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Category: Geopolitical Affairs

Political Forecast 2016: Korea and Its Neighbors

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The United States and Korea see tremendous regional flux in 2016. Tensions in East Asia have grown with China’s military activities in the South China Sea and East China Sea and North Korea’s January 6 nuclear test and February 7 missile test. South Korea’s relations with Japan may warm after the December 28 announcement aimed at settling the comfort women issue, though opposition among nationalists remains high in both countries. Taiwan saw national elections, and South Korea has parliamentary elections this year and presidential elections next. The United States has its own presidential election in November, with China and North Korea figuring into candidates’ campaigns. Ralph Cossa of Pacific Forum CSIS, Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Georgetown University, and Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations discuss political and security developments and offer timely forecasts, in conversation with The Korea Society’s Stephen Noerper.  

Political Forecast 2016: Korea and Its Neighbors 

Ralph Cossa      
President of the Pacific Forum CSIS

Victor Cha        
Senior Advisor and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Director of Asian Studies, Georgetown University

Scott Snyder        
Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the U.S.-Korea Program, Council on Foreign Relations

 

$10 Members, $20 Guests, $5 Students

12:00 PM | Registration 
12:30 PM | Discussion

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

 

 

Collaborating Organization

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About the Speakers

Ralph Cossa   is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu and senior editor of the Forum’s quarterly electronic journal, Comparative Connections. He is the primary U.S. representative and former international co-chair of the ASEAN Regional Forum Experts and Eminent Persons Group, as well as a founding member and current co-chair of the multinational Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). He is a political/military affairs and national security specialist with more than 40 years of experience in formulating, articulating, and implementing U.S. security policy in the Asia-Pacific and Near East–South Asia regions, with a particular focus on Northeast Asia security relations. He writes a regular column for the Japan Times and is a frequent contributor to the JoongAng Ilbo and other regional newspapers and periodicals. Mr. Cossa served in the U.S. Air Force from 1966 to 1993, achieving the rank of colonel and last serving as special assistant to the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.

 

Dr. Victor Cha  is a senior adviser and the inaugural holder of the Korea Chair. He is also director of Asian studies and holds the D.S. Song-KF Chair in the Department of Government and School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. From 2004 to 2007, he served as director for Asian affairs at the White House on the National Security Council (NSC), where he was responsible primarily for Japan, the Korean peninsula, Australia/New Zealand, and Pacific Island nation affairs. Dr. Cha was also the deputy head of delegation for the United States at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing and received two Outstanding Service Commendations during his tenure at the NSC. Dr. Cha is a former John M. Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, and a Hoover National Fellow, CISAC Fellow, and William J. Perry Fellow at Stanford University. He holds Georgetown University’s Dean’s Teaching Award for 2010 and the Distinguished Research Award for 2011. He serves as an independent consultant and has testified before Congress on Asian security issues. Dr. Cha holds a B.A., an M.I.A., and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, as well as an M.A. from Oxford University.

 

Scott Snyder  is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he had served as an adjunct fellow from 2008 to 2011. Prior to joining CFR, Snyder was a senior associate in the international relations program of The Asia Foundation, where he founded and directed the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy and served as The Asia Foundation’s representative in Korea (2000-2004). He was also a senior associate at Pacific Forum CSIS. Snyder has worked as an Asia specialist in the research and studies program of the U.S. Institute of Peace and as acting director of Asia Society’s contemporary affairs program.  Snyder was a Pantech visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during 2005–2006, and received an Abe fellowship, administered by the Social Sciences Research Council, in 1998–99. He has provided advice to NGOs and humanitarian organizations active in North Korea and serves as co-chair of the advisory council of the National Committee on North Korea. Snyder received a BA from Rice University and an MA from the regional studies East Asia program at Harvard University and was a Thomas G. Watson fellow at Yonsei University in South Korea.

 

Stephen Noerper  (moderator) writes on US policy and Asia. He served more than two and a half decades in non-profits, universities, the private sector, and public service. He taught at New York University, American University, Waseda University, the National University of Mongolia, and Hawaii’s Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, and was a senior analyst with the US State Department. He publishes widely, appears in media, and is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and London School of Economics.

 

Of Interest:

January 2016 Comparative Connections

Korea Chair, CSIS

CFR’s Asia Unbound blog

 

North Korean Human Rights: Two Years beyond the COI Report

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The Korea Society marks two years since the release of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry Report (COI) with a message from South Korea’s Ambassador on Human Rights Lee Jung-hoon and in-studio discussion with Greg Scarlatoiu. Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Scarlatoiu speaks to current efforts within the UN, among governments and by NGOs to halt North Korea’s human rights abuses, in conversation with the Society’s Stephen Noerper.

