About the Speakers

HA Young Sun is Chairman of the board of trustees at the East Asia Institute. He is also a professor emeritus of the department of political science and international relations at Seoul National University. Currently, Dr. Ha is serving as a member of the Presidential National Security Advisory Group and the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation. He was the Co-chairman of Korea-Japan Joint Research Project for New Era, the Director of the Center for International Studies and American Studies Institute at Seoul National University, the President of the Korea Peace Studies Association, and a research fellow at the Center for International Studies at Princeton University, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University, and holds a Ph.D. in international politics from the University of Washington. His recent books and edited volumes include: Korean Peninsula among Big Powers 1972 vs 2014 (2015) Trustpolitik 2.0 on the Korean Peninsula: Complex Policy of Deterrence, Engagement, and Trust(2014), Toward 2020: Ten Agendas for South Korea’s Foreign Policy (2013), A New Era for Korea-Japan Relations: Seven Tasks for Bilateral Cooperation (2013),Young-Sun Ha on International Politics: A Collection of Columns from 1991 to 2011 (2012), The History of Social Science Concepts in Modern Korea I & II (2009 /2012), Complex World Politics: Strategies, Principles, and a New Order (2012), Young Pioneers in Korean History (2011), The Future of North Korea 2032: The Strategy of Coevolution for the Advancement (2010), The Emergence of Complex Alliances in the 21st Century (2010), and A New Era of Complex Networks in Korea-Japan Relations (2010).

Chun Chaesung is the Chair of the Asia Security Initiative Research Center at East Asia Institute. He is a professor of the department of political science and international relations at Seoul National University and director of Center for International Studies at Seoul National University. Dr. Chun is also serving as a member of Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation and as an advisory committee member for the Republic of Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Unification. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University, and Ph.D. in international relations from Northwestern University. His research interests include international relations, security studies, South Korean foreign policy, and East Asian security relations. His recent publications include Is Politics Moral? Reinhold Niebuhr’s Transcendental Realism (2012), Theory of East Asian International Relations (2011), and “The Rise of New Powers and the Responding Strategies of Other Countries” (2008).

Sohn Yul is Dean and Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. Before joining at Yonsei, he taught at Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea, and was a visiting scholar at institutions in the University of Tokyo, Waseda University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently, Sohn serves a number of government advisory committees including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Korea National Diplomacy Academy, and the Northeast Asian History Foundation. He also has served President of the Korean Studies of Contemporary Japan. He has written extensively on Japanese and East Asian political economy, East Asian regionalism, and global governance. His most recent publications include “Attracting the Neighbors: Soft Power Competition in East Asia,” “Securitizing Trade: The Case of U.S.-Korea FTA,” and “Japan’s New Regionalism: China Threat, Universal Values, and the East Asian Community.” Sohn received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA.