Media reports suggest that China is moving its allegiance away from North Korea, following a series of recent provocative acts by Pyongyang. But Dr. Sunny Seong-Hyon Lee, a fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, says there will be no real shift in the relationship anytime soon.

China harshly rebuked North Korea’s third nuclear test in words, yet stopped short of translating words into action. China quickly distanced itself when North Korea executed the young leader’s guardian Jang Song-thaek, saying that was an “internal affair” of North Korea. President Barack Obama said China was “recalculating” its policy toward North Korea. Looking at these signals, Lee asks: does this narrative match reality?

Lee, this year’s Pantech Fellow on Korean Affairs at Shorenstein APARC in the Freeman Spogli Institute, has been conducting research on Chinese perspectives on North Korea using primary and secondary sources. He has a lengthy career as a foreign correspondent at the Korea Times based in China for 11 years, reporting primarily on North Korea. Lee sat down with Shorenstein APARC to answer a few questions about his research and forthcoming book.

How important a role does media play in assessing North Korea?

News media are a central channel for understanding North Korea’s current affairs. Quite often, media are the only channel for the public. Journalists are challenged to deduce the on-the-ground situation in North Korea by examining various signals that North Korea chose to reveal to the outside. Journalists also turn to diplomats, academics and intelligence officials. Media allows us to piece together a telling picture of the DPRK’s current state of affairs. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the audience can take the media reports without critical attitudes either, especially when it comes to North Korea’s elite politics, which could be quite enthralling.

Lee describes the gap in perception among outside observers concerning the China-North Korea relationship. Photo Credit: Sunny Seong-Hyon Lee

How does your journalism background influence your research approach?

Diplomacy surrounding North Korea is a murky topic with its share of secrecy. Figuring out North Korea’s moves is like a religious experience. You often fail to comprehend why it happens. But as a journalist, you encounter so many “false prophets” who claim to know. (To illustrate this point, I wore religious attire during my lecture). It’s also the work of diplomats and you don’t normally strike a conversation with North Korean nuclear negotiator. Journalists, due to the nature of their work, have some access. We chase after these people, wait for them at the airport to get quotes, and attend their press conferences. Some of us get to develop personal relationships with them. In general, journalism allows you to get a glimpse of what is really happening. But the public often doesn’t know how journalism surrounding North Korea works either, for example, the delicate journalist-source relationship, as well as how journalists struggle to connect the dots when he or she hears a fragmented piece of information from an intelligence official. I was shocked when a very senior-level diplomat told me “90% of the media reports about North Korea are inaccurate.”  I think he was frank with me. So, I interviewed journalists who cover North Korea, asking them how they write the stories they write. I also interviewed diplomats, academics, and intelligence officials whom journalists turn to for their story quotes. To protect my sources, I have kept most of them anonymous in my upcoming book, which I hope to finish this summer.

How would you characterize Chinese public opinion toward North Korea?

It’s important to keep in mind that the Chinese government portrays a different position than the average citizen. We do see ebb and flow in the freedom to critically evaluate North Korea in China. On an individual level, many Chinese now use personal blogs and social media sites such as Weibo as forums for freer conversation on sensitive topics. A video clip depicting two boxers fighting in a ring, thought to be a metaphor for U.S.-North Korea relations, went ‘viral’ on social media and stirred up a great deal of conversation. Many Chinese are dissatisfied with the government’s tepid response to North Korea’s nuclear provocations. But the Chinese government approaches the issue from the point of national interest. A socialist political system is also pronounced in making rhetorical statements that don’t necessarily square with its actions. So, when it comes to the North Korean narrative, you see a state versus public sentiment divide, and also rhetoric versus action divide. It can be quite confusing to outside analysts. It’s hard to pin down China. China sees North Korea as a strategic benefit. Today, a very real perception gap exists among outside observers where China exactly stands on North Korea.

Will the Chinese government ever be persuaded by its citizens to change its policy toward North Korea?

Public discontent is unlikely to garner a reaction from the government. China is not structurally organized to respond to public opinion like the United States, nor does it want to. The Communist Party decision-making is insulated in many ways, and has been quite successful in closely monitoring activism. Even so, analysts do argue that a ‘threshold’ exists by which the government may be required to respond.

