Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
From the Issue
Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2014About 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.”
After the collapse of the Six-Party Talks in 2008 and the confrontational setting of 2009-12 when Sino-South Korean relations were mostly troubled, a new dynamic has emerged in the China-South Korea-U.S. triangle under Xi Jinping, Park Geun-hye, and Barack Obama. In this chapter I review earlier dynamics over a quarter century, assess the triangle as recently seen from each of the three corners, and reflect on the challenges that lie ahead that could alter the current dynamics. In the shadows of this triangle is North Korea, whose policies continue to exert a decisive impact.