USKI | WORKING PAPER SERIES
USKI's Working Paper Series seeks to be both informative and policy-relevant, addressing some of the most topical issues facing the Korean peninsula today.
REGIONAL DIPLOMACY: Northeast Asia | Southeast Asia | Central Asia | South Asia
SOUTH KOREA: Politics
NORTH KOREA: Future | Foreign Relations
UNIFICATION ISSUES: Reconciliation | Identity | Inter-Korean Cooperation
KOREAN DIASPORA: Korean Adoptees
REGIONAL DIPLOMACY
This series examines strategic opportunities for both North and South Korea to increase cooperation and collaboration with its Asian neighbors.
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.
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).
WPS 09-05: Myanmar-South Korean Economic Cooperation: Prospects and Strategies, by Chang-Yeon Kim (August 2009). Myanmar was the wealthiest country in Southeast Asia until the early 1960s but is now one of the poorest nations in the world. However, given its rich natural resource endowment as well as its key geostrategic position in Asia, Myanmar has the potential to rise to power once again. South Korean entrepreneurs have been investing in Myanmar’s resource extraction industries since 1990, and the South Korean government has been providing ODA to Myanmar since 1991. Although trade volume between Myanmar and South Korea is increasing, the full potential of Myanmar’s strategic value has yet to be acknowledged. In this paper, Mr. Kim analyzes the current status of Myanmar’s economy and its economic cooperation with South Korea, and discusses the potential benefits that could result from increased cooperation.
WPS 09-07: Economic Cooperation between South Korea and Kazakhstan, by Lee Jae-young. As 97 percent of South Korean energy comes from imports, Central Asia is a very important area for developing and securing foreign energy resources. Among the countries in Central Asia, Kazakhstan has shown the highest tangible economic development results. Moreover, Kazakhstan, compared to other Central Asian countries, has the richest natural resources, a superior economy size, and a relatively stable political situation that could increase the speed of political modernization. Kazakhstan is also leading the region in terms of market reforms. In this paper, Dr. Lee examines the status of economic cooperation between South Korea and Kazakhstan and suggests basic policies to improve relations between the two countries.
WPS 09-02: Strategic Opportunities for South Korean Development of Energy Resources in Central Asia, by Yoon Sung-hak, Ph.D. (February 2009). In this paper, Dr. Yoon examines the status of trade relations and energy diplomacy between South Korea and Central Asia. His analysis provides an overview of the actual and potential energy resources and reserves in major Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan – and identifies key opportunities for Korea to increase its soft power in Central Asia through cultural exchange and greater diplomatic and economic expansion.
WPS 08-1: Korea: An Important Part of India's Look East Policy, by Walter Andersen, Ph.D. (December 2007).
SOUTH KOREA
WPS 09-08: Populist Challenge and Its Backlash, by Kang Miongsei, Ph.D. In the 2002 presidential elections in South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, a relatively unknown politician at the time, edged out his conservative opponent by engaging Korea’s lower and working class citizens and distancing himself from Korea’s political elites. Many of his critics labeled him a populist and often characterized him as a demagogue. In this paper, Dr. Kang analyzes Roh’s presidential campaign against a populist framework, to identify the factors that contributed to Roh’s success in 2002, as well as to offer insight into the overwhelming turn to conservatism in the 2007 presidential elections, when Lee Myung-bak won a landslide victory.
NORTH KOREA
As much of North Korean scholarship is a speculative exercise, this working paper series attempts to examine issues that are informing the trajectory of North Korea’s future.
WPS 10-01: Four Scenarios for Nuclear North Korea, by Joel S. Wit (February 2010). In an assessment of North Korea’s nuclear future, Joel S. Wit, USKI Visiting Scholar and former State Department official, discusses the four most probable scenarios. While it does not make specific policy recommendations, it is intended to inform policymakers the consequences of their choices. To achieve this objective, each scenario is analyzed according to a number of factors including the implications for: 1) U.S. political, security and other interests in the region; 2) the same interests for Japan and the Republic of Korea; 3) North Korea, particularly its security relations with the international community and domestic situation; 4) other key surrounding countries, particularly China; 5) peace and stability in Northeast Asia; and 6) the international non-proliferation regime.
WPS 09-04: State Over Society: Science and Technology in North Korea, by Rian Jensen (August 2009). Since the late 1990s, the Kim Jong Il regime has laid an explicit emphasis on the role of science and technology (S&T) as an instrument of national power. Facing external security challenges, domestic economic stagnation, and rising political uncertainty stemming from the succession issue, North Korea has sought greater scientific and technological development for national revival. Yet few analysts have interrogated the contours of North Korea’s S&T policy or explored its dilemmas for the regime in Pyongyang. Considered a means of modernization, S&T strikes at the heart of manifold dilemmas facing the North Korean leadership as technology poses formidable challenges to the maintenance of political control by introducing new pressures to the balance of power between state and society. In this paper, Mr. Jensen identifies the goals of North Korea’s S&T policy, outlines its mode of implementation, assesses how science and technology is recalibrating North Korean state-society relations, and identifies key policy implications for the US government.
