Geopolitical Affairs Archives - Page 5 of 51

Unpacking South Korea’s Snap Presidential Election

Posted on June 4, 2025September 16, 2026 by admin

Join us for a rapid reaction analysis of South Korea’s 2025 Presidential election. This snap election was triggered by the impeachment of South Korea’s 13th democratically elected president, Yoon Suk-yeol, after he declared martial law last December. This conversation unpacks the issues, the candidates, the voters, and the results, seeking to understand the domestic political undercurrents and consequences of a 60 day race occurring at a pivotal moment for Korea and U.S.-Korea relations. It features Dr. Aram Hur, the Kim Koo Chair in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and Timothy W. Martin, the Korea bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal in Seoul, in conversation with Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado and policy program officer Chelsie Alexandre.

The Korea Society thanks our corporate sponsors and individual members and the Korea Foundation for their generous support, which has made this program possible.

Unpacking South Korea’s Snap Presidential Election

Wednesday, June 4, 2025 | 8 AM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speakers:

Aram Hur is the Kim Koo Chair in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. Her research focuses on nationalism and democracy, with special attention to issues of identity, integration, and democratic support in East Asia. Professor Hur is the author of Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia (Cornell University Press, 2022), which won the 2023 Robert A. Dahl Award for best book on democracy by an untenured scholar from the American Political Science Association. Her research appears in leading disciplinary journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, and Comparative Political Studies and is widely cited in domestic and international media. She was selected as the 2021 Sherman Emerging Scholar by The Korea Society, a 2018-19 CSIS US-Korea NextGen Scholar, and is the recipient of the 2023 Gold Chalk Award for Teaching from the University of Missouri. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University, an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. with honors from Stanford University.

Timothy W. Martin is the Korea bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal in Seoul, overseeing the Journal’s coverage of North and South Korea.He previously wrote about Samsung from Seoul, but in prior stints at the Journal’s New York, Atlanta and Chicago offices, he covered Wall Street’s biggest buyers, painkiller addiction, airlines and food.

In Memoriam, Congressman Charles B. Rangel

Posted on May 27, 2025September 24, 2026 by WDM Team

The Korea Society fondly remembers our friend, Former United States Congressman Charles B. Rangel, who passed away on Memorial Day at the age of 94.

For his full obituary, please go here. An excerpt reads:

“Born and raised in Harlem, he was first elected to Congress in 1970, after serving in the New York State Assembly and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Congressman Rangel retired from the United States Congress in 2017. He was a veteran of the Korean War, where he earned the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with Valor.”

In 2020, Congressman Charles B. Rangel received The Korea Society’s highest honor, the Van Fleet Award, alongside Korean War Veterans Association Area Commander Salvatore Scarlato on behalf of American veterans who served during the Korean War.

Congressman Rangel said: “Thank you for giving me this award on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people who made the ultimate sacrifice. When I left Korea, I had hoped in my heart that I never would return, but I did return. To my miraculous amazement, I saw out of the smothering ashes and the poverty, despair, and hopelessness, a great nation rise that is not only a friend of America and an exciting trading partner, but an anchor in that part of the world for democracy. On behalf of all of us who participated, for those of us who are not here and for those families who still have the haunting memories of their loved ones, let me thank you for what you’re doing to make sure that these efforts were not in vain.” To watch his full acceptance speech, please go here.

Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea’s Democracy

Posted on May 16, 2025October 7, 2026 by Yurim Oh

Join us for a discussion with Dr. Joan E. Cho, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University on her 2024 book Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea’s Democracy, which explores the nonlinear nature of South Korea’s democratization. Using oral interviews, original protest datasets, and publications by student and labor activists, Cho illustrates how modernization structures such as industrial complexes and tertiary education initially bolstered authoritarian regimes before facilitating protests by various social movement groups, which ultimately succeeded in ushering in the country’s democratization. During the discussion, Cho also describes how this historical legacy continues to impact Korean politics, including the generational divide and the recent Martial Law and impeachment episodes. This program is moderated by Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado.

