After stirring international media attention and drawing criticism from its neighbors and the United States, North Korea’s controversial launch of a rocket under the guise of installing an “Earth observation” satellite in orbit took place on Apr. 13.

David Straub, associate director of Stanford’s Korean Studies Program, assesses the likely responses of the United States and other concerned countries, and provides historical context for the actions of North Korea’s leadership.

How is the launch going to impact North Korea’s relations with the United States and other countries?

We have already “been there, done that.” This will be the third North Korean test of a long-range rocket in six years. Shortly after the launches in 2006 and 2009, the North Koreans tested their first nuclear devices. The concern is that they will again use the expected international condemnation of their launch as a pretext for conducting another nuclear test.

But sometimes experience changes perspective. The United States and other countries will want to try to respond to the rocket test in a way that complicates any North Korean effort to justify a new nuclear test.

The international community really cannot remain silent, because United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1874, which was passed in 2009, forbids North Korea from conducting precisely this kind of launch. I anticipate the UNSC will meet to discuss the situation but will not be able to issue a formal resolution. It will probably wind up issuing only a UNSC presidential statement criticizing the launch. China is the main obstacle. It does not approve of North Korea’s activities, but it is more concerned that putting great pressure on North Korea will result in instability. 

The United States, South Korea, and Japan will continue to consult and coordinate closely with one another. They may take additional measures to collect intelligence about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. They may also look to bolster their cooperation on missile defense, and take further steps to restrict North Korea’s access to nuclear- and missile-related materials and technology. They may apply additional economic sanctions to show their disapproval of North Korea’s actions.

Do you think the launch is going make it more difficult for North Korea to conduct trade and obtain aid and development assistance?

North Korea’s behavior now is part and parcel of its behavior over the past several decades. For the North Korean regime, the wellbeing of its people is clearly a secondary priority compared to its own survival.

At least since the end of the cold war, North Korea has faced a dilemma: Open up or fail, or open up and fail. In other words, it needs to open up to receive outside investment and technology if it is ever to have a successful economy. If it does not do that, the regime is unsustainable over the long run. But North Korea’s leaders fear that opening to the outside world would bring down their regime because it will expose the country’s weaknesses to its people. In order to get out of this dilemma, they have reached for weapons of mass destruction—particularly nuclear devices and the missiles they hope eventually can carry them. That is why there is no indication the North Korean leadership is prepared to completely give up those programs, at least on any terms that the United States, Japan, or South Korea could accept.

This is a long-term challenge for the United States and its allies. We have to see the situation for what it is, and deal with it accordingly. That means we must never “accept” North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. As long as North Korea maintains these programs, we must make it clear that we will not establish diplomatic relations or ease sanctions. But that also does not mean that we should not continue to hold out to North Korea the possibility of a negotiated settlement, should it really be prepared to completely give up these programs.  

What are some of the key things to keep in mind about North Korea’s recent actions and about the country in general?

To understand what North Korea is doing, we have to get back to basics. The fundamental situation stems from the 1945 division of the Korean Peninsula into two separate states. North Korea’s Stalinist-style system developed into a totalitarian dictatorship with a personality cult, and it has been spectacularly unsuccessful, especially compared to its rival state South Korea.

The leaders in North Korea are reasonably well-informed and intelligent people. They saw what happened to the Soviet Union and its satellite states in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and decided it would not happen to them. For them, the lesson was: Do not open up or even receive aid, unless it is completely controlled to minimize outside influences. Most of the North Korean elite believes their regime is the legitimate Korean regime. They also understand that regime collapse could well mean absorption of the North by the South, and the possibility that they could go on trial for crimes against their own people. I anticipate that most of the elite will try very hard to hold the regime together in the coming years, even if it means continuing to pursue nuclear and missile programs and threatening and even attacking South Korea again.

But sooner or later major change is inevitable in such a rigid system. This requires the concerned countries to have a clear-headed analysis of the situation, take a long-term perspective, and consistently implement a principled policy. It is very challenging to do this with so many countries involved. But it can be done. Over the long term, the strengths of democracies far outweigh their weaknesses in dealing with countries like North Korea.  

Stanford opened a research and education center at China’s Peking University, strengthening an already close academic bond and building a stronger tie to one of the world’s fastest-growing countries.

“Globalization is the defining characteristic of the 21^st Century,” Stanford President John Hennessy said during an opening ceremony on March 21 that drew hundreds of academics, donors and government officials to the opening of the Stanford Center at Peking University.

“It is increasingly important for our students to understand what it means to be citizens of the world, to bring a more international perspective, to be able to communicate with others from different backgrounds or with different expertise,” he said. “Both Peking University and Stanford are stepping up to that challenge and moving to become more global institutions to address the challenges of this century. This new center exemplifies that.”

Designed as a resource for the entire Stanford community and administered by the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, 10 programs and departments – including the School of Medicine’s Asian Liver Center, the Bing Overseas Studies Program and the Rural Education Action Project – will locate operations at SCPKU.

