SEOUL, KOREA — After a flurry of discussions about the future of nuclear power in North Korea, and the legitimate and illegitimate uses of nuclear technologies, dialog on this topic has been frozen for a decade. There are tantalizing suggestions that discussions about nuclear power in North Korea could start again in the future. But the world has changed utterly since then, confronting us with a panoply of new issues that were not in play the last time we discussed light water reactors.
The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant in Japan has raised more general questions about safety in nuclear power, China is planning to build a large number of nuclear power plants along its East coast that could become a serious safety issue, Russia has entered into the nuclear business on a large and South Korea has become a center for nuclear power technologies and is playing an increasingly important role in setting global norms for the industry.
All these changes suggest that any future discussion with North Korea about its nuclear power programs (and risks for proliferation) will be profoundly different. This seminar will consider how the world has changed, and what our new perspective should be.
Some keynote speakers include Scott Snyder (Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy), John Endicott (President, Woosong University), Kim Myung-ja (President, Green 21), etc.
The seminar will be held Thursday, March 22, from 9:30 am-11:30 at the Asia Institute (GCS International Building).