This program is made possible by the generous support of our individual and corporate members and the Korea Foundation.

This program is co-hosted by The Center for Korean Research at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University.

Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea’s Democracy

Friday, May 16, 2025 | 12 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speaker:

Dr. Joan Cho’s primary research and teaching focuses are authoritarianism, democracy, and social movements in Korea and East Asia. She is the author of Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea’s Democracy (University of Michigan Press, 2024). Her research has been published in Electoral Studies, Journal of Democracy, Journal of East Asian Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society. Dr. Cho is an Adjunct Fellow (Non-resident) in the Office of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Associate-in-Research of the Council of East Asian Studies at Yale University. She serves on the APSA Committee on the Status of Asian Pacific Americans in the Profession (2024-2027). Previously, Cho was Vice President of the Association of Korean Political Studies (2022-2024), faculty co-convener of the Korean Political Studies Colloquium (2022-2024), and a 2018-2019 U.S.-Korea NextGen Scholar. She holds Ph.D. and A.M. degrees in Political Science from the Department of Government at Harvard University and B.A. (cum laude with honors) in Political Science from the University of Rochester.

Reading China: A Roundtable with Zichen Wang

Posted on May 6, 2025September 16, 2026 by

Join us for this roundtable discussion with Zichen Wang, Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and founder of the Pekingnology newsletter on China, for a discussion on the complexities, contradictions, and communications of China’s policies. This roundtable is hosted in collaboration with The National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR). The moderator of the discussion is The Korea Society President and CEO Thomas Byrne.

The Korea Society thanks our corporate sponsors and individual members and the Korea Foundation for their generous support, which has made this program possible.

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Reading China: A Roundtable with Zichen Wang

Tuesday, May 6, 2025 | 2 PM

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speaker:

Zichen Wang is the Founder and Editor of the *Pekingnology* newsletter. Born and raised in China, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Shandong Economic University (now Shandong University of Finance and Economics) in July 2011. Zichen then went on to work for Xinhua News Agency for over 11 years, including a 29-month stint in Brussels where he covered the European Union. In October 2022, he left Xinhua to join the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a leading non-government think tank in Beijing, where he currently serves as a Research Fellow and Director for International Communications.

Zichen is currently pursuing a mid-career Master in Public Policy (MPP) at the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at Princeton University, fully funded by a SPIA fellowship.

The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon with Ankit Panda

Posted on April 30, 2025October 12, 2026 by Yurim Oh

Join us for a conversation with Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on his newly published book: The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon. The book describes how “nuclear weapons are returning to the fore of international statecraft in ways unseen since the Cold War… The prospect of nuclear escalation is again shaping how political decision-makers and military establishments around the world think and act.” The book includes a passage on North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, the subject of Panda’s first book, and the debate over South Korea acquiring an indigenous deterrent. This program is moderated by Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado.

This program is produced in collaboration with Temple University Japan and made possible by the generous support of our individual and corporate members and the Korea Foundation.

The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon with Ankit Panda

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 | 12 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speaker:

Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research interests include nuclear strategy, escalation, missiles and missile defense, space security, and U.S. alliances. He is the author of The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon (Polity, 2025), Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Risks (Carnegie, 2023), and Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea (Hurst/Oxford, 2020). Panda is co-editor of New Approaches to Verifying and Monitoring North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal (Carnegie, 2021).

Panda has consulted for the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and his analysis has been sought by U.S. Strategic Command, Space Command, and Indo-Pacific Command. Panda is among the most highly cited experts worldwide on North Korean nuclear capabilities. He has testified on matters related to South Korea and Japan before the congressionally chartered U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Panda has also testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. Before joining Carnegie, Panda was an adjunct senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists and a journalist covering international security.

