Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
From the Issue
Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2015About Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
For over twenty years, KEI has sponsored annual major academic symposiums at universities across the country and major academic conferences. Each year, papers are specially commissioned to fit panel topics of current policy relevance to the U.S.-ROK alliance and implications for the Korean peninsula. Following the symposium, KEI edits and publishes those papers in an annual volume entitled “Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies.”
Author: Hong Kyudok
Region: Asia
Theme: Foreign Relations, Security
Location: Korea, North, Korea, South
Published February 29, 2016
Download PDFDespite President Park Geun-hye’s efforts to improve inter-Korean relations, Kim Jongun’s North Korea has never shown any willingness to give up its nuclear ambitions and continuously refuses to become a normal state.1 It has made significant advances in its nuclear weapons program over the past 20 years, while continuing provocations against the United States and South Korea. The year 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula and liberation from the Japanese annexation. Kim Jong-un expressed an interest in resuming dialogue with South Korea in his New Year’s address;2 however, his attitude totally changed in the following weeks largely because the United States flatly turned down his offer to stop the annual military exercises in return for temporarily halting nuclear tests.