Daniel I. Okimoto Conference Room
Perhaps no other country has more to lose from North Korea's acquisition of a sizeable nuclear arsenal than China. The existence of such weapons would not only endanger the city of Beijing but also provoke a regional arms race in which Japan, South Korea, and possibly even Taiwan would eventually develop their own strategic deterrents. Given these facts, it is surprising that China has not acted more forcefully to persuade Pyongyang to terminate its nuclear program.
The explanation for this reluctance is the importance Beijing attaches to regional stability. If the North Korean regime were to collapse, a refugee crisis would ensue as starving people flooded across the border into northeastern China, and the way would be opened for South Korean and American troops to advance up the peninsula towards Beijing.
If the Bush administration wants to enlist Chinese help against Pyongyang, therefore, it must first assuage these very reasonable concerns.
China's importance to the United States stems from the absence of other sources of leverage over Pyongyang. Military action against North Korea is an unattractive option because Kim Jong Il and his generals could retaliate massively. Promises of long-term economic aid in exchange for Pyongyang's renouncing its nuclear aspirations also offers little hope. Kim has a long record of consenting to such deals and then surreptitiously reviving his armament efforts.
What is needed is an intermediate form of suasion. China is the only power that possesses this sort of leverage. According to South Korean analysts, in 2002 China supplied 31 percent of North Korea's imports and accounted for 37 percent of its exports. In addition, each year Beijing gives several hundred thousand tons of food aid to its troublesome neighbor, and, now that the United States and Japan have suspended their oil shipments, provides the preponderance of its fuel.
Beijing has occasionally used its influence to express discontent with North Korean behavior, and, by all accounts, the diplomatic dialogue between the two states has also become more acrimonious of late.
However, Beijing will presumably not press Pyongyang much further unless it is assured of the Bush administration's goodwill. In practice, this means that Washington must identify and alleviate China's specific geopolitical concerns. If Beijing fears a refugee crisis, then the United States and its allies must promise to help finance the care of the displaced and perhaps to absorb some significant number of North Korean emigrants. If Beijing fears the approach of American military forces, Washington should consider promising to limit U.S. activities north of the demilitarized zone.
While demonstrating that the United States is willing to accommodate China's needs, the Bush administration must also prove that Pyongyang's policies represent an immediate threat to East Asian stability. To do this, Washington needs to engage more frequently and more conciliatorily in diplomatic talks with Kim and his representatives. For with each abortive discussion, each rejection of reasonable American gestures, the North Koreans push Beijing closer to the conclusion that they pose an unacceptable danger to China's national security interests.
The effect of this policy of dual engagement with China and North Korea would almost certainly be positive. As Beijing's attitude towards Pyongyang hardened, the world might see a sharp reduction in its oil shipments, the deployment of more troops to the North Korean border, or overt discussions with the United States about the future of the peninsula. This would be the strongest possible signal to Pyongyang, short of war, that the world will not tolerate its emergence as a major nuclear power. If, on the other hand, he remained intransigent until the intensified pressure caused North Korea to collapse, Washington and Beijing would still be relatively well situated to deal with the ensuing challenges.
It is through the joint resolution of serious challenges that potential rivals like the United States and China learn to trust each other. If there is a silver lining to the North Korean cloud, it is this opportunity to improve bilateral communications in anticipation of future exigencies.
The writer is a fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford Institute for International Studies.
STANFORD, California Perhaps no other country has more to lose from North Korea's acquisition of a sizeable nuclear arsenal than China. The existence of such weapons would not only endanger the city of Beijing but also provoke a regional arms race in which Japan, South Korea, and possibly even Taiwan would eventually develop their own strategic deterrents. Given these facts, it is surprising that China has not acted more forcefully to persuade Pyongyang to terminate its nuclear program.
The explanation for this reluctance is the importance Beijing attaches to regional stability. If the North Korean regime were to collapse, a refugee crisis would ensue as starving people flooded across the border into northeastern China, and the way would be opened for South Korean and American troops to advance up the peninsula towards Beijing.
