Sung-Yoon Lee

Sung-Yoon Lee (Korean: 이성윤; Hanja: 李晟允) is a scholar of Korean and East Asian studies, and specialist on North Korea. He is the Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He was an Associate in Research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University. and a Research Fellow at the National Asia Research Program.

Lee has provided advice to the U.S. government and is an outspoken proponent of several policies aimed at changing the North Korean regime towards a path of denuclearization and improvement of human rights, while keeping the peace and stability in Northeast Asia. Lee has argued that this can be accomplished with a dual strategy of stern treatment of the North Korean government through unwavering economic sanctions aimed at weakening the leadership and security apparatus, while engaging the country's people through information campaigns that break their isolation from the outside world, humanitarian aid, and a global campaign of human rights.

He has also stated that the U.S. and its military presence in Northeast Asia have brought decades of stability and prosperity to the region, and supports its continued stationing in the Korean peninsula. He also encourages the eventual unification of Korea under the South's direction, with the active support of the U.S. and China, and a resulting united country that is amicable to both powers.

Lee majored in American and British literature at New College in Sarasota, Florida, graduating in 1991. He pursued his graduate studies at the Fletcher School, completing his Master of Arts in 1994, and his Ph.D. in 1998. John Curtis Perry became his doctoral advisor and developed a lifelong mentor-mentee relationship. In his dissertation "The antinomy of divine right and the right to resistance: tianming, dei gratia, and vox populi in Syngman Rhee's Korea, 1945-1960", Lee analyzed the interplay between Confucianism and democracy in defining political authority and statecraft during the early years of the Republic of Korea.

Lee first joined the faculty of The Fletcher School as the Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Politics in 1998 and until 2005. Concurrently he was also the Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Tufts university starting in 2000 and until 2005. Between 2005 and 2006 he was the Kim Koo Research Associate at the Korea Institute, Harvard University. In 2007 he resumed his position at the Fletcher School, and in 2012 became the first holder of the newly created chair Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Korean Studies.

He teaches International Relations of the United States and East Asia 1945 to Present, United States and East Asia, Politics of the Korean Peninsula: Foreign and Inter-Korean Relations, and North Korean State and Society.

Lee has also been an adjunct Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Bowdoin College in 2000, and the visiting Professor of Korean Studies at Sogang University in 2007, and at Seoul National University from 2012 to 2016.

From 1999 until 2013 Lee was an Associate in Research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University. There he launched a new seminar series, the “Kim Koo Forum on U.S.-Korea Relations”, in 2005. He is a former Research Fellow with the National Asia Research Program, a joint initiative by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Lee has attended numerous conferences as a speaker, moderator and interpreter. He is also a frequent commentator on Korean affairs on radio, television and print. Lee has also testified in the United States Congress to provide expert advice on North Korea policy issues.

Since 2013 Lee has been playing an active role in discussions of U.S. North Korea sanctions legislation, participating in Congressional hearings, advising the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as making a strong case for it on major U.S. media outlets. These efforts contributed towards a bill, passed in 2016, of unprecedented tough sanctions primarily aimed at restricting cash flows into the country in an effort to undermine its nuclear warhead and long-range missile development, and constrict Pyongyang's ability to pay (and retain the loyalty of) its party elites, security forces, and military.

In 2018 Lee participated in the Warmbier v. DPRK trial in Washington D.C. as an expert witness for the prosecution. The judge ruled against the DPRK, in the torture, hostage taking, and extrajudicial killing of Otto Warmbier.

Lee has advocated for a strategy of stern treatment of the North Korean government, while engaging the North Korean people. That includes economic pressure aimed at the elite, especially targeting its palace economy that depends on illicit activities including proliferation, smuggling, counterfeiting, and money laundering. It also means availing substantial humanitarian aid, provided it reaches the intended recipients, increasing efforts to disseminate more information from the outside world into North Korea, facilitating defections, and pressing for a global campaign of human rights.

Lee has underscored that the only non-military way to force North Korea into a real negotiation on denuclearization and human rights is to exert sustained economic and propaganda pressure to "destroy the Kim regime’s instruments of self-preservation": A nuclear program, a loyal ruling class, and a submissive society. That is, by on one hand pushing more outside information into the North so its society can turn against the regime, and on the other hand by exerting sanctions that limit the cash used to prop the military and ruling apparatus, the regime would weaken to the point of near-collapse, forcing it to negotiate a transition, including a pragmatic way out for the Kim family.

Lee has frequently urged policymakers not to fall for the "self-defeating" trap of short-term concessionary diplomacy, and instead take the long view of an unwavering strategy of pressure. Lee sustains that refraining from making concessions in exchange for North Korea halting its cyclical belligerence is the most effective way to deter future provocations.

Achieving denuclearization and regime change

Financial and trade sanctions

Lee emphatically has asserted that "the only nonmilitary means of forestalling [North Korea's nuclear and missile developments] is for the U.S. to enforce both American and United Nations sanctions against the North Korean regime and its enablers, the foremost of which remains China."

Sanctions should be primarily imposed (as some have) by the U.N. Security Council, and therefore make them binding on the entire international community. However, these "so far did little damage to Pyongyang’s economy thanks to Beijing’s massive material support through the backdoor," further, Beijing has demonstrated "a disingenuous pattern of diplomatic ambidexterity. China has made token gestures like signing on to UN Security Council resolutions while failing to enforce them fully"

Sanctions are the means to reduce external inflows of cash that the regime needs to advance its nuclear and missile development, as well as to keep its ruling class and security apparatus loyal. These sanctions, if made strong and sustained in time, would lead to significantly weakening the regime to the point of near-collapse; by prompting "bankruptcy and the consequent destabilization" and the "specter of revolt or regime collapse", South Korea and the U.S. could negotiate from a position of strength a peaceful transition of the regime that would include real denuclearization and improvement of human rights, as well as a pragmatic "way out for the Kims."

Lee has concluded that a key point of leverage are American-led financial sanctions, since the regime deeply relies on dollars as its foreign currency, and the U.S. is uniquely positioned to use its control over the dollar-based international financial system as well as its economic might, to more effectively impose and enforce sanctions. Overall, Lee recommends:

• Direct sanctions on North Korea's international trade and financial flows.
  • Block any trade of arms, luxury goods, and other goods or services that are a significant source of cash or material support to the regime.
  • Freeze the assets of Kim Jong Un or any of his top deputies, who are believed to have billions of dollars in European and Chinese banks.
• Secondary sanctions: Impose sanctions on North Korea's partners, "thus presenting them with a strong economic disincentive: Either continue to do business with North Korea and be blocked out of the U.S. financial system or stop all business with North Korea and continue to have access to the U.S. financial system,"
  • Publicly identify and sanction all foreign companies, financial institutions, and governments assisting North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
    • This crucially includes "levying hefty fines on the Chinese banks that, unwittingly or otherwise, launder money for Pyongyang and facilitate dollar transactions on behalf of North Korean entities."

As a reference point on strength and duration of sanctions, Lee remarks that it took several years for a combination of direct and secondary sanctions to bring Iran back to the bargaining table. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, sanctions on North Korea are not "maxed out"; rather, until the sanctions imposed by the U.S. in 2016, American sanctions against North Korea were much weaker than those applied to Iran, Syria, or Burma, Belarus, and Zimbabwe. The 2016 U.S. sanctions brought the enforcement against the North to a "normal" level.

Avoiding concessionary diplomacy

Lee argues that the North Korean regime has a well-established cycle of escalating tensions, followed by overtures to dialogue and deescalation. The latter bait counterparts that are always eager to resume peace talks, into prematurely softening their sanctions on the North and even sending funds and aid, just to see the North violate any agreements made, and restart the cycle. In this way, the North has extracted profitable concessions at every cycle. Furthermore, the idea of the North negotiating the surrender of their nuclear program is all but an illusion unless the regime comes to a point of near-collapse.

Information campaign

Lee has written that "applied in greater force and scale, propaganda may be a more powerful deterrent than force. Pyongyang rightfully fears the precedent of Seoul responding asymmetrically with information warfare. (...) Just imagine if Seoul and Washington vastly increased funding for radio broadcast and other information operations into North Korea, as they well should. In an Orwellian world, 'War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.' In the surreal world of the DPRK, the past 62 years of de facto peace in Korea is war, a life of extreme servitude to the state is freedom, and national strength is preserved by keeping the people ignorant of the outside world." Therefore, "informing and educating the North Korean people is not only the right thing to do" but also a way to "delegitimize Kim's rule in the eyes of his people" and create "great leverage vis-à-vis Pyongyang."

United States: Continued commitment to regional stability

Lee supports a continued commitment by the US, asserting that the "U.S. has always had in its diplomatic toolbox various useful implements like financial sanctions, measures to prevent illicit activities and weapons proliferation, freeze fuel oil delivery and unconditional aid, and human rights campaigns through the international media in concert with other civilized nations of the world, not to mention UN Resolutions".

