Obama Administration will give diplomacy a chance to deal with the North Korean Nuclear problem

David Straub, the acting director of Korean Studies Program, argues that Obama administration will finally give diplomacy a chance to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem. He stresses that Senator Obama understands the difficulties of dealing with North Korea and will proceed carefully. If North Korea does not respond to this more nuanced American approach, he concludes, the international community is likely to be more supportive of U.S. efforts to constrain North Korean behavior.

• » Dong-A Ilbo (Korean)

Trilateral Relations of U.S. and Two Koreas under New Obama Administration

"With the current affairs such as the financial crisis and the Iraq War," Gi-Wook Shin, the director of Shorenstein APARC, says "the new Obama administration may not have the North Korea issues on its priority list for a while. Lee Myung-bak administration, meanwhile, is urged to revisit the workable policies of the past as well as to initiate the pragmatic diplomacy towards the collaboration between South Korea and the U.S."

• » Op-ed in Dong-A Ilbo (in Korean)
• » Interview with Yonhap News (in Korean)

Divided Memories and Reconciliation: History Text Books and War

An international conference on "Divided Memories and Reconciliation: History Text Books and War" was held on September 29, at Northeast Asia History Foundation in Korea. The first part of Divided Memories Project, a three-year joint project of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Northeast Asia History Foundation, is to study and analyze how high school history text books in Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan and US describe the violent history between the 1931 Manchurian Incident to the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, as the textbooks serve as the master narrative that composes the historical memory of a nation.

September 26, 2008
Straub calls for oral history project on modern Korea

October 21, 2008
U.S. Policy in Korea after the elections

September 15, 2008
Gi-Wook Shin talks about possible scenarios for succession of power in North Korea

September 4, 2008
North Korea suspends dismantling of nuclear facilities