On January 10th (Tuesday), the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (Director Kwan-Sei Lee) held its ‘71st Unification Strategy Forum’ as a international conference/webinar. The forum, held under the title “North Korea: Assessment of 2022 and Outlook for 2023” was divided into two sessions on five specific topics: North Korea’s politics, military, economy, foreign policy strategy, and policy toward South Korea.

In the first session, three presentations were delivered: Kim Gap-Sik (Senior Research Fellow, KINU), 'Evaluation and Prospect of North Korean Politics'; Kim Dong Yub (Professor, UNKS), 'Evaluation and Prospect of the North Korean Military Field'; and Yang Moon Soo (Professor, UNKS), 'Evaluation and Prospect of the North Korean Economy'. Lee Gee Dong (Senior Research Fellow, Institute for National Security Strategy), Hisashi Hirai (editorial writer, Kyodo News), Byong-Chul Lee (Professor, IFES), and Won Gon Park (Professor, Ewha Womans University) all provided discussion remarks.

In the second session, two presentations were delivered: Lee Jung Chul (Professor, Seoul National University), ‘North Korea’s Foreign Strategy Evaluation and Prospects’; and Choi Yong Hwan (Senior Researcher, INSS), ‘North Korea’s South Korea Policy Evaluation and Prospects’. Lee Sang Man (Professor, IFES) and Lee Woong Hyun (Research Professor, Graduate School of Engineering at Korea University) provided discussion remarks.

In his general remarks, forum host Lee Kwan Sei, director of IFES, said, the forum “provided a place to comprehensively evaluate and analyze the recent situation on the Korean Peninsula and North Korea's policy directions in various fields for the coming year.”

The forum was held online via Zoom, with English/Korean interpretation provided.

A PDF of the paper proceedings (in Korean) can be found at our IFES website here (see 첨부파일): https://ifes.kyungnam.ac.kr/ifes/5509/subview.do?enc=Zm5jdDF8QEB8JTJGYWNhZGVtaWMlMkZpZmVzJTJGNCUyRjExNzk2JTJGYXJ0Y2xWaWV3LmRvJTNGc2V0dXBTZXElM0Q0JTI2c2l0ZUlkJTNEaWZlcyUyNnBhZ2UlM0QxJTI2ZXZlbnRUeXBlJTNEJTI2ZmluZFR5cGUlM0QlMjZmaW5kV29yZCUzRCUyNg%3D%3D