Korea, North

With Washington DC stuck in a snowstorm, please enjoy this episode of Korean Kontext originally published in 2012.   B.R. Myers is the author of “The Cleanest Race” and regular…

Every January, KEI publishes its predictions for the 10 issues to watch for on the Korean Peninsula in the coming year. Then, in December, we revisit our predictions to see…

North Korea watchers have been trying for years to understand the inner workings of the reclusive regime. With the country launching its 4th nuclear test this week, recognizing the structure and…

Since the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994 there have been numerous predictions that the collapse of the North Korean political system would be imminent, yet the Kim dynasty continues…

For North Korea to return to some semblance of its pre-COVID existence it will need to vaccinate its population, but acquiring the necessary vaccines will not be the only challenge North Korea faces. Once North Korea has acquired a vaccine to begin dosing its population, it will still need to have a proper cold chain…

A three-hour military parade and a fireworks display in Pyongyang on January 14 punctuated the end of the 8th Congress of the Workers Party of Korea.  The 8th Congress, which lasted eight days, was the first such high party gathering since 2016 and only the second since the 6th Congress was held in 1980.  Such…

Joseph Biden will be inaugurated on Wednesday, 20 January, bringing the Trump era to an end. Under the 45th president, American alliances faced significant stress from his skepticism of multilateralism and preference for transactional agreements. The U.S.-ROK alliance was no different, with friction arising between Seoul and Washington from time to time. As the Biden…

On January 11, the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) published a report on the future of the U.S.-Korea relationship with recommendations from leading American scholars and policy practitioners. The report comes from six "Vision Group" roundtable conversations that KEI hosted between December 2019 and November 2020 with the support of the Korea Foundation. During these meetings,…

Please join KEI for a discussion on North Korea’s potential incorporation of AI into its cyber arsenal.