We would like to express our sincere thanks for the Korea Foundation’s generous support that has made this research possible and allowed it to be completed in a smooth manner. We are grateful for the support given by Ambassador Sihyung Lee, the President of the Korea Foundation, to this project, and to Ms Hyeun- joo Lee (Korea Foundation) for her kind assistance, patience and flexibility at all stages. We also express our sincere thanks and appreciation to Simon Bates, the commission editor from Routledge for his constructive comments and sugges- tions, and three anonymous reviewers for their sharp and critical comments that have reshaped our book project.
We thank the presenters and participants of two workshops, one on China and North Korea at Nankai University, Tianjin (21 October 2019), and the other on China and Human Rights in North Korea: Part of the Problem or a Partial Solution at Deakin University, Melbourne (29 November 2019). We also appre- ciate the support from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, the advice and help from Professor Li Chunfu, and research assistance from Tom Barber, Matt Hood and Diarmuid Cooney-O’Donoghue.