On Tuesday (April 12, 2011), fellow KBC Member Stephane Mot and I headed over to the Plaza Hotel in central Seoul to attend the North Korea Policy Forum International Seminar hosted by the Maeil Kyungjae Newspaper. The North Korea Policy Forum is headed by Professor Sang-Man Lee of Chungang University.

(You may recognize Professor Lee (a KBC member!), because he's also heading up the Culture and Branding Forum at which Dennis Oh and I spoke in February: Click here for the video/discussion. We've also posted videos/discussions of the presentations given by Jin-Seop Lee about the digital/analogue divide and by Jin-Ah Lee about the latest trends in publishing. that day and KBC Ambassador Sangyul Lee was there to take lots of photos. Last month I attended again, along with Lara Tosh, and our discussion inspired the following two discussions, also - What One World Would You Use to Represent Korea? and Last Weekend at CAU)

Anyway, presentations at the North Korea Policy Forum International Seminar focused on how Korea should respond to the ever consolidating economic cooperation between China and North Korea. And as it turns out, both Stephane (Great Wall of China - Anschlussing Korea) and I (The New Chinese Province of Chosun) already weighed in on the subject last year, and I guess this makes us "foreign reseachers"

....which is a good thing, because...

The next day in the Maeil Kyungjae, we were labeled as such in the paper under our photo in one of the articles (click here for the article - and even a cameo appearance way in the background by yours truly in this TV report: click here for video).

Stephane even followed up the seminar with a report on it to his weblog. You can read it here: 

• Re-Engaging North Korea - A Four Party Talk

So, what do you think? Is North Korea moving rapidly and irretrievably towards China? Or is unification on South Korean terms still the most likely outcome?

(BTW, they do these seminars several times per year. I have to admit, five hours of presentations and panelist discussions was long, but they did finish it up with a couple musical performances and a delicious dinner. It was also free and English interpretation was provided for those who needed it. If this is something you would have liked to attend, email me and I'll put your name in the hat for notification next time.)