of the significance of the change in administration in South Korea and recommendations to American policymakers on steps to improve the partnership between the two countries. It reflects what the group learned during extensive meetings in Korea in early February, including discussions with then President-elect Lee and his senior advisors, as well as leading businessmen, security officials and experts, journalists, the leadership of the then ruling party, as well as senior American diplomats and military officials.

The full text of the report is available below. Press coverage of this project and the report can also be found in the links below.

New Beginnings was formed in anticipation of both the change in power in Korea and the upcoming U.S. national elections. The group plans to brief the presidential campaigns of all the major candidates on its recommendations, as well as key congressional leaders and senior administration officials.

Panel discussions by members of New Beginnings, looking ahead to President Lee’s visit to New York and Washington, will take place on:

Monday, April 14th, from 3:00-5:00 PM at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (Rome Building, Room Auditorium, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC) hosted by Don Oberdorfer, Chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University.

Tuesday, April 15th, from 10:00-11:30 AM at Korea Society: New Beginnings: Post-Election Prospects for U.S.-ROK Relations (950 Third Ave, 8th Fl, New York, NY 10022) hosted by Evans Revere, president of The Korea Society.

Study group members are:

Michael H. Armacost, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; currently the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University

Stephen W. Bosworth, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, and a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea

Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a former State Department Northeast Asia intelligence chief

Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies and D.S. Song Professor at Georgetown University, and former director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council and U.S. deputy head of delegation for the Six Party Talks in the George W. Bush administration

Thomas C. Hubbard, McLarty Associates; former U.S. ambassador to South Korea

Don Oberdorfer, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and former longtime Washington Post foreign correspondent

Charles L. Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C., and former U.S. ambassador and special envoy for negotiations with North Korea

Evans J.R. Revere, president of the Korea Society and former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC; the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies; and professor of sociology at Stanford University

Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University, and formerly a foreign affairs correspondent and columnist

David Straub, Pantech Research Fellow at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC, and a former State Department Korean affairs director