What factors suggest China’s policy has changed in style but not in substance?

Many factors exist that suggest China’s stance toward North Korea has changed. Most notably was Deng Yuwen’s Financial Times op-ed. Yuwen was the deputy editor of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School; he wrote that China should “abandon” North Korea in Feb. 2013. His critical stance drew international interest since he was a government-associated leader pushing a counter-argument. A few weeks later, Chinese premier Xi Jinping also said, “no country should be allowed to throw the region or the whole world into chaos.” While North Korea was not pinpointed, analysts believe Xi was reprimanding Pyongyang in response to its nuclear brinkmanship. Those signals, coupled with severance of some trade and financial ties, provide leverage to the argument that China is changing its tolerance of ‘misbehavior’ from North Korea. But, those signals are not as substantive as the media has led many to believe.

Should we be optimistic that China-North Korea relations will improve?

I happen to be a bit of a pessimist. The phrase huan tang bu huan yao – a change in name but not in substance – illustrates my thesis. No tangible shift in China’s policy has occurred and the prospects for genuine change in the future are slim. A key point to remember is China determines its position based on America’s involvement. North Korea is effectively China’s ‘policy darling,’ ultimately used as a buffer (physical and psychological) against the American sphere of influence in East Asia, which China believes is meant to contain China. I believe the ‘pivot to Asia’ has created in some Chinese policymakers a certain paranoia. Thus, China still values North Korea and is unlikely to sever ties with its neighbor, as long as the strategic rivalry, competition for leadership, deep-rooted mutual mistrusts and suspicions of intentions between Washington and Beijing persist. Against that backdrop, for the short-term and medium-term, China-North Korea relations will not change because they need each other strategically in East Asia. Maybe in the long-term there is hope.

Lee presented his research at a seminar entitled, “Uncomfortable Relationship: Will China Abandon North Korea?” on April 18. The presentation slides from the event are available below.

Corn yields in the central United States have become more sensitive to drought conditions in the past two decades, according to a new study in the journal Science from a team led FSE associate director David Lobell.

"The Corn Belt is phenomenally productive," Lobell said, referring to the region of Midwestern states where much of the country's corn is grown. "But in the past two decades we saw very small yield gains in non-irrigated corn under the hottest conditions. This suggests farmers may be pushing the limits of what's possible under these conditions."

He predicted that at current levels of temperature sensitivity, crops could lose 15 percent of their yield within 50 years, or as much as 30 percent if crops continue the trend of becoming more sensitive over time.

As Lobell explained, the quest to maximize crop yields has been a driving force behind agricultural research as the world's population grows and climate change puts pressure on global food production. One big challenge for climate science is whether crops can adapt to climate change by becoming less sensitive to hotter and drier weather.

"The data clearly indicate that drought stress for corn and soy comes partly from low rain, but even more so from hot and dry air. Plants have to trade water to get carbon from the air to grow, and the terms of that trade become much less favorable when it's hot," said Lobell, also the lead author for a chapter in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, which details a consensus view on the current state and fate of the world's climate.

Rain, temperature, humidity

The United States produces 40 percent of the world's corn, mostly in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. As more than 80 percent of U.S. agricultural land relies on natural rainfall rather than irrigation, corn farmers in these regions depend on precipitation, air temperature and humidity for optimal plant growth.

According to the research, over the last few decades, corn in the United States has been modified with new traits, like more effective roots that better access water and built-in pest resistance to protect against soil insects. These traits allow farmers to plant seeds closer together in a field, and have helped farmers steadily raise yields in typical years.

But in drought conditions, densely planted corn can suffer higher stress and produce lower yields. In contrast, soybeans have not been planted more densely in recent decades and show no signs of increased sensitivity to drought, the report noted.

Drought conditions are expected to become even more challenging as temperatures continue to rise throughout the 21st century, the researchers said.

Lobell said, "Recent yield progress is overall a good news story. But because farm yields are improving fastest in favorable weather, the stakes for having such weather are rising. In other words, the negative impacts of hot and dry weather are rising at the same time that climate change is expected to bring more such weather."

Extensive data

Lobell's team examined an unprecedented amount of detailed field data from more than 1 million USDA crop insurance records between 1995 and 2012.