Panda is a frequent expert commentator in print and broadcast media around the world on nuclear policy and defense matters. His work has appeared in or been featured by the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Economist, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Atlantic, the New Republic, the South China Morning Post, Politico, and the National Interest. Panda has also published in scholarly journals, including Survival, the Washington Quarterly, and India Review, and has contributed to the IISS Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment and Strategic Survey. He is editor-at-large at the Diplomat, where he hosts the Asia Geopolitics podcast, and a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, where he hosts Thinking the Unthinkable With Ankit Panda, a podcast on nuclear matters.

A Conversation with Ambassador (Ret.) Raymond Burghardt

Posted on April 30, 2025October 12, 2026 by Yurim Oh

Join us for a discussion co-hosted by The Korea Society and Temple University Japan with Ambassador Raymond Burghardt, who served for many years as one of the leading Asian specialists in the U.S. Foreign Service. He was formerly Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) from 2006 to 2016. Previously, he was Ambassador to Vietnam (2001-2004), AIT Director in Taipei (1999-2001), Consul General in Shanghai (1997-1999), Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in Manila (1993-1996) and Seoul (1990-1993) and Political Counselor in Beijing (1987-1989). Ambassador Burghardt joins in conversation with Temple University Japan Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies Co-Director Robert Dujarric, senior vice president at Park Strategies Sean King, and Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado.

This program is made possible by the generous support of our individual and corporate members and the Korea Foundation.

A Conversation with Ambassador (Ret.) Raymond Burghardt

U.S. relations with Taiwan and America’s Asian allies under Trump 2.0

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 | 10:30 AM

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speaker:

Raymond Burghardt served for many years as one of the leading Asian specialists in the U.S. Foreign Service. Currently, he is consultant for the Institute for Defense Analyses, president of Pacific Century Institute, and advisor on Asia to a major US financial company. He was formerly Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) from 2006 to 2016. Prior to that, he was Ambassador to Vietnam (2001-2004), AIT Director in Taipei (1999-2001), Consul General in Shanghai (1997-1999), Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in Manila (1993-1996) and Seoul (1990-1993) and Political Counselor in Beijing (1987-1989). Burghardt’s earlier career included an assignment on the National Security Council staff as Special Assistant to President Reagan and Senior Director of Latin American Affairs. From 2006 until December 2012, Burghardt served concurrently with his AIT position as Director of East-West Seminars at the East-West Center in Honolulu. Burghardt received a B.A. from Columbia College in 1967 and did graduate study at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is a native and current resident of New York City.

Acting and Activism with Minnie Mills

Posted on April 16, 2025October 12, 2026 by Yurim Oh

Join us for a conversation on acting and activism with actress and North Korean human rights activist Minnie Mills and Korea Society policy program officer Chelsie Alexandre. Exploring the origin and development of her professional acting career, Minnie discusses roles on “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” “Obliterated,” and future projects. She then describes her passion for supporting North Korean refugees through volunteering for the nongovernmental organization Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). How does she balance work with school and volunteering? What has she learned from North Korean refugees? An introduction is provided by Dr. Victor Cha, Distinguished University Professor, Georgetown University, and President, Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department, CSIS.

This program is made possible by the generous support of the Kim Koo Foundation.

Acting and Activism with Minnie Mills

Wednesday, April 16, 2025 | 4 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speakers:

Actress Celine “Minnie” Mills is best known for her role as ‘Shayla’ in the hit Amazon Prime Video series THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY. She now stars as ‘Jen’ in Sony Pictures Television Studios and Netflix’s action-comedy series OBLITERATED, and voices the lead role ‘Ruby / Venus’ in the rom-com podcast series DUMP HIM!

In addition to acting, Minnie has been a lifelong advocate for North Korean Human Rights, working closely with the organization Liberty in North Korea. She currently works under Ambassador Julie Turner at the State Department and was recently appointed Goodwill Messenger. Minnie also studies Behavioral Neuroscience at Columbia University.

