Wednesday, October 28, 2020
10:00am – 11:30am EDT
Livestream via Zoom
Event Description
Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga inherited ongoing challenges for the U.S.-South Korean-Japanese trilateral relations from his predecessor Shinzo Abe. Although both Tokyo and Seoul are not willing to change their existing policy lines in the short-run, the political need for a refreshed approach to Korea-Japan relations would emerge as both countries struggle with the unprecedented challenges in the COVID-19 pandemic and wait for the results of the U.S. elections in November. Please join GW Institute for Korean Studies for an online discussion on the trilateral relations in the post-Abe era. The speakers will discuss prospects of the civil society activism on the Korean Supreme Court’s ruling, Korea and Japan’s domestic politics and the trilateral relations and a U.S. view of the trilateral relations.
Note: The event is on the record and open to the public.
Speakers
Celeste Arrington (left) is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW. She specializes in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. Her research and teaching focus on law and social movements, the media, lawyers, policy processes, historical justice, North Korean human rights, and qualitative methods. She is also interested in the international relations and security of Northeast Asia and transnational activism. She is the author of Accidental Activists: Victims and Government Accountability in South Korea and Japan (2016) and has published in Comparative Political Studies, Law & Society Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, and the Washington Post, among others. She received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and an A.B. from Princeton University. She is currently writing a book that analyzes the role of lawyers and legal activism in Japanese and Korean policies related to persons with disabilities and tobacco control.
Emma Chanlett-Avery (second to left) is a Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Congressional Research Service. She focuses on U.S. relations with Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Thailand, and Singapore. Ms. Chanlett-Avery joined CRS in 2003 through the Presidential Management Fellowship, with rotations in the State Department on the Korea Desk and at the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in Bangkok, Thailand. She also worked in the Office of Policy Planning as a Harold Rosenthal Fellow. She is a member of the Mansfield Foundation U.S. – Japan Network for the Future, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Japan America Society of Washington, and the 2016 recipient of the Kato Prize. Ms. Chanlett-Avery received an MA in international security policy from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and her BA in Russian studies from Amherst College.
James L. Schoff (second to right) is a senior fellow in the Carnegie Asia Program. His research focuses on U.S.-Japan relations and regional engagement, East Asian security, and alliance collaboration in high-tech fields. Before joining Carnegie in 2012, Schoff served as senior adviser for East Asia policy at the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he was responsible for strategic planning and policy development for relations with Japan and the Republic of Korea. He also spearheaded extended deterrence dialogues and contributed to trilateral security cooperation initiatives. Before then he served as director of Asia Pacific Studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Schoff’s publications include “U.S.-Japan Technology Policy Coordination: Balancing Technonationalism with a Globalized World” (Carnegie, 2020), Uncommon Alliance for the Common Good: The United States and Japan after the Cold War (Carnegie, 2017), and Tools for Trilateralism: Improving U.S.-Japan-Korea Cooperation to Manage Complex Contingencies (Potomac Books Inc., 2005). Schoff earned a Masters Degree from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelors Degree in Japanese history from Duke University (including a year at International Christian University in Japan).
Yong-Chool Ha (right), a Russia and Korea specialist, is Korea Foundation Professor at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. He is Professor emeritus of Seoul National University. He visited North Korea three times and has written on North Korea, South Korea, East Asia and Russian foreign policy. Beyond writings on international issues, he has a broader academic interest in comparative study of late industrialization and social change. His research interests are community building and international relations theories, late industrialization and international relations, and changing elite-mass relations in late industrializing countries. Currently he is finishing a book on “Late Industrialization, the State and Social Change in a Comparative Perspective.”His recent publications include: The Dynamics of Strong State (SNU Press, 2006), Late Industrialization, the State and Tradition: the Emergence of Neofamilism in Korea (2007, CPS), Colonial Social Change (ed.)(U. of Washington Press, 2013), and The International Impact of the Colonial Rule in Korea (UW Press, 2019).
Moderator
Yonho Kim is Associate Research Professor of Practice and Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
