Asia

This paper provides an analytical assessment of the implications for North and South Korea of recent changes in the Chinese-Russian and U.S.-Japanese security relationships.The evolution of these two security relationships…

During the past few years, the United States has begun three important initiatives that alter its defense commitment to South Korea (Republic of Korea [ROK]). First, Washington started to decrease…

In October 2006, Kim Jong-il’s North Korea again seized international attention. With its claimed underground nuclear test, Pyongyang upped the ante in its confrontation with the United States and the…

2018 has been an incredibly eventful year for both the Koreas and the U.S.-Korea relationship: from North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics at the start of the year to…

Interest in the Korean peninsula is generally very narrow in the United States – it tends to be focused on North Korea and security issues, particularly the country's ballistic and…

Last Friday, on November 30, 2018, President George H.W. Bush passed away. In the days that followed, there were many discussions in the foreign policy community about the late president's…

What does a unified Korea look like? Beyond the question of whether the government of this new country will be a unitary or federal one, how will the people –…

By Juni Kim South Korean President Moon Jae-in garnered attention last week with the announcement of the newest presidential resident, a rescue dog named Tory. President Moon adopted the four year old dog from the group Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), an activist organization which campaigns against the consumption of dog meat in…

By Jenna Gibson As several KEI analyses have shown, South Korea’s tourism industry  has been one of the main casualties of China’s economic retaliation over deployment of the THAAD missile defense system. New estimates from the Korea Tourism Organization show that China’s retaliation could cost Korea up to 5 million tourists this year, five times as…

By William Brown ICBMs are not the only things soaring in North Korean skies.  Comprehensive second quarter data released by China Customs last week shows a huge jump in North Korea’s trade deficit with China—sharply falling North Korean exports and flat imports, a double bad combination.  And, potentially troubling to the Kim regime, the composition…

By Phil Eskeland (“That’s Where the Money Is.”[1]) Last week, the House of Representatives and the Senate overwhelming passed and sent to President Trump’s desk a new sanctions bill for his expected signature. The bill originally focused on Russia and Iran when it was first adopted by the Senate, but was expanded after bipartisan, bicameral…