Lee has also proposed the U.S. "hold quiet consultations with Beijing to prepare jointly for a unified Korea under Seoul’s direction, a new polity that will be free, peaceful, capitalist, pro-U.S. and pro-China".

Lee opposes the signing of a peace treaty between the U.S. and North Korea (frequently demanded by the latter) absent substantial changes in the regime. He has stated that "North Korea is not seeking peace, but rather a change in the military balance of power on the Korean peninsula", and that "real peace is won by resolve and sacrifice, while ephemeral peace is all too often concocted only by vowels and consonants". Lee maintains that the U.S. military presence in Korea has brought decades of geopolitical stability in the broader region and should remain in the peninsula regardless of the eventual signing of a peace treaty.

South Korea: Reconciliation through strength and pragmatism

Lee advocates for a stronger lead by South Korea, reinforcing programs for resettlement of refugees, and pressing on in the global campaign for human rights.Lee also supports a South Korean policy of exercising a "resolute mix of stoicism and principled apathy" when faced with North Korea's attempts at provocation and brinksmanship.

Lee was a strong critic of the Sunshine Policy (in force between 1998 and 2008), calling it a failed policy, and the "under the table" financial aid "misguided, unprincipled, and criminal". He stated that the North Korean regime would not be appeased by blandishments, further, such concessions prop the regime and prolong its oppression of the people.

Reconciliation should be sought from a position of strength. South Korea should remain pragmatic, recognizing that "peace in the region has been kept for the last 50 years by the commitment on the part of the United States to the defense of South Korea". Lee also has advocated for increased missile defense capabilities by the South."

Lee has stated that "amnesia or apathy" of the new Korean generations towards their history "can be reversed through sustained education and the public ritual of remembrance", so that "the lessons of the most traumatic past must be learned and continually relearned, not only to prevent such a tragedy from repeating itself, but also to honor, as one nation, those who made our freedom possible, and to remember that freedom is certainly never free".

Assessment of North Korea

Regime and human rights

Lee characterizes the North Korean regime as "uniquely unique", for being the world's sole communist hereditary dynasty; the only literate, industrialized and urbanized peacetime economy to have suffered a famine; the most cultish totalitarian system; the most secretive, isolated country; and the largest military in terms of manpower and defense spending proportional to its population and national income. Lee has also called the regime a criminal enterprise, for activities including money laundering, human enslavement by having the world's largest prison and slave labor camps, and for nuclear extortion.

Lee further asserts that North Korea is the most systematic violator of human rights, having committed nine out of the ten crimes against humanity as specified in article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Nuclear pursuit and denuclearization talks

Talking about the logic for the regime's nuclear pursuit, he remarked that "a nuclear North Korea is unlike a nuclear China or Russia. During the Cold War, neither Beijing nor Moscow faced an existential threat in the form of an alternate Chinese or Russian state. Pyongyang, on the other hand, has had to live with a far more prosperous and legitimate Korean state across its southern border." A nuclear capability by the North would undermine the U.S. commitment to defending the South, and "a nonnegotiable means of isolating and exercising dominance over Seoul" and as the key to ensure the long-term survival of the Kim regime.

Therefore, lee has repeatedly called negotiations on denuclearization "nuclear blackmail" by the North and believes that "short of change in the Pyongyang regime, further fits of nuclear negotiations are all but an exercise in futility", in which the Kim regime treating negotiations (including the six-party talks) as "a perpetual multilateral forum for receiving economic and political aid".

Post-collapse planning

Lee anticipates that in case of collapse, "a power vacuum in Pyongyang will require the immediate dispatch of South Korean and U.S. troops. Next will come other regional powers -- Chinese peacekeeping forces securing the northern areas, followed by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force transporting people and supplies along the Korean coastlines. In the short term, a multiparty international presence north of the 38th parallel under the nominal banner of the United Nations will enforce order and provide aid."

Lee also supports a US-South Korea joint "emergency response measures such as securing the North's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, maintaining public safety, controlling borders, and providing humanitarian aid to displaced North Koreans", as well as long-term development similar to post-WWII reconstruction of Japan.

