Politics

Though previous Korean governments have taken steps to support Korea’s transition to an advanced innovation-driven economy, the Park administration has significantly heightened the level of priority of these efforts in…

Security and political issues over the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula remain as flashpoints in East Asia since WWII. The authors argue that economic interdependence, together with negotiations and…

Since the end of the Korean War, the United States has been the largest supplier of defense systems to the Republic of Korea (ROK). The imperative of maintaining military interoperability…

This PDF is the full publication and contains all of the following sections: KEI Board of Directors KEI Advisory Council Preface Bilateral Competition and Cooperation Under New Leadership Introduction by…

Despite their record of advancing the U.S.-Korea alliance, South Korea’s progressive foreign policy posture has sometimes been caricatured as “anti-American.” In conjunction with the discussion on February 23, 2022, S. Nathan Park examines why this sentiment is prevalent in Washington D.C. In part one, he discussed how the U.S. policy circle’s close relationship with Korea’s…

What Happened The main opposition party candidate Yoon Seok-yeol promised to investigate the incumbent Moon administration’s “deeply-rooted evil” if elected. While the ruling party candidate Lee Jae-myung criticized his opponent’s divisive pledge, news media focused on Lee’s support for the Moon administration’s investigations into previous governments. The opposition party long accused the Moon administration of…

This post was revised on August 21 , 2023 to reflect additional research by the authors. Additional analysis can be found in authors' article Political Polarization in Korea. Korea’s democracy is clearly a success story. Along with Taiwan, it is one of the few Asian countries that transitioned to democratic rule in the 1980s and…

As 2021 began, the world was still in the depths of the pandemic and vaccines to protect against COVID-19 were only beginning to become available to the public in a small number of countries. As 2022 begins, the pandemic continues to impact lives and economies around the world but there are signs of recovery. Among…