China’s Dream and The Korean Peninsula: Dr. Lee Seong-hyon

As we approach the second US-DPRK Summit, the media in the United States is so focused on the dynamics between President Trump and Kim Jong-un that the interests and motivations of another key player has gone under-discussed: China.

It was Kim’s meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing earlier this year that alerted the world to Pyongyang’s intentions to advance the second Summit meeting with the United States. China is also North Korea’s most prominent economic partner.

And yet we do not give enough thought to how China may be approaching the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Our guest today, Dr. Lee Seong-hyon, is the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies and Department of Unification Strategy at the Sejong Institute. He sat down with KEI’s Juni Kim to provide us with his views on how China approaches the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and its broader ambitions in the region vis-a-vis the United States.

He also led a seminar discussion on this very topic at the Korea Economic Institute in October 2018 - which you can see in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qcVf-A8FzE