If the Bush administration wants to enlist Chinese help against Pyongyang, therefore, it must first assuage these very reasonable concerns.
China's importance to the United States stems from the absence of other sources of leverage over Pyongyang. Military action against North Korea is an unattractive option because Kim Jong Il and his generals could retaliate massively. Promises of long-term economic aid in exchange for Pyongyang's renouncing its nuclear aspirations also offers little hope. Kim has a long record of consenting to such deals and then surreptitiously reviving his armament efforts.
What is needed is an intermediate form of suasion. China is the only power that possesses this sort of leverage. According to South Korean analysts, in 2002 China supplied 31 percent of North Korea's imports and accounted for 37 percent of its exports. In addition, each year Beijing gives several hundred thousand tons of food aid to its troublesome neighbor, and, now that the United States and Japan have suspended their oil shipments, provides the preponderance of its fuel.
Beijing has occasionally used its influence to express discontent with North Korean behavior, and, by all accounts, the diplomatic dialogue between the two states has also become more acrimonious of late.
However, Beijing will presumably not press Pyongyang much further unless it is assured of the Bush administration's goodwill. In practice, this means that Washington must identify and alleviate China's specific geopolitical concerns. If Beijing fears a refugee crisis, then the United States and its allies must promise to help finance the care of the displaced and perhaps to absorb some significant number of North Korean emigrants. If Beijing fears the approach of American military forces, Washington should consider promising to limit U.S. activities north of the demilitarized zone.
While demonstrating that the United States is willing to accommodate China's needs, the Bush administration must also prove that Pyongyang's policies represent an immediate threat to East Asian stability. To do this, Washington needs to engage more frequently and more conciliatorily in diplomatic talks with Kim and his representatives. For with each abortive discussion, each rejection of reasonable American gestures, the North Koreans push Beijing closer to the conclusion that they pose an unacceptable danger to China's national security interests.
The effect of this policy of dual engagement with China and North Korea would almost certainly be positive. As Beijing's attitude towards Pyongyang hardened, the world might see a sharp reduction in its oil shipments, the deployment of more troops to the North Korean border, or overt discussions with the United States about the future of the peninsula. This would be the strongest possible signal to Pyongyang, short of war, that the world will not tolerate its emergence as a major nuclear power. If, on the other hand, he remained intransigent until the intensified pressure caused North Korea to collapse, Washington and Beijing would still be relatively well situated to deal with the ensuing challenges.
It is through the joint resolution of serious challenges that potential rivals like the United States and China learn to trust each other. If there is a silver lining to the North Korean cloud, it is this opportunity to improve bilateral communications in anticipation of future exigencies.
The writer is a fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford Institute for International Studies. Enlisting Beijing
This seminar is part of the Shorenstein Forum's North Korea series.
Philippines Conference Room
This panel discussion is part of the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum North Korea Seminar Series.
Philippines Conference Room
This panel discussion is part of the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum North Korea Seminar Series.
Philippines Conference Room
Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in the Department of Sociology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the founding director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) since 2001, all at Stanford University. In May 2024, Shin also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC. He served as director of APARC for two decades (2005-2025). As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, migration, and international relations.
In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is a new research initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia. Across four research themes– “Talent Flows and Development,” “Nationalism and Racism,” “U.S.-Asia Relations,” and “Democratic Crisis and Reform”–the lab brings scholars and students to produce interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India to be published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2025, is an outcome of SNAPL.
Shin is also the author/editor of twenty-seven books and numerous articles. His books include The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India (2025); Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threat of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Superficial Korea (2017); Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (2016); Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015); Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic and policy journals, including American Journal of Sociology, World Development, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Education, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs.
Shin is not only the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, but also continues to actively raise funds for Korean/Asian studies at Stanford. He gives frequent lectures and seminars on topics ranging from Korean nationalism and politics to Korea's foreign relations, historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and talent strategies. He serves on councils and advisory boards in the United States and South Korea and promotes policy dialogue between the two allies. He regularly writes op-eds and gives interviews to the media in both Korean and English.
