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…

Spring recently became the season of presidential elections in South Korea after Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in 2017 forced elections to be moved up from December. But throughout the country’s twentieth-century political history, spring was a time for another political ritual: democracy protests. In particular, two dates stand above the rest in significance: April 19 and…

Yoon Suk-yeol emerged victorious in the Korean presidential elections held in March. Among his campaign promises was to fix bilateral relations with Japan. Tokyo seems to be interested in the same, with government officials warmly welcoming a visiting delegation sent by the recently elected president. "We have no time to spare in improving Japan-South Korea…

Korean firms dominate 30% of the global electric vehicle battery market. But with the procurement of key raw material inputs for these batteries threatened by geo-strategic rivalries, the government and manufacturers are pushing to diversify both sourcing and processing of minerals like cobalt, nickel, and lithium. In February, the Australian government signed a “Memorandum of…

Incoming President Yoon Suk-yeol's delegation arrived in Tokyo on April 24 for meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other top officials. Building on Yoon's message of engaging in a "future-oriented" partnership with Washington and Tokyo beyond the Korean Peninsula, the engagement suggested a subtle but important shift in the focus of the trilateral…

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.