Sung-Yoon Lee

Sung-Yoon Lee is a South Korean political scientist, author, and commentator on Korean studies and East Asian studies, specializing in North Korea, who has been active mainly in the United States. A prominent advocate of hard-line, sanctions-centered policies toward North Korea, Lee has been a longstanding critic of engagement-oriented approaches such as the Sunshine Policy. He has also been a persistent critic of South Korea's progressive administrations, arguing that the governments of Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in did not deliver substantive improvements in press freedom or restraint in the use of state power, and describing South Korea as having undergone democratic backsliding under Moon.