Jean Lee shares her perspective on how to read and understand North Korea today in a talk at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
Read MoreHouse Foreign Affairs Committee: Illicit IT: Bankrolling Kim Jong Un →
Jean Lee testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about North Korea’s suspected illicit financing campaign using cyber theft.
Read MoreFlawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
Jean Lee in conversation with journalist Elise Hu at NPR about her new book, “Flawless,” and lessons in looks and culture from the K-beauty capital.
Read MoreKorea Society: The North Korean Cyber Threat →
Jean Lee joins cybersecurity expert Michael Barnhart and Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado for a discussion about the North Korean cyber threat.
Read MoreIndiana University: IKS Conference on the US-Korea Relationship
Jean Lee speaks at Indiana University’s Institute for Korean Studies Annual Conference on The U.S.-Korea Relationship: Past, Present, and Future
Read MoreUniversity of Georgia: US-Korea Security Forum
Jean Lee speaks at the US-Korea Security Forum hosted by Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.
Read MoreBBC: The Lazarus Heist LIVE in New York City
Jean Lee joins co-host Geoff White and musician Dessa — along with special guests — for a live recording of the Lazarus Heist podcast in New York City.
Read MoreBBC World Service: The Lazarus Heist: Live in New York
We're recording a live special episode of the Lazarus Heist at The Greene Space in New York on Monday 26 September, 2022.
Read MoreEast Asia Institute: Financing Pyongyang’s Provocations - Kim Jong Un’s Cyber Strategy →
For this month, we invited Jean Lee, Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center, to discuss North Korea’s cyber-attacks and how they finance Pyongyang’s missile developments despite the international sanctions against the regime.
Read MoreDuke University: A Look Inside North Korea's Kim Regime →
Jean Lee speaks at Duke University for the Program in American Grand Strategy on the Kim regime in North Korea.
Read MoreNCNK/Network 20/20: South Korea’s Election and Its Impact on U.S.-ROK-DPRK Relations
On Tuesday, February 15th, the National Committee on North Korea and Network 20/20 held a joint webinar featuring panelists Katherine H.S. Moon, Professor Emerita at Wellesley College, Scott A. Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jean H. Lee, Award-winning writer, Commentator, and Expert on North Korea, to hear their critical insight regarding the upcoming election. The discussion was moderated by Keith Luse, Executive Director of the National Committee on North Korea.
Read MoreHudson Institute: Kim Jong Un and the Northeast Asian Arms Race →
Join Hudson Institute Asia-Pacific Security Chair Patrick Cronin, Hudson Senior Fellow Alex Wong, and expert panelists Ankit Panda and Jean Lee, for a discussion on North Korea’s expanding missile arsenal and arms competition in Northeast Asia.
Read MoreCDA Institute: Enhancing engagement with North Korea: What Canada can do →
“Kim Jong Un ultimately wants to return to negotiations, but he wants to return in a stronger position. That means there may be further provocations down the line. We need to remember that the threat is there, and it has only grown over time. We seem to have forgotten about it amidst the pandemic. The people of North Korea, and South Korea are the ones who are going to pay the price.”
Read MoreKorea Society: New Developments in Inter-Korea Relations →
Jean Lee speaks with senior director Stephen Noerper on ROK-DPRK relations. They address impasse and opportunity between North Korea and South Korea and offer recommendations for US and other policy makers on peninsular realities and possibilities.
Read MoreWar on the Rocks: COVID in North Korea →
As the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic continues, South Korea has been held up as a model for effective public health response. South Korea’s neighbor to the north, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, remains something of an enigmaTo help us understand the likely situation in North Korea, we are joined by Jean H. Lee, who is the director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.
Read MoreNBR: South Korea in a Challenging Maritime Security Environment →
Few nations confront a more complex security environment than the Republic of Korea. South Korea’s security challenges come into sharp relief in its maritime periphery, particularly in the Yellow Sea/West Sea. In these choppy waters, exclusive economic zone and fishery disputes with China, and a boundary disagreement with North Korea, have led to consistent friction, and at times, outright hostility.
