Asia

Despite years of sanctions and isolation, foreign goods and modern consumer technologies continue to flow into North Korea providing elites with luxury goods and fueling the fragile economy. Countries such…

Winston Churchill coined the term “summit” in the early 1950s to define meetings between leaders of great powers in the Cold War. While summits have allowed needed personal contacts for…

While the initial focus may be on the humanitarian and safety needs of Japan after the Fukushima nuclear accident, South Korea has a major stake in the future of nuclear…

For much of the past month, the world has sat transfixed as the Arab World has begun to transform before our eyes. Having started in Tunisia, the call for political…

June 25, 2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. The conflict on the Korean Peninsula has been going on for so long that we sometimes…

2020 is starting off dramatically with the escalation of tensions in the Middle East – The world held its breath while the United States and Iran exchanged both blows and…

While it is frustrating to see North Korean projectiles flying out to sea and Pyongyang’s erratic, unpredictable reactions in negotiations, we cannot forget where things stood in 2017 – the…

30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people’s aspiration to establish a pluralistic liberal democracy appears to be under scrutiny around the world – anti-immigration policies dominate political…

South Korea has faced political paralysis since President Yoon Suk Yeol’s December 3, 2024, declaration of martial law, the rapid reversal of that decision by the National Assembly, and the ensuing crisis. The Constitutional Court will decide on April 4, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. KST whether to uphold the Assembly’s decision to impeach President Yoon.…

The digital trade landscape in South Korea offers significant opportunities for U.S. companies, but it also presents a range of challenges. As one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, South Korea is a lucrative market for digital trade. However, U.S. companies eager to tap into this potential face various challenges, including regulatory…

For decades, U.S. foreign assistance has played a pivotal role in advancing U.S. interests, strengthening alliances, and promoting stability in key regions of the world. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Asia, where U.S. development cooperation with South Korea—itself a model for the benefits of U.S. foreign assistance—has been a vital tool for…

South Korea’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement sets a target of reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 percent by 2030 (relative to their peak in 2018). Korea also aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 (Figure 1, Panel A). The targets are ambitious, as Korea was the world’s thirteenth-largest GHG…