Before joining Stanford in 2001, Shin taught at the University of Iowa (1991-94) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1994-2001). After receiving his BA from Yonsei University in Korea, he was awarded his MA and PhD from the University of Washington in 1991.
Karin Lee is the senior associate for the East Asia Policy Education Project for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Prior to this position, Karin worked for the American Friends Service Committee for many years, most recently based in Tokyo, where she facilitated regional exchanges on topics of peace, reconciliation, and economic justice. She has visited North Korea three times, and South Korea about twenty-five times. She is a regular contributor to the Korea Quarterly, for which she writes a column on U.S. policy toward the Koreas.
Philippines Conference Room
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
There are "no good options" for the United States to confront or contain North Korea's nuclear weapons proliferation, according to political science Professor Scott Sagan.
Sagan, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies, was one of five foreign policy experts who joined a panel discussion Friday titled "It's a Mad, Mad World: Prospects for Security, Diplomacy and Peace on the Korean Peninsula." Presented by the Law School, the event took place in Dinkelspiel Auditorium as part of Reunion Homecoming Weekend.
Panelists Mi-Hyung Kim, Bernard S. Black, Gi-Wook Shin and Scott D. Sagan took turns weighing in on the difficulties of U.S. diplomatic relations with North Korea during a law school-sponsored discussion. Photo: L.A. Cicero
What makes the situation even more vexing is that the objectives of neither North Korea nor the United States are entirely clear, said law Associate Professor Allen Weiner, a former State Department lawyer and diplomat who moderated the panel.
"Is the United States intent on a regime change? Or putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle?" Weiner asked.
"North Korea feels threatened by the United States and believes nuclear weapons are the only way to protect its national sovereignty," said sociology Associate Professor Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Korean Studies Program in the Asia/Pacific Research Center.
The talk came one day after North Korea announced that it is prepared to "physically unveil" its nuclear program. By Sunday, President George W. Bush announced that he would provide written assurances not to attack North Korea if the country takes steps to halt its proliferation and if other Asian leaders signed, too. Bush, who counted North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," stopped short of offering a formal, Senate-approved nonaggression treaty.
Earlier this month, North Korea claimed to have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to build a half-dozen nuclear bombs. Faced with a collapsed economy and the legacy of 1.5 million deaths from starvation in the late 1990s, the North Korean government, led by Kim Jong Il, has overtly threatened to use its small arsenal as deterrence against U.S. aggression. Although it has been difficult to verify North Korea's capabilities, international experts have asserted that its main nuclear facility in Yongbyon could produce one or two bombs a year.
Tension first heated up last October when North Korea admitted to having abandoned the 1994 Framework Agreement brokered by the Clinton administration to shut down its nuclear reprocessing facilities.
Confirming U.S. intelligence reports that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons capabilities, the former director of the CIA under the Clinton administration, Jim Woolsey, said from the audience that in 1994 the CIA was confident North Korea had enough plutonium to make one or two bombs. Estimating that its current capabilities hover somewhere around six bombs, Woolsey explained North Korea doesn't have good delivery technology. The greater concern, he said, is that it would produce enough plutonium to sell to al-Qaida.
The amount of plutonium it takes to build a bomb is the "size of a grapefruit" -- making it difficult to monitor and stop weapons material shipments, Sagan said.
Believing North Korea is posturing for economic aid and bilateral security guarantees, the United States has sidestepped direct talks and instead joined South Korea, China, Japan and Russia in a round of six-party talks with North Korea last August. Bush's announcement is seen as an effort to jump-start the next round of regional talks that were expected by the end of the year.
