Asia

The Fall 2024 issue of Korea Policy, Broadening the Alliance: New Frontiers in US-South Korea Cooperation, is a special issue focused on the US-ROK alliance. The issue is motivated by…

The Joe Biden and Yoon Suk-yeol administrations have embraced the expansion of economic cooperation within the US-ROK alliance, leading to the emergence of South Korea as a valued technology partner…

The security alliance between the United States and South Korea, once focused primarily on military defense, is evolving to include economic security and technological cooperation. The evolving partnership between the…

This paper elucidates how Washington and Seoul cooperate on AI and quantum technologies, both recognized as critical emerging technologies essential to their national interests. Technology cooperation is denoted as government-to-government…

Korean Kontext recently spoke to Gordon Flake of the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation for a conversation about Korea’s rising prominence as a “middle power”.  Focussing on South Korea’s rapidly…

62 years ago on this day of June 25, hostilities broke out on the Korean peninsula. It was a conflict that ended only due to what everybody thought would be…

Korean Kontext caught up with Man Asian literary prize winner Shin Kyung-sook for a chat about her latest novel, “Please Look After Mom”.  Shin became the first woman and South…

In this special episode, Korean Kontext had the opportunity to speak to South Korean Minister for Trade, Bark Taeho, during his latest visit to Washington DC. KEI’s Vice President, Dr.…

By Phil Eskeland Recently, there has been some discussion among certain opinion makers in the United States claiming that the U.S. bears all the burden in defending allies against potential North Korean aggression.  Currently, the U.S. has approximately 28,500 troops stationed on the Korean peninsula.  Many other U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region participate in…

With the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II over the weekend, KEI takes a look back at what has changed on the Korean Peninsula from the 1945 to today. The three boxes compare a unified peninsula before the Korean War to North and South Korea in the 2010s. By looking at GDP,…

By Troy Stangarone In the pantheon of executions, one would not expect to see a niche devoted to disagreements over forestry policy, which makes the news that Vice Premier Choe Yong-gon was executed by Kim Jong-un for a disagreement over reforesting North Korea and poor job performance such a perplexing development. Executions of high level…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz When it’s a hot summer day in July, one often has to make the strategic calculation of what particular circumstances would require one to leave the friendly confines of a place with working air conditioning. Similarly, it seemed the two Koreas were only going to deal with each other during July under…