Articles

• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2018). "Forgotten Borders: Japan's Maritime Operations in the Korean War and Implication for North Korea".In Gresh, Geoffrey F. (ed.). Eurasia's Maritime Rise and Global Security: From the Indian Ocean to Pacific Asia and the Arctic. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3319718057.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon; Stanton, Joshua; Klingner, Bruce (2017). "Getting Tough on North Korea: How to Hit Pyongyang Where It Hurts". Foreign Affairs. 96 (65).
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (January 18, 2017). "How Trump Can Get Tough on North Korea - Making Kim Pay for Belligerence". Foreign Affairs.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon; Stanton, Joshua (2015). "North Korea's Next Dare – What Is Coming—and What to Do About It". Foreign Affairs.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2013). "North Korean Exceptionalism and South Korean Conventionalism: Prospects for a Reverse Formulation?". Asia Policy. 15 (1): 62–68. doi:10.1353/asp.2013.0008.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (August 26, 2010). "The Pyongyang Playbook". Foreign Affairs.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2010). "Engaging North Korea: The Clouded Legacy of South Korea's Sunshine Policy". AEI Outlook Series. American Enterprise Institute.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2007). "The United States Should Make North Korean Human Rights a Priority".In Gerdes, Louise (ed.). Opposing Viewpoints: 'North Korea and South Korea. Farmington Hills, MI, USA: Greenhaven Press. ISBN 978-0737737653.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2006). "'The Folly of Fabled Sentimentality: South Korea's Unorthodox Courtship of North Korea" (PDF). The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Special Report (134).
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2005). "Dependence and Defiance: Historical Dilemmas in U.S.-Korea Relations". Korea Policy Review.
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2005). "The mythical nuclear kingdom of North Korea". The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. 29 (2).
• Lee, Sung-Yoon (2003). "Nuclear Diplomacy vis-à-vis the DPRK: A Dead-End Street". The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. 27 (2).

Short essays

• "The Korean War: The origin of Pyongyang's state lies". The Hill. June 25, 2020.
• "Kim Yo Jong: The girl who would be Kim IV". The Hill. April 27, 2020.
• "Kim Jong-un's Resolute New Year's Declamation". The National Interest. January 6, 2020.
• "Meet Kim Jong Un, 'King of Korea' — antithesis of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". The Hill. December 19, 2019.
• "Kim Jong-un Shot a Rocket? He Wants to Talk - President Trump should deny him the privilege". The New York Times. May 4, 2019.
• "Kim Jong Un, North Korea's dutiful son, restores Russia's role as defender". The Hill. April 28, 2019.
• "Free Joseon is a North Korean resistance movement, not a criminal enterprise". Los Angeles Times. April 25, 2019.
• "How Trump and the US fell for Kim Jong-un's deadly deception". South China Morning Post. March 1, 2019.
• "Trump checks Kim Jong Un's Hanoi peace ploy--for now". The Hill. February 28, 2019.
• "North Korea and America's Second Summit: Here's What Sung-Yoon Lee Thinks Will Happen - "The train of events that Donald Trump has unwittingly unleashed is the nuclear proliferation of Northeast Asia."". The National Interest. February 6, 2019.
• "Can US-South Korea alliance survive tensions among Trump, Kim and Moon?". The Hill. January 29, 2019.
• "Pyongyang's portentous New Year's resolution". The Hill. January 2, 2019.
• "Welcome to the Showdown over South Korea's Seoul". The National Interest. November 5, 2018.
• "Moon Over Pyongyang, Peddles Peace". The Hill. September 23, 2018.
• "A Korean Day to Remember--for America". The Hill. August 15, 2018.
• "Make Kim Jong Un Pay this 'Victory Day'". The Hill. July 26, 2018.
• "Bankrupt and shame Kim Jong Un for his Singapore con job". The Hill. June 27, 2018.
• "Another Page in the Pyongyang Playbook". Centre for International Governance Innovation. June 15, 2018.
• "The Singapore Sling: Summit Risks Sanctions Fizzle". The Hill. June 11, 2018.
• "Trump must stick to his snub of Kim Jong Un". The Hill. May 26, 2018.
• "Meet Kim Jong Un, the Korean G.O.A.T." The Hill. May 16, 2018.
• "A Korean comedy of errors". The Hill. April 27, 2018.
• "Kim Jong Un's weaponization of weirdness". The Hill. April 2, 2018.
• "Kim Jong Un's killer Trump trap". The Hill. March 12, 2018.
• "Pyongyang's provocative propagandists". The Hill. February 27, 2018.
• "Kim Jong Un: The greatest showman". The Hill. February 6, 2018.
• "Sex and the City: The 'Pyongyang Games'". The Hill. January 23, 2018.
• "Dear America: Don't fall for Pyongyang's predictable, poisonous ploy". The Hill. January 4, 2018.
• "Why won't the U.S. use its full sanction power against North Korea?". Los Angeles Times. September 8, 2017.
• "The Way to Make North Korea Back Down". The New York Times. September 6, 2017.
• "Why Do We Appease North Korea?". The New York Times. May 17, 2017.
• "Beef Up Sanctions on North Korea". The Wall Street Journal. Jan 4, 2016. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "How to get serious with North Korea". CNN. February 15, 2016. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Make Pyongyang Pay – Stop North Korea by hitting it where it hurts: its wallet". Foreign Policy. February 10, 2016. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Shinzo Abe's Sorry Apology". May 1, 2015. (co-authored with Zach Przystup)
• "A North Korean Con Job". The New York Times. 2014. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Luxury cars and cognac for...North Korea?". CNN. 2014. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "The danger of North Korea is no joke". CNN. 2014.(co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Pyongyang's Hunger Games". The New York Times. 2014. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Financial sanctions could force reforms in North Korea". (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Financial sanctions could force reforms in North Korea". Washington Post. 2014. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Abe's Profane Pilgrimage". The New York Times. 2014.
• "World must awaken to North Korea's camps of horror". CNN. 2013. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "South Korea's Chomskyite flunkeys". Asia Times Online. 2013.
• "Rodman just a toy for N. Korea's Kim". CNN. 2013.
• "North Korea is far from suicidal". CNN. 2013.
• "Seoul Mates?". Foreign Policy. 2013.
• "Hit Kim Jong Eun where it hurts: His wallet". The Washington Post. 2013. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "Don't engage Kim Jong Un — bankrupt him". Foreign Policy. 2013. Archived from the original on 2014-11-22. (co-authored with Joshua Stanton)
• "South Korea's New President Must Challenge the North". The New York Times. 2012.
• "Why North Korea's Rocket Mattered". The New York Times. 2012.
• "Pyongyang's Latest Ploy". The Wall Street Journal. 2012.
• "The Boy Who Would Be King: Can Kim III Last?". National Bureau of Asia Research. 2011.
• "Containing the Young Kim". The Wall Street Journal. 2011. (co-authored with Sue Terry)
• "North Korea's Carrot-and-Stick Policy". Los Angeles Times. 2011.
• "The winter of Kim Jong-il's discontent". The Christian Science Monitor. 2011.
• "An American Peace in Korea". USA Today Magazine. 139 (2790). March 2011.
• "Keeping the Peace: America in Korea 1950–2010". Imprimis. 2010.
• "Life After Kim: Preparing for a Post-Kim Jong Il Korea". Foreign Policy. 2010.
• "US misses history lessons on Korea". Asia Times Online. 2010.
• "Hitting the North". Los Angeles Times. 2010.
• "Life After Kim: Planning for a Post-Kim Jong Il Korea". Foreign Policy. 2010.
• "Ain't No Sunshine: The Failings of Kim Dae Jung". Foreign Policy. 2009.
• "Pyongyang Home Truths: Does Hillary Clinton understand the North Korean regime and how to deal with it?". The Wall Street Journal Asia. 2009.
• "A Korean Day of Infamy". The Weekly Standard. 2006.

