Monday, April 28, 2014

Monday in Washington April 28, 2014

CLIMATE SOLUTIONS: THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR POWER. 4/28, 9:30am-Noon. Sponsor: Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Speakers: Peter Lyons, Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Power; Carol Bower, Former EPA Administrator; Susan Tierney, Principal, Analysis Group; Eileen Claussen, President, C2ES.

WEIGHING THE REBALANCE: OBAMA IN ASIA. 4/28, 10:00-11:00am. CONFERENCE CALL. Toll-Free Conference Line: 888-947-9018 (Toll Free/Domestic) Conference Line: 1-517-308-9006 (Toll/International) Passcode: 13304. Speakers: Aileen Baviera, University of the Philippines, Manila and former Wilson Center Scholar; Nobuo Fukuda, Former Jakarta Bureau Chief and London Correspondent of Asahi Shimbun Newspaper, Japan; Park Jin, Former member of Korean National Assembly and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Wilson Center Global Fellow; Moderator: Robert Daly, Director, Kissinger Institute, The Wilson Center.

HOW MIGHT US DEFENSE POLICY CHANGE IN THE YEARS AHEAD? 4/28, 12:30-1:30pm. Sponsor: Brookings Institution. Speakers: Rick Larsen, D-Wash; Mac Thornberry, R-Texas; Mackenzie Eaglen, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Michael O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Brookings.

AMERICAN ENERGY PROWESS IN A STRATEGIC FOREIGN POLICY PERSPECTIVE. 4/28-29. Sponsors: Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council and and the Hungarian Presidency of the Visegrad Group.

AN ASSESSMENT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S TRIP TO KOREA AND JAPAN. 4/28, 2:00 - 3:00pm. Sponsor: Korea Economic Institute. Speakers: Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS; James Fatheree, Executive Vice President, U.S.-Korea Business Council & Senior Director for Korea and Japan, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Scott Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy, Council on Foreign Relations;Moderated by: David Sanger, National Security Correspondent, The New York Times. Webcast.

DYNAMICS AND CHALLENGES OF ASYMMETRICAL ALLIANCE: THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN. 4/28, 4:30-6:00pm. Sponsor: Reischauer Center, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. Speaker: Fumiaki Kubo, Professor of American Government and History, University of Tokyo.

A CONVERSATION WITH THE KAZAKHSTAN AMBASSADOR TO THE US. 4/28, 6:00-7:30pm. Sponsor: Elliott School, George Washington University. Speaker: Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan Ambassador to the US.

THE UNITED STATES AND IRAN: CAN DIPLOMACY PREVENT AN IRANIAN BOMB? 4/28, 6:00-7:15pm. Sponsors: School of International Service (SIS), American University; Wilson Center. Speakers: Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO, Wilson Center; Thomas Pickering, Former US Ambassador to Israel, Jordan, India and the UN; Michael Doran, Senior Fellow, Brookings; Shaul Bakhash, Professor of History, George Mason University; Aaron David Miller, Vice President for New Initiatives, Wilson Center; James Goldgeier, Dean, SIS.

MAXIMALIST: AMERICA IN THE WORLD FROM TRUMAN TO OBAMA. 4/28, 6:00-6:45pm. Sponsor: Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Speakers: Author Stephen Sestanovich, Former US Ambassador-at-large for the Former Soviet Union; James Lindsay, Senior Vice President, CFR. [Webcast only]

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Monday in Washington April 14, 2014

IDENTIFYING CHALLENGES TO DELIVERING CBRNe CAPABILITIES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC. 4/14, 8:30am-4:30pm. Sponsor: Banyan Analytics. Speakers: Charles Casto, Former Regional Administrator, Nuclear Regulatory Commission; N. Vinod Chandra Menon, Former Member, National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India; Carol Chan, Deputy Director, USAID, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance; Dr. Elin Gursky, Former Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services; Dr. James Schear, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations; Lieutenant General Wallace “ Chip” Gregson (U. S. Marine Corps, retired), Former Assistant Secretary of Defense. 

TOWARDS A BALANCED COMBAT AIR FORCE. 4/14, 9:30-10:30am. Sponsor: Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Speakers: David Deptula, Dean, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies; Mark Gunzinger, Senior Fellow, CSBA.

