Korea Policy Institute

Template:TOCnestleft Korea Policy Institute is a North Korea apologist organization and an affiliate of the Institute for Policy Studies based in Los Angeles, California.

Mission

Korea Policy Institute is an independent research and educational institute that provides timely analysis of U.S. policies toward Korea and developments on the Korean peninsula. In the interest of promoting friendship between the peoples of the United States and Korea, KPI is guided by the premise that a reasonable U.S. policy towards Korea must be supportive of the legitimate desires of the Korean people for peace, sovereignty, reconciliation, and the reunification of Korea.

Policy institutes often work in isolation from communities and are disconnected from broader social movements. KPI was founded as a partnership among Korean American community advocates, policy professionals, and academics. In the make-up of its board and staff, and in the connections it has to other organizations, KPI places itself within a broad-based movement for peace and social justice. KPI keeps in close contact with a national network of Korean American community organizations, has built transnational bridges with social justice organizations in South Korea, and maintains ties with key organizations and individuals conducting humanitarian and development work in North Korea. Many of our fellows, advisory board members, and executive board members have been engaged for decades in on-the-ground peace, reunification, and humanitarian work.

Peace treaty the goal

Circa October 2009 Christine Ahn and Paul Liem, the Berkeley-based president of the Korea Policy Institute, arranged a meeting to discuss US-North Korean relations between themselves, ten other activists, and members of the State Department and Congress, including Frank Januzzi, John Kerry's senior Korea advisor, who also works for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They were received much differently than during past visits, Ahn said. "Something about the Bill Clinton trip really changed the dynamics in a very significant way," she said. "The whole regime-change discourse felt like it was long gone, that was history. It also felt like that they just knew that diplomacy was the way forward and that there had to be some kind of breakthrough with North Korea. It was just a matter of how and when."

"If more and more Americans knew about the kind of diversity of people that are really questioning US involvement, US military occupation, 30,000 troops still on the Korean peninsula, all the kind of crimes committed towards the civilians by the US military ... I think they would say, 'Okay, it's like the Korean War has got to end,'" said Ahn. "Enough is enough. We need a new kind of way, a new way of moving forward on US-Korea policy."

Ahn and her cohorts at the Korea Policy Institute are trying to do just that. Formed in 2006, the Los Angeles-based group aims to provide a unified, coherent, and informed voice on US-Korean policy that it hopes will one day lead to the signing of a peace treaty.

Personnel

Board of Directors

As of March, 2013;

• Ricky Y. Choi
• Christine Ahn
• Christine Hong
• Paul Liem
• Juyeon Rhee
• Seung Hye Suh
• JT Takagi
• Ji-Yeon Yuh

Advisory Board

As of March, 2013;

• Ricky Y. Choi
• Bernadette Chi
• Bruce Cumings
• Gregory Elich
• Henry Em
• John Feffer
• Selig S. Harrison
• Martin Hart-Landsberg
• Pilju Kim Joo
• Elaine H. Kim
• Thomas P. Kim
• Michael Kwun
• Namhee Lee
• John Lie
• Ramsay Liem
• Nancy Neiman Auerbach
• Hye-Jung Park
• Tim Shorrock
• Hazel Smith
• David K. Yoo
• Mary Yu Danico

Staff

As of March, 2013:

• Haeyoung Kim, Editor
• Ricky Y. Choi

Fellows

As of March, 2013:

• Ricky Y. Choi
• Jennifer Kwon Dobbs
• Suzy Kim
• Donna Lee Kwon
• Anders Riel Muller
• Sanghyuk Shin

Socialism in North Korea?

Sunday Mar 24th, 2013, presentations by Gene Ruyle, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, CSU, Long Beach, and Paul Liem, Korea Policy Institute, were given on the topic of "Socialism in North Korea?" at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Oakland.

References

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