[Webinar] Celebration Summit at Seventy: The U.S. and South Korea Renew Their Vows With State Visit

May 4, 2023 — Christian Davies, Seoul Bureau Chief of the Financial Times, and In-Bum Chun, Senior Contributor at Asia Society Korea and Lieutenant General (Ret.) of the Republic of Korean Army, share their overall impressions of President Yoon's recent state visit to the United States, as well as the results and implications of the summit, focusing primarily on how the summit addressed some of the main tensions underlying the alliance.

Mason Richey, Senior Contributor at Asia Society Korea, moderated the discussion, raising provoking questions pertaining to major Korean concerns, including pressure from U.S.-China strategic competition, extended deterrence and the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), the war in Ukraine, and the economic risks, as well as potential, for Korean companies in the context of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Mason Richey (Moderator)

Mason Richey is a senior contributing writer to Asia Society Korea and an associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul, South Korea). Dr. Richey has also held positions as a POSCO Visiting Research Fellow at the East-West Center (Honolulu, HI) and a DAAD Scholar at the University of Potsdam.

His research focuses on U.S. and European foreign and security policy as applied to the Asia-Pacific. Recent scholarly articles have appeared (inter alia) in Pacific Review, Asian Security, Global Governance, and Foreign Policy Analysis. Shorter analyses and opinion pieces have been published in War on the Rocks, Le Monde, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and Forbes, among other venues.

Dr. Richey received his Ph.D. from Binghamton University, New York.

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In-Bum Chun

In-Bum Chun is a graduate of the Korea Military Academy (KMA) in 1977. He was selected as the aide to Lieutenant General Lee, Ki-Baek. In 1983 General Lee, as Chairman of the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a victim of the Rangoon bombing. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun was credited with saving General Lee’s life and was awarded the National Security Medal (Kwang-Bok).

Upon completion of Regimental Command, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun was assigned as the Chief of the Election Support Branch, Civil-Military Affairs/Strategic Operations Directorate at the Multi-National Force (MNF) in Iraq. He was recognized by both the Republic of Korea and the United States for his contribution to the first “Fair and Free” elections in Iraq on January 30, 2005, with the Hwa-Rang Combat Medal and the U.S. Bronze Star Medal.

From November of 2005, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun served as the Director of U.S. Affairs at the Korean Ministry of National Defense and was involved in negotiations and cooperation with the U.S. on the relocation of U.S. forces, camp returns, ROK/U.S. Joint Vision Study, Special Measures Agreement, and the transition of the Wartime Operational Control.

On July 19, 2007, twenty-three Korean missionary workers were kidnapped by the Taliban. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun was credited with the successful rescue mission and was awarded the Korean Presidential Citation. Upon completion of his duties as the Deputy Director for Strategic Planning at ROK JCS, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun took over the OPCON Transition Group.

LTG(R) Chun commanded the 27th Infantry Division and was the Senior Member of the UN Command Military Armistice Commission. In November of 2013, he was promoted to Lieutenant General and was assigned as the Commander of the ROK Special Warfare Command. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun retired from active duty as of July 31, 2016.

Upon his retirement, he conducted concurrent fellowships with the Brookings Institute and the U.S.-Korea Institute (USKI) at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) until October 2017. He was also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Sam-Nunn School of Advanced Studies at Georgia Tech.

Currently, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Chun is the Vice President of the Korea Chapter of the Association of the United States Army and MIG Alley Chapter of the U.S. Air Force Association. Moreover, he serves as a Vice President of the Korea Freedom Federation, an Advisory Member of the National Policy Planning Committee, and Board Member of the Korean Animal Welfare Association.

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Christian Davies

Christian Davies is the Seoul bureau chief of the Financial Times. Before then he worked as the Warsaw correspondent for the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and as acting Central Europe correspondent for the FT. He has been published in the New Statesman, Foreign Policy, Politico, Haaretz, Prospect Magazine, The Lancet, and the London Review of Books.