China

With North Korea announcing to the world that it will be attempting to launch a second satellite for 2012, many analysts have been speculating as to why Pyongyang is so…

In this episode we hear from author Mike Kim, who speaks with Korean Kontext about his experiences living and working with North Korean refugees on the China-North Korea border. Mike…

By Troy Stangarone With the arrest of Lee Jae-yong on charges of bribery, embezzlement, perjury, and the illegal transfer of funds abroad, Samsung faces a period of uncertainty at a critical time for South Korea’s leading chaebol. Last year, Samsung had begun to turn around declining trends in earnings and seemed to turn a corner…

By William Brown Chinese Customs reported yesterday that imports of North Korean anthracite surged in December, despite late November UN Security Council sanctions that are supposed to curtail North Korea’s coal sales, its biggest foreign exchange earner. The new data shows North Korea exported to China 22.5 million tons of anthracite worth $1.2 billion in…

By Junil Kim The official establishment of South Korea’s newest political party, the Bareun (Righteous) Party, brings the number of official negotiation parties in the National Assembly to four. The party, comprised of former Saenuri legislators, broke away from the ruling party in light of the political fallout from President Park Geun-hye’s recent scandal and…

By Rose Kwak In 2005, the U.S Senate and House of Representatives passed a historic resolution to acknowledge and to honor Korean-American contributions to the United States, officially setting the date to January 13th for the day of commemoration. Since the first wave of Korean immigrants in the early 20th century, Korean-Americans have not only…

Please join KEI for a conversation with Markus Garlauskas and Axel Catellier on the factors driving South Korea’s recent military force development.