KEI Contributor – Mark Tokola

This article was published in United States Institute of Peace on March 25, 2024. The September 13, 2023, meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un in Russia’s Amur Oblast marked a…

KEI’s Vice President  Mark Tokola was interviewed on VOA’s Washington Talk. This interview was published on June 10, 2023. https://keia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/01000000-0a00-0242-e308-08db6945ecad_Trim.mp4   To watch the full clip on VOA, please click here.…

Directly addressing the question of how the U.S. government should respond to China’s hostile economic behaviors, KEI Vice President Mark Tokola published an op-ed on National Interest that outlines how…

In his latest column for the Asia Times, KEI Vice President Mark Tokola notes that there are four assumptions that underpin the U.S. approach to North Korea. There is a…

Does the forty-fifth president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, have a foreign policy, not least of all inclusive of the vital Northeast Asian region? The question is not…

With an outbreak of diplomacy under way for the Korean Peninsula, a review of North Korea’s approach to negotiations is timely. A summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and…

For the proverbial visitor from Mars, the political situation in Northeast Asia is inexplicable. Sitting amidst a group of relatively stable, wealthy, and powerful countries, is a small, poor, belligerent…

Today’s relationship between the United States and China is more varied, complex, and cooperative than the accumulation of headlines would lead one to believe. The news media and commentators spotlight…

By Mark Tokola President Trump and President Moon Jae-in both addressed the United Nations General Assembly this year, the former on September 25 and the latter on September 26.  They agreed that enormous progress has been made on the denuclearization of North Korea.  They thanked each other for their efforts in negotiating with Kim Jong-un. …

By Mark Tokola North Korea celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of its state on September 9 in a notably non-belligerent fashion.  Troops paraded, but no long-range missiles were displayed.  Apart from the parade, there was a traditional mass gymnastics performance at the May Day Stadium, and a “National Meeting,” at which the official…

By Mark Tokola In the wake of the April 2018 inter-Korean summit in Panmunjom and the June U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore, there is renewed talk about whether it is time to announce an end to the Korean War by means of a peace declaration, peace regime, peace treaty, or by some other means.  There…

By Mark Tokola Who is in the biggest hurry to conclude current negotiations: the U.S., South Korea, or North Korea?  It is not easy to tell.  At the end of 2017, the Trump Administration conveyed a sense of urgency to put an end to North Korea’s growing nuclear threat, through negotiations if possible, but an…