Taking advantage of a wide-open border, traders are shipping everything from rice and oranges to porn flicks and South Korean soap operas into North Korea from China. This trade - and the human traffic back and forth - is transforming economic life in the North, changing mindsets and eroding support for the Dear Leader and his Spartan "Juche" philosophy. So what does this mean for the "sanctions vs regime change" debate?
Donald Macintyre is a 2006-2007 Pantech fellow at Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University. He is writing a book on how life in North Korea is changing at the grassroots level and what these changes mean for the international community's approach to Pyongyang. Macintyre was Time magazine's Seoul bureau chief from 2001-2006, covering politics, economics and culture in North and South Korea. He has traveled to North Korea six times and made numerous trips to China's border with the North to interview defectors, refugees and traders. He has also worked as a journalist in Tokyo and Rome and served as a senior advisor to the International Crisis Group's Northeast Asia office on North Korean issues.
Philippines Conference Room
Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Donald Macintyre is a 2006-2007 Pantech Fellow at Shorenstein APARC. He is researching and writing a book on how life in North Korea is changing at the grassroots level and what these changes mean for the international community's approach toward Pyongyang. He is also organizing a conference on the impact of the U.S. and South Korean media on U.S.-ROK relations.
Macintyre was Time Magazine's Seoul bureau chief from 2001-2006, covering general news, politics and culture in North and South Korea. He has traveled to North Korea six times and made numerous trips to China's border with North Korea to interview defectors, refugees and traders.
Before setting up Time Magazine's first permanent bureau in Seoul in 2001, Macintyre was a correspondent and Internet columnist for Time in Tokyo. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg Financial News as a reporter, editor and feature writer. He has also reported from Italy for Vatican Radio and Canada's CBC Radio.
The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants awarded Macintyre its Excellence in Financial Journalism Award in 1996. He received an Honorable Mention from the Overseas Correspondents Club in the category of best newspaper reporting from abroad the same year.
The success of the 6-party negotiations has changed the dynamic of the situation in the Korean peninsula. How do we assess the status of the talks? What are the prospects for U.S.-DPRK relations? And what is the trend in inter-Korean relations?
The ROK-US alliance is undergoing rapid change, symbolized by the decision to change the combined command structure in 2012 and the redeployment of U.S. troops. Both countries are heading toward important president elections and coping with strategic challenges in the world. How should we think about the role of the alliance as we look toward the future?
What are the long-term trends in Northeast Asia? How will the rise of China as an economic power and the economic recovery of Japan impact the region? What is the role of Korea in the strategic architecture of Northeast Asia? How does the region fit into U.S. strategic priorities?
In this second forum, current developments in North Korea, the future of the alliance, and strategic vision for Northeast Asia will be discussed.
Bechtel Conference Center
In conjunction with Dr. Gi-Wook Shin's study of American and South Korean media coverage of the alliance and the peninsula, this conference will convene influential American journalists who covered momentous events and significant trends in the two Koreas. The macro-level, data-driven media study reveals how U.S. coverage of Korean issues has evolved over time as well as how perception gaps have grown up in the U.S.-ROK alliance. But how did American reporters and editors decide what to cover? What drove U.S. interest in Korea? And what were the challenges in covering Korea, both South and North? This conference will showcase the views of journalists on the front line who made key decisions about what to cover and why. These coverage decisions and the stories that followed shaped how Americans conceptualize both Koreas, the U.S.-ROK alliance, and the North Korean nuclear crises.
This one-day workshop will feature four panels: (1) democracy, anti-Americanism and the rise of Korean nationalism, (2) the challenges of covering North Korea, (3) the two North Korean nuclear crises, and (4) public diplomacy and the Korean peninsula.
Philippines Conference Room
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Daniel C. Sneider is a lecturer in international policy at Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy and a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford. His own research is focused on current U.S. foreign and national security policy in Asia and on the foreign policy of Japan and Korea. Since 2017, he has been based partly in Tokyo as a Visiting Researcher at the Canon Institute for Global Studies, where he is working on a diplomatic history of the creation and management of the U.S. security alliances with Japan and South Korea during the Cold War. Sneider contributes regularly to the leading Japanese publication Toyo Keizai as well as to the Nelson Report on Asia policy issues.
Sneider is the former Associate Director for Research at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. At Shorenstein APARC, Sneider directed the center’s Divided Memories and Reconciliation project, a comparative study of the formation of wartime historical memory in East Asia. He is the co-author of a book on wartime memory and elite opinion, Divergent Memories, from Stanford University Press. He is the co-editor, with Dr. Gi-Wook Shin, of Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia, from Routledge and of Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies, from University of Washington Press.
