Asia’s Security Challenges: North Korea, Taiwan, Tibet and South Asia A Conference of Invited Papers –

Date: Sat. March 25th, 2006, 2:00 pm-4:00 pm

Sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Presidential Initiative Fund for the Enhancement of the Humanities, and the Asian Studies Program.

Morning Session: 10:30 – 11:30 a.m., Clark Hall, Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road, Cleveland
An informal discussion with invited speakers. The morning session is open to students and faculty from area college only. Limited seating–reservations required: (216) 368-8961

Afternoon Session: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m., Ford Auditorium, Allen Memorial Medical Library, 11000 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland.  Free and open to the public.

Panel Presentation:

Ambassador Charles Kartman
The North Korean Nuclear Crisis: How We Got Here and What it Means

North Korea is the only country with which the United States is still at war, interrupted by an armistice since 1953. One of the world’s worst abusers of human rights, North Korea is on the Terrorist List, and violates international laws daily. Its million-man army is a grave threat to our ally, the Republic of Korea, and our U.S. forces deployed there since the Korean War. It also now has an arsenal of nuclear weapons. The Six Party Talks hosted by the Chinese have made little progress, but have revealed fissures between the U.S. and its South Korean ally. How did we get to this point? Where is it headed? Ambassador Kartman will address these and other issues in his presentation.

Charles Karman served from 2001 until 2005 as Executive Director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). He retired from the Department of State in April 2001.

Alan D. Romberg
The Taiwan Question: Managing Peace, Shaping the Future

In seeking to manage problems created by the People’s Republic of China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan vs. the growing claim in Taiwan to sovereign, independent status, the U.S. has warned Beijing not to assume we would stay out of any fight, and cautioned Taipei not to assume we would get into it. The principal goal has been to maintain peace and stability between Taiwan and the mainland until they can come to a peaceful, mutually acceptable political accommodation. Beijing has enhanced its military deterrent against formal “Taiwan independence,” and the U.S. has countered with arms sales to the island and continued enhancement of its own capabilities against a rapidly modernizing People’s Liberation Army. Under its “one China policy,” while maintaining peace, the political challenge for the U.S. is two-fold: to avoid frontally engaging Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, while blocking any move on the island toward de jur separate status.

Alan D. Romberg is a Senior Associate and Director of the East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center.

Gerald J. Larson
The Volatile Mixture of Religious Extremism and Nuclearization in India and Pakistan

In the decade of the 1900s a variety of historical changes precipitated the decision of both India and Pakistan to develop nuclear capabilities. The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the seemingly endless cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the growing influence of China in the Indo-Tibetan region, the emergence of militant Islamist ideology, and the rise of conservative Hindu ideology all came together to convince, first, India, and then, Pakistan, in May of 1998 to become open to nuclear weapons states. Dr. Larson will examine these and other reasons for nuclearization and the reasons for the rise of militant religious ideology and will offer some suggestions as to how these forces might be contained.

Dr. Gerald J. Larson is Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Rabindranath Tagore Professor Emeritus of Indian Cultures and Civilization, Indiana University, Bloomington.