Category: Geopolitical Affairs

David C. Kang  is Professor of International Relations and Business at the University of Southern California, with appointments in both the School of International Relations and the Marshall School of Business. At USC he is also director of the Korean Studies Institute. Kang’s latest book is East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (Columbia University Press, 2010). He is also author of China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007); Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (co-authored with Victor Cha) (Columbia University Press, 2003). Kang has published numerous scholarly articles in journals such as International Organization and International Security, and his co-authored article Testing Balance of Power Theory in World History was awarded “Best article, 2007-2009,” by the European Journal of International Relations. Kang has also written opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as writing a monthly column for the Joongang Ilbo in Korean. He received an A.B. with honors from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Berkeley.

Stephen Noerper   (moderator) serves as a Korea Society senior director and adjunct fellow with Pacific Forum CSIS. He writes on US policy in Asia. Professor Noerper teaches at Columbia University beginning this fall and was an associate professor of international relations at New York University. He taught at American University, Waseda University, the National University of Mongolia, and Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies and was a State Department analyst. Dr. Noerper publishes widely and appears in major media.

Chung Min Lee   is a nonresident senior associate in Carnegie’s Asia Program. He works on security issues in Northeast Asia, including strategic developments on the Korean peninsula.

Lee is also a professor of international relations at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) and was appointed by South Korean President Park Geun-hye as ambassador for national security affairs in June 2013. Lee served as dean of the GSIS from 2008 to 2012 and Yonsei’s Underwood International College from 2010 to 2012. He also served as ambassador for international security affairs from 2010 to 2011 and as a member of the president’s foreign policy advisory council from 2009 to 2011.

Lee has taught at the Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, the University of Sydney, Murdoch University, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He was a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation from 1995 to 1998 and a visiting research fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo from 1994 to 1995. Prior to that, Lee served as a research fellow at Yonsei’s Institute of East and West Studies, the Sejong Institute in Seoul, and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He has written extensively on Asian and Korean security issues and is the author of an upcoming book on Asia’s strategic fault lines that explores the implications of political and military developments in the region. His current research is focused on examining how China’s key neighbors such as Russia, India, Vietnam, the two Koreas, and Japan are responding to China’s rise. In addition, he is also working on assessing declassified intelligence estimates on the Pakistani, North Korean, and Iranian nuclear programs.

General Van Fleet’s grandson, Joseph A. McChristian, Jr., currently serves as the President of the Van Fleet Foundation. As part of a military family, his youth was spent living and travelling in many countries. Following a family tradition, and a personal dream, he graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point as a Distinguished Graduate in 1965. His military career included service as both Commander and staff officer of Armor and Military Intelligence units in combat and during peacetime. He also served as an Assistant Army Attaché at the US Embassy in Cambodia, as an Instructor at the Cambodian Senior Officer’s Staff College, and as Assistant Professor of Military Science at Princeton University. Airborne and Ranger qualified and a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam, his decorations include three Bronze Star Medals, the Air Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal and the Army Commendation Medal. Upon leaving active duty in the military, Mr. McChristian pursued a business career in the financial industry with Citicorp, American Express, and then with Price Waterhouse where he worked as a Principal Consultant in Corporate Finance Emerging Markets advising clients in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and West Africa. In 1989 Mr. McChristian established The McChristian Companies, a corporation through which he acquired and turned around two distressed manufacturing companies in the US, founded several joint ventures in the former Soviet Union, and started, with his son, an Internet services practice in the US. Mr. McChristian was a George Olmsted Scholar. He received a Master of Arts degree in Economics and Finance from the Institute of Political Studies, University of Paris, France, and continued graduate studies in Economics at Princeton University. He is also an Honor Graduate of the US Army’s Military Intelligence Officers Advanced Course. He speaks Russian, is fluent in Greek, and is bi-lingual in French. In addition to his work with the Van Fleet Foundation he is active in local government and several community service organizations where he lives in South Florida.

Ambassador Thomas Hubbard   is Chairman of The Korea Society and senior director at McLarty Associates, where he specializes in Asian affairs. A career foreign-service officer for nearly forty years, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2001 to 2004, and before that as Ambassador to the Philippines from 1996 to 2000. He served seven years in Japan and was deputy chief of mission and acting ambassador in Malaysia. He held key Washington postings, including assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Ambassador Hubbard was a principal negotiator of the 1994 Agreed Framework aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and headed the first senior-level U.S. government delegation to North Korea. He was also President Clinton’s envoy to promote human rights and democracy in Burma. Ambassador Hubbard sits on numerous advisory boards. He received his BA in political science from the University of Alabama and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Maryland and the University of Alabama.

Dr. Sheila Smith    is an expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, is senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is the author of Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia University Press, 2015) and Japan’s New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (Council on Foreign Relations, June 2014). Her current research focuses on how geostrategic change in Asia is shaping Japan’s strategic choices. In the fall of 2014, Smith began a new project on Northeast Asian Nationalisms and Alliance Management . Smith is vice chair of the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Exchange (CULCON), a bi-national advisory panel of government officials and private sector members. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the Asian Studies Department of Georgetown University and serves on the board of its Journal of Asian Affairs. She earned her MA and PhD degrees from the department of political science at Columbia University.