Stanford experts from the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) spoke with media in Asia and the United States about the dynamics on the Korean Peninsula following recent provocations by North Korea; a roundup of those citations is below.

The United Nations imposed a new set of sanctions against North Korea on March 2 in response to the country’s fourth nuclear test in January and subsequent rocket launch in February of this year. Shorenstein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin offered his view in an interview with Dong-a Ilbo:

“The new sanctions are unprecedentedly strong and comprehensive, but the dominant view is pessimistic,” he said, emphasizing that the sanctions’ effectiveness stands largely on the shoulders of China, which is North Korea’s largest trading partner.

“Only if China doesn't fizzle out after a few months – but continuously enforces the sanctions – will we see any meaningful effect,” he said.

Shin also called upon South Korea to play a leadership role in dealing with North Korea because the United States has only limited interest in solving the nuclear problem, and China, will not change its approach and continue to move according to its own interests.

Shin relayed a similar message in an interview with Maeil Shinmun last December. South Korea must break from its own perception that it is the “balancer” between China and the United States. South Korea, often described as a “shrimp among whales,” should instead strive to play a larger role as a “dolphin,” he said.

Furthermore, Shin told Maeil that the U.S.-Korea relationship and the U.S.-China relationship are very different from each other, and should be viewed as they are. He pointed out that the U.S.-Korea relationship is an alliance where the two countries act accordingly as one body, whereas the China-Korea relationship is a strategic partnership insofar as the two countries cooperate on selective issues of mutual interest.

In a separate interview with the Associated Press, David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, was asked about the possibility of peace talks with North Korea as an alternative to or parallel with the U.N. sanctions. Straub said “it would not make sense” and that “there is no support for such an approach in Washington” because of the strategic partnership between China and North Korea. He also told Voice of America that the new sanctions will significantly increase the political, diplomatic, and psychological pressures on North Korea's leaders to rethink their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

China Daily has featured a longstanding Stanford research project described as instrumental towards the normalization of U.S. relations with China during the Carter administration.

Led by late professor Michel Oksenberg, a China expert who also served on the U.S. National Security Council, the project sought to examine the workings of the local government, economy and social structure of Zouping, a county in northern China. Between 1987 and 1991, the project brought more than eighty U.S. academics to that area.

According to the Daily, it was “one of the most important academic exchanges of the 1980s,” which offered a symbol of reform and “helped the world gain greater and deeper understanding of China’s growing role on the global stage.”

Jean Oi, director of the China Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, was part of the cohort that traveled with Oksenberg, and has since revisited the area with her students to continue research efforts.

The full article can be accessed below.

APARC Event: 2018 Oksenberg Conference on Zouping County Research

Publication: Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County

David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, tells AP that China and North Korea have ulterior motives in demanding the replacement of the Korean peninsula armistice agreement with a peace treaty.