JoongAng Ilbo-CSIS Forum 2021 to discuss Korea's global strategy

From left: Wi Sung-lac, Kim Sung-han, John Hamre, Victor Cha, Park Myung-lim

The JoongAng Ilbo will hold the annual international symposium, the JoongAng Ilbo-CSIS Forum 2021, with Washington-based foreign policy think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Korea Peace Foundation and the JTBC on Dec. 14.

The theme of this year’s forum is, “The Biden Era and Korea's Global Strategy.”

Following the inauguration of the Joe Biden administration in the United States at the beginning of this year, Korea is also preparing for a presidential election next March. At a time when the foreign affairs and security policy of the next government is more important than ever amid the hegemonic competition between the United States and China, the forum will be a venue to bring together renowned scholars and experts, including foreign policy advisers to Korean ruling and opposition party presidential candidates Lee Jae-myung and Yoon Suk-yeol, to discuss the Biden administration and Korea’s global strategy.

This year’s participants include Park Myung-lim, a Yonsei University professor and director of the Korea Peace Foundation; Wi Sung-lac, chairman of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) presidential campaign’s Pragmatic Foreign Affairs Committee; and Kim Sung-han, a professor of Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies and foreign policy adviser for the People Power Party’s presidential campaign.

Others include John Hamre, CSIS president and CEO; Victor Cha, senior vice president and Korea chair at CSIS; former Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se; former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon; Shin Kak-soo, senior advisor at Shin & Kim and former vice foreign minister; and other former and current officials and scholars in Korea and the United States. They will conduct an in-depth discussion about Korea's survival in the era of U.S.-China confrontation and the path to denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The virtual forum will be broadcast live on the JoongAng Ilbo and JTBC News YouTube channels from 9:30 a.m.

Time: Tuesday, Dec. 14, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.

U.S. participants: Victor Cha, CSIS senior vice president and Korea chair; Michael Green, CSIS senior vice president for Asia and Japan chair; John Hamre, president and CEO of CSIS; Katrin Fraser Katz, adjunct fellow at CSIS Korea Chair; and Bonny Lin, CSIS senior fellow for Asian security and director of the China Power Project.

Korean participants: Koh Yu-hwan, president of the Korea Institute for National Unification; Kim Sung-han, professor of Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies; Park Myung-lim, Yonsei University professor; former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon; former Vice Foreign Minister Shin Kak-soo; former Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se; Wi Sung-lac, chairman of the DP presidential campaign’s Pragmatic Foreign Affairs Committee; and Hong Seok-hyun, chairman of JoongAng Holdings and the Korea Peace Foundation.