Victor Cha is president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a distinguished university professor and professor of government at Georgetown University. In 2021, he was appointed by the Biden administration to serve on the Defense Policy Board in an advisory role to the secretary of defense. From 2004 to 2007, he served on the National Security Council (NSC), where he was responsible for Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific Island nations. Dr. Cha was the U.S. deputy head of delegation at the Six Party Talks and received two Outstanding Service Commendations during his tenure at the NSC. He is the author of eight books, including the award-winning Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States–Korea–Japan Security Triangle (Stanford University Press, 1999), which won the 2000 Ohira Book Prize; The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (Ecco, 2012), selected by Foreign Affairs as a “Best Book on the Asia-Pacific for 2012”; Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2018); Korea: A New History of South and North (Yale University Press, 2023); and The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea (Columbia University Press, 2024). Dr. Cha is a two-time Fulbright scholar and a former Olin Fellow at Harvard University, as well as a former Hoover, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and Koret fellow at Stanford University. He currently serves on the editorial boards of ten academic journals and is coeditor of the Contemporary Asia book series at Columbia University Press. He serves on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and is a senior fellow at the George W. Bush Institute. Dr. Cha received his PhD, MIA, and BA from Columbia University and a BA with honors from Oxford University.

Korea’s Politics of the Vortex: 2025

Posted on April 8, 2025September 16, 2026 by

Join us for a discussion about the legacy, implications, and a modern application of the theories from Gregory Henderson’s 1968 seminal text Korea: The Politics of the Vortex, with Edward J. Baker, advisor to the Harvard University Korea Institute, and Dr. Ingu Hwang, Associate Professor of the Practice at Boston College. The discussion will also address Hwang’s 2022 book, Human Rights and Transnational Democracy in South Korea, which examines the role of South Korean pro-democracy actors in (re)shaping the global history of human rights activism and politics in the 1970s. The moderator for this program is Korea Society president and CEO Tom Byrne.

This program is made possible by the generous support of the Kim Koo Foundation.

Korea’s Politics of the Vortex: 2025

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 | 4 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speakers:

Edward J. Baker’s interest in Korea began with Peace Corps service, with his wife Diane, there in 1966-68. He has lived in Korea all together for about 10 years and has traveled widely in Asia. He has a BA from Colby College, a JD from Yale Law School and an MA in Regional Studies-East Asia from Harvard. He was a staff member of the Subcommittee on International Organizations (chair Donald M. Fraser, D MN) of the U.S. House of Representatives during its Investigation of Korean-American Relations in 1977-78 and one of the authors of its final report. He was the associate director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute for 25 years and taught East Asian and Korean history at Hanyang University and Seoul National University from 2007 through 2010.

Until the thorough democratization of the Republic of Korea marked by the December,1997 election of President Kim Dae Jung, he frequently wrote and spoke on South Korean political affairs. He was a founding member of the board of Asia Watch in 1985 (now Human Rights Watch—Asia) and was Amnesty International’s US South Korea coordinator from 1979-91. In recent years he has taken a strong interest in attempting to promote a peaceful solution to the confrontation between North Korea and the US/South Korea and the reunification of Korea.

Ingu Hwang received his Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of Chicago in 2015. Currently, he is an associate professor of the Practice in the International Studies Program, an affiliated professor in the History Department and the Asian Studies Program. Prof. Hwang is also the Leader of the Global Korea Project at Boston College. He offers interdisciplinary courses on modern and contemporary Korea and East Asia that explore colonial/post-colonial experiences, division and geo-politics, the Korean War, development and social justice, human rights history in global contexts.

