Asia

South Korean–Middle Eastern relations have been neglected in the literature throughout the years, mainly owing to the focus on Korea’s relations with the United States and Asian states and the…

An old Korean proverb says that when two whales fight it is the shrimps whose backs are crushed. Maybe that proverb best describes Korea’s situation on the trade front these…

The Domestic and International Politics of Spent Nuclear Fuel in South Korea: Are We Approaching Meltdown?

Geography alone would give Russia a prominent role in the Korean peninsula. The Russian Federation currently shares a recently demarcated 17-kilometer common border along the Tumen River with the Democratic…

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 Nicholas Hamisevicz When it’s a hot summer day in July, one often has to make the strategic calculation of what particular circumstances would require one to leave the friendly confines of a place with working air conditioning. Similarly, it seemed the two Koreas were only going to deal with each other during July under…

By Jenna Gibson For South Korean children, studying abroad and mastering English used to be the key to success, prompting waves of students to head overseas for their diplomas. Now, South Korea is the third largest source of international students studying in the United States, behind only China and India. But this trend may be…

By Phil Eskeland Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum have used North Korea and Iran interchangeably to buttress their position on the negotiations to corral Iran’s nuclear weapons ambition.  Some argue that the Iran deal will not work just like the 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea.  Others argue that the Iranian deal…

By Mark Tokola Short conversations about North Korea generally end with similar conclusions: it is too soon to tell whether Kim Jong-un has successfully entrenched himself; the North Korean economy whether by design or necessity has introduced some market elements; China is growing impatient with North Korea’s unpredictability and belligerency; and Kim Jung-un’s regime is…