Asia

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (henceforth North Korea) certainly seems to like being different from other countries. Whereas governments of virtually all the world’s countries regularly publish data on…

Recent developments on the Korean peninsula are raising expectations that the DPRK may finally be ready for a new era of political rapprochement and economic opening. This possibility is reflected…

The United States and Korea finished the eighth round of negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in mid-March 2007, and the agreement is likely to be concluded eventually.1…

The U.S.-ROK bilateral economic relationship entered a new era 1 April 2007 when President George W. Bush notified the U.S. Congress of his intent to enter into a free trade…

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 After more than a year of heightened tensions over the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island a proposed gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea through North Korea is potentially changing the factors on the ground.  Ever since Kim Jong-Il and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed in principal…

By Sarah K. Yun On Tuesday, September 20, KEI hosted a discussion on China’s changing relations with the two Koreas as part of a book launch for the 2011 edition of Korea’s Economy.  The event featured two of the book’s authors, Forbes.com columnist Gordon Chang and Senior Congressional Research Service Analyst Dick Nanto. While both authors discussed…

The September 15 KEI-Woodrow Wilson Center program on my trip to North Korea with Charles Armstrong (Columbia University) and James Person (Wilson Center) received much Korean media attention.  The program showed over a hundred photos from the group's 4000-5000 pictures taken of daily life in Pyongyang and other citiesin North Korea. Below are links to…

On June 8 - 18, KEI Vice President, Abraham Kim, visited North Korea with a group of American Asia experts.  The purpose of the trip was to analyze the efficacy of sanctions, conditions in the cities/countryside, the integration of technology, the prevalance of cell phones and political conditions.  The slide presentation were shown at the GRS Annual Conference in…