China Initiative Events

Watch webcast

At this week’s China Chat we will be joined by Seong-Hyon Lee from Harvard University’s Asia Center for a discussion of China-South Korea relations. The talk will analyze the transformation of China-South Korea relations, highlighting the shift from close economic partnership to growing geopolitical friction, driven by historical disputes, security concerns, and evolving global dynamics.

Dr. Seong-Hyon Lee is an Associate at Harvard University’s Asia Center and a Senior Fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations. Previously, he served as the China Director at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. Dr. Lee spent four years in Iowa, growing corn and completing his undergraduate studies in neuroscience at Grinnell College. After earning his master’s degree at Harvard, he traveled to China, where he ultimately spent 11 years working as a foreign correspondent and as a consultant for the United Nations. He completed his Ph.D. at Tsinghua University, the alma mater of President Xi Jinping. His research focuses on contemporary international relations in East Asia, with a particular emphasis on China and the Korean Peninsula. Currently, he is translating a biography of Zhou Enlai into Korean, originally published by Harvard University Press. He has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.