On February 28 2019, The School of International Politics, Economics and Communication (SIPEC) hosted a special lecture on North Korea by Professor Antonio Fiori from the University of Bologna, who is a leading expert on inter-Korea relations.

The talk, entitled “Trick or Treat? North Korea’s “Change” and the security order in Asia”, turned out to be extremely timely, coinciding as it did with the Kim-Trump meeting in Vietnam, and both talks occurred during the same afternoon. It was probably inevitable that Professor Fiori opened his lecture with the question: “Is their meeting real or not?”, and he went on to rightly predict that Kim and Trump were unlikely to reach a deal, arguing that there were few options that North Korea and the US would agree on.

Some highlights from the lecture were:
“Despite the de-escalation of tensions since the beginning of 2018, the chances of North Korea voluntarily giving up its existing nuclear capabilities in the foreseeable future remain low.”
“The THAAD dispute represents the beginning of a new security era in East Asia, in which North Korea’s nuclear capability increasingly exacerbates serious security dilemmas for the US, China, South Korea and Japan.”
“These countries must urgently work to deter a nuclear-capable North Korea from conducting destabilizing activities, prevent negative action-reaction cycles, and reduce the existing distrust among each other.”

The University of Bologna and AGU reached an agreement for cooperation in research and teaching in 2017, and we were able to realize this event thanks to that cooperation. AGU would like to thank Professor Fiori for giving us an insightful and stimulating talk in this unpredictable era.