Focusing too closely on the spectacle of another Trump-Kim summit also obscures larger questions about the prospects for successful denuclearisation, America’s role on the Korean Peninsula and, more broadly, American engagement in Northeast Asia.
To discuss these issues, we were joined by Dr Charles Edel, Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre, for a conversation featuring Dr Van Jackson, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington and Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; John Delury, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University (Seoul); and Dr Sheryn Lee, Lecturer in Security Studies at Macquarie University.
Dr Charles Edel
Australia Chair and Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Dr Charles Edel is the inaugural Australia Chair and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. Prior to this, he was Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy at the US Naval War College, and served on the US Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff from 2015-2017. In that role, he advised Secretary of State John Kerry on political and security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
Dr Van Jackson
Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Victoria University
Dr Van Jackson is an American political scientist, strategist, and media commentator specialising in Asian security and defence affairs. He is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, and concurrently holds two think tank appointments: as a Wilson Center Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, and as the Defence & Strategy Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies in Wellington, New Zealand.
Professor John Delury
Professor John Delury is a historian of modern China and expert on US-China relations and Korean Peninsula affairs. He is the author, with Orville Schell, of Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century, and his articles have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Asian Perspective and Late Imperial China. He is a senior fellow of the Asia Society and Pacific Century Institute and member of the Council of Foreign Relations, National Committee on US-China Relations and National Committee on North Korea.
Dr Sheryn Lee
Dr Sheryn Lee is a Lecturer at the Department of Security Studies and Criminology, Macquarie University, Sydney. Her current research interests are emerging and disruptive technologies and military modernization, China-Taiwan relations and Japanese defense policy. She has previously published in Texas National Security Review and Survival, Asian Security and The RUSI Journal.
