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…

By Jenna Gibson Last month, the Korean Ministry of Education announced major changes to the way South Korean students will learn English. Some of them are positive, and can potentially help ease the overwhelming classroom workload for Korean students. But these new policies may also have some unintended side effects. Schools will be cutting the…

By Phil Eskeland Yesterday, for just the fifth time in his tenure, President Barack Obama took the highly unusual step of vetoing a bill that passed the normally grid-locked Congress.  This time, he vetoed the annual defense authorization bill, one of the bills that must pass Congress each year in order to give defense policy…

By Jenna Gibson Earlier this month, three U.S. senators took on North Korea (DPRK) by introducing a broad sanctions bill aimed at addressing concerns about cyberwarfare and the North’s continued nuclear ambitions. Known as the North Korean Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act (S. 2144), this bill would codify the sanctions put in place by presidential…

By Kyle Ferrier In a 2014 speech in Dresden attempting to apply lessons from German unification to the Korean Peninsula South Korean President Park Geun Hye introduced the possibility for a Northeast Asian Development Bank. Still in the nascent stage of planning, it would serve as a multilateral development bank (MDB) to attract investment in…

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.