WORKING WITH RUSSIA: LESSONS AND BEST PRACTICES FOR TIMES OF CONFLICT.4/14, 12:30-1:30pm. Sponsor: Center on Global Interests. Speaker: Suzanne Massie, Advisor on Russia to President Ronald Reagan. 

TERRORISM, PARTY POLITICS, AND THE US: EXPECTATIONS OF THE UPCOMING IRAQI ELECTIONS. 4/14, 12:30-2:00pm. Sponsor: Middle East and North Africa Club, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. Speakers: Ahmed Ali, Iraq Research Analyst, Institute for Study of War; Judith Yaphe, Professor of International Affairs, George Washington University.

CHALLENGES TO FURTHER NUCLEAR ARMS REDUCTIONS. 4/14, 2:00-3:30pm. Sponsor: Brookings Institution. Speakers: Dennis Gormley, University of Pittsburgh; Gotz Neuneck, Deputy Director, Institute for Peace Research and Security policy, University of Hamburg; Nikolai Sokov, Senior Fellow, Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation; Steven Pifer, Senior Fellow and Director, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Brookings.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA. 4/14, 3:00-4:30pm. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Ted Piccone, Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy, Brookings; Michael Kirby, Chair, UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea; Marcus Noland, Executive Vice President and Director of Research, Peterson Institute for International Economics; Richard Bush, Senior Fellow, Chair in Taiwan Studies, Director, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, Brookings; Roberta Cohen, Co-Chair, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, Brookings.

A COMPLICATED ARRANGEMENT: INDIA AND THE US SINCE 1947. 4/14, 4:00-5:00pm. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speakers: Author Rudra Chaudhuri, Forged in Crisis: India and the US Since 1947, Lecturer, India Institute of King‘s College London; Author George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: the Impact on Global Proliferation, Director and Vice President, Nuclear policy Program, Carnegie.

Friday, April 11, 2014

CBRNe Response in the Asia-Pacific


 Monday, April 14, 2014 
8:30am – 4:30pm

The Capital Hilton – Congressional Room, 
1001 16th St., NW Washington, DC 

Banyan Analytics

Themes: 
Foreign Perspectives: Lessons Learned from Fukushima Daiichi and Bhopal 
Planning for Future CBRNe (Chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear defense and explosive),
events in the Asia-Pacific
Obstacles and Considerations for regional CBRNe response

Conference Agenda
8:00 am: Registration and Welcome Coffee
8:30 am: Opening Remarks by Institute Chair Lt. Gen. Wallace “Chip” Gregson
Conference Purpose by Institute Director David Hamon

8:45 am: Keynote: Charles Casto, Former Regional Administrator, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Former Director, Site Operations in Japan after Fukushima Daiichi

9:15 am: Panel Discussion, Foreign Perspectives of lessons learned from Fukushima and Bhopal
Moderator: David Hamon, Institute Director

Charles Casto, Former Director of Site Operations after Fukushima Daiichi Incident
N. Vinod Chandra Menon, Former Member, National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India
Carol Chan, Deputy Director, USAID, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
Bill Berger, Principal Regional Advisor, USAID, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance

10:45 am: Break

11:00 am: Panel Discussion, obstacles and considerations for regional CBRNe response
Moderator: Dr. Clete DiGiovanni, M.D.

Dr. Amy Smithson, Senior Fellow, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies
Dr. Katherine Uraneck, M.D., Health Care Preparedness Specialist
Dr. Elin Gursky, ANSER, Former Senior Advisor, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Department of Health and Human Services.

12:30 pm: Lunch

1:30 pm: Panel Discussion, industry perspectives on remediation
Moderator: Frances Veasey, Institute Deputy Director

Dr. Eric Daxon, CHP, Battelle
Timothy Frazier, Former Senior Advisor at Dickstein Shapiro LLP and former Designated Officer, Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future

2:30 pm: Panel Discussion, planning for future CBRNe events in the Asia-Pacific
Moderator: Lt. Gen. Chip Gregson, Institute Chair

Richard Love, Esq., Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, National Defense University
Colonel Peter Ahern, Marine Commandant’s Strategic Initiatives Group and Former CBIRF Commander, II Marine Expeditionary Force
Dr. James Schear, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations
Heinrich Reyes, Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Division Chief, National Guard Bureau

4:30 pm: Closing remarks by Lt. Gen. Gregson and David Hamon

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Monday in Washington April 7, 2014


MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS & HUMAN RIGHTS: ISSUES, OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES. 4/7, 9:30am–5:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Human Rights Institute of Georgetown University Law Center. Multiple Speakers. Webcast.

