Korea, South

Public opinion can help to both shape and inform public policy. A president with strong approval numbers across ideological divides has significant scope to make policy decisions. While a national…

      Over the last decade, China has become an increasingly important country for South Korea has it has emerged as Seoul’s largest trading partner and a leading player…

    On April 8, North Korea withdrew all of its workers from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, temporarily placing on hold the last form of cooperation between North and South…

South Korea’s nuclear energy industry has for decades been facilitated through close cooperation with counterparts in the United States under what is known as a “123 Agreement”.  Today South Korea’s…

Investment Announcements July 24, 2023: Samsung SDI announced plans to establish a second EV battery manufacturing “Gigafactory” facility as part of their StarPlus Energy joint venture with Stellantis. September 27, 2023: Samsung SDI announced it will inject $1.98 billion as part of its investment into a battery factory, reportedly near Kokomo, IN where its gigafactory…

Two decades ago, South Korea was rarely called a middle power. Today, it invites ridicule to suggest South Korea is anything but a middle power. Given the concept’s ambiguity and lackluster academic credentials, why did the definition become so widely applied? The immediate answer is obvious. South Korea started to be labeled a middle power…

In celebrating seventy years of their security alliance, the United States and Korea exemplify the very best of what a robust economic partnership looks like. With terms like “friend-shoring” and “economic allies” increasingly making their way into beltway policy language, no reflection of the past seventy years of the U.S.-Korea alliance would be complete without…

There are a plethora of studies on South Korea as a middle power. Some argue Korea needs to change to fit the term, some reinvent the term to fit Korea, and still others just use the term without questioning. Very few ask why we bother at all. The modern term “middle power” is an historically…

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.