Agenda
Welcome and Introduction
Alison Szalwinski, Vice President, National Bureau of Asian Research
South Korea and the Challenges of a Maritime Nation
Terence Roehrig, Professor of National Security Affairs and the Director of the Asia-Pacific Studies Group, U.S. Naval War College
North Korea and the Northern Limit Line
Jean Lee, Director, Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy, Wilson Center; Former Pyongyang Bureau Chief, Associated Press
The National Bureau of Asian Research: South Korea in a Challenging Maritime Security Environment →
Few nations confront a more complex security environment than the Republic of Korea. South Korea’s security challenges come into sharp relief in its maritime periphery, particularly in the Yellow Sea/West Sea. In these choppy waters, exclusive economic zone and fishery disputes with China, and a boundary disagreement with North Korea, have led to consistent friction, and at times, outright hostility.
Read MoreWilson Center: Geopolitical Implications of the Coronavirus for the Indo-Pacific
The novel coronavirus came from China, and countries across the Indo-Pacific have been on the front line of confronting this pandemic. In this online-only event, Wilson Center experts will examine how this pandemic is affecting the region's geopolitics, and what these changes may mean for the United States.
Read MoreNeed to Know: Negotiations and Love Notes - Where Do The North Korea Nuclear Talks Stand? →
Jean Lee, Director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy, walks us through where talks between President Trump and Chairman Kim stand today. And she gives us some insight into the tactics of the North Koreans and a peek into the horizon. To understand North Korea, there is no one better to hear from than Jean Lee.
Read MoreWilson Center: Book launch of Van Jackson's "On the Brink" →
Throughout 2017, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hurled insults and escalating threats of nuclear war at one another amid threatening shows of military force on the Korean Peninsula. In June 2018, in a remarkable about-face, they held a historic summit in Singapore, but seven months later, the United States and North Korea have failed to move beyond the vague promises on denuclearization forged by Kim and Trump.
In his new book, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War, former Pentagon insider and Korean security expert Van Jackson analyzes the U.S. response to North Korea's increasing nuclear threat in the context of Trump's aggressive rhetoric, prior U.S. policy failures, the geopolitics of East Asia, and North Korean strategy, including the acceleration of its nuclear program under Kim Jong Un. He argues that the Trump Administration's policy of "maximum pressure" brought the world much closer to nuclear war than many realize, and charts a course for the prevention of future conflicts.
As we look ahead to a proposed second Trump-Kim summit, join us at 10 am on Tuesday, February 5, 2019, for a discussion with Dr. Jackson, a Global Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Center and senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand, on his new book, the next Trump-Kim summit, the nuclear threat from North Korea and the potential for a diplomatic breakthrough.
Selected Quotes
Van Jackson:
“One thing that I hope you would take away from today is just how close we came in 2017, in early 2018, to the unthinkable. The world was closer, I am arguing in the book, to nuclear war, at that time than any time, since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And it was totally avoidable.”
“What scares me is that Trump and Kim Jong-Un, especially Trump, have personalized this nuclearized confrontation, in a way that holds our fates, hostage, to their personal chemistry. And on one side, on Kim Jong-Un side, this appears to be done in the name of national interest, it appears to be strategic. On the U.S. side, it is not at all clear that what is happening is done based on the calculation by the national interest. It feels pretty impulsive. It feels pretty rushed.”
“There was a relentless pressure building toward preventative war by the end of 2017 that had echoes of the 2003 buildup to the invasion of Iraq. And a preventative way would have been pathological, because North Korea already had the ability to put warheads on foreheads, to turn any conflict with the U.S. into a nuclear one.”
Jean H. Lee
“...One more thing that the larger context that we have to keep in mind is that the United States has what North Korean needs and wants. We should remember that....I do think Kim Jong-Un and the North Koreans have played this beautifully. But, at the end of the day, the United States has what he needs and wants. That’s a lifting of sanctions, possibly, a peace treaty, economic help, and so [we] should keep that in mind.”
Abraham Denmark:
“At the same time, I think that a lot of what North Korea has been doing in terms of building and testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is not necessarily tied to what the United States has been doing. The development of nuclear weapons, [and] the development of these ballistic missiles have begun long before the Trump administration, begun long before the Obama administration, and the Bush administration before that. ”
Leading U.S. experts and former officials to identify actionable policy steps the White House and Congress should take to address the growing threat from North Korea.