Korea, South

Seoul has gradually adopted a more outspoken position regarding the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and framed it in increasingly expansive terms—as a regional and global…

From K-pop to K-drama and food, Korean culture has taken the globe by storm. Korean artists are topping the Billboard charts, Korean films are winning Oscars, and Korean kimbap at…

Countries with advanced semiconductor industries are caught in the middle of growing U.S.-China competition in technology focused on advanced computing. While some countries with key technology companies in the toolmaking…

The United States and the Republic of Korea have been celebrating the 70th anniversary of the alliance and the 120th anniversary of Korean immigration to the United States throughout 2023.…

The public sector financed 76 percent of healthcare in OECD countries in 2021 using compulsory health insurance and government programs (Figure 1, Panel A). Korea is an outlier in this regard, as only 62.3 percent of its health expenditures were covered through mandatory financing schemes. The low share of mandatory financing in Korea was offset…

The overwhelming majority of refugees who flee North Korea are generally those who live in border areas adjacent to China and do not have prominent government or economic positions. Few are from Pyongyang because it is very difficult for citizens to travel within the country unless police and internal security officials approve the travel. Meanwhile,…

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s speech on the commemoration of Liberation Day outlined a revised unification vision based on the values of freedom and democracy. To this end, President Yoon committed to enhancing unification education for South Korean youths, raising North Koreans’ awareness of freedom, continuing humanitarian aid to North Korea, and establishing an inter-Korean working group.…

New economic analysis by Michael Clemens at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) challenges the prevailing narrative around South Korea’s demographic challenges. Once the fodder of wonky demographers and social scientists, South Korea’s population is now world-renowned for its extreme drop in birthrates and aging society, a topic I covered last year for KEI.…

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.