A SMALL STATE AT THE BIG TABLE; NEW ZEALAND, MULTILATERALISM AND THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL. 4/7, Noon-2:00pm. Sponsor: Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies. Speaker: Kim McLay, Former Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand.

ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS. 4/7, 12:30-2:00pm. Sponsor: SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. Speaker: Kathleen Domonique, Environmental Economist, OECD.

PAKISTANI JOURNALISTS PERSPECTIVES ON POST-US AFGHANISTAN: IMPLICATIONS FOR PAKISTAN. 4/7, 5:00-6:30pm. Sponsor: East-West Center (EWC). Speakers: Khalid Kheshgi, Staff Reporter, The News International, Stringer, Mashaal Radio, Peshawar; Riaz Burki, News Reporter, Foreign Affairs and Parliament, Pakistan Television, Islamabad; Jeeyand Sajidi, Assistant Editor, Daily Intekhab, Quetta, Balochistan; Marvin Weinbaum, Executive Director, Center for Pakistan Studies, Middle East Institute.

GLOBAL POINTS OF VIEW: HOW INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES SHAPE US COVERAGE. 4/7, 7:00pm. Sponsor: National Press Club. Speakers: Hideomi Kinoshita, Washington Bureau Chief, Kyodo News; Narayan Lakshman, Correspondent, The Hindu; Kasia Kimasinska, Economics Reporter, Bloomberg News; Lisa Millar, North American Bureau Chief, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Asian Women's Fund Needs Examination

Asian Women's Fund Needs Examination: 
Japan should put forth further efforts toward solving the Comfort Women issue

Mainichi Shimbun, evening edition, Wednesday, March 5, 2014, p.4. Provisional Translation by APP for research purposes only                                                    

By Haruki Wada, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo and former head of the Asian Women's Fund

Presently, the Japan-ROK relationship is at its worst due to the conflict concerning history issues. Some sensible people believe that if a solution is found to the Comfort Women issue, it may well break [the present diplomatic] deadlock. If so, then we need to verify/validate/inspect in what way the experience of Asian Woman's Fund (AWF), an attempt on the part of Government of Japan (GOJ) to solve the Comfort Women issue, may be drawn upon, and what must be done in order to bring about a resolution [of the issue] now.

As someone who had been involved in AWF since its onset, and served as an executive managing director for the Fund’s last two years until it was disbanded in March 2007, I would like to report the results of the AWF activities and present some suggestions/proposals.

In 1990, the Comfort Women issue was raised from South Korea. [NB: unclear whether the ROK G or Korean people.] The Kiichi Miyazawa Cabinet initiated action on the basis that, while the issue had been settled by the 1965 bilateral agreement, the issue was so grave that they were unable to leave it. Archival research was conducted twice, and interviews of victims, former private agents, and veterans were also carried out. As a result of this, the understanding was established that [Japan? the Comfort Women system?] with the involvement of the military authorities of the day, severely injured the honor and dignity of many women and inflicted incurable physical and psychological wounds upon them. In 1993, the statement of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono to offer apology was issued.

Based on this Statement, the Murayama Coalition Cabinet's 50th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War project team agreed to establish the AWF in July 1995. It was a mechanism designed to send out a letter from the Prime Minister, in which the Prime Minister accepts the “moral responsibility” of Government of Japan and to implement projects “as a way to enact the Japanese people’s atonement.” In the letter, the word tsugunai [recompense] was translated as atonement, and meant shokuzai [expiation for sins].

The pillar of the AWF was the “atonement money” (2 million yen) and the “medical and welfare support” projects (valued at 3 million yen for ROK and Taiwan and 1.2 million yen for the Philippines). For the Netherlands, it was only the latter (3 million yen). The “atonement money” was paid out of the donations raised from the public, while the “medical and welfare support projects” were defrayed by the “contributed budget” from GOJ.