"The idea was pretty simple," he said. "We determined which conditions really matter for corn and soy yields, and then tracked how farmers were doing at different levels of these conditions over time. But to do that well, you really need a lot of data, and this dataset was a beauty."

Lobell said he hopes that the research can help inform researchers and policymakers so they can make better decisions.

"I think it's exciting that data like this now exist to see what's actually happening in fields. By taking advantage of this data, we can learn a lot fairly quickly," he said. "Of course, our hope is to improve the situation. But these results challenge the idea that U.S. agriculture will just easily adapt to climate changes because we invest a lot and are really high-tech."

Lobell and colleagues are also looking at ways crops may perform better under increasingly hot conditions. "But I wouldn't expect any miracles," he said. "It will take targeted efforts, and even then gains could be modest. There's only so much a plant can do when it is hot and dry."

This animation shows the increasing sensitivity of U.S. corn to drought over time. Animation by Carlo Di Bonito.

CISAC Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker and a delegation of American scientists traveled to Moscow last week to revitalize nuclear cooperation with Russia, despite diplomatic tensions between the United States and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

The delegation that traveled to Russia last week included former U.S. laboratory scientists Paul White, James Toevs, and K. David Nokes, as well as CISAC research assistants Peter Davis and Alla Kassianova and CISAC fellow Jason Reinhardt.

The team traveled to Russia to host a workshop and make the case that continued scientific cooperation in reducing nuclear risks – particularly to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism – should remain a top priority for both countries, even as U.S.-Russia relations continue to deteriorate.

The White House has implemented increasingly stricter sanctions against top Russian officials and has restricted official travel and scientific cooperation. Washington accuses Moscow of trying to destabilize the new government in Ukraine by backing pro-Russian separatists in the former Soviet state.

Hecker chaired a Track II workshop at the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) on April 24 on “Cooperation on Countering Nuclear Terrorism and Nonproliferation.” Presenters from Russian institutes and U.S. laboratories included Reinhardt, a national security systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories who is pursuing a PhD at Stanford in Management Science & Engineering. He argued for expanded cooperation to counter nuclear terrorism and reduce the risk of global proliferation.

“It is paramount that American and Russian scientists continue to work together to deal with today’s nuclear risks despite the tension between our two nations,” says Hecker, a Stanford professor of management science and engineering. The former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory made his first trip to the Russian nuclear complex in early 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union to promote joint efforts to mitigate the threats posed by the huge Russian nuclear complex during a time of political and economic turmoil.

The threats have changed during the past 22 years, but have not gone away, Hecker says. Yet cooperation between Russian and American nuclear scientists has declined significantly during the past decade because Russia has recovered economically and has grown progressively more protective against external intervention. Now, the crisis in the Ukraine threatens to stop cooperation completely.

More than 200 students from MEPhI’s nuclear science and nonproliferation programs participated in the workshop, alongside prominent Russian scientists.

“The large audience indicates how seriously the nuclear specialists from both sides take the need to protect the world from the spread of nuclear weapons and materials to other states and non-state actors,” says Hecker, whose workshop grew from his Nuclear Risk Reduction Project (NRR), which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation and the MacArthur Foundation.

Hecker is also working with his former Russian counterparts at the Russian nuclear weapons laboratories on a book about the history of U.S.-Russia national laboratory cooperation, which is due out later this year. That book will tell the story of how the scientists worked together during difficult times to make the world a safer place.

Russian and American scientists discuss nuclear collaboration as students from the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute look on. Photo Credit: Peter Davis

We asked Hecker to answer several questions related to his trip to Moscow.

Why did you still travel to Moscow given the recent events in Ukraine?

I had to discuss the book with my Russian collaborators in order to meet our fall deadline for publication. We also wanted to reinforce the belief of scientists on both sides that we must continue to cooperate even, or perhaps especially, when our governments are at odds. That is why we organized the educational conference on nuclear cooperation.

Did the U.S. government try to stop you?

Since I went as a Stanford University professor, I did not need official approval. Key individuals in the government knew that I was going and did not try to stop me. However, colleagues from the Department of Energy’s nuclear laboratories were prohibited from attending a related conference and Washington canceled several official bilateral meetings and visits.

