Sheena Chestnut Greitens - Mentions and Appearances
Sheena Chestnut Greitens is an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, and was a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings. She directs UT's Asia Policy Program, a joint initiative of the Clements Center for National Security and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Her work focuses on East Asia, American national security, and authoritarian politics and foreign policy.
It seems like the administration has tried to keep a clear, consistent tone in terms of being really upfront about the range of U.S. concerns vis-à-vis Beijing’s behavior and about the competitive nature of the relationship overall, and [President Biden's first call with Chinese President Xi] reflects that.
Since [Xi Jinping’s] ascent, we’ve seen more statements about the need to prevent diffusion of political threats from abroad into China. Hong Kong has always been one site where the Chinese Communist Party is particularly sensitive or prone to seeing foreign infiltration aimed at destabilising the party.
One lesson for the future is that American strategy and national security shouldn't depend on or assume transparency from China because it's not an empirically valid assumption to make given the nature and structure of China's domestic politics.
A [North Korean ballistic missile] test like this serves all three purposes [enhancing its long-range strike capability, gauging a U.S. response, and commemorating the late Kim Jong-il’s birthday] at once.
"[T]he best U.S.-Philippines alliance would be one where the benefits are clearly recognized by the public and the citizens of both countries. [Duterte's transition from local mayor to president and international figure has brought about a] change in the consequences of rhetoric. That shift has been rocky in terms of the effects on U.S.-Philippines relations."
“I think it’s by having this cluster of [illicit] activities and abilities that has helped [North Korea] as sanctions have been applied. With the newest round of sanctions, my guess is that they’re doing the same thing: looking for ways to navigate around them.”
"[North Korea is] highly creative and highly adaptable. They’re always developing new layers of business. If one of their businesses gets busted, they’ve already been testing others."
There are a lot of debates about 'What North Korea wants.' First, what matters are the interests of the very top leadership, which is narrower than 'North Korea' or even 'the North Korean government.' Second, North Korea might use a range of strategies ..but we should remember that they're all aimed at the same underlying, fundamental objective: ensuring Kim's political survival.
The stakes are always higher in the first few years of a dictator's time in power, and the first few years are almost always more [internally] violent. The rules of the game under the new leader are still being established — both inside the country and externally — so it makes uncertainty higher.
It's very possible that the series of U.S. law enforcement actions made the risks and costs too high to North Korea to keep counterfeiting. The first possibility is that they got out of the game. The second is that they got even better at it, and we just haven't caught them yet. [Conducting covert operations with counterfeit U.S. cash] would have the dual benefit of funding North Korea's operations and engaging in economic warfare against the United States. The Secret Service has been unequivocal that the North Korean supernotes are the best in the world.