By 2002, AWF had implemented its activities towards the survivors from ROK, Taiwan, the Philippines and the Netherlands. These activities were intended at those women who had been “taken to former Japanese military installations, such as comfort stations, for a certain period during wartime in the past and forced to provide sexual services to officers and soldiers.”

In the ROK and Taiwan there was strong resistance against accepting the AWF funds. They questioned the AWF for offering “ex-gratia payments” based solely on donations raised from the private sector while at the same time the Prime Minister is offering apology as the government. The reference to “moral responsibility” was also criticized as whether we/AWF/GOJ meant to reject “legal responsibility.”

As a result, only 60 survivors in ROK and 13 in Taiwan accepted the AWF activities. Since there were as many as 207 survivors whom ROK government officially recognized as such as of 2002, the number of [Korean] survivors who accepted the fund was far below half that number. It is [therefore] impossible to say that the activities were completed in ROK. The need for GOJ to put in further effort remains.

On the other hand, in the Philippines and the Netherlands, many survivors responded to the offer of “atonement” so far as to make applications, and it was accepted by as many as 211 Filipino survivors and 79 Dutch [75 women, 4 men]. The Filipino survivors were those people who were abducted by Japanese forces, confined in military buildings, and forced to provide sexual services; the Dutch survivors were those who were selected by Japanese military officers out of civilian detention camps and forcibly sent to comfort stations.

Further, in Indonesia [the AWF] provided assistance to [the Indonesian government’s] projects to develop welfare facilities for the elderly. GOJ explained to AWF that this was the request from the Government of Indonesia. It was also explained that nothing could be done with regard to China and North Korea, since the GOJ was unable to come to agreement with China and had no diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Thus, the issue has been left unaddressed ever since the AWF was disbanded. Therefore, the decision of the ROK Constitutional Court in 2011 seemed like a gift from Heaven. President Lee Myung-bak had made a strong request to the GOJ to resolve the Comfort Women issue  and the matter turned out to be such that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda promised that Japan/PM would “think hard.” This is the state of affairs that remains even today.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Mongolia–South Korean Relations

Mongolian High-Level Visits to Seoul Mark Closeness of Mongolia–South Korean Relations

By Alicia Campi, U.S.-Mongolia Advisory GroupFirst published in the Eurasian Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, March 31, 2014 -- Volume 11, Issue 60.

Two high-level visits of Mongolian officials to Seoul in the past six weeks indicate that Mongolian–South Korean relations are rapidly intensifying. This trend and Mongolia’s mid-March facilitation of the reunion of Japanese relatives with the daughter of a North Korean abductee illustrate the desire of Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj to be more active in Northeast Asian (NEA) regional politics—including the Six-Party Talks over the Democratic Republic of Korea’s (DPRK—North Korea) nuclear program. Meanwhile, Seoul, motivated by its desire to participate in the exploitation of Mongolia’s Tavan Tolgoi (TT) coal/uranium mine project, has found new ways to broaden cooperation and investment with Ulaanbaatar. Its prominent courting of the Mongolian leadership strongly indicates that the Republic of Korea (ROK—South Korea) agrees Mongolia can play a more significant regional role.

Mongolian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luvsanvandan Bold visited Seoul on February 12–14. This was the first official visit of a Mongolian foreign minister to South Korea in ten years, and the ROK’s first foreign ministerial–level visitor since forming its cabinet under President Park Geun-hye a year ago (The Mongol Messenger, February 14). Bold’s meeting with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se focused on concrete measures to develop the bilateral comprehensive partnership. This included the creation of an intergovernmental mechanism for economic cooperation to stimulate Korean investment in Mongolia’s largest mining and infrastructure construction projects and to intensify bilateral collaboration in technology, human resources and management. Both sides agreed to cooperate in inducing change in North Korea, and Bold also expressed support for Seoul’s push to unify the two Koreas (Yonhap News Agency, February 12).

