Jean served as emcee of the 3rd Annual Women of Impact event held by the East-West Center, where the EWC’s Board of Governors honored President Hilda C. Heine of the Marshall Islands with this year’s Women of Impact Award to celebrate the remarkable achievements of women leaders. Jean also moderated a discussion exploring the role of women in innovation and their impact on addressing critical challenges with Dr. Yanghee Lee, Professor Emeritus, Sungkyunkwan University, Department of Child Psychology and Education; Mona Pasquil Rogers, Director of California Government Engagement, Meta, and Kristen Udui, Graduate Degree Fellow, East-West Center. View photos from the event on Flickr.
On Oct. 15, 2024, Jean spoke at the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono’s Asia Summit at New Zealand’s Parliament in Welllington, joining leading experts on Asia from New Zealand and offshore to discuss the big trends shaping the region for an event marking the Foundation’s 30th anniversary.
Jean served as emcee at the 2024 Women of Impact event at the East-West Center to honor President Hilda C. Heine of the Marshall Islands, and moderated a panel discussion on women’s leadership with Dr. Yanghee Lee, Mona Pasquil Rogers and Kristen Udui.
Journalists with firsthand experience in authoritarian countries shed light on the challenges that journalists face reporting on closed societies, discuss ways to help reporters overcome these challenges, and explore how this vital work relates to the broader global struggle between democracy and autocracy.
Generative AI is everywhere in the news today, but where will it be tomorrow? Jean Lee speaks to Charlie Beckett and Art Min about how artificial intelligence will shape the coming years, from elections to academia to mass media, and everything in between.
Jean Lee shares her perspective on how to read and understand North Korea today in a talk at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
Jean Lee testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about North Korea’s suspected illicit financing campaign using cyber theft.
Jean Lee joins cybersecurity expert Michael Barnhart and Korea Society policy director Jonathan Corrado for a discussion about the North Korean cyber threat.
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.
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.
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.
Jean Lee welcomes Cho Myoung-Gyon, Minister of Unification for South Korea, to Washington, DC, to share his thoughts on inter-Korean unity and prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Is the perfect storm brewing on the Korean Peninsula? Jean Lee joins geopolitical experts at the Milken Institute Global Conference to discuss security in East Asia and potential avenues for conflict resolution.
In a high-stakes diplomatic gamble, President Trump has accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – and the dramatic development raises crucial questions:
Could this summit lead to meaningful constraints on North Korea’s nuclear program? What are the attitudes of China and South Korea toward bilateral U.S.-North Korean diplomacy? What preparatory work must be done to ensure a successful summit? And what would be the criteria for success?
In this Ground Truth Briefing, three veteran observers of U.S.-Asia policy and North Korea addressed these issues.
Romance, humor, tension — everyone loves a good sitcom, even North Koreans. But in North Korea, TV dramas are more than mere entertainment. They play a crucial political role by serving as a key messenger of the party and government policy.
The Sidebar with Steve Scully: As tensions with North Korea rise, this week we examine the history of that country's ruling Kim family. We spoke to Jean H Lee, author of "Kings of Communism: Inside Kim Jong Un's Bloody Scramble to Kill of His Family" in the September edition of Esquire Magazine.
What steps should the United States and South Korea take to maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia?
Award-winning foreign correspondents, researchers and writers on the challenges of writing about North Korea today, from getting on the ground to turning to defectors for information about daily life inside the Hermit Kingdom.
Can Kim Jong Un be stopped before he turns the peninsula, and the region, into a nuclear wasteland? Jean Lee speaks at the Aspen Security Forum.
Jean Lee discusses the challenges of reporting on a country considered among the world's worst for press freedom, the role her Korean-American ethnicity played in her interactions with the North Koreans, and her observations on reunification after working as a journalist on both sides of the DMZ.
Social media has transformed culture, communication, creativity and journalism in every nation on Earth — other than North Korea, of course. Wait — not so fast. What do we really know about social media’s role in the mysterious nation — or what role it could play in the future, in the open or underground? Get some insight and answers to your questions as Associated Press Social Media Editor Eric Carvin leads a conversation with AP Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee, a social media-savvy journalist with firsthand expertise on the reclusive regime north of the 38th parallel.
Jean Lee, middle, moderates a discussion about AI with Art Min of TrueMedia.org (left) and Charlie Beckett of the JournalismAI Project (on screen), in a plenary session at the International Media Conference in Manila in June 2024.
Generative AI is everywhere in the news today, but where will it be tomorrow? Jean Lee speaks to Charlie Beckett and Art Min about how artificial intelligence will shape the coming years, from elections to academia to mass media, and everything in between.
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Jean Lee speaks at the US-Korea Security Forum hosted by Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.
Read MoreOn 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 MoreFew 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.
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
South Korean President Moon Jae-in allocated the bulk of his political capital to inter-Korean engagement during the first year and a half of his presidency. This strategy has paid dividends thus far in the form of inter-Korean summits, agreements, family reunions, military confidence building measures, and much more. However, domestic and geopolitical forces are likely to determine his agenda’s success. What implications will the U.S.–ROK alliance, China’s role in the region, and upcoming South Korean elections have for South–North détente?
Experts Joseph Yun, Jean Lee, James L. Schoff, and Chung Min Lee review Moon’s first year and a half in office and the challenges that lie ahead.
Read MoreWith a handshake, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un made history, becoming the first sitting leaders of the Korean War foes to hold a summit. But was it just a photo op?
In this Ground Truth Briefing, Wilson Center experts considered whether the Singapore summit yielded real progress on denuclearization; the impact of these developments on U.S. diplomacy with other countries; China’s reaction; how the lives of average North Koreans could be affected; and what’s next in what President Trump calls “a new chapter” in U.S.-North Korea relations.
Read MoreIs the perfect storm brewing on the Korean Peninsula? Jean Lee joins geopolitical experts at the Milken Institute Global Conference to discuss security in East Asia and potential avenues for conflict resolution.
Read MoreOn the eve of the summit between the leaders of the Koreas, several leading scholars discuss lessons from history, prospects for peace and reconciliation and implications for the United States, as President Trump prepares for his own summit with Kim.
Read MoreFrom bureaus and Baghdad, Kabul and Pyongyang to editing suites in major capitals, more women than ever are shaping the news we receive from the rest of the world.
Read MoreWith schoolyard taunts hurtling between Washington and Pyongyang, and fears of nuclear Armageddon escalating from Seoul to Tokyo to Los Angeles, the once-unthinkable idea of a military showdown between North Korea and the United States has become frighteningly plausible.
On an October evening when many Angelenos were pondering the opening game of the World Series rather than end-of-the-world scenarios, a Zócalo/UCLA panel discussion explored the question, “Is War With North Korea Inevitable?” By the end of an intense hour-long discussion at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in downtown Los Angeles, the consensus was that a catastrophic confrontation isn’t unavoidable. But to lower the odds of it happening, America’s policymakers and its public need a more nuanced and humanistic perspective on the reclusive rogue Asian nation, the panelists said.
Read MoreLeading 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.
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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.