Expert witness works

Congressional hearings

• Testimony of Sung-Yoon Lee, Hearing on "North Korea’s Diplomatic Gambit: Will History Repeat Itself?" (PDF) (Report). United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. 2018.
• Testimony of Sung-Yoon Lee, Hearing on "Pressuring North Korea: Evaluating Options" (PDF) (Report). United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. 2017.
  • Full transcript of hearing "Pressuring North Korea: Evaluating Options" (PDF) (Report). Serial No. 115–12.
• Testimony of Sung-Yoon Lee, Hearing on "North Korea’s Criminal Activities: Financing the Regime" (PDF) (Report). United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs. 2013.
  • Full transcript of hearing "North Korea’s Criminal Activities: Financing the Regime" (PDF) (Report). Serial No. 113–4.

Other

• WARMBIER et al v. DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (District Of Columbia District Court, case 1:18-cv-00977)
  • MOTION for Default Judgment as to Defendant Democratic People's Republic of Korea , MOTION for Hearing if Necessary by CYNTHIA WARMBIER, FREDERICK WARMBIER(Hatch, Benjamin) -- Att: 8Declaration of Sung-Yoon Lee (Report). District Of Columbia District Court. December 10, 2018.
  • Minute Entry for proceedings held before Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell: Evidentiary Hearing held on 12/19/2018. Plaintiffs' Witnesses: 1) Fred Warmbier; 2) Gretta J. Warmbier; 3) Austin Warmbier; 4) Cynthia J. Warmbier; 5) David Hawk, Expert Witness; 6) Sung-Yoon Lee, Expert Witness. Court Reporter: Sara Wick. (tg) (Report). District Of Columbia District Court. December 19, 2018.