Stanford University

Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: Implications for U.S. Policy in Northeast Asia

I am a child of the Cold War. As such, my thinking for decades was conditioned by the great issue of that era: How to maintain freedom in the face of our perceptions of Soviet ambitions for world domination?

For the first few decades of the Cold War, the United States strategy for achieving this objective was containment backed up with a powerful nuclear deterrence. But as the nuclear arms race heated up, it became increasingly clear that this strategy risked precipitating a nuclear holocaust. Thus, by the late sixties, nuclear arms control had become the overriding security issue - certainly it dominated my thinking on security during that era.

But with the ending of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear holocaust receded and arms control, as we had practiced it during that era, was no longer the dominant security issue. The most serious threat to the United States became nuclear weapons in the hands of failed states or terrorists - used not in a standard military operation, but in extortive or apocalyptic ways. Therefore, in the present era, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons replaces arms control as the organizing principle for our security. Certainly it has dominated my thinking on security for the last decade.

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Oksenberg Conference Room

William J. Perry
Lectures

Stanford hosts researchers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

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On October 13, 2004 the Korean Studies Program at the Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and the Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region at the Center for International Security and Cooperation hosted a delegation from the Institute of Disarmament and Peace, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The discussion at today's workshop was wide-ranging, with participants exchanging views on the current state of relations in Northeast Asia. This gathering is part of ongoing efforts in both countries to enhance mutual understanding and to reduce tensions in the region.

The U.S. participants were, in alphabetical order, Ambassador Michael Armacost, Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, APARC; Ellsworth Culver, founder and senior vice president, Mercy Corps; John W. Lewis, director, Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region; Daniel Okimoto, director emeritus, APARC; Gi-Wook Shin, director, Korean Studies Program at APARC; Susan Shirk, professor, University of California, San Diego; and Philip Yun, Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies, APARC. The guests from North Korea were Kim Myong Gil, Choe Kang Il, Jong Tong Hak, and Ri Hak Chol, all from the Institute of Disarmament and Peace.

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After the Election: How Best to Resolve the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

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Charles Pritchard has had a distinguished career in government. He was the Ambassador and Special Envoy for Negotiations with North Korea, and the U.S. Representative to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, State Department. He has also served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs, and Director for Asian Affairs in the National Security Council.

Philippines Conference Room

Charles Pritchard Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies The Brookings Institution
Seminars
Walter H. Shorenstein Forum for Asia Pacific Studies

Gender and National Identity in Contemporary Japanese Fiction

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Japan Brown Bag Series

Co-hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies and the Stanford Society of Fellows in Japanese Studies. A light lunch will be served.

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John Treat Professor of Japanese Literature Yale University
Seminars

Divine Encounters, Wolf Killing and Mythological Patricide: Ainu Identities and Japanese Colonialism

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Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Japanese "nationalism" (if such a term is even applicable) depended less on imagined similarities among Japanese than it did on their contrived customary differences from foreign peoples such as the Ainu. The boundaries of the early modern Japanese realm were ethno-geographical, and Ainu identity and difference was critical in constructing the borders of Japan.

After 1799, the Tokugawa shogunate and, later, the Meiji state, undertook policies of deculturation and assimilation toward the Ainu, because the Meiji strategy toward state building relied less on difference than on myths of internal homogeneity. The Meiji state conscripted Ainu into the myth of Japanese homogeneity through assimilation; but earlier forms of Ainu autonomy and difference first had to be destroyed.

Interestingly, wolf eradication offers one vantage point from which to view the process of Ainu deculturation and assimilation in the context of the colonization of Hokkaido and the creation of the modern myths that provided the foundation for Japan's ethnic nationalism. Ainu origin mythology held that the Ainu people were born from a union of a wolf and a goddess, and so when Ainu tracked and killed wolves and wild dogs under state bounty programs legitimized as "imperial grants," they committed mythological patricide, replacing their origin myths with Japanese ones that, over the course of the late Meiji period, served as the foundation of Japan's modern nation.

Japan Brown Bag Series

Co-hosted with the Center for East Asian Studies

Philippines Conference Room

Brett Walker Professor of History Montana State University
Seminars

Director's Welcoming Remarks

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Gi-Wook Shin
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Director, Gi-Wook Shin welcomes the new members to the Korean Studies Program at the beginning of 2004-2005 academic year.

Dear members of the Korean Studies community,

I trust that all of you have had a great summer and are now ready for the beginning of a new academic year. I welcome all of you back to campus and to another exciting year for the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University.

First of all, I welcome the new members to our program this year. Philip Yun and John Feffer are our inaugural Pantech Fellows and will conduct research related to Korea, both North and South. Both Philip and John have distinguished careers and will be great assets to all of us at KSP. Philip has held high-level positions at the State Department and worked closely with former Secretary of Defense, Dr. William Perry, in addition to practicing law in both Korea and the U.S. John is an accomplished writer and editor, and his most recent publication is North Korea/South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis. I would also like to welcome Jasmin Ha, who will serve as our new Program Coordinator and assistant to me. She worked previously at The Korea Society in New York City and brings to us both her experience and vision for Korean studies at Stanford. Soyoung Kwon, a North Korean expert, will also be staying at APARC as a Shorenstein Fellow for the coming year.

Hong Kal and Chiho Sawada, post-doctoral research fellows, will remain with us for another year. Hong has accepted a tenure-track assistant professorship at York University, but will not start her appointment until the 2005-06 year. Rakhi Patel, our student assistant, will continue to work part-time to assist Jasmin and myself.

We will resume our popular luncheon seminars on October 15 with a presentation by Eric Larson of the Rand Corporation on his project on South Korean attitudes towards the United States. There will also be numerous other exciting events and programs on Korea-related issues throughout the coming year. Please visit our website for more detailed and continuously updated information.

KSP is also now home to the Journal of Korean Studies for which Chiho and I serve as associate editor and co-editor, respectively, of the journal. In addition, we have been engaged in a number of exciting projects. I have just finished my overdue book on Korean ethnic nationalism and am currently working with Kyu Sup Hahn, a doctoral student in Communications, on a project on U.S. media coverage of Korea and South Korean media coverage of the U.S. from 1992-2004. We will also continue on-going projects such as "Globalization in Korea" and "Historical Injustice, Reconciliation, and Cooperation." I appreciate the assistance of the many students and researchers who have been working with me on these projects over the years.

This year we will do an international search to fill the William Perry Chair in contemporary Korea. This is an extremely important appointment for the Korean Studies Program at Stanford, and you will have the opportunity to meet candidates throughout the year.

Thanks again for your continued support of the Korean Studies Program at Stanford. I look forward to seeing you at the various KSP events and programs throughout the year.

Cordially,

Gi-Wook Shin,

Director

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