Asia

After the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) is approved by the legislatures of Korea and the United States, it will likely provide a turning point for the countries’ bilateral…

The denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues to be a source of considerable international concern. Yet, no coherent international framework has emerged to deal with this…

Korea is arguably the premier development success story of the last half century. Despite this success, there has been a nagging sense among many observers that the development of Korea’s…

The unique restriction of a one-time, five-year presidential term in the Republic of Korea (ROK) has often resulted in short-lived changes to the way the nation’s chief executive has staffed…

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 Troy Stangarone Full first quarter data on trade between North Korea and China is not yet available, but data released by China’s General Administration of Customs raises interesting questions in regards to ongoing trade between China and North Korea. According to reports, total trade with North Korea grew 37.4 percent in the first quarter…

By Juni Kim The fallout from President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment has dramatically altered the state of conservative politics in South Korea. Despite two successive conservative presidencies and holding majority control of the South Korean National Assembly over most of the past decade, conservative politicians are now dealing with two fractured parties and no clear presidential…

By Jennifer Cho Ever since the decision last summer to install the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system on the Korean peninsula, China has strongly opposed the system for security and political reasons. But instead of keeping the dispute in the political sphere, China has started to show its ire by imposing…

By Rose Kwak It is hard to picture what North Koreans do for fun in a country notoriously known for human rights violations against its people, where seventy percent of the population is food insecure and its people are constantly indoctrinated by the state.  However, despite many bleak and dark images surrounding North Korea, many…