The crisis has taken its toll on the longstanding alliance between the United States and South Korea. Panelist Mi-Hyung Kim, a founding member of South Korea's Millennium Democratic Party and general counsel and executive vice president of the Kumho Business Group, the ninth largest Korean conglomerate, said the relationship between the United States and South Korea is the "rockiest" it has ever been because of "Bush's hard-line policy on North Korea" and the fact that wartime control of the South Korean military reverts to U.S. hands. Bilateral talks would further alienate South Korea, which fears that Seoul will become a "sea of fire," she said.
"South Korea thinks Bush is a bigger threat than nuclear weapons 35 miles to the north," Kim explained, pointing out that South Korea will bear the brunt of a military conflict. "South Korea wants to avoid war and economic burdens it can't afford," she said.
Part of the problem has been the failure of the United States to explain its policy to the South Korean people. "The United States is bad at selling its policies to publics abroad," Weiner noted. We're used to dealing bilaterally with government officials; public diplomacy is a skill we've had to learn over the past 15 years."
"A PR campaign by the United States is not going to solve this," Kim countered.
"If North Korea collapses, how will South Korea survive?" asked law Professor Bernard Black, a panelist who served as an economic policy adviser to the South Korean government. "South Korea would have to devote 30 percent of its GDP to bring North Korea up to its standard of living and that's not sustainable.
"South Korea has lived under North Korean guns for the last 50 years. North Korea can destroy Seoul at any time. South Koreans are saying, 'What's changed?' The last thing South Korea wants is to provoke North Korea to attack."
China, North Korea's closest ally, may have the most leverage through trade sanctions and has a vested interest in halting regional proliferation, Kim said. "China does not need another nuclear neighbor. ... It has enough problems with India and Pakistan." North Korea's proliferation could lead to a nuclear Japan, South Korea and "its worst fear, a nuclear Taiwan."
Predicting that nothing would come of the next round of talks until after the next U.S. presidential election, Kim said ironically, "North Korea is expecting a regime change in the United States to an administration that is more reasonable."
"North Korea is not a crazy rogue state but a dangerously desperate state," said Sagan. "When you play poker with someone who's cheated in the past, you can expect them to cheat again."
North Korea claims to have produced enough plutonium to build half a dozen nuclear bombs. U.S. intelligence indicates North Korea may indeed possess one or two nuclear weapons. The North Korean government has overtly threatened to use their arsenal against the United States. How credible is the threat? Is North Korea becoming the next Iraq? The U.S., China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea are pushing for another six-party talk. Can diplomacy, international aid, and security guarantees curb North Korea's nuclear proliferation? Can we negotiate with a regime devoid of a rule of law? What are our other options?
Panel discussion moderated by Warren Christopher, Professor in the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, Stanford Law School, and including:
A panel discussion featuring:
Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford Law School, Stanford University Campus
Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in the Department of Sociology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the founding director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) since 2001, all at Stanford University. In May 2024, Shin also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC. He served as director of APARC for two decades (2005-2025). As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, migration, and international relations.
In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is a new research initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia. Across four research themes– “Talent Flows and Development,” “Nationalism and Racism,” “U.S.-Asia Relations,” and “Democratic Crisis and Reform”–the lab brings scholars and students to produce interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India to be published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2025, is an outcome of SNAPL.
Shin is also the author/editor of twenty-seven books and numerous articles. His books include The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India (2025); Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threat of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Superficial Korea (2017); Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (2016); Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015); Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic and policy journals, including American Journal of Sociology, World Development, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Education, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs.
Shin is not only the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, but also continues to actively raise funds for Korean/Asian studies at Stanford. He gives frequent lectures and seminars on topics ranging from Korean nationalism and politics to Korea's foreign relations, historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and talent strategies. He serves on councils and advisory boards in the United States and South Korea and promotes policy dialogue between the two allies. He regularly writes op-eds and gives interviews to the media in both Korean and English.
Before joining Stanford in 2001, Shin taught at the University of Iowa (1991-94) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1994-2001). After receiving his BA from Yonsei University in Korea, he was awarded his MA and PhD from the University of Washington in 1991.
CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
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Scott D. Sagan is Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, and the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He also serves as Co-Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.
Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).
Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).
In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.