This working paper series seeks to provide a historical overview of North Korea’s foreign relations. Each paper in the series examines the ways in which the country’s relationship with a foreign country has influenced, and has been shaped by, its understanding of juche. Also, each study analyzes the degree to which juche has had an enduring impact on the North’s foreign policy behavior; at the same time it illustrates the ways in which Pyongyang has changed its policy in response to new developments in domestic and international arenas. Sometimes juche imposes an inflexible constraint on the extent to which Pyongyang’s diplomacy can be flexible; other times it functions as a useful overarching principle under which pragmatic changes are justified. The central analytical question then is about the politics of principle and flexibility: what is the degree to which the North’s juche foreign policy is flexible enough to accommodate changes? What is the extent to which juche is the inviolable principle? What are the circumstances under which juche becomes flexible? When does it become inflexible?
The series explores these analytical questions in the historical context of a set of bilateral relationships. It remains sensitive to peculiarities of each relationship while it also aspires to identify commonalities and patterns among North Korea’s relationships. Each paper may choose to highlight a particular period that has produced a lasting impact or started a major departure; but it will situate that period or episode within the overall history of the bilateral relationship.
WPS 08-9: Alliance of "Tooth and Lips" or Marriage of Convenience? The Origins and Development of the Sino-North Korean Alliance, 1946-1958, by Shen Zhi-Hua (December 2008). In this paper, Prof. Shen traces the development of Sino-North Korean relations and challenges the "tooth and lips" myth often purported as the basis of their alliance, offering instead, more pragmatic roots for their close relations.
WPS 08-8: Dependence and Mistrust: North Korea's Relations with Moscow and the Evolution of Juche, by Kathryn Weathersby, Ph.D. (December 2008). In this paper, Dr. Weathersby discusses North Korea's diplomatic history with the former Soviet Union, the Soviet Communist Party, identifying key events which catalyzed the deterioration of the Soviet-North Korean alliance.
WPS 08-6: Japan and North Korea: The Long and Twisted Path towards Normalcy, by Gavan McCormack, Ph.D. (December 2008). In this paper, Dr. McCormack discusses the diplomatic history of North Korea-Japan relations, including the tensions over the issue of Japanese abductees.
WPS 08-3: Necessary Enemies: Anti-Americanism, Juche Ideology, and the Tortuous Path to Normalization, by Charles Armstrong, Ph.D. (September 2008). In this paper, Dr. Armstrong chronicles the development of U.S.-DPRK relations from 1942 to the present, including such contentious issues as the USS Pueblo Incident and North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
Papers in the North Korea Foreign Relations series are available upon request. To obtain a copy, please email Jenny Town, Research Associate, at jtown2@jhu.edu.
UNIFICATION CONSIDERATIONS
WPS 08-7: Ending the Korean War: Considerations on the Role of History, by Kathryn Weathersby, Ph.D. (Dec. 2008). In this paper, Dr. Weathersby argues that as the complex task of constructing a peace regime on the Korean peninsula begins, constant confrontation with historical inquiry, which undercuts the natural tendency to simplify and distort the past into national myths that hinder reconciliation, will be necessary.
WPS 09-3: Post-Unification Korean National Identity, by Jee Sun Lee, Ph.D. (April 2009). While much of the debate about the future of the Korean peninsula has taken shape around the uncertainties surrounding Kim Jong Il succession and portended changes in political structures, the future of Korean national identity remains an underexamined subject. In this paper, Dr. Lee addresses the looming question of what will be the core identity of a unified North and South Korea, and what form Korean national consciousness will take.
WPS 09-06: Leadership and Collaborative Governance Models: Application to Inter-Korean Cooperation Policies, by Hyungon Kim (March 2009). In this paper, Mr. Kim reviews the theoretical aspects of collaborative governance as well as some of the related topics emergent in the field of leadership studies. He explains four models of collaborative governance and analyzes the characteristcs of effective leadership in each. Finally, he reviews the current framework used for inter-Korean cooperation programs implemented through various arrangements of collaborative governance and presents the leadership requirements necessary for successful and effective inter-Korean cooperation programs.
THE KOREAN DIASPORA
This series explores the underrepresented and/or marginalized groups of the Korean Diaspora. It examines both root causes for the migration or forced migration of these groups, as well as their importance to the future of Korea and Korean affairs.
WPS 09-09: The Origins of Korean Adoption: Cold War Geopolitics and Intimate Diplomacy, by Eleana Kim, Ph.D. (October 2009). The adoption of children from South Korea to the West has been ongoing since the end of the Korean War in 1953. During the past half century, more than 200,000 children have been adopted into predominantly white families in Western Europe, North America, and Australia. In this paper, Eleana Kim, examines the origins of Korean adoption in the immediate postwar period, showing how the first adoptions of Korean boys by American servicemen gave way to the adoptions of mixed-race, and then full-Korean children into nuclear families. She elaborates on the little-known history of Korean transnational adoption to understand more fully how particular “technologies of intimacy,” including those related to legislation, transportation, communications, and especially mass media and financial sponsorships, facilitated the transfer of children from Korea to the U.S., and how these technologies were informed by and reproduced paternalistic relations between Americans and Koreans in the context of the Cold War.
WPS 09-1: Mapping Multiple Histories of Korean American Transnational Adoption, by Kim Park Nelson (January 2009). In this paper, Prof. Park Nelson examines the socio-political history of Korean American transnational, transracial adoption, including such pull factors as America’s demand for adoptable children since the Korean War and the social conditions and immigration policies which facilitated (and continue to fuel) this exchange. In her analysis, she also identifies the organization and activism of this substantial, yet underrepresented constituency of the Korean Diaspora.