Cambridge-Korea Foundation Special Roundtable

Event Description
How has trilateral cooperation between the ROK, the US, and Japan been conceived and developed, and where does its future lie? This special roundtable brings together leading scholars and experts to explore the evolution and prospects of trilateral cooperation among the Republic of Korea, the United States and Japan. Through two panels, the program will examine the historical pathways and political conditions that enabled the landmark 2023 Camp David summit, as well as the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for this emerging partnership. Panelists will consider the role of leadership, domestic and international dynamics, and shifting regional and global contexts in shaping trilateralism, while also addressing prospects for deeper collaboration across security, economic, and societal domains. By combining insights from history, political science, and international relations, the conference will provide a timely and comprehensive assessment of the strengths, limitations, and future trajectory of the relations betweel Seoul, Washington and Tokyo.

Date and Time: Friday 10 October, 10:30am-2:30pm

Location: Bradfield Room, Darwin College, Cambridge

Panel Information
Panel One (Morning Session: 10.30am-12pm) - Trilateralism: the Past and the Present
Panelists: Young-kwan Yoon; Sheila Smith; Hiro Akita
The Road to Camp David. What enabled the US, Japan and the ROK to reach a new cooperative trilateral partnership in August of 2023 and how much did this represent a departure from past historical norms? What were the conditions, domestic and international (both global and regional) that ensured that the new partnership could be realised? How much of a critical factor was personal leadership in effecting this agreement and what was the substance of the agreement in concrete terms? What perspective do the disciplines of history, political science and international relations offer in understanding the limits and opportunities of ROK-Japan-US trilateralism?

Panel Two (Afternoon Session: 1pm-2.30pm) - Trilateralism: the Future
Panelists: Kuyoun Chung; Jeffrey Hornung; Yuichi Hosoya
What are the key critical challenges and opportunities for the partnership? How much of the initial agreement remains, in substance; how much remains to be comprehensively and materially realised? What are the key issue areas in terms of cooperation that offer the prospect of substantive progress, whether economic, security (broadly defined), diplomatic or in terms of person-to-person cooperation. How much has a change of leadership in each of the three countries disrupted or helped sustain trilateral cooperation? What role might public opinion in all three countries play in either sustaining or undermining this partnership? Is the partnership fit for purpose or does it need to be supplemented by other forms of bilateral or minilateral cooperation?

About the Speakers
Young-kwan Yoon is Chairman of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at Seoul National University. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea from 2003 to 2004. Professor Yoon taught at Seoul National University from 1990 to 2018. Before joining the faculty there, he taught for three years at the University of California, Davis. Over the course of his academic career, he has held visiting appointments at leading institutions abroad. He was a Senior Visiting Scholar with the Korea Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, and served as the Kim Koo Visiting Professor in Harvard’s Department of Government (2021). He was also a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University (2005), and at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University (1997–1998). In addition to his academic work, Professor Yoon has played an active role in policy and diplomacy. He served as Vice President of the Seoul Forum for International Affairs (2013–2019) and as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Parliamentary Diplomacy of the National Assembly of Korea (2019–2020). He was Korea’s Eminent Representative to, and Co-Chair of, the East Asia Vision Group II under the ASEAN+3 Summit framework (2011–2012). Professor Yoon has published more than a dozen books and around 80 scholarly articles in the fields of international political economy, Korea’s foreign policy, and inter-Korean relations. His work has appeared in leading journals and outlets such as World Politics, International Political Science Review, The National Interest, Asian Survey, and Project Syndicate. He received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University.

Sheila A. Smith is John E. Merow senior fellow for Asia-Pacific studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, she is the author of Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (released in Japanese as 日中 親愛なる宿敵: 変容する日本政治と 対中政策), and Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance. She is also the author of the CFR interactive guide Constitutional Change in Japan. Smith is a regular contributor to the CFR blog Asia Unbound and a frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia. Smith is chair of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON), a binational 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 also serves on the advisory committee for the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future program of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.