North Korean Human Rights: Two Years beyond the COI Report  

With the reflections of

H.E. Lee Jung-hoon        
ROK Ambassador for Human Rights, from Seoul

Greg Scarlatoiu          
Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), in studio

 

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE ADMISSION.

12:00 PM | Registration 
12:30 PM | Discussion

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speakers

His Excellency Lee Jung-hoon is South Korea’s Ambassador for Human Rights. He is also Director of the Center for Modern Korean Studies and Center for American Studies at Yonsei University. He serves as a senior member of South Korea’s National Unification Advisory Council and chair of the Ministry of Unification’s Advisory Committee for Humanitarian Affairs. He also is Co-Chair of Save NK, an NGO dealing mainly with North Korean human rights; Chair of the Committee for the Establishment of Refugee Camps for North Korean Defectors; and Vice-Chair of the Supporter’s Group for the House of Sharing, where several remaining comfort women are housed.

 

Greg Scarlatoiu   is Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) in Washington, DC. A seasoned lecturer on North Korean human rights, political security, and economic issues on the Korean Peninsula, Scarlatoiu has appeared as an expert witness at several Congressional hearings on North Korean human rights. Prior to HRNK, he served with the Korea Economic Institute (KEI). Scarlatoiu worked prior with the International Labor Organization’s Department for the Activity of Multinational Enterprises in Geneva. For thirteen years, he has authored and broadcast the weekly Scarlatoiu Column to North Korea for Radio Free Asia (RFA). A visiting professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), Scarlatoiu co-chairs the Korean Peninsula class at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI). He holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from the Fletcher School and an MA and BA from Seoul National University’s Department of International Relations.

 

Stephen Noerper  (moderator) is a Korea Society Senior Director, former State Department analyst, and former professor at New York University and the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. He holds a Ph.D. and MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he wrote on transitional justice issues, and an MSc. Economics from the London School of Economics, where he volunteered with Amnesty International. He appears widely in print and on international media, including Bloomberg, BBC, CNN and VOA.

 

Of Interest:

 

 

 

 

Invisible Children: The Stateless Children of North Korean Refugees

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Sylvia Kim, a human rights lawyer and policy advisor with the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, offers an overview of the international legal framework aimed at protecting stateless persons and explains the plight of the stateless children born to North Korean refugees in China.    

Invisible Children:
The Stateless Children of North Korean Refugees 

Sylvia Kim    
Policy Advisor, European Alliance for Human Rights

 In Conversation With Nikita Desai , Director of Policy and Corporate Programs, The Korea Society

 

$10 Members, $20 Guests, $5 Students

YPN and Explorer Level Members Register here for free admission.

12:00 PM | Registration 
12:30 PM | Discussion

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speakers

Sylvia Kim  is a human rights lawyer and co-founder of HanVoice . Sylvia has recently completed her Master of Studies from the University of Oxford in International Human Rights Law and is the Policy Advisor for the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea . Sylvia currently resides in Southern California where she is actively involved in North Korea policy initiatives and contributes regularly to the Huffington Post.

Of Interest: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylvia-kim/

 

Nikita Desai  (moderator) is the Director of Policy and Corporate Programs at The Korea Society. While at TKS, she has curated a series of programs on the issue of gender and human rights; Perilous Passages: North Korea, Human Trafficking, and The Underground Railroad , and North Korea’s Prisoners: The Gender Dimension with Roberta Cohen . Ms. Desai holds an MA in International Policy Studies with a focus on Gender and Development from Monterey Institute of International Studies. She also holds an MBA earned through the Fulbright Scholar program from IE Business School in Spain. She co-authored the first comprehensive study measuring human trafficking in Mongolia and through China for the Asia Foundation in Mongolia, where prior she served as the Peace Corps Volunteer from 2003-2005.    

 

 

The Invitation-Only Zone with Robert Boynton

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Robert Boynton, Director at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, discusses his new book, The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project, a thoroughly researched investigative report of the systematic abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents. Invitation-only zones were guarded communities for Japanese abducted by North Korean spies from the late 1970s to early 80s.  Boynton’s book is a balance of the harrowing personal stories of Japanese abductees, with an analysis of contextual history, that offers an insight into the behavior of the DPRK regime. This is a special release-day event, with an author signing to follow.

