Policy Forum

Nautilus Institute’s Policy Forum‘s focus is on the timely publication of expert analysis and op-ed style pieces on the foremost of security-related issues to Northeast Asia. Its mission is to facilitate a multilateral flow of information among an international network of policy-makers, analysts, scholars, media, and readers. Policy Forum essays are typically from a wide range of expertise, political orientations, as well as geographic regions and seeks to present readers with opinions and analysis by experts on the issues as well as alternative voices not typically presented or heard. Feedback, comments, responses from Policy Forum readers are highly encouraged.

NAPSNet, Policy Forum

Policy Forum 08-085: Japan-India Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation: Groping Towards an Asia-wide Security Architecture

Sourabh Gupta, Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates, Inc., writes, “it remains to be seen whether an economically-anemic Japan-India bilateral partnership with a top-heavy security component (albeit, at present, more in intent than content) will trump either country’s economically more densely-linked but strategically more circumspect relationship with China.”

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Policy Forum 08-084: Deterioration of Inter-Korean Relationship

Tong Kim, Research Professor with the Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, writes, “Since President Lee took office, Pyongyang has been getting mixed signals from Seoul between engagement and confrontation, as it did from the Bush administration during its first six years between negotiation and regime change… Nobody can predict the timing or the likelihood of a demise of North Korea. That’s why it is important to resume dialogue and avoid a costly consequence political, economic and military from confrontation.”

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Policy Forum 08-083: Moral Realism Boomerang: Eight Months into the Lee Administration’s North Korean Policy

Bo-hyuk Suh, Research Fellow at the Korea National Strategy Institute in Seoul, writes, “it is time inter-Korean relations should change, which would begin by respecting the agreement reached at the South-North summit meeting… The South Korean government should offer North Korea an unconditional dialogue to discuss inter-Korean cooperation, including the implementation of the October 4 Declaration.”

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Policy Forum 08-082: China Civil Society Report: An Overview of Social Work with the Disabled in China

Jia Xijin, Associate Professor at the NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, and Zhao Yusi, Project Assistant of NGO Research Center at Tsinghua University, write, “At present, China’s disabled people’s organizations face some challenges. First there are human resource issues… Second there is a registration problem for these organizations… Additionally there are other problems, such as a limited impact on public opinion, lack of publicity, insufficient funds, challenges in building the organization, and so on.”

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Policy Forum 08-081: The Question President Bush Needs to Answer: Do You Really Believe Kim Jong-Il Will Give up His Nuclear Weapons?

Cheon Seongwhun, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), writes, “A laudable legacy that President Bush could leave for us may be to clarify all the confusion and suspicion about the Kim Jong-il regime’s nuclear intentions and by doing so, remove a root cause of policy struggle in the United States, South Korea, China, and others.”

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Policy Forum 08-080: Has the Next Great Leader of North Korea Been Announced?

Rudiger Frank, Professor of East Asian Economy and Society and Vice Director of the East Asian Institute at the University of Vienna, writes, “This time, we could see the Party taking over the role of a church, safeguarding ideology and the leadership of the two “Eternal” leaders, forming or organizing the collective leadership that seems to be the only logical step, and appointing a leader who will not be Great but visible. The recent homage to the Party’s monument could be the first step in the process of announcing this solution; the next Great Leader of North Korea could be Mother Party.”

Read a discussion of this article here.

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Policy Forum 08-079: The Facts and Fables of a Unified Korea

Andrei Lankov, Associate Professor in Kookmin University, Seoul, and adjunct research fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University, write, “Despite all the grave doubts, people will not dare to openly say that they do not want to share the state with what they perceive as impoverished and under-educated Northerners. Nonetheless, one thing is clear: the enthusiasm about unification is waning, and sooner or later this quiet transformation of the public mind may have political effects.”

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Policy Forum 08-078: Delisting North Korea

Victor Cha, Director of Asian studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Council, writes, “if North Korea keeps its word, John McCain or Barack Obama should inherit a situation in which U.S. and international nuclear experts are on the ground in North Korea learning more about Kim Jong Il’s nuclear secrets while slowly disabling and degrading his nuclear capabilities.”

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Policy Forum 08-076: After Kim Jong-il

Peter M. Beck, Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., writes, “there is a much greater likelihood that the North will come to resemble Burma rather than South Korea or China. A collective leadership system dominated by the military will likely emerge. However, it could be months or even years before the North’s elites sort out who is in and who is out of the new ruling junta. The military will clearly be in the driver’s seat. The only question is whether it will use a member of the Kim Royal Family as a hood ornament.”

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Policy Forum 08-074: Nothing Succeeds Like Succession?

Scott Thomas Bruce, Director of US Operations at the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco which is affiliated with the USF Center for the Pacific Rim, writes, “Removing North Korea from the list of terror sponsoring nations no longer offers a way forward… The Bush Administration could send one or both of George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter to meet with Kim Jong Il and put together the icebreaker… It would also make the overture bipartisan in US presidential politics, thereby signaling the gravity with which the US views the situation in the DPRK. Incidentally, it would also force the DPRK leadership to produce Kim Jong Il or admit that he is in bad shape.”

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