KEI Contributor – Mark Tokola

KEI Vice President Mark Tokola was interviewed by Bloomberg on March 17, 2021. In response to questions regarding North Korea’s position vis-a-vis the Biden administration, Mark noted: “The ball is…

The East Asia Forum published KEI Vice President Mark Tokola and intern Alexandra Langford’s op-ed calling for the South Korean government to be a more vocal advocate for ethnic Mongolians…

Future of Korea is one of KEI’s flagship programs, travelling throughout the country to share news and developments on the U.S.-Korea relations with the public at large. Led by KEI…

KEI Vice President Mark Tokola was cited in a recent PBS article on the growing friction between South Korea and Japan – he expressed hope that the United States was…

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 Five years of relatively good harvests have pushed the issue of malnutrition in North Korea down the list of international concerns. Reports of visible improvements in Pyongyang (but much less in the countryside), nuclear and missile testing, cyber-attacks, and Kim Jong-un’s public appearances have dominated recent media coverage and have caused memories…

By Mark Tokola The Republic of Korea and the State of Israel have a lot in common: both were founded in 1948, both had to fight for their early existence, both have succeeded despite a lack of natural resources, both are lively democracies, and both are among America’s closest allies.  On May 14th, the anniversary…

By Mark Tokola The upcoming May 6th Congress of the Worker’s Party of (North) Korea is already a noteworthy event simply because it is happening at all.  There has not been a Party Congress since 1980, although in recent decades ‘Party Conferences’ have provided alternative platforms for announcing major decisions, such as the April 2012…

By Mark Tokola Since the United Nations’ “Situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (usually shorthanded to “COI” for commission of inquiry report) came out in September 2015, commentators have sometimes hypothesized that one of its positive effects could be that North Korean prison officials might moderate some of their brutality…