Asia

China-North Korea trade accounts for the majority of North Korea’s international trade and is considered significant for the economic development and social stability of North Korea. Due to the fourth…

Much is made in Western circles of North Korea’s economic dependence on China amid questions of whether and how much leverage this gives Beijing. In an end game, however, Pyongyang…

Russia shares a border with the Korean Peninsula, and its declared interest is to maintain peace and stability in the region. During Soviet times, its Korean policy was based on…

On February 10, 2016, the South Korean government announced the closure of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, a symbol of its engagement policy and inter-Korean rapprochement. The move was part of…

Now that Trump has met Kim, and with the Singapore Summit laying out the beginning of a path to denuclearization, analysts are still trying to figure out if Kim Jong…

South Korea's government has increased its focus on different forms of diplomacy in recent years, from the more traditional government-to-government outreach of the Moon Administration's North Korea policy to a…

With the world's attention on Singapore on June 12, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un walked across a stage flanked by American and North Korean…

With U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un headed to Singapore next week for the first ever U.S.-DPRK summit, people around the world are watching to…

After months of political uncertainty, South Korea has a new president. Lee Jae-myung, the former mayor of a wealthy Seoul satellite city who leveraged that experience into a governorship of the country’s most populous province and chairmanship of the Democratic Party (DP), won a decisive 49.4-percent victory over the ruling party’s leading candidate. Lee’s victory…

South Korea’s political vacuum has been filled by a politician with a mandate to lead but who faces innumerable simultaneous and overlapping domestic and international challenges. Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung won South Korea’s snap election on June 3, 2025, in a race that was never seriously in doubt. Buoyed by a sizable majority in…

On May 20, 2025, the UN General Assembly held its first-ever “high-level session” devoted to the human rights abuses of North Korea. This latest action ups the ante in calling for reform of North Korea’s abysmal human rights record. Every year since 2004, the General Assembly has adopted resolutions criticizing North Korea and calling for…

South Korea’s Nextrade exchange—the country’s first alternative trading system to the long-dominant Korea Exchange (KRX)—debuted in March 2025. Nextrade extends trading hours, introduces lower transaction fees and increases product variation within capital markets. The persistent undervaluation of South Korean stocks compared to their Asia-Pacific counterparts is a phenomenon known as the ‘Korea discount’. By increasing…