Sneider was named a National Asia Research Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Bureau of Asian Research in 2010. He is the co-editor of Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia, Shorenstein APARC, distributed by Brookings Institution Press, 2007; of First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier, 2009; as well as of Does South Asia Exist?: Prospects for Regional Integration, 2010. Sneider’s path-breaking study “The New Asianism: Japanese Foreign Policy under the Democratic Party of Japan” appeared in the July 2011 issue of Asia Policy. He has also contributed to other volumes, including “Strategic Abandonment: Alliance Relations in Northeast Asia in the Post-Iraq Era” in Towards Sustainable Economic and Security Relations in East Asia: U.S. and ROK Policy Options, Korea Economic Institute, 2008; “The History and Meaning of Denuclearization,” in William H. Overholt, editor, North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War?, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 2019; and “Evolution or new Doctrine? Japanese security policy in the era of collective self-defense,” in James D.J. Brown and Jeff Kingston, eds, Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia, Routledge, December 2017.
Sneider’s writings have appeared in many publications, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Slate, Foreign Policy, the New Republic, National Review, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Oriental Economist, Newsweek, Time, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and Yale Global. He is frequently cited in such publications.
Prior to coming to Stanford, Sneider was a long-time foreign correspondent. His twice-weekly column for the San Jose Mercury News looking at international issues and national security from a West Coast perspective was syndicated nationally on the Knight Ridder Tribune wire service. Previously, Sneider served as national/foreign editor of the Mercury News. From 1990 to 1994, he was the Moscow bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, covering the end of Soviet Communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. From 1985 to 1990, he was Tokyo correspondent for the Monitor, covering Japan and Korea. Prior to that he was a correspondent in India, covering South and Southeast Asia. He also wrote widely on defense issues, including as a contributor and correspondent for Defense News, the national defense weekly.
Sneider has a BA in East Asian history from Columbia University and an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Donald Macintyre is a 2006-2007 Pantech Fellow at Shorenstein APARC. He is researching and writing a book on how life in North Korea is changing at the grassroots level and what these changes mean for the international community's approach toward Pyongyang. He is also organizing a conference on the impact of the U.S. and South Korean media on U.S.-ROK relations.
Macintyre was Time Magazine's Seoul bureau chief from 2001-2006, covering general news, politics and culture in North and South Korea. He has traveled to North Korea six times and made numerous trips to China's border with North Korea to interview defectors, refugees and traders.
Before setting up Time Magazine's first permanent bureau in Seoul in 2001, Macintyre was a correspondent and Internet columnist for Time in Tokyo. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg Financial News as a reporter, editor and feature writer. He has also reported from Italy for Vatican Radio and Canada's CBC Radio.
The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants awarded Macintyre its Excellence in Financial Journalism Award in 1996. He received an Honorable Mention from the Overseas Correspondents Club in the category of best newspaper reporting from abroad the same year.
The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, in cooperation with the Center for the Pacific Rim and its Kiriyama Chair for Pacific Rim Studies at University of San Francisco, is pleased to present an international conference on "Public Diplomacy, Counterpublics, and the Asia Pacific."
The conference challenges the dominance of U.S.-centric and state-centered conceptions of "public diplomacy" to better understand and practice this resurgent component of world affairs. The complex, shifting contours of our globalizing world demand a broader -- comparative, multi-track, and ethical -- perspective on public diplomacy and its importance today.
A new perspective must take into account public diplomacy initiatives emanating from various places throughout the world. (We begin by "mapping" public diplomacy initiatives originating in the Asia Pacific.)
It must capture the significance of not only state-sponsored programs tightly linked to foreign policy, but also private activities involving a wide range of actors and arenas (i.e., NGOs, international business, media old and new, pop culture) that perhaps more subtly but no less profoundly impact national interests and world affairs.
Ultimately, a new perspective must comprehend that public diplomacy can be more than an instrumental quest for "soft power." A pathway toward robust people-to-people interactions, public diplomacy in its myriad forms can help achieve reconciliation -- the overcoming of historical injustices and other troubling conflicts in our post-9/11 world.
A primary objective of the conference is to discuss and refine papers for a book manuscript (to be considered for publication via a new series of Stanford University Press and the Brookings Institution). The conference/book will cover the following four issue areas: (1) historical and conceptual perspectives; (2) country/region surveys examining significant public diplomacy institutions and initiatives throughout the Asia Pacific; (3) case studies of transnational, multi-track diplomatic efforts driven by civil societies; and (4) case studies of public diplomacy by marginalized groups and in emerging public spheres (e.g. "the blogosphere.")
Conference panels -- at Stanford the morning of April 19 and at USF all day April 20 -- will be in colloquium format for presenters to discuss their research. Limited spaces will be available for observers, and a reservation is required.
