Time:2010/5/31 

On May 28, Professor John Lewis and Mr Bob Carlin from Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) visited CISS for a roundtable discussion about recent developments on the Korean Peninsula following the sinking of the Cheonan warship and US-China security cooperation. Professor Lewis is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Emeritus, and Mr Carlin is a CISAC Visiting Scholar and previously an expert on North Korea at the US Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency. Introduced by CISS General Secretary, Associate Professor Yu Tiejun, Professor Lewis and Mr Carlin gave short presentations before taking questions from faculty and students of SIS. Amongst those attending were Professor Wang Jisi, Professor Zhu Feng and Associate Professor Gui Yongtao. 

Professor Lewis opened by speaking about developments in Sino-US relations and touched on the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (SED) that was held recently in Beijing. Noting that the SED did not seem to have produced many agreements of a practical nature on “strategic” issues, he outlined projects relating to nuclear security, military-military relations, stability on the Korean Peninsula and regional health cooperation where he believed cooperation between the US and China was both desirable and necessary. He argued that such collaboration was dependent on both high-level engagement and the long-term commitment of groups of experts over a number of years. 

Mr Carlin began by comparing the recent downturn in the situation on the Korean Peninsular with that of a decade ago, when the international community was engaged in productive discussions with the DPRK under the terms of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Dwelling on why the situation had descended so fast, Mr Carlin questioned the wisdom of pursuing a policy of non-engagement with Pyongyang and submitting to retaliatory tit-for-tat measures. Mr Carlin also expressed his skepticism with oft-heard speculation over the last 6 months that the North Korean regime was on the brink of collapse. The DPRK remained an essentially stable country, he argued, bounded by the “pillars” of ideology, fear, isolation and elite consensus. 

Subsequent discussion focused on the evidence relating to the sinking of the Cheonan, the question of “strategic trust” in Sino-US relations, and China’s policy towards the DPRK.