[05/14/2021] Korea Policy Forum, Biden’s North Korea Policy and U.S.-ROK Relations

Speakers

Ho-Young Ahn is the President of the University of North Korean Studies, a premier institution for research and education on North Korea related issues. Ambassador Ahn served as the Republic of Korea’s Ambassador to the United States (2013-17), Deputy Minister for Trade at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to the European Union and Belgium, and the First Vice Foreign Minister. Ambassador Ahn studied international relations and law at Seoul National University (BA), Georgetown University (MS), Korea National Open University (LLB) and the Georgetown Law School (LLM). He received a Ph.D degree (Hon) in political science from Kyung-Nam University.

Kathleen Stephens is the President and CEO of the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI). A former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2008 to 2011. Her other overseas assignments included postings to China, former Yugoslavia, Portugal, Northern Ireland, where she was U.S. Consul General in Belfast during the negotiations culminating in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and India, where she was U.S. Charge ‘d Affaires (2014-2015). Ambassador Stephens also served in a number of policy positions in Washington at the Department of State and the White House. These included acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (2012), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2005-2007), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2003-2005), and National Security Council Director for European Affairs at the Clinton White House.

Frank Jannuzi joined the Mansfield Foundation as President and Chief Executive Officer in April 2014. He previously served as Deputy Executive Director (Advocacy, Policy and Research) at Amnesty International, USA. There he shaped and promoted legislation and policies to advance universal human rights, protect individuals and communities at risk, and free prisoners of conscience. From 1997-2012 Mr. Jannuzi was Policy Director, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he advised Committee Chairmen Joseph Biden and John Kerry on a range of security, political, economic, and human rights issues pertinent to U.S. relations with East Asia. During his tenure with the Foreign Relations Committee he also was a Hitachi Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations from 2006-2007, serving as a visiting lecturer at Keio University and a visiting scholar at the Institute of International Policy Studies in Tokyo.  Early in his career he served for nine years as an analyst in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Mr. Jannuzi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University and Master in Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.  He has traveled throughout Asia and has written extensively on East Asia policy issues, including U.S. relations with Japan, China, and North Korea.

Jung-Chul Lee is a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Seoul National University. He was a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Soongsil University (2006-2021) and the Chief of Economic Security Research Team at the Samsung Economic Research Institute (2002-2006). In 2014 he served as a visiting scholar at the George Washington University’s Sigur Center for Asian Studies. He has written many books and articles on North Korea, including “Sanctions for Nuclear Inhibition: Comparing Sanction Conditions between Iran and North Korea”(Asian Perspective, 2019), “Costly Signals, Failed Deterrence and a New Alternative”(Legislative Studies in Korean, 2017), “Obama Doctrine and US Policy towards North Korea: Geopolitics, Nuclear Strategy, and Value iplomacy,” (Journal of Korean Politics in Korean, 2016) and “Making Sense of North Korea: How to Respond to Pyongyang’s Charm Offensive,”(Foreign Affairs, 2015). He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree (1991) from Seoul National University and an M.A. (1997) in Political Science from Seoul National University. He completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at Seoul National University in 2002.

Celeste Arrington 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: Victim Movements and Governmental Accountability in Japan and South Korea (2016) and has published in Comparative Political Studies, Law & Society Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, and theWashington 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.

Yeon-Chul Kim is the chairman of the board of the Korea Peace Forum and a professor of the Department of Korea Unification at Inje University. He served as the Republic of Korea’s Minister of Unification. Prior to that, he was the president of the Korea Institute for National Unification and served as a policy advisor to Minister of Unification. He worked as a chief researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute and a research professor at the Asiatic Research Institute (ARI), Korea University. He is the author of Dialogue of the Past 70 Years: Re-evaluating the History of Inter-Korean Relations and The Strategy of Negotiation. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Sungkyunkwan University.

Moderator

Yonho Kim is an Associate Research Professor of Practice and the 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.