The first public talk is on April 18 (5:45-7:00 p.m.) at the University of San Francisco. Shorenstein APARC's Michael Armacost will be speaking on "Japanese Power and Its Public Faces." You can find more details about this event on the USF Center for the Pacific Rim website.
The second public talk is on April 19 (12:15-1:55 p.m.) at Shorenstein APARC. Stephen Linton, Ph.D. (Chairman, Eugene Bell Foundation; Associate, Korea Institute, Harvard University) will give a talk titled "Treating Tuberculosis in North Korea: Toward US-DPRK Reconciliation." Lunch will be served so an RSVP is required. You may reserve a seat by clicking the link to Dr. Linton's lecture.
The conference keynote address is on April (5:45-7:00 p.m.) at the University of San Francisco. Dr. Stephen Linton will deliver a talk titled "Treating Tuberculosis in North Korea: NGO Humanitarian Assistance as Public Diplomacy." The keynote address is free and open to the public. RSVP recommended. Please call the USF Center for the Pacific Rim Events RSVP Line at (415) 422-6828.
More information about this conference and the panel sessions can be found on the website for the USF Center for the Pacific Rim.
This conference is co-sponsored by The Asia Society Northern California; The Japan Society of Northern California; Business for Diplomatic Action; Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; and the Taiwan Democracy Program in the Center on Democracy Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.
Philippines Conference Room and the Okimoto Conference Room in Encina Hall. Some sessions will be held at the University of San Francisco.
After the DPRK's nuclear test on October 9, 2006, denuclearization of the DPRK became an urgent issue that must be achieved as soon as possible to restrain an arms race in Northeast Asia. For denuclearization of the DPRK, issues of verification of dismantlement of the DPRK nuclear weapons programs are the most critical elements if an agreement can be reached between the U.S. and the DPRK. Objectives of the verification and dismantlement of the DPRK nuclear weapons programs are disposition of currently existing nuclear material, nuclear weapons, relevant facilities, nuclear workers and documents, and discontinuation of future clandestine production of those things, i.e., terminating the nuclear production capability of the DPRK. Kang will speak about technical aspects of the DPRK nuclear weapons program, including an idea on the disablement of 5 MWe graphite reactors at Yongbyon and major issues in the verification and dismantlement of the DPRK nuclear weapons programs.
Jungmin Kang is a science fellow at CISAC. Kang brings to the study of nuclear policy issues considerable expertise in technical analyses of nuclear energy issues, based on his studies in South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Kang has co-authored articles on the proliferation-resistance of advanced fuel cycles, spent-fuel storage, plutonium disposition, and South Korea's undeclared uranium enrichment and plutonium experiments. He has contributed many popular articles to South Korea's newspapers and magazines and is frequently interviewed about spent-fuel issues and the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear-weapon program. Kang's recent research focuses on technical analysis of issues related to nuclear weapons and energy of North Korea as well as spent-fuel issues in Northeast Asia. Kang serves on South Korea's Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development where he advises on nuclear energy policy and spent fuel management.
Kang received a PhD in nuclear engineering from Tokyo University, Japan, and MS and BS degrees in nuclear engineering from Seoul National University, South Korea. Kang worked in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security for two years in 1998-2000.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Those who think that dealing with North Korea is impossible are wrong. Unfortunately, those who think that it is, in fact, possible to deal with North Korea often are not much closer to the truth. The basic problem is that people of both views simply haven't figured out what it is that the North really wants.
We tend to confuse North Korea's short-term tactical goals with its broader strategic focus. We draw up list after list of things we think might appeal to Pyongyang on the assumption that these will constitute a "leveraged buyout," finally achieving what we want: the total, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.
But this list of "carrots" (energy, food, the lifting of sanctions) does not include what the North thinks it must have. It can, of course, help keep the process on track and moving ahead, and it could help cement a final deal and hold it together through the inevitable political storms. But these things are not the ends that North Korea seeks.
North Korea feeds our misperceptions by bargaining so hard over details and raising its initial demands so high. For our part, we tend to be taken in by Western journalists' repetition of stock phrases about it being "one of the poorest nations," "one of the most isolated," "living on handouts." Accurate or not, these factors are irrelevant to Pyongyang's strategic calculations.
Those who realize that North Korea does not have visions of grand rewards sometimes move the focus to political steps that many see as "key" to a solution. These include replacing the armistice with a peace treaty, giving the North security guarantees, discussing plans for an exchange of diplomats. But these, like the economic carrots, are only shimmering, imperfect reflections of what Pyongyang is after.
