Korea, North

In this special episode of Korean Kontext, KEI's Juni Kim sat down with three North Korean defectors who have settled in South Korea. Each of them has a different story…

The upcoming presidential election in Korea on May 9th will place many key issues under the microscope. One meriting serious consideration that has featured less prominently in the political discourse…

After the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex last year, economic ties between North and South Korea have all but ceased. And as sanctions measures continue to tighten, the international…

Ever since last summer, when South Korea and the United States announced they would be deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to the peninsula, China…

In a historic break with a policy of most of the past eight decades, North Korea disbanded all of its government organizations which are focused on reunification with South Korea or which reflect a special relationship between the two Koreas. In a lengthy speech on January 15 to the Supreme People’s Assembly (the North Korean…

The war in Ukraine directly and indirectly impacted policy and perceptions on and around the Korean Peninsula, starting with Russia’s invasion in early 2022 and continuing apace in 2023. In complex and interconnected ways, the war has affected both Koreas, but in the case of North Korea the trends are not promising. For its part,…

North Korea was the first country to severely restrict travel and trade across its borders when the pandemic began in 2020. While the rest of the world has since largely returned to normal, many of North Korea’s COVID restrictions remained in place at the beginning of 2023. However, Pyongyang began to ease these constraints in…

North Korea and Russia took another step in advancing their close relationship in November. Officials from both sides participated in a meeting of the Committee for Cooperation in Trade, Economy, Science and Technology, which last met four years ago in 2019. The bilateral meeting, first established in 1991, comes as Pyongyang and Moscow have reinvigorated…

Please join KEI for a discussion on North Korea’s potential incorporation of AI into its cyber arsenal.