“Rob Boynton tackles the question of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese, too often overlooked in the US press. He also explores the broader identity clash between Japan and Korea, rooted in Meiji ideas on evolution, race and colonialism, and more recent DPRK desires to breed a new generation of spies. North Korea seized international attention with last week’s fourth nuclear test, and Boynton reminds us of the longer challenges associated with the North in this riveting new work,” says moderator Stephen Noerper.

 

The Invitation-Only Zone with Robert Boynton

Robert Boynton  
Author of the Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project

Moderated by Dr. Stephen Noerper

 

$10 Members, $20 Guests.

YPN and Explorer Level Members Register here for free admission.

5:30 PM | Registration 
6:00 PM | Discussion & Book Signing

  If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speaker

Robert S. Boynton is the director of NYU’s Literary Reportage program. He graduated with honors in philosophy and religion from Haverford College, and received an MA in political science from Yale University. He is the author of The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project (FSG, 2016) and The New New Journalism (Vintage, 2005) His articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, and elsewhere.

 

Stephen Noerper (moderator) writes on US policy and Asia. He was an NYU associate professor and senior State Department analyst and worked with visiting press at the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy. Dr. Noerper wrote in Newsweek, Asian Survey and other publications and appears in media. He is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and London School of Economics.

  Of Interest:

Purchase http://us.macmillan.com/theinvitationonlyzone/robertsboynton

The New Yorker: North Korea’s Abduction Project

Boynton on Literary Reportage

 

 

 

North Korean Human Rights Revisited: Perspective of a Former North Korean Elite

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Mr. Kim Hyung-Soo, a biophysicist from an elite cadre in North Korea, defected to South Korea in 2009. Though his wife was able to escape, his mother was arrested and died in a North Korean prison camp. As the United Nations General Assembly gets set to vote on a resolution condemning North Korea for gross human rights violations, join us as David Hawk, senior advisor at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, interviews Mr. Kim about the human rights situation in North Korea and his unique experience as a researcher at the “Long Life Health Institute” (Mansumugang Institute), an organization dedicated to preserving the longevity of the Kim family.  

North Korean Human Rights Revisited:
Perspective of a Former North Korean Elite

Kim Hyung-Soo  
North Korean defector and former researcher at the Long Life Health Institute (Mansumugang Institute)

 In Conversation With David Hawk, Senior Adviser, Committee on Human Rights in North Korea

Admission is FREE with Registration. Please Click Here.

12:00 PM | Registration & Light Fare
12:30 PM | Discussion 

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speakers

Kim Hyung-Soo is a North Korean defector and former researcher at the Long Life Health Institute (Mansumugang Institute) from 1990 to 1994, in charge of conducting extensive scientific research to maintain Kim Jongil’s health. He was subsequently a supervisor at the Worker’s Party of Korea from 1994 to 1995, but was imprisoned at the Pyongyang Hyungjesan area for reeducation. He worked at the Hyesan Hospital Beer Factory as the material advisor, before defecting to South Korea in 2009. Mr. Kim has since served as the Unification Education board member in Kyungki province, and has actively promoted North Korean human rights on social and mainstream media. He has appeared on Radio Free Asia’s Kim Family’s Hidden Secrets and Voice of Asia’s Observing the Economy. Mr. Kim is a graduate of Kim Il Sung University with B.A in Biology with honors in 1987.   

*Mansumugang Health Institute is a public institution in which the workers are paid the highest salary in the country and essentially guaranteed the highest standard of living (equivalent to top 0.1%) in exchange for maintaining the confidentiality of the Kim family’s health condition. Only the elites, namely the graduates of Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang Medical University, and Kim Chaek University of Technology, are recruited, and employees are required to have no relatives in South Korea.

David Hawk (moderator) has engaged in the documentation and analysis of worst-case violations, the UN human rights system, human rights provisions in conflict resolution, non-governmental human rights advocacy, human rights organization and agency management, and human rights education and training. He is recognized as a leading expert on human rights in a number of countries, most notably Cambodia and North Korea. Hawk was the Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, during its formative stage in the 1970s. He also directed the UN human rights office during the mid-1990s when it was the largest field operation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the early 1980s, Hawk did path-breaking original photographic and archival documentation of the human rights atrocities in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge rule, and researched and authored the first systematic and comprehensive documentation and analysis of the political prison camp system in North Korea. He has served on the Board of Directors of AIUSA and Human Rights Watch/Asia. His most recent publications include The Hidden Gulag and Pursuing Peace While Advancing Rights: The Untried Approach to North Korea. He attended Cornell, Columbia and Oxford Universities, and currently teaches at Hunter College, CUNY.

