Asan Institute's honorary chairman meets with Henry Kissinger

Asan Institute for Policy Studies Honorary Chairman Chung Mong-joon poses with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at a restaurant in New York, Thursday. Courtesy of Asan Institute for Policy Studies

By Kim Jae-heun

Asan Institute for Policy Studies Honorary Chairman Chung Mong-joon met with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in New York, Thursday, exchanging views on issues on the Korean Peninsula and around the world.

Kissinger said that South Korea and the United States must deal with the North Korean nuclear problem through solid cooperation. He also mentioned that the denuclearization of North Korea is necessary not only for Northeast Asia but also for China. Chung requested Kissinger to maintain his focus on the security situation of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.

The former U.S secretary of state, who was a graduate student at Harvard University, visited Korea in 1950 during the Korean War, and analyzed the process of the war's inception. He submitted a memo titled "U.S. Strategy" to William Elliot, political adviser to the president, and Paul Nitze, director of policy planning for the State Department. His report served as the basis for future countermeasures against communist provocations.

Kissinger diagnosed that the clash of opinions among countries was escalating into confrontations because nearly every country considered itself to be "rising." This offers a great insight into today's U.S.-China strategic competition.

As an influential realist scholar in international relations, Kissinger served as national security adviser to President Richard Nixon and as secretary of state during the Ford administration. Despite being 99 years old, he continues to give lectures and write books and articles based on his keen insights into the international situation.

Kissinger was the chief architect of detente that started in the late 1960s. He strived to avoid the worst possible outcome due to misjudgments despite the nuclear arms race between the United States and Soviet Union.

Recently, he has become concerned about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), which can make bigger mistakes than humans due to the fact that it is driven by outcomes and depends less on history or philosophy.

He warned that if we do not plan ahead to manage AI, the history of human civilization could be at risk.