Were the Russians allowed to meet with your delegation?

Yes, we met with the key individuals on the Russian side and MEPhI organized a great conference. We did have to switch the venue of one of our side meetings from one of the Russian nuclear weapons laboratories to neutral ground. I think the Russian government did not want these meetings to look official after the U.S. government has canceled most interactions for the foreseeable future.

How do your Russian collaborators view the recent events in Ukraine?

Without exception, they viewed it with alarm and laid the blame squarely on the “fascists” who took over Kiev’s government illegally. They could not understand how the Americans could support what they see as an illegitimate regime. We got quite a lesson on the intertwined history of Russia and the Ukraine. They believe the Americans simply don’t understand the deep relations and commitment all Russians have for Ukraine. When we tried to give a Western point of view, some Russian colleagues told us that we have been brainwashed by Washington and the media.

How does the downturn in relations affect your views on the need for cooperation?

Despite their views on Ukraine, our Russian colleagues all said we must continue to work the nuclear issues together. So while we couldn’t agree on Ukraine, we agreed for the need to keep up our work – which for me has now spanned 49 visits to Russia during the past 22 years. 

What role has CISAC’s collaboration with the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) played in your work on nuclear cooperation?

MEPhI is a great counterpart for CISAC and a number of other American universities. It educates about one-third of the scientists and engineers that make up the Russian nuclear complex. It is with the next generation that we have the best chance of reducing the global nuclear risks that we face now and in the future.

In conversation with Shorenstein APARC, Karen Eggleston, center fellow and director of the Asia Health Policy Program, reflects on her initial draw to Asian studies and eventual focus on comparative Asia health policy. She also shares perspectives on health reform in China and demographic change across East Asia, and talks about related upcoming activities.

How did you begin in Asia health policy?

I have long been interested in Asia in general. My initial appeal to the region came from my family’s roots (my grandfather taught Korean history at Berkeley) and early international travel. Only much later in graduate school did I come to the area of economics as a discipline and health policy as my specialty; however, I had been attracted to economic development and social policy in Asia earlier on. I started with an undergraduate degree in Asian studies, which followed with a Masters degree in Asian studies specifically focused on China and Korea. During graduate school, my father-in-law introduced me to unique perspectives, as he was a physician in China. When he visited the United States to present his work, I helped translate his findings. As my career developed, I had the privilege of working with many inspiring health economists, and economists interested in health policy, some of whom acted as my mentors at Harvard and here at Stanford - János Kornai, Victor Fuchs, Joseph Newhouse, Richard Zeckhauser, and Jay Bhattacharya, to name a few. These experiences helped to further narrow my focus and interests.

What led you to Stanford?

It was extremely exciting when the opportunity arose to come to Stanford. The university is a world-class learning environment and is unique in having a health policy program focused on Asia. I was recruited to the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at the founding of the Asia Health Policy Program. The Program is distinctive given its comparative approach focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, which differs from most other institutions. The west coast is also geographically closer to Asia, so you get a ‘flavor’ and infusion of Asian studies here more so than on the east coast. Not to mention, it was a delight to come back to my home state of California after many long years of New England winters.

To be a successful scholar of global health policy, what tools or perspectives should one be informed about?

Global health policy is a very complex field, and can be approached many ways. This, of course, makes it both exciting and challenging. My own approach is through the lens of economics. If you are looking at research and evidence-based policy, it can be beneficial to have either a social science background or a medical-clinical discipline (or both), perhaps combined with a specific geographic focus. Knowing about the history, culture, and institutions are very important for understanding health policy challenges. It also helps to build capacity within that region of focus. Partnering with practitioners and scholars in the country or region allows you to know what is really happening on-the-ground, and feed the research back into local policy decisions. I also think it is important to emphasize evidence over ideology – for example, to keep clear in your mind whether you are more of a policy advocate or academic. A scholar can play varying roles at different times in their careers, but it isn’t easy to do both fully at once. 

As China’s population and social inequalities continue to grow, are its current governance structures sustainable?

