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lee seong-hyon

Defining NK-China relations under Kim and Xi

Trump has sent a letter to Kim Jong-un, indicating his willingness to aid North Korea in battling the coronavirus. If Kim were to accept the offer, that would make China lose face, North Korea's most intimate ally.

2020-03-31 22:09

Virus and Korea-China ties

Many expected that the coronavirus epidemic, which started in China, would offer room for cooperation between the neighboring country and South Korea. On the contrary, the relationship has been disintegrating. The question is why.

2020-03-17 17:36

Timing of Xi Jinping's visit

To help realize Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Seoul, the South Korean side has spent the last two years since President Moon's visit to China in December 2017 addressing the need for a visit to Chinese representatives at various governmental and track 1.5-level meetings.

2020-03-03 17:03

PR warfare on coronavirus

America's ideal strategy in dealing with China is to impede its rise without having to resort to military action. Although the coronavirus is an epidemic, from the U.S. strategic point of view, it's also fair game to use the case to undermine the Communist Party of China, and particularly, Xi Jinping, its leader. The buck ultimately stops at his post.

2020-02-18 17:18

Lessons learned from Trump-Kim nuclear negotiations

Below is a snapshot of what the world has learned over the past two years of negotiations between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump. The views expressed are not my own. They were taken from various seminars and conferences I attended throughout the years.

2020-02-04 16:58

Real winner of trade deal

Some believe that the first phase of the U.S.-China deal to end the trade war is China's defeat. However, Vice Premier Liu He, China's chief delegate to the trade talks, said the deal "serves China's interests, the U.S.'s interests, and the world's interests." In other words, he characterized the deal as having a “win-win” outcome. Then, on what basis should we evaluate the deal?

2020-01-21 17:23

Kim's 'new path' and China

China is paying keen attention to what kind of "new path" Kim Jong-un will take in 2020. First, China believes that South Korea and the U.S. "overreacted" to North Korea's reference to the “Christmas gift,” which heightened the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. The very idea of this so-called gift drew wide attention to the point that Trump also mentioned it publicly.

2020-01-07 17:03

Korea-US-China geopolitics

As the whirlwind of Korean geopolitics (read: “Korean crisis”) goes full swing toward the year's end, I'd like to make some observations on some of its pronounced features. We Koreans are quite used to the curse of unpredictability in our lives. (Perhaps that's why we drink lots of soju to the point of intoxication, in a futile endeavor to escape reality?) However, the current situation is extremely unusual and highly volatile.

2019-12-24 17:29

Moon's 'golden rule' with ASEAN

Putting aside all the pleasantries about the South Korea-ASEAN summit, it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty of it. I had a few occasions recently to observe and study the South Korea-ASEAN relationship, including attending a forum in Kuala Lumpur, a beautiful city in Malaysia. The closed-door forum was meant to enrich ideas for the South Korea-ASEAN summit that we just saw.

2019-11-26 17:20

South Korea to step up economic partnership with Mekong nations

Chinese art of sanctioning NK

As of today, there is no definitive answer as to whether sanctions on Pyongyang are working or not. There is a widely polarized view on it, like day and night. This is a delicate and hotly debated topic among South Korean scholars.

2019-11-12 17:52

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