Korea, South

For the first Korean Kontext podcast of 2017, five members of the KEI staff sat down with host Jenna Gibson for a chat about the volitility of 2016 and what…

For many people who visit Korea for the first time, one of the things that stands out the most is the country's clean, reliable, and efficient public transportation. This was…

More than 100 million Americans cast their ballots on November 8, and we have a new president-elect. The Trump victory came as a surprise to most, with polls and pundits…

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 woes have hit a crescendo in recent weeks, with the company officially halting production and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officially banning the devices from all…

By Joyce YunSun Kang With “Gangnam style” now attracting over 650 million views, Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) has done what no other South Korean singer has been able to do: successfully break into the mainstream U.S. market. But was this simply a YouTube video gone viral, or something else? Social media played a large…

In this week's Asan Institute for Policy Studies public opinion poll Ahn Cheol-soo and Moon Jae-in remain deadlocked in the race for the race to be the progressive standard bearer in the December presidential election. Ahn and Park Geun-hye also remain neck and neck in a hypothetical two way race, with Park leading a three…

By Luke Herman As the Kim Jong Un regime completes its eighth month in power following Kim Jong Il’s death in December 2011, there seem to be a number of differences between how this succession is being carried out with how it was carried out in 1994. For one thing, it has proceeded at a…

By Clare Hubbard The 2012 Heritage Foundation/ Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom ranks North Korea last, after Cuba and Zimbabwe, with an economic freedom score of 1.  However, in the mid-1990s famine when women and men had to focus on securing food by generating income and bartering for staples and foodstuffs, small-scale markets…

Please join KEI and KIEP for a discussion about the first 10 years of KORUS and the future of the U.S.-Korea economic relationship.