Hiroyuki Akita is a Foreign & Security Affaires Commentator of Nikkei. Mr. Akita graduated from Jiyu Gakuen College in 1987 and received an M.A. in International Relations from Boston University in 1991. He entered Nikkei in 1987 and served in various positions, including Correspondent at the Beijing Bureau (1994-98), Staff Writer of the Political News Dept. (1998-2002), and Chief Correspondent at the Washington, D.C., Bureau (2002-06). He worked at Leader Writing Team of the Financial Times in London (16/10-12).He was also an Associate of the Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University (2006-2007). Mr. Akita is the author of two books about US-China-Japan relations (Nikkei, 2008, 2016). He received the Vaughn-Uyeda Memorial International Journalistic Prize in March 2019 for his exceptional international reporting.

Kuyoun Chung is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Kangwon National University and a Non-resident Fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in South Korea. Her research focuses on US foreign policy, Korean peninsula, alliance politics, regional security architecture, maritime security, nuclear politics, and emerging technologies. Her academic articles have been published in Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asia-Europe Journal, Korea Observer, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Asian Politics and Policy, Asia Policy, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, and others. Her commentaries have appeared in Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, The Brookings Institution, East Asia Forum Quarterly, Global Asia, Korean on Point, and The Asan Forum. Also, she regularly contributes columns to Segye Ilbo and Kangwon Ilbo, South Korea. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Korea University, and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Previously, she was a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at UCLA, a visiting professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, and a research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification. Also, she served as a policy advisor for the National Security Council under the Office of the President, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Unification. Currently, she serves as a member of the policy advisory committee of Ministry of Defense and the Republic of Korea Navy.

Jeffrey W. Hornung is the Japan Lead for the RAND National Security Research Division and a senior political scientist at RAND. He specializes in Japanese security and foreign policies, East Asian security issues, and U.S. foreign and defense policies in the Indo-Pacific region, including its alliances. He is concurrently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining RAND in April 2017, Hornung was the fellow for the Security and Foreign Affairs Program at Sasakawa USA from 2015 until 2017. From 2010 until 2015, Hornung worked as an associate professor for the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a Department of Defense education facility in Honolulu, Hawaii. Hornung has written extensively about Japanese security and foreign policy issues and broader Northeast Asia security issues for numerous media, policy, and academic outlets. This includes Washington Quarterly, Asian Survey, Foreign Policy, New York Times, Washington Post, War on the Rocks, and many others, including the two major Japanese dailies Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun. Hornung received his Ph.D. in political science from The George Washington University. During 2005–2006, Hornung was also a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo where he conducted his doctoral research as a Fulbright Fellow. He also holds an M.A. in international relations with a concentration in Japan studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Yuichi Hosoya is a professor of international politics at Keio University, Tokyo.
He was a Visiting Fellow at Downing College, the University of Cambridge (-July 2022). Professor Hosoya is Managing Director & Research Director at the Asia-Pacific Initiative (API), Tokyo. He is also a Senior Researcher at the Nakasone Peace Institute (NPI), a Senior Fellow at The Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, and also Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). Professor Hosoya was a member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security (2013-14), and Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities (2013). Professor Hosoya studied international politics at Rikkyo (BA), Birmingham (MIS), and Keio (Ph.D.). He was a visiting professor and Japan Chair (2009–2010) at Sciences-Po in Paris (Institut d’Études Politiques) and a visiting fellow (Fulbright Fellow, 2008–2009) at Princeton University. His research interests include postwar international history, British diplomatic history, Japanese foreign and security policy, and contemporary East Asian international politics. His most recent publications include Security Politics: Legislation for a New Security Environment (Tokyo: JPIC, 2019); History, Memory & Politics in Postwar Japan (Co-editor, Lynne Rienner: Boulder, 2020); and “Japan’s Security Policy in East Asia”, in Yul Sohn and T.J. Pempel (eds.), Japan and Asia’s Contested Order: The Interplay of Security, Economics, and Identity (Palgrave, 2018). His comments often appeared at major international and Japanese media.

Moderator
John Nilsson-Wright, Fuji Bank University Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and the International Relations of East Asia, University of Cambridge

Sponsorship
This event is co-hosted by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Centre for Geopolitics at the Unviersity of Cambridge. This event is sponsored by Korea Foundation.