Asia

Abe Shinzo is the longest-serving prime minister in post-World War II Japan. Having occupied the office since December 2012, Abe has attempted to leverage his stable tenure to increase Japan’s…

While President Moon Jae-in has a calmer demeanor than his mentor and friend, former President Roh Moo-hyun, there can be no doubt that his vision for transforming Northeast Asia is…

“Hindu nationalism risks pushing India into war with China,” blared the headline from China’s nationalist tabloid, Global Times. Meanwhile, in Washington, a wide-ranging network of analysts optimistic on U.S.-India ties…

U.S. views of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been hardening for at least two decades, from George W. Bush characterizing China in the 2000 presidential campaign and the…

Spanning nearly a century and multiple generations, Min Jin Lee's 2017 novel Pachinko tells the story of a Korean family struggling to find their place in Japan before, during, and after…

A woman in hanbok joyfully rises above Mt. Baekdu, arms raised, in a art piece entitled Umma Rises: Towards Global Peace. This is just one of many recent art pieces…

A group of women gossiping about the new neighbor. A feisty middle schooler using a homemade drone to prank his classmates. A young military officer seeking information from his past.…

With President Donald Trump finishing up his first official trip to Asia, including a stop in South Korea last week, this week's episode of Korean Kontext asks: what do South…

By Mark Tokola Since the United Nations’ “Situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (usually shorthanded to “COI” for commission of inquiry report) came out in September 2015, commentators have sometimes hypothesized that one of its positive effects could be that North Korean prison officials might moderate some of their brutality…

By Troy Stangarone With the global economy slowing and Korean merchandise exports and imports down in 2015 we recently looked at how U.S.-Korea trade compared to Korean trade in general and U.S. trade more broadly. However, Korea has one of the world’s most expansive network of free trade agreements. In this post we explore how…

By Kyle Ferrier North Korean provocations are generally accepted to have a minimal impact on South Korea’s economy, yet in early 2016 these geopolitical risks have corresponded with losses in Seoul. South Korea’s stock exchanges, tracked by the KOSPI Index, closed 0.26% lower on January 6, the day of the claimed hydrogen bomb test, but…

By Jenna Gibson Before getting into the list, please keep a few things in mind. First, the term “North Korean defectors” is a controversial one. In Korean, various terms have been used to refer to people who left North Korea, reflecting both politics and the shifting demographics of those fleeing. In 2005, South Korea’s Ministry…