His research centers on contemporary transnational and global Korean history with a focus on the topics of democracy, peace, security, and human rights. His first book, Human Rights and Transnational Democracy in South Korea, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press Human Rights Series in 2022, offers the first account of the historical intersection between South Korea’s democratic transition and the global human rights boom in the 1970s and 1980s. Other publications include contributions to the Korea Democracy Foundation’s book, 1970s Korean Democratization and Protestants (Korean), published in 2024 and to the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation’s Kim Dae-Jung’s Thoughts and Politics: Peace, Democracy, Reconciliation, and Cooperation (Korean), published in 2023. Currently, he is working on his second monograph, the first scholarly biography of Nobel Prize recipient Kim Dae-jung. The monograph utilizes a global political and cultural lens to analyze Kim’s engagements with Korean, regional, and international political discourses and policies from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Korea’s Politics of the Vortex: 2025

Posted on April 8, 2025September 17, 2026 by admin

Join us for a discussion about the legacy, implications, and a modern application of the theories from Gregory Henderson’s 1968 seminal text Korea: The Politics of the Vortex, with Edward J. Baker, former Associate Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, and Dr. Ingu Hwang, Associate Professor at Boston College. The discussion will also address Hwang’s 2022 book, Transnational Democratization: Human Rights in South Korea and US Cold War Policy, which examines the role of South Korean pro-democracy actors in (re)shaping the global history of human rights activism and politics in the 1970s. The moderator for this program is Korea Society president and CEO Tom Byrne.

Korea’s Politics of the Vortex: 2025

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 | 4 PM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speakers:

The Verdict on Korea’s Presidential Impeachment Case

Posted on April 4, 2025September 16, 2026 by

Join us for this rapid reaction program held soon after the ruling of South Korea’s Constitutional Court on the impeachment trial of suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol. If the impeachment motion is upheld, the country will have 60 days to hold a presidential election. How will the outcome of the case affect Korea’s democracy and society, U.S.-Korea relations, inter-Korean relations, and Korea’s regional relations with countries such as Japan, China, and Russia? Join us for a discussion with Ambassador (Ret.) Philip Goldberg, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Tokyo bureau chief for The Washington Post, covering Japan and the Koreas. Korea Society President and CEO Thomas Byrne will provide introductory remarks. The discussion is moderated by policy director Jonathan Corrado and policy program officer Chelsie Alexandre.

This program is made possible by the generous support of our individual and corporate members and the Korea Foundation.

The Verdict on Korea’s Presidential Impeachment Case

Friday, April 4, 2025 | 8 AM (EDT)

The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017

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About the Speakers:

Philip S Goldberg served as US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea 2022-2025. He served as US Ambassador to Colombia. In 2018, Goldberg served as Charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, followed by a year as a Diplomat in Residence at Georgetown University. From 2013-2016, Amb Goldberg served as US Ambassador to the Philippines. Prior to that assignment, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2010-2013); US Ambassador to Bolivia (2006-2008); Chief of Mission in Pristina, Kosovo (2004-2006); and Charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Santiago, Chile (2001-2004). From 2009-2010, Goldberg was coordinator for the implementation of UN sanctions on North Korea. His other overseas tours included Bogota, Colombia, where he served as the Plan Colombia coordinator, and Pretoria, South Africa.

Amb Goldberg was a senior member of the State Department team handling the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations and served as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs (2000-2001) and Special Assistant and Executive Assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (1996-2000). As the Bosnia Desk Officer and Special Assistant to Amb Richard Holbrooke (1994-1996), Goldberg was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American delegation at Dayton.

Amb Goldberg holds the personal rank of Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the US Foreign Service. He has received numerous awards, including Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards; the Department’s Distinguished Honor Award and the Silver Seal Medallion for Meritorious Service in the US Intelligence Community.

Amb. Goldberg is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Boston University. Before joining the Foreign Service, he served as a liaison officer between the government of the City of New York and the United Nations and Consular Community.

Michelle Ye Hee Lee is The Washington Post‘s Tokyo bureau chief, reporting on Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Previously, she covered money and influence in politics and voting access on the national political enterprise and accountability team and was a reporter for The Post’s Fact Checker. Prior to joining The Post in 2014, she was a government accountability reporter at the Arizona Republic in Phoenix.

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