FSI faculty already doing research in China showcased their work during conferences held in conjunction with the opening of the center.

The new building is available to the several hundred Stanford scholars studying, researching and conducting university activities in China each year. It also offers the opportunity for Stanford faculty to work with academics from Peking University and other universities throughout China.

“Stanford is one of the most valued partners of Peking University,” PKU President Zhou Qifeng said. “The center will create more opportunities through collaborative research, student and faculty exchange programs, joint teaching and other activities.”

The center makes Stanford the first American university to construct a building for its use on a major Chinese university campus. SCPKU will allow current educational programs to expand, but will not grant Stanford degrees.

The center’s distinctiveness is reflected in the building that houses it – a 36,000-square-foot structure that combines Chinese and Western architecture. The courtyard building was constructed with interlocking mortise-and-tenon joinery – a classic Chinese technique that eliminates the need for nails or glue.

Hand-painted scenes depicting typical Chinese landscapes and views from Stanford’s campus are featured on the building beams. At the point where beams and columns meet, artists added Chinese symbols for teaching, learning and scholarship.

State-of-the-art classrooms, conference rooms and meeting spaces fill out the two floors below the courtyard. Skylights, interior gardens and a reflecting pool invoke a natural setting.

The melding of styles brings as much substance as symbolism.

SCPKU “marks a new era of collaboration between two outstanding universities,” Gary Locke, the U.S. ambassador to China, said during the opening ceremony. “It also represents a new bridge of understanding between our nations – and most importantly – our peoples.

“There are virtually no problems in the world today that cannot be solved if the people – the scientists and engineers, and the business people – of the United States and China join together,” Locke said. “And this center will help make that happen.”

Stanford’s relationship with China dates to the late 1970s, when the university began accepting Chinese graduate students. Students from China have accounted for the largest number of Stanford’s foreign graduate students for the past decade, with about 600 enrolled last year.

Those scholars are part of the 160,000 Chinese students studying in American colleges and universities every year, a number that eclipses the 16,000 American students taking classes in China, Locke said.

“We have to know much more about each other’s cultures, customs, traditions, values and languages so we can build a mutual trust and understanding that will allow us to face all of the challenges we face,” he said. “The way to build that trust starts with building people-to-people interactions. It starts with more student exchanges…and it most certainly starts with the Stanford center here at Peking University.”

Over the last 30 years, Stanford’s bond with Peking University has grown from an initial collaboration between the schools’ Asian language departments to a wide range of joint research and academic exchanges.

In 2004, Stanford’s undergraduate study abroad and internship programs began at Peking University. The study abroad program continues to be managed by the Bing Overseas Studies Program, which hosts roughly 60 undergraduates every year on the Peking University campus.  The internship programs are coordinated by the International, Comparative, and Area Studies Program.

The overseas studies program offers a broad curriculum taught by a Stanford faculty-in-residence who spends a 10-week quarter with the students in Beijing.  A range of topical and language courses are taught by Peking University faculty.

“The new center at PKU allows us to continue this dynamic program in a new environment designed to encourage interaction across disciplines and with graduate students and faculty from both universities,” said Irene Kennedy, the program’s executive director. “We also plan to continue supporting and developing interactions between Stanford and PKU students through language partnering and by including Chinese students in classes taught by Stanford faculty and associated field trips.”

Jean Oi and Andrew Walder – both senior fellows at the Freeman Spogli Institute – began building on that relationship in 2006 by envisioning a way to bolster Stanford research, teaching, training and outreach activities in China. Their ideas led to the creation of SCPKU and several new academic programs, including a law school exchange program.

The $7 million project is funded entirely from gifts made to the Stanford International Initiative. The lead donor was the charitable foundation of the family of Chien Lee, a Hong Kong-based private investor and Stanford emeritus trustee who received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the university in 1975 and his MBA from the Graduate School of Business four years later.

The SCPKU building is named for his father, the late Lee Jung Sen, who attended Peking University in the mid-1930s when it was Yenching University. Lee’s mother, Leatrice Lowe Lee, graduated from Stanford in 1945.

A bust of Lee Jung Sen sits in SCPKU’s courtyard, one level above the modern facility and surrounded by the more familiar, traditional Chinese architecture.

Imagine you are on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) and a naval dispute breaks out on the Korean Peninsula while you are at home celebrating Thanksgiving. You have just three hours to prepare a detailed memorandum summarizing the situation and offering recommendations for how the United States should respond.

This is a major responsibility with a large number of interrelated issues that must be taken into account—how would you proceed?

Stanford students in the winter quarter course U.S. Policy toward Northeast Asia (IPS 244) had the opportunity to step into the challenging role of the NSC senior director for Asia and consider such a security situation. They wrote and presented memoranda on this and an East Asia trade crisis scenario in class, as well as a final memorandum to the president proposing a China policy for his second term. The assignments required students to consider a wide range of global, regional, and domestic factors—many pulled directly from current global events.