Even though political economy is not my expertise, institutions and how they adapt to a society’s needs is pertinent to anyone looking at health reform. For example, in China, there has been a lot of debate since the leadership transition and its implications for national health administration. Should health policy be led solely by the Ministry of Health, now the Health and Family Planning Commission? The Ministry runs the hospitals but is not in charge of the urban insurance system – this falls to Labor and Human Resources. Other branches of government administer regulation, pricing and other aspects of health policy. And of course the Ministry of Finance, and National Development and Reform Commission, play key roles. Like many countries, China has over 14 different ministries and agencies that are involved in the organization of its health system. Thus a relevant question is: who is in charge of taking the next step and coordinating between those entities? A health reform office was established directly under the State Council. Population aging is another issue that spans multiple sectors and policymaking entities. The Chinese government will be impelled to adapt its policies to face new challenges.

What are the connections between health policy and demographic change? Can you tell us about your upcoming work?

One important connection between health policy and demographic change is that the burden of disease changes as the population changes. A country with a large young population (like India) will have a different burden of disease than a country with a large older population (like Japan). If fertility and mortality rates decline, the burden of disease shifts toward chronic, non-communicable disease incidence. Partly, this trend reflects a ‘triumph’ from control of infectious disease and the demographic transition (with longer lives and lower fertility), but then it presents a new set of challenges for society to deal with problems of that older population. Some of my work compares China and India, which have similarities in size and socio-economic diversity. This May, I am helping to organize a conference at the Stanford Center at Peking University in Beijing with my Stanford colleagues Jean Oi, Scott Rozelle and Xueguang Zhou, and our collaborators at the PRC National Development and Reform Commission. The conference will compare urbanization and demographic trends in China and India. It is envisioned that the conference will lead to two separate book projects – one on urbanization in China in comparative perspective and another on demographic change in China and India. We will also present findings that were an outcome of a three-year research project, with initial findings published in The Journal of Asian Studies.

Tell us something we don’t know about you.

In my youth, I was very much into equestrian vaulting and played the violin. As one of my mentors said to all his students, ‘you might not be the world’s best at any one category, but if you look at the overlap between different categories, you could be distinctive.’ So I might very well be one of the world’s only horse-vaulting, violin-playing health economists, for what it’s worth.

The Faculty Spotlight Q&A series highlights a different faculty member at Shorenstein APARC each month giving a personal look at his or her scholarly approaches and outlook on related topics and upcoming activities.

President Barack Obama’s trip to four Asian nations – Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines – set out to address an ambitious agenda, including trade negotiations, territorial disputes, and the threat of North Korea. Scholars at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute provided commentary to local and international media about the state tour.

Ambassador Michael Armacost, a distinguished fellow at Shorenstein APARC, evaluated the goals of the trip, saying it aimed to deliver a message of reassurance to East Asia that the U.S. rebalance is intact. Armacost highlighted the efforts to negotiate a 12-nation trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the centerpiece of the Obama trip to Asia. He was interviewed by Weekly Toyo Keizi, a Japanese political economy magazine. An English version of the Q&A is available on Dispatch Japan.

Many foreign policy issues shadowed the outset of President Obama’s Asia trip, the crisis in Ukraine and Syria, among others. Daniel Sneider, associate director of research at Shorenstein APARC, said in Slate that Asian nations notice where the United States focuses its time. Obama’s commitment to the region may have come across as distracted given the breadth of his current foreign policy agenda.

Sneider also spoke with LinkAsia on Obama’s stop in Tokyo. President Obama met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe; the two leaders addressed issues surrounding territorial disputes and attempted to reach an agreement on outside market access issues in the TPP negotiations.

Donald Emmerson, director of Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Forum, offered an assessment of America’s ‘pivot to Asia’ and on the significance of the Malaysia and Philippines visits. He said the trip most notably reinforced America’s efforts to upgrade security commitments and promote freer trade negotiation in that region. The Q&A was carried by the Stanford News Service.

Emmerson spoke with McClatchyDC on two occasions about the Philippines leg of the tour. He commented on Obama’s statement reaffirming the United States’ security commitment to Japan, which recognized Japan’s administrative control over the Senkaku Islands. Emmerson suggested the greater context of claims in the South China Sea must be considered, including Manila’s. He also said maintenance of the security alliance is a positive step, but trade is a an essential part of the the pivot's sustainablility.