 

 

 

The Analysts

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In honor of ROK President Park Geun-Hye’s 2014 and 2015 autumn visits to New York and the United Nations, The Korea Society launched The Analysts, a policy series that presented the nation’s foremost thought leaders on Korea to members from business, media, and international organizations.

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Reading the Two Koreas: Getting it Right

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Robert Carlin, author, analyst and scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, addresses how best to read Korean Peninsula developments, with an eye to changes in North Korea. Carlin served with the US State Department, visited the DPRK more than thirty times, and has tracked developments there since 1974. He is the co-author with the late Don Oberdorfer of the revised and expanded The Two Koreas (2013).

Reading the Two Koreas: Getting it Right
 Part of The Analysts 

 In Conversation with Dr. Stephen Noerper , Senior Vice President

Robert Carlin  
Analyst and Scholar at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)

 

$10 Members, $20 Guests.

YPN and Explorer Level Members Register here for free admission.

11:30 AM | Registration 
12:00 PM | Discussion

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speaker

Bob Carlin is a Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and co-chair of the National Committee for North Korea.

From 2002-2006 he was political advisor to the Executive Director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a multinational consortium formed to carry out several key provisions of the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework. He led numerous KEDO negotiating teams to the DPRK, and was on the last KEDO ship to leave the North in January 2006, carrying the final contingent of KEDO employees and contractors back to South Korea.

From 1989-2002, Carlin was chief of the Northeast Asia Division of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. From 1993-2002, he served concurrently as senior advisor to the chief US negotiator to US-DPRK talks, and attended all of the major negotiations with the North Koreans during that period. From 1971-1988, he was an analyst with the CIA.

Carlin has visited North Korea over 30 times. His last visit was in November 2010 as part of a small group from Stanford that was taken to see the North’s uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon.

 

 Of Interest:

Purchase The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History

Don Oberdorfer: History’s Gracious Scribe by Robert Carlin

  Check out The Two Koreas policy book release event with Robert Carlin from December 10, 2013 here.

 

 

Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea: A Look Back

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David Straub of Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center analyzed anti-US sentiments in Korea during his tenure at the US Embassy in Seoul from 1999 to 2002 in his important new publication, Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea. Straub looked at the problem areas for the relationship then, spoke to the strength of today’s ties, and addressed implications for the United States’ future role on the Peninsula. A book signing followed the discussion.

Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea: A Look Back
Part of The Analysts

 

In Conversation with Dr. Stephen Noerper, Senior Vice President

David Straub  
Associate Director of the Korea Program, Stanford University

 

11:30 AM | Registration & Light Fare
12:00 PM | Discussion

About the Speaker

David Straub was named associate director of the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) on July 1, 2008. Prior to that he was a 2007-08 Pantech Fellow at the Center. Straub is the author of Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea (2015). He was also a member of the New Beginnings policy research group on U.S.-South Korean relations, which was co-sponsored by Shorenstein APARC and the New York-based Korea Society.

An educator and commentator on current Northeast Asian affairs, Straub retired in 2006 from his role as a U.S. Department of State senior foreign service officer after a 30-year career focused on Northeast Asian affairs. He worked over 12 years on Korean affairs, first arriving in Seoul in 1979.

Straub served as head of the political section at the U.S. embassy in Seoul from 1999 to 2002 during popular protests against the United States, and he played a key working-level role in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program as the State Department’s Korea country desk director from 2002 to 2004. He also served eight years at the U.S. embassy in Japan. His final assignment was as the State Department’s Japan country desk director from 2004 to 2006, when he was co-leader of the U.S. delegation to talks with Japan on the realignment of the U.S.-Japan alliance and of U.S. military bases in Japan.

After leaving the Department of State, Straub taught U.S.-Korean relations at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in the fall of 2006 and at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University in spring 2007. He has published a number of papers on U.S.-Korean relations. His foreign languages are Korean, Japanese, and German.

 

 

Of Interest:

Purchase Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea

Is anti-Americanism dead?

 

North Korea and Information Access

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Kang Cheol Hwan, author of Aquariums of Pyongyang and Sejun Park former DPRK refugee working for the North Korea Strategy Center, a Seoul-based NGO, spoke to the topic of information access for North Koreans and current efforts to share information with the DPRK citizenry on human rights and democracy.

