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February 20, 2023
Last year, North Korea tested more missiles than any other year and showcased its capability to launch different types of attacks from multiple directions. Its leader Kim Jong-Un has vowed to expand its nuclear arsenal and mass produce tactical nuclear weapons targeting South Korea. In response to these provocations, the US-South Korea alliance remains strong as the core deterrent against North Korean aggression. With increasing hostile rhetoric from all sides, what are the prospects for resuming peace talks? Has the Russian war in Ukraine impacted Kim’s calculus? What are China’s role and interests on the Korean Peninsula, and how are they affected by its strategic rivalry with the U.S.?
Join host Zoe Leung, senior director of research at the Bush China Foundation and guest Seong-Hyon Lee, visiting scholar at the Harvard University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, to discuss these important questions.
Previously, Dr. Lee served as director of the Center for Chinese Studies and the Department of Unification Studies at the Sejong Institute, a foreign policy and national security think tank in Seoul. He is the author of The U.S.-China Competition: Who will rule the world? (Books Garden) and appeared on a lecture series show “JTBC’s Distinguished Class.” Dr. Lee is a graduate from Grinnell College, Harvard University and Tsinghua University. He was a Pantech Fellow at Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, Salzburg Global Fellow and James A. Kelly Korean Studies Fellow of the Pacific Forum CSIS. Currently, he is a non-resident senior fellow at Peking University Center for Korean Peninsula Studies and Seoul National University’s China Center.
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