By Dr. Lee Hong-Koo

Dr. Lee Hong-Koo, a former prime minister of Korea, is a trustee to The Asia Foundation, and an advisor to the JoongAng Ilbo. This article is a revised version of the article, first published in Korean in the JoongAng Ilbo.

If we want to maintain a special alliance with the United States under Obama, there is an urgent need to find shared values that both nations want to pursue.

An empire’s decline or fall depends mainly on its capacity for change and innovation. If this becomes paralyzed, the nation falls. The Roman Empire is a prime example. Of course, there are cases in history where defeat in war leads to a nation’s collapse. The end of Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany and the militarized imperial Japanese Empire are the most recent examples.

But even in these cases, they brought disaster upon themselves by institutionalizing inflexibility and uniformity which robbed them of their capacity for self-innovation and renewal. Consequently, they committed national suicide.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is a Senior Associate at The Asia Foundation and based in the Foundation’s Washington, D.C. office. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

There’s a lot of speculation about how President-elect Obama will organize his administration to address a truly daunting list of security challenges, including a global economic crisis, Iraq, and Afghanistan. On the list of potential crises that the Obama administration will inherit come January 20th will be the task of achieving the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

There’s already been considerable speculation regarding how an Obama administration will approach the North Korean issue, especially in Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing.  Much of that has tended toward the dramatic idea that Mr. Obama himself would seek an early breakthrough with North Korea through personal diplomacy at the highest levels. 
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Participants at a forum held last week in Seoul want you to steal their ideas. Organized by The Asia Foundation, and supported by KDI School of Public Policy and Management and the Korea Business Council for Sustainable Development, the group gathered from countries across Asia to discuss how to address local and regional environmental threats while enhancing development and economic growth.

In the keynote address that opened the day-long event, Terry Foecke, managing partner of Materials Productivity LLC and senior environmental consultant at The Asia Foundation, set the tone for the day. “A sustainable project incorporates ideas that are packaged for theft,” he said. “These are concepts that are so good and so obvious that people will want to replicate them.”
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is a Senior Associate at The Asia Foundation and can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org. A more complete version of this article was originally published by CSIS.

The XXIX Beijing Olympiad, an event that had preoccupied Chinese leaders for almost a decade as they sought to utilize the games to project to domestic and international audiences China’s accomplishments on an international stage, has framed many issues in Sino-Korean relations, especially given the many resonances between the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the Beijing Olympics two decades later. But now that the Olympics are over, Chinese leaders may adopt a different frame for viewing the world and the Korean peninsula, the details of which have begun to emerge in the “post-Olympics era.”

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By Edward Reed

Edward Reed is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Korea. He can be reached at ereed@asiafound.org.

As Christopher Hill traveled north from Seoul this week to try to rescue the snarled nuclear agreement with North Korea, another notable journey was taking place from Bongha, a village in the far south of Korea, up to Seoul. Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun made his first return trip to the South Korean capital since leaving office in February. He came north to celebrate his momentous journey from Seoul to Pyongyang for a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that took place exactly one year ago. What a difference a year makes.
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by Brad Glosserman and Scott Snyder

Brad Glosserman (bradgpf@hawaii.rr.com) is executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS. Scott Snyder (ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org) is a senior associate at the Pacific Forum CSIS and The Asia Foundation. This article draws on surveys and interviews they conducted in Japan and South Korea; their conclusions are expanded in the forthcoming “Confidence and Confusion: National Identity and Alliance Management in Northeast Asia”.

Japan’s new prime minister, Aso Taro, takes office facing many difficult if not intractable problems, not least of which is securing a ruling coalition for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Beyond politics, the situation is equally bleak, given Japan’s moribund economy, global financial volatility, and a pervasive gloom that has descended over the country. But, based on elite surveys and interviews we conducted in Japan and South Korea during the past year, we believe the new government could make a bold initiative that would pay important dividends both domestically and internationally.
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Bruce Tolentino, The Asia Foundation’s Director for Economic Reform and Development Programs, continues to provide insight on the U.S. financial crisis’ impact in Asia. This week, he noted that a major recession in the United States would “hit export-heavy tech industries in Taiwan, South Korea and China hard” in addition to countries with large garment and textile sectors that export to the US and European markets.

Dr. Tolentino can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org.

By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

Bruce Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s Director for Economic Reform and Development Programs. He can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org.

Over the past few weeks, as the U.S. financial system has reeled from a shocking series of major “adjustments,” Asia’s economists and bankers remind themselves of the key lessons — painfully taught — by the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s:  (a) all markets are linked; (b) financial markets are much more volatile than others and thus require more stringent oversight and regulation; and (c) refocusing on economic fundamentals is key to long-term recovery and growth.

Taking the long view, the medium-to-long term impact of the U.S. financial crisis on Asia is likely to be muted.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is a Senior Associate at The Asia Foundation. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

Since there have been periodic rumors about the state of Kim Jong Il’s health over the years, it’s easy for North Korea-watchers to become skeptical about unattributed reports from capitals outside of Pyongyang regarding the pulse of the Dear Leader.  It has long been the case that rumors about the stability of North Korea are inversely proportional to the distance one is from Pyongyang; by this logic, rumors started in Washington require special skepticism.

But this time, multiple reports from intelligence officials in many countries are beginning to add up.  These reports suggest that Kim Jong Il experienced an impossible-to-predict “medical event”—apparently a stroke—in mid-August.  But it was particularly his non-appearance at last week’s 60th anniversary events to mark the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) that sparked international speculation.  Intelligence regarding special teams of physicians that had entered North Korea to treat Kim Jong Il has led to a broad array of reports about Kim’s condition and recovery.
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With rumors of Korean President Kim Jong-Il’s ailing health abounding, Former Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the U.S, Han Sung-Joo addressed packed crowds in Washington and San Francisco at the formal launch of The Asia Foundation’s America’s Role in Asia.  Ambassador Han asked: “The question is, is North Korea more or less likely to give up its nuclear weapons if there is a government change; or, if Mr. Kim Jong Il becomes incapacitated, is North Korea going to become more or less dangerous than now?”  At both the National Press Club and the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC, and at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, Ambassador Han addressed policymakers, Asian and U.S. diplomats, executives, journalists and philanthropists.
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