North Korea and Information Access

with

Kang Cheol Hwan
NKSC President and Author of ‘Aquariums of Pyongyang’

Sejun Park  
CEO of North Korea Strategy Center [U.S. Office]

 

$10 Members, $20 Guests

5:30 PM | Registration & Light Fare
6:00 PM | Discussion

 

YPN and Explorer Level Members Register HERE for free admission.

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speakers

Kang Cheol-hwan is a journalist, author, and North Korean defector. As a nine-year-old child, he and his entire family were imprisoned in the Yodok concentration camp by the government of dictator Kim Il Sung after Kang’s grandfather was accused of treason. For ten years, Kang was subjected to the brutal conditions of the camp, where he and some members of his family endured starvation, torture, and the threat of execution.

After he was released from the camp, Kang bought an illegal radio receiver to listen to broadcasts from South Korea. In 1992, he made the decision to defect and escaped North Korea by crossing the Yalu River into China, eventually immigrating to South Korea. In 2000, he published “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” a description of his experiences and the very first survivor account of North Korea’s concentration camps. Kang is a staff writer for the South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo. In 2003, he was awarded the National Endowment of Democracy’s “Democracy Award” and in 2006, he was selected as one of Times’ “Asian Heroes”.

After several years of North Korean human rights activism, Kang Cheol Hwan came to the conclusion that expecting change from the DPRK government was not feasible. Without change and enlightenment of the North Korean people, without bridging the gap between the two Koreas, peaceful unification is not possible. Based on this belief, in 2007 Kang Cheol Hwan created the North Korea Strategy Center. The mission of the organization is to disseminate foreign information in North Korea, empower defectors to become advocates of democracy after unification and educate the South Korean youth on North Korean human rights issues.

 

Sejun Park is the CEO of the U.S. office of North Korea Strategy Center (NKSC). Mr. Park was born in Hamheung, North Korea. He graduated from Pyongyang Medical College, Department of Dentistry in 1996 and was a dentist at the Hamheung National Dental Hospital for two years. In 1999, Mr. Park defected to China but was arrested in 2001 and sent back to North Korea. He was detained in Cheongjin prison camp (Nongpo jipgyulso) for six months and defected again successfully in 2002. Mr. Park arrived in South Korea that year and went on to graduate from Yonsei University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 2006. He worked at E. Land Group, a South Korean corporation until 2010. Mr. Park is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the Yonsei University Graduate School of Public Administration in Political Science.

 

 

 

Korea’s Growing Role in Asia, Regional Cooperation, and National Unification

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South Korea’s geopolitical position dictates maintaining a strong alliance with the U.S. while exploring a harmonious partnership with China to protect and pursue its national interests. Preventing excessive conflicts between China and Japan also serves the interests of South Korea in terms of preserving peace and stability in Northeast Asia. President Park Geun-hye has visited Beijing recently to attend a historic ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of Word War II, while proposing to resume the triangular summit diplomacy among Korea, China, and Japan. President Park’s visit to Washington. D.C. aims at issues of mutual concern, including the denuclearization of North Korea. On the Korean Peninsula, she is pursuing a trust-building process with North Korea to achieve the goal of peaceful national unification despite North Korea’s unpredictable brinkmanship. How does the U.S. policy of rebalance to Asia work to promote peace and stability in Korea and the region? What was achieved in the summit meeting between President Park and President Obama? Will China play a more active role to dissuade North Korea from its dangerous course of action? What are the impacts of Japan’s foreign and security policy under the Abe government on the regional strategic environment?

Korea’s Growing Role in Asia, Regional Cooperation, 
and National Unification
 

 with

Dr. Jin Park    
Former Member of Parliament  and Chair Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

 

Admission is FREE. Register HERE

Advanced RSVP is required for this event. Space is limited.

9:30 AM | Registration 
10:00 AM | Discussion

 

If you have any questions, please contact Nikita Desai  or (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.

About the Speaker

Dr. Jin Park is Chair Professor at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He is also working as the Executive President of Asia Future Institute, an independent policy think-tank. The purpose of the institute is to research on the future development of Asia and to promote Korea’s role in the region. Dr. Park served in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Sessions of the National Assembly, representing the Grand National Party (renamed to Saenuri Party) in the central Jongno District in Seoul. While in politics, he served as the Chairman of Foreign Affairs, Trade and National Unification Committee of the National Assembly during 2008-2010 period. Dr. Park graduated from the College of law, Seoul National University, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and received a doctorate degree in politics from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. He has been leading the Korea-Britain Society as the Executive President for the last six years and is a regular member of the Seoul Forum for International Affairs. He speaks Korean, English, Japanese, and conversational Chinese.