EWC Research Speaker Series
Wednesday, January 10th, 2024
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. HST
Assignment: Pyongyang
A Journalist’s Perspective on Life in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea
featuring
Jean H. Lee, Visiting POSCO Fellow, East-West Center
Co-host, the Lazarus Heist podcast, BBC World Service
North Korea is a nation of contradictions: one of the world’s poorest, yet capable of building ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Socialist, yet ruled by a modern-day monarch seeking absolute authority. Largely disconnected from the global Internet, yet able to produce some of the world’s most agile hackers. How do we make sense of North Korea — from what leader Kim Jong Un wants from his nuclear arsenal to how ordinary citizens are surviving in isolation — at a time when we have limited access and insight into daily life in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?
Jean H. Lee, a former AP correspondent who reported from North Korea from 2008 to 2017 and opened an AP news bureau in Pyongyang, shares her perspective on how to read and understand North Korea today. She will share how her time on the ground helped shape her current research on the North Korean hackers who are the focus on her most recent project, the Lazarus Heist podcast series for the BBC World Service.
With the amazing Research Program team led by Carolyn Eguchi at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI, on Jan. 10, 2024.
With senior fellow and former EWC President Charles Morrison on Jan. 10, 2024, at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI.
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.