Each member of the team of Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) Asia experts teaching the course drew on decades of related expertise to write the scenarios.

• Michael H. Armacost, the Center’s Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, previously served on the NSC, in the Defense Department, as U.S. ambassador to the Philippines and Japan, and as undersecretary of state for political affairs.
• Shorenstein APARC associate director for research Daniel C. Sneider, an Asia history expert, spent over 30 years as a journalist reporting on international affairs and security issues, including working as a foreign correspondent in Japan, Korea, India, and Russia.
• David Straub, associate director of Stanford’s Korean Studies Program, is a former State Department official with long-time expertise in U.S.-Korea relations and North Korea, including participation in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.
• Thomas Fingar, FSI’s Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, is a China expert and has previously held numerous key U.S. intelligence posts, most recently as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He also served as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

In the first assignment, students read about a proposed China-Japan-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA). Navigating through a web of regional and domestic issues, they advised on how the United States should respond to an appeal from Japan for certain trade concessions in exchange for its backing out of the FTA. The assignment described complex economic and political conditions in May 2013 after elections in the United States, South Korea, and Japan, and a leadership transition in China. The U.S.-Japan alliance was one of many key factors students took into account.

“It was my great pleasure to participate in this class—it truly broadened my views of U.S. foreign policy toward Northeast Asia. The substantive knowledge presented by both instructors and students during the class will undoubtedly contribute to a much safer, more peaceful, and unified world.”
-Heeyoung Kwon, Visiting Scholar, Korea Foundation

The next memorandum assignment described an inter-Korean naval dispute falling in the crucial weeks between the 2012 U.S. and South Korean presidential elections. It narrated the economic and political situation of each country in precise detail, and set the stage for the dispute with real-life events like the 2010 sinking of the South Korean navy ship the Cheonan. Students were asked to consider the possible role China could play in mediating with North Korea, and how U.S. tensions with Iran could limit its involvement in negotiations.

“In IPS 244…no conversation is irrelevant to current events in Northeast Asia…The memo assignments…are so detailed, so current, and so realistic, that even a seasoned diplomat would be challenged by them—I know this because there are seasoned diplomats taking the class.”
-Jeffrey Stern, MA Student, International Studies Program

Shorenstein APARC offers U.S. Policy toward Northeast Asia each winter quarter. The diverse mix of students, combined with the “in-the-field” expertise of the instructors, creates a lively and challenging class environment. IPS 244 goes beyond a traditional academic course to create assignments based on real-life events and global conditions, and place students in the position of thinking like a government official. For the many of them that will go on to pursue government careers, the course serves as an important first-step in training for “scenarios” very similar to those they address in class.

The Program on Human Rights concluded its ninth and final installment of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Speakers Series on March 13 with presentations with Dr. Mohammed Mattar, executive director of the Protection Project and professor at Johns Hopkins University and Professor Alison Brysk, chair of Global Governance, Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara.

Dr. Mattar noted that while effective anti-trafficking laws depend on law enforcement and survivor protection, the key intellectual and ethical rationale of such laws is the concept of the exploitation of vulnerable people in vulnerable circumstances. Dr. Mattar explained the legal distinction between “human trafficking” and “slavery,” emphasizing that the latter is based on twin ideas of human beings as commodities to be bought and sold, as well as the exercise of ownership of one person over another. “There is no doubt that human trafficking is a degrading and severe violation of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, but it is unnecessary to label human trafficking as slavery because to do so we would need to identify the exercise of powers attached to the right of ownership,” Mattar said.

Among the challenges for a more effective anti-trafficking effort, Dr. Mattar listed the need to hold corporations responsible for their acts, to provide access to justice that allows for victim compensation, the engagement of civil society, and criminal enforcement and accountability under existing national and international law.

Professor Brysk explained that globalization has produced pernicious side effects.  The acceleration of migration, especially of women, increases the incidence of gender violence and the commodification of “disposable people.” All these factors enable the increase of human trafficking. Brysk observed that international recognition of trafficking as a form of contemporary slavery has been helpful in influencing policy change. “There is a slavery spectrum,” Brysk said. “We need to work to guarantee physical integrity of people, migration rights and children’s rights.”

She also noted that the focus on sex slavery has high costs because it is based on “protection and not empowerment,” and “rescue over rights.” The individualistic emphasis and sexual focus of anti-trafficking efforts fails to recognize many forms of exploitative globalized labor. Women and children are put in dangerous and debilitating non-sexual jobs. There are also many forms of sexual and gender violence in other forms of exploitative globalized labor, such as in sweatshops.

Together, the speakers in the final session of the Program on Human Rights speaker series made a strong plea for more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of human trafficking in the 21^st century. Sustained research that accounts for contemporary conditions, they told the Stanford audience, is needed to give policy makers and legislators the information and tools they need to combat the alarming global acceleration of human trafficking.