On November 16, 2010, CSIS, KEI, and USKI hosted a discussion with Lael Brainard, Under Secretary of International Affairs from the U.S. Treasury. Brainard presented the main objectives behind the American economic growth agenda within the context of the G-20 Summit and how President Obama has invested his efforts in Asia, touching on platforms such as trade.

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Transcript | “Assessing the Economic Implications of the Seoul G-20 Summit,” Lael Brainard (Nov. 16, 2010)

On September 23, 2010, USKI and the Sejong Society of Washington, D.C. hosted a talk with the Venerable Pomnyun Sunim, who discussed the DPRK’s increasing economic dependency on China and touched on strategic possibilities for the U.S. and South Korea to approach the China-DPRK relationship.

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Transcript | “North Korea’s Growing Dependence on China: Implications for the Future of Northeast Asia” (Sept. 23, 2010)

The U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS annouces the release of the fourth edition of the SAIS U.S. -Korea Yearbook.

Each fall semester at SAIS, the Korea Studies Program offers the course, “The Two Koreas: Contemporary Research and Record,” where students prepare an in-depth report on an issue of importance to Korean affairs in that year. As part of their research, students make a one-week research trip to Seoul to test their ideas with experts and officials. The SAIS U.S.-Korea Yearbook is a compilation of these student papers.

Student authors include: Tze Chin “Alvin” Wong, Paul Elliott, Sogaku Miyamoto, Ian Howard, Kee Hoon Chung, Jason Park, Momoko Sato, Neil K. Shenai, Nick Borst, Naoko Aoki, Zander Lanfried, and Sarah Yun.

Download the 2009 SAIS U.S.-Korea Yearbook.

“Flood Across the Border: China’s Disaster Relief Operations and Potential Response to a North Korean Refugee Crisis,” by Drew Thompson and Carla Freeman, considers the planning, capacities and mechanisms for addressing natural disasters and domestic crises in the People’s Republic of China and the implications for Chinese management of a potential crisis involving a rapid and unexpected increase in the volume of North Korean refugees fleeing to Chinese territory. Its focus is on structures and organizations in Jilin Province and its subordinate Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. 

Executive Summary: Flood Across the Border (April 2009) 

Download the Report: Flood Across the Border: China’s Disaster Relief Operations and Potential Response to a North Korean Refugee Crisis, (April 2009) 

This report was co-funded through The Nixon Center, a leading foreign policy research institute founded by President Richard Nixon in 1994.

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Drew Thompson is the Director of China Studies and Starr Senior Fellow at The Nixon Center in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining The Nixon Center, he was the National Director of the China-MSD HIV/AIDS Partnership in Beijing, a 5 year, $30 million HIV/AIDS program established by Merck & Co. and the Chinese Ministry of Health. Mr. Thompson served previously as Assistant Director to the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He also was the President of a Washington, D.C. company that manufactured snack food in Qingdao, China. He lived in Shanghai from 1993 to 1998 where he was the General Manager of a U.S. freight forwarding and logistics firm, overseeing offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing. Mr. Thompson was the founder and Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce Transportation and Logistics Committee in Shanghai and has traveled extensively throughout China in both urban and rural areas. 

Mr. Thompson studied Chinese language at Beijing University in 1990, and was a graduate student in 1992 at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China. He graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Asian Studies from Hobart College in 1992, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 2004, Mr. Thompson received an M.A. in Government, with a concentration in Homeland Security, from Johns Hopkins University. 

Carla P. Freeman is the Associate Director of the China Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Freeman has held various academic positions, including Chair of the program in global studies and international affairs at Alverno College in Milwaukee and Visiting Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has also served as Program Officer for Civil Community with The Johnson Foundation and as a political risk analyst. Freeman holds a Ph.D. in China studies from SAIS.

WPS 08-4: How Korea Could Become a Regional Power in Northeast Asia: Building a Northeast Asian Triad, by Im Hyug Baeg, Ph.D. (October 2008). In this paper, Dr. Im presents strategies for increasing South Korea’s soft power and smart power around Asia in order to close the power gap with its Northeast Asia neighbors, China and Japan.

The third edition of the SAIS U.S.-Korea Yearbook chronicles important developments in North and South Korea that characterized their relations with their allies and enemies in 2008. Each chapter was written by SAIS students in the course, “The Two Koreas: Contemporary Research and Record,” in the fall of 2008. Their insights were based not only on extensive reading and study, but also on numerous interviews conducted with government officials, scholars, NGO workers, academics and private sector experts in both Washington and Seoul.

The Yearbook is divided into two parts: South Korea’s Foreign Relations and North Korea’s Foreign Relations. In the first part, student authors explore the dynamic foreign policy changes that were brought about by the Lee Myung-bak administration, and how these policies affected South Korean politics both at home and abroad. In the second part, student authors explore how shifting power dynamics both in the United States, as well as among the member states of the Six-Party Talks, affected North Korea’s foreign relations in 2008. read more …

WPS 08-2: In Pursuit of Peaceful Development in Northeast Asia: China, the Tumen River Development Project and Sino-Korean Relations, by Carla P. Freeman, Ph.D. (March 2008)