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ALUMNI UPDATES

Victor Cha ’83, NSC’s Asian Affairs Expert

By Claire Lui ’00

Victor Cha ’83

Since President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union speech naming North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” first forced the country into the spotlight, it has consistently remained in the news. The famously opaque country remains a mystery to most of the American public.

One expert well-versed in North Korean politics and history is Victor D. Cha ’83, director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. Cha has spent his career studying the relationships between North and South Korea, and Japan and the United States; currently, he advises President Bush on Asian affairs, focusing on Korean and Japanese as well as Australian and Oceanic affairs.

The NSC serves as Bush’s principal forum for considering national and international security and policy matters and coordinates Presidential policies among the Defense, State and Intelligence departments. Cha’s job allows him to offer opinions that can shape White House policy and inform Bush’s decisions about U.S.-North Korea relations.

When asked about his goals at the White House, Cha jokingly replies, “At the top of the list would be ‘not to screw up.’” On a more serious note, he advises Bush and his national security adviser, implements presidential policies and offers a picture of the larger interests in the region to the President and his advisers. Much of Cha’s work focuses on conflicts and alliances between Korea and its neighbors.

Cha also is a government professor at Georgetown, where he will return after his time at the White House. Robert Gallucci, dean of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and former ambassador-at-large for the State Department, calls Cha “a very valuable commodity for Georgetown.” Gallucci says that Cha is “bringing all that intellect that has informed his teaching and writing to the U.S. government.”

One of the phrases most associated with Cha’s work at the White House is “Hawk Engagement,” a phrase he coined to describe a policy of conditional engagement with the North Korean regime. Columbia political science professor Robert Jervis (Cha’s former professor) points to the paradox within the phrase as being emblematic of Cha’s political style: “You think of a hawk as just pressure, and engagement is something you associate with doves.” He adds that this paradox is what makes Cha’s analysis so valuable.

When asked about being described as a “conservative hawk,” Cha laughs and says that people never remember the content of his articles, only the headlines. Though Cha works in the Bush administration, supporters praise his ability to work with both sides of issues. Jervis identifies this openness as one of Cha’s strengths: “Victor is open, honest and candid, which means that people relate to him and work well with him. It also means that I trust that he has a real commitment to dispassionate analysis.”

Cha meets with a delegation of Japanese officials at The White House on April 12. PHOTOS: COURTESY VICTOR CHA ’83

A native New Yorker, Cha grew up on 110th Street and Riverside Drive, with Columbia always part of his life — as a child, he ran up and down the Low Library steps. His father, Moon Young Cha, graduated from GS in 1959 and from the Business School in 1961.

Cha considers the Core one of the highlights of a Columbia education, pointing out that a broad liberal arts education is a wonderful introduction to many different and important areas, describing the chance to read Plato, Locke and Hobbes as “an opportunity and luxury.”

After graduating from the College with a degree in economics, Cha earned advanced degrees from Oxford, SIPA (M.I.A., ’88) and GSAS (M.Phil., certificate and Ph.D., ’92, ’93 and ’94, respectively).
When Bush named Cha to his NSC job, it was the highest ranking appointment for a Korean-American in a policy position related to Korea. Since starting at the White House, Cha has received numerous e-mails from young Asian-Americans asking how to follow a similar path. Cha says that he is surprised by the notion that he was following a plan.

“It was not a plan; it was completely accidental,” he notes, adding that his Korean-American background is not a factor. Rather, he was attracted to Northeast Asian studies because of an interest in international relations and the rich possibilities of the region.

Claire Lui ’00 is a writer based in New York. She has written for Martha Stewart Living, Entertainment Weekly and The San Francisco Chronicle, and is a frequent contributor to CCT.

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