Korea Policy Forum
South Korea’s National Assembly Elections and US-ROK Relations:
Journalists’ Views
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
09:00 AM – 10:15 PM EST
10:00 PM – 11:15 PM KST
Virtual Event via Zoom
On April 10th, South Korea held general elections for its National Assembly. While the major opposition party strives to maintain its current majority party status, the emergence of new third parties complicates the traditional two-way race between the ruling and major opposition parties. The results of the elections will greatly impact the remaining three years of the Yoon government’s term. What were the main political parties’ strategies and challenges leading up to the elections and how did they lead to the election outcome? How will the political landscape, including the power relations within the main political parties, shift in the coming months? What will be the potential impact of the election results on Seoul’s repositioning its foreign and security policy? Please join the GW Institute for Korean Studies and East Asia National Resource Center for an online discussion by American and South Korean journalists on the prospects of a new domestic political geography in South Korea and its potential impact on U.S.-ROK relations.
Speakers (Alphabetical Order)
HEEJUN KIM is the Head of the International News Department at YTN, a news channel in Korea. Prior to this role, she served as the head of Foreign Affairs and Security News. Kim was a former Washington Correspondent from 2016 to 2019, during which she conducted exclusive interviews with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser Herbert R. McMaster. Kim was a professional fellow at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University in New York from 2011 to 2012. She also serves as a policy advisor at MOFA. Additionally, she co-translated “International Negotiations” by Victor A. Kremenyuk. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from Ewha Womans University and completed her doctoral program in International Politics at Kyunggi University.
JUNG EUN LEE is the Deputy Managing Director of the Newsroom at the Dong-A Ilbo Daily in South Korea. She worked as a Washington correspondent from 2019 to 2021. She specializes in national security and foreign affairs, and has been reporting on North Korea, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. She was dispatched to Channel A, the affiliate broadcasting company of Dong-A Ilbo, as a senior reporter at the political desk in 2014. She was a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute (USKI) at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies from 2014 to 2015. She obtained her B.A. in journalism from Seoul National University, and an M.A. from the Graduate School of North Korean Studies.
TIM MARTIN is the Korea bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, where he oversees news coverage on the Korean Peninsula. He has been based in Seoul since early 2017, with prior stints at the Journal’s offices in New York, Chicago and Atlanta—where he covered public health and the CDC. He holds a B.A. in Journalism from Eastern Illinois University and also previously studied Korean at Seoul National University.
JOSH ROGIN is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post. He is also the author of Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century, released in March, 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcout. Previously, he has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine, and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. His work has been featured on outlets including NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, NPR, and many more. He has been recognized with the Interaction Award for Excellence in International Reporting and as a Finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He has also received journalism fellowships from the Knight Foundation, the East-West Center, and the National Press Foundation. He has a B.A. in international affairs from the George Washington University and studied at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Ali Rogin of the PBS News Hour.
Moderator
YONHO KIM is the Associate Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies and an Associate Research Professor of Practice. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
