North Korea Lecture

[Duane Johansen]

On November 16th, I traveled to Indiana University in Bloomington to attend Dr. Byungdae Kim’s lecture “Three Windows Looking for North Korea: Nuclear, Human Rights, and Inter-Korea Relations.” Dr. Kim is a visiting scholar for the East Asian Studies Center at IU and has worked for the past twenty years at the Korean Ministry for Unification, spending the last two years as the Director General of the Humanitarian Cooperation Bureau. 

 

After a brief general introduction about the events that led to the separation of the two Koreas and attempts in the past to bridge these gaps, Dr. Kim addressed the prospects of inter-Korean relations in the present and future, looking at these prospects through the three different lenses addressed in the lecture’s title. Notably absent from the perspectives offered was an economic one.

 

Dr. Kim’s attitude towards inter-Korean relationships was generally positive, and he showed a moving video of families from both sides being allowed to spend time with one another in staged events supported by both sides. He also spoke of the difficulties faced by North Korean defectors as they attempt to adjust to life in South Korea.