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Jae H. Ku, director of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS
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Lavish business trips and a lack of education scholarships among reasons for decision to cut funding
The US-Korea Institute (USKI), which was established at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington in 2006, is embroiled in a controversy about “outside pressure” and how it used its funding. After the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), a think tank funded by the South Korean government, cut off financial support for the USKI, the USKI and some South Korean conservative newspapers have raised allegations that the South Korean government was pressuring the USKI to replace its director Jae H. Ku, who reportedly has conservative leanings. There are also allegations that a specific figure in the Blue House was involved in the affair. There are also attempts to connect this with a controversy about overseas trips taken by Kim Ki-sik, head of the Financial Supervisory Service, who raised the issue of USKI’s management when he was a lawmaker in 2014. On Apr. 8, a researcher who had worked at USKI until recently and is familiar with its inner workings spoke with the Hankyoreh on the condition of anonymity. According to this source, the claims by Ku and others that the Moon administration wanted him replaced because they did not see eye to eye represents “a blacklist of [Ku’s] own making” that “this was an issue that was going to blow up sooner or later.” The text of the interview is as follows. Hankyoreh (Hani): Media reports suggest that the USKI issue suddenly blew up after Moon Jae-in took office. Researcher: You have to look closely at the reason USKI was established back in 2006. What sets it apart from think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies is that it was created at a university that always ranks first or second in the area of international relations. In other words, its biggest raison d'être is education. People who graduate from SAIS go on to become American policy experts or reporters, and the reason USKI exists was to train Korean Peninsula experts at SAIS. But they’ve spent more than a decade without a full-time professor or a doctoral program. Hani: Are you saying that research was hardly given any support? Researcher: The budget didn’t prioritize education. For example, they would invite people once a month to give lectures on Korean studies, but I was told they would tell the staff to find lecturers who would not require a fee. In addition, the professor in charge of Korean studies takes grad students to South Korea once a year. The proper etiquette is to hand out school souvenirs to everyone you meet, but I heard that the USKI refused to spend even US$180 on buying 30 mugs worth US$6 with the SAIS logo on them. Hani: Was there no funding for people studying Korean studies? Researcher: Tuition is really high in the US, and generous scholarships were enough to induce students to sign up. But there were very few scholarships. Professors in other fields at SAIS found this odd as well. The way money was spent didn’t line up with SAIS’s status as an educational institution. Hani: So I take it that a very small percentage of the funding went to Korean studies. Researcher: There were apparently the payroll costs for the Korean studies professor and Korean language professor, the price of sandwiches for monthly lunchtime seminars called ”brown-bag lunches,” some scholarships and students’ study tour to South Korea. While it’s impossible to know the exact amount, this appears to have amounted to 300 or 400 million won out of a yearly budget of 2 billion won. Hani: I’m told the budget problem was a matter of lax management. Researcher: Aside from one or two people, no one knew the budget. SAIS’s attitude toward the USKI seems to have been, it’s your money so spend it as you please. The media has been reporting recently that the director receives a salary of US$140,000. The combined salaries of the Korean studies professor and he Korean language professor did not amount to US$140,000. I guess this could be justified by saying that the director’s ability merited such a salary, but it’s not easy to get a salary like that at an educational organization. When Ku went on trips to South Korea, he would stay at hotels like the Westin Chosun and the Marriott, which got people talking. Apparently this all kept building up until the KIEP [Korea Institute for International Economic Policy] asked for these matters to be rectified. This has been going on for more than a decade, and the government would be remiss in its duties if it didn’t take appropriate action. Hani: USKI has protested that the South Korean government was infringing on academic freedom when it asked for these matters to be corrected. Researcher: That claim would be justified if KIEP had taken issue with Ku’s political remarks or the ideological stance of his research when it asked Ku to remedy these issues, but he was being called out for lax management. The only blacklist here is one of his own making. Since the South Korean government was giving public funds to USKI, it at least needed to be aware of whether the money was being used according to its intended purpose. On top of that, this issue was also brought up by conservative administrations. This was an issue that was going to blow up sooner or later. Hani: One explanation is that SAIS’s accounting standards are different from South Korea’s accounting standards. Researcher: My understanding is that business trips at SAIS are supposed to meet State Department standards. SAIS was probably keeping an eye on all the money that was coming in and going out. But since South Korea was providing the funding, it would have been awkward for SAIS to perform its own audit. Hani: Why did SAIS say it doesn’t have the authority to fire Ku? Researcher: Appointments of professors and all staff at SAIS are made during a faculty meeting. Ku wasn’t a professor, so strictly speaking, he had nothing to do with SAIS. If there’s a problem with a professor, for example, that could be decided in a faculty meeting. But that didn’t apply to Ku. Hani: They seem to be drawing a connection to the Moon administration because Kim Ki-sik [head of the Financial Supervisory Service] raised this issue back when he was a lawmaker. Source: People have been talking about these things since Park Geun-hye was president, and that was a conservative administration. While it’s true that the issue was raised when Kim Ki-sik was a lawmaker, the National Assembly continued to address it even after Kim lost his seat in the 20th National Assembly. And the issue received bipartisan attention at the National Assembly. Even at SAIS, other professors were shocked at the figure of 2 billion won and would talk about how much could be done with so much money. So in a certain sense, KIEP ought to have paid attention even sooner. By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