Foreign Minister Bold met with Minister of Reunification Ryoo Kihl-jae on Six-Party issues and explained the Mongolian desire to use President Elbegdorj’s new Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on Northeast Asian Security mechanism to encourage peace on the peninsula. Bold, who formerly headed the Ministry of Defense, and Kim Kwan-jin, Korea’s Minister of National Defense, agreed to allow more Mongolian soldiers to study in the ROK and to initiate new cooperation in military techniques and peacekeeping operations. Subsequently, on March 5, ROK Deputy Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo and Mongolian Deputy Defense Minister Battus Avirmid signed an agreement in Seoul to ship 15 used military vehicles, including construction equipment, to Mongolia to expand defense cooperation, support Mongolia’s United Nations peacekeeping operations, and build infrastructure for economic development (ROK Ministry of Defense release, Yonhap News Agency, Montsame, March 5). Bold’s visit to the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA) resulted in an agreement for the KNDA to assist in founding a Diplomatic Academy for Mongolia’s foreign ministry.

A key concern for the Mongolians was for completely visa-free travel for its 120,000 Korea-bound citizens annually. At the ROK National Assembly, the two sides discussed inter-parliamentary cooperation and various visa and health insurance issues (The Mongol Messenger, February 21). The Immigration Agency of Mongolia along with the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) subsequently launched on March 12 a project on immigration management of a cyber system to accurately monitor the migration of Mongolians residing abroad and create a new united border checkpoints database of foreign nationals, organizations and foreign-invested entities operating in Mongolia (The Mongol Messenger, March 21).

During the visit, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Mongolia-Korea Business Forum partnership was signed by Yachil Batsuuri, CEO of state-owned Erdenes Tavantolgoi LLC (ETT) (Montsame, english.news.mn, February 18). Batsuuri’s presence signaled that, going forward, South Koreans will play a more meaningful part in the exploitation of the 6.8 billion ton TT coal deposit. Three weeks later it was announced that Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) signed an MOU with ETT and Mongolia’s largest drilling company, Elgen, to strengthen development of a Korean-Mongolian research cooperation network and forge a partnership to upgrade TT’s resource-making technologies using non-traditional energy sources. The three companies will analyze coal-bed methane (CBM) as well as share production technologies and technologies for enhanced CBM recovery (BusinessKorea reported in Montsame, english.news.mn, March 5).

Additionally, on March 12–15 Mongolian Parliamentary Speaker Zandaakhuu Enkhbold journeyed to Seoul, and during his courtesy call on President Park, the Korean head of state emphasized that his visit was important for Mongolian-South Korea relations. Park also thanked her Mongolian counterpart for appealing to North Korea to cooperate with the UN during his visit to Pyongyang in November 2013: “This appeal was very important and […] the unification process will have an important role to the development of coexisting countries” (The Mongol Messenger, March 21). Park and Enkhbold discussed the ROK’s “Eurasian Initiative” to promote regional development and the complementary Mongolian plan to construct a railway network that will connect Eurasian and NEA countries. Enkhbold also toured the South Korea Industrial Complex Corporation (SKICC), in which some 800 industrial plants produce 66 percent of Korea’s GDP, and visited the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) to explore establishing a joint Science Education Center of Mongolia and South Korea. The speaker attended a Mongolian–South Korea Business Forum meeting where a cooperation memorandum was signed between ETT and Daelim Petrochemical Corporation. He also visited the Pusan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone and held a meeting with 6,000 Mongolians working there (Montsame, March 17).

During Enkhbold’s visit, the Mongolians hosted a reunion between the Japanese parents of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korea 40 years ago, with their granddaughter (Yomiuri Shimbun, March 16). It is widely speculated that this reunion resulted from Mongolian President Elbegdorj’s 2013 trip to North Korea, and a positive sign to resolve the logjam between Japan and the DPRK, which is preventing closer economic ties. Japanese commentators believe that Tokyo will use the Ulaanbaatar meeting as a step toward setting up an official government meeting on the abduction issue (Montsame, March 17). It was no coincidence that Mongolian Finance Minister Chultem Ulaan led a delegation to South Korea’s Strategy and Finance Ministry and National Tax Service on March 17–19. When Ulaan met with Hyun Oh-seok, the ROK’s deputy prime minister and minister of strategy and finance, it is likely that he reported on the reunion as well as exchanged opinions on taxation cooperation (Montsame, english.news.mn, March 17).

The number of high-level bilateral exchanges between Mongolia and South Korea should significantly increase this year, as the two countries prepare for a state visit to South Korea by President Elbegdorj in 2015, which will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states.