South Korea

This article was published in National Interest on August 27, 2024 The United Nations Command (UNC), a U.S.-led multinational command that enforces the Korean Armistice Agreement and coordinates international contributions to maintain peace…

This article was published in Korea on Point on July 21, 2024. Higher Expectations, Starker Choices President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attendance at the 75th NATO Summit amplified several existing and…

This article was published in The Diplomat on July 9, 2024. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s participation in ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of NATO this week is particularly timely,…

This article was published in The Asia Times on June 26, 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin has a very short list of countries on his list of available international travel…

New economic analysis by Michael Clemens at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) challenges the prevailing narrative around South Korea’s demographic challenges. Once the fodder of wonky demographers and social scientists, South Korea’s population is now world-renowned for its extreme drop in birthrates and aging society, a topic I covered last year for KEI.…

Korea’s healthcare spending in 2000 was the lowest among the 38 OECD countries at less than 4 percent of GDP, reflecting the country’s relatively young population and the limited coverage of its National Health Insurance (NHI). However, adjusted for inflation, healthcare spending grew at an annual rate of 7.7 percent from 2000 to 2022, the…

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol offered a dramatically different vision of Korean unification in his Liberation Day speech on August 15, an annual observance in South Korea that marks the end of Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. In his speech, President Yoon framed unification as completing the unfinished task of liberation and the…

The transformation of relations between South Korea and Japan during the past two-plus years is one of the signal accomplishments of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. However, there remain doubts over the durability of this achievement. A troubling question remains whether the historical past of Japan’s colonial rule over Korea will again roil relations. The ongoing…