What is it, then, that North Korea wants? Above all, it wants, and has pursued steadily since 1991, a long-term, strategic relationship with the United States. This has nothing to do with ideology or political philosophy. It is a cold, hard calculation based on history and the realities of geopolitics as perceived in Pyongyang. The North Koreans believe in their gut that they must buffer the heavy influence their neighbors already have, or could soon gain, over their small, weak country.
This is hard for Americans to understand, having read or heard nothing from North Korea except its propaganda, which for years seems to have called for weakening, not maintaining, the U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula. But in fact an American departure is the last thing the North wants. Because of their pride and fear of appearing weak, however, explicitly requesting that the United States stay is one of the most difficult things for the North Koreans to do.
If the United States has leverage, it is not in its ability to supply fuel oil or grain or paper promises of nonhostility. The leverage rests in Washington's ability to convince Pyongyang of its commitment to coexist with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, accept its system and leadership, and make room for the DPRK in an American vision of the future of Northeast Asia. Quite simply, the North Koreans believe they could be useful to the United States in a longer, larger balance-of-power game against China and Japan. The Chinese know this and say so in private.
The fundamental problem for North Korea is that the six-party talks in which it has been engaged -- and which may reconvene soon -- are a microcosm of the strategic world it most fears. Three strategic foes -- China, Japan and Russia -- sit in judgment, apply pressure and (to Pyongyang's mind) insist on the North's permanent weakness.
Denuclearization, if still achievable, can come only when North Korea sees its strategic problem solved, and that, in its view, can happen only when relations with the United States improve. For Pyongyang, that is the essence of the joint statement out of the six-party talks on Sept. 19, 2005, which included this sentence: "The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies."
And that is why the North so doggedly seeks bilateral talks with Washington. It desires not "drive-by" encounters, not a meeting here and there, but serious, sustained talks in which ideas can be explored and solutions, at last, patiently developed.
Robert Carlin, a former State Department analyst, participated in most of the U.S.-North Korea negotiations between 1993 and 2000. John Lewis, professor emeritus at Stanford University, directs projects on Asia at the university's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Both have visited North Korea many times, most recently in November.
Copyright 2006, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and The Washington
Post. All rights Reserved.
Peter Maurer is Switzerland's first Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, assuming the position in September 2004, when Switzerland became the body's 190th member. He was a leader of the ultimately successful effort to establish the Human Rights Council in early 2006.
Maurer studied history, political science and international law at universities in Berne and Perugia, obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Berne in 1983. After lecturing at the university's Institute for Contemporary History, he joined Switzerland diplomatic service in 1987. He was immediately posted to Switzerland's embassy in South Africa. There he witnessed the violent last throes of the Botha regime, and the first steps towards reforming and ultimately eliminating apartheid.
Maurer returned to Switzerland and became Secretary to the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1996 he was posted to New York where he served as Deputy Permanent Observer of the Swiss Mission to the UN. In May 2000 he assumed the rank of Ambassador and returned to Berne to become head of Political Affairs Division IV (Human Security). In that capacity, Maurer managed Switzerland's increasingly robust and innovative human rights diplomacy, launching, among other initiatives, the Berne process, a grouping of countries engaged in human rights dialogues with China.
Ambassador Maurer will talk about the UN Human Rights Council, of which Switzerland was in the forefront of creating. He will address questions related to Europe: how European human rights and security issues are being treated within the UN, and will attempt to answer the question of why the Swiss people have embraced the UN but have been reluctant to join the European Union.
Sponsored by Forum on Contemporary Europe and Stanford Law School.
Event Synopsis:
Ambassador Maurer describes Switzerland's decision to join the United Nations and outlines the achievements it has made in the 5 years since gaining membership. These achievements encompass a broad human security agenda and include developing mine detection technology, combatting small arms dealing, improving natural disaster preparedness, and promoting accountability for crimes against humanity and for the actions of UN peacekeeping troops. Switzerland was a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court and has pushed for improvements to the UN's mediation processes. It has also shaped discussion about the reform of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Ambassador Maurer then offers prospects for issues such as engagement with North Korea, trans-regional alliances on issues of human rights, and the future of the Human Rights Council. He also describes recent cooperation with China and Russia on the topic of human rights. Moving forward, Ambassador Maurer believes Switzerland's best option for making its voice heard on the international stage will be to expand existing partnerships with European universities and to mobilize applied scientific research to help solve the world's most pressing issues.
A discussion session following the talk raised such issues as: What is Switzerland's approach to the areas of the world, for example those under Sharia law, where international human rights are not a common value? How will the western and non-western parts of the world bridge their very different approaches to human rights? Can cultural influence be more effective than formal multilateral institutions like the UN on certain issues? Should existing organizations like the ICRC deal with refugees from environmental degradation (like rising sea levels)? Is there conflict between different international organizations who deal with the same agenda items, such as between the EU and UN?
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room