Asia

This paper assesses the potential for South Korea to be a regional leader in advancing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, and supporting sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region. Many…

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s New Southern Policy (NSP)—the most recent effort by Seoul to boost relations with Southeast Asian countries and India and diversify its relationships beyond four major…

This paper addresses the U.S.-South Korea alliance in the context of Asia’s evolving security architecture. At the crux of the issue is the Biden administration’s desire to uphold the rules-based…

This paper examines South Korea’s foreign policy towards China before, during, and after the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense dispute to investigate the limits of South Korea’s…

Hello again after the holiday break! Just before the holidays I spoke with Hawon Lee, who was just wrapping up his nearly four years as Washington D.C. Bureau Chief of…

In this episode we speak with Mr. Ken E. Gause, currently a senior research analyst with the International Affairs Group and Iranian Studies Program at CNA Strategic Studies in Alexandria,…

In this episode, we are joined by Balbina Hwang, currently a visiting professor at Georgetown University and the National Defense University here in D.C. Ms. Hwang is here to speak…

This episode takes us directly into the office of Ambassador Han Duk-Soo, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States, who shares his thoughts on the much-anticipated G-20…

South Korea’s trade relations have undergone changes since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, South Korea surpassed Japan and became China’s second-largest trading partner. However, its exports to China saw a decline of 20 percent in 2023, plummeting to $124.8 billion from $155.7 billion in 2022. Consequently, South Korea ran a trade deficit of $18 billion…

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…

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…

A year has passed since Korea published its “Strategy for a Free, Peaceful, and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region” in December 2022. Since then, Korea has strived to bolster its image as a “global pivotal state” in both mending and fortifying relations with like-minded nations including the United States, Japan, the European Union, Australia, ASEAN, and others.…