Asia brown bag lecture: Jong Kun Choi

ADI and NIAS invite you to the brown bag lecture

North Korea, an Impossible State? Why and How Sunshine Policy to North Korea deserves another chance after 7 years

by Professor Jong Kun Choi

Abstract

How should we deal with North Korea infamous for nuclear development, ballistic missile tests, kidnapping, military provocations and human rights violations? How do you denuclearize North Korea so paranoid of its security? How do we encourage North Korea to come out of isolation and end confrontation in the Korean peninsula?  Many argue that North Korea is an impossible state that cannot be trusted; it constantly deceives and defies the international community. Therefore, unless North Korea seriously changes its delinquent behaviors, the international community continues to pressure and sanction Pyongyang.

At this talk, Professor Jong Kun Choi, currently taking a sabbatical year at NIAS from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, will raise critical issues of how to approach the most totalitarian state in Asia. He will argue why engaging North Korea with a stance of diffused reciprocity (a.k.a., Sunshine Policy) will work better than the current policy of strict reciprocity. His argument will be drawn from theories of International relations, empirical data and his advisory experiences to the Six Party Talks and the inter-Korean cooperation for the last 7 years. 

Jong Kun Choi, Department of Political Science and International Studies at Yonsei University, specializes in International Relations theories, Northeast Asian security, political psychology and public opinions on national identity and foreign policy attitudes. 

Feel free to bring your own lunch. There will be coffee and tea.

Coming brown bag lectures:
Michael Alexander Ulfstjerne, CCRS. 21 April 2015.
Ildiko Beller-Hann, CCRS. 11 May 2015.