2004 Posts located
Korea is on the front line between two contrasting proposals for regionalism based on economic integration. On the one side is the Chinese effort to establish an exclusive economic bloc…
Changes in political leadership are often associated with readjustments or reversals of policy, the impact of which can be both wide-ranging in scope and long-lasting in duration. Foreign policy, which…
The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on December 17, 2011 has prematurely set in motion the leadership changes that were anticipated in 2012. To be sure, a leadership…
The year 2011 closed with several symbolic events in predicting Japan’s relations with the Korean peninsula. When President Lee Myung-bak held summit talks with Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko on December…
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 Luke Herman North Korea recently held a series of meetings to formalize leadership positions in the new regime. Kim Jong-il was named the Eternal Secretary General, while Kim Jong-un became the party’s First Secretary. Here is an updated Workers Party of Korea leadership chart.
By Jack Pritchard There was a plausible scenario ready to work itself out with a successful launch of a missile by North Korea. The Security Council would meet and issue a stern presidential statement condemning Pyongyang. North Korea would push back rhetorically, claiming its sovereign right to space exploration while Beijing would send a high…
By Troy Stangarone Voting in the shadow of North Korea’s missile launch and a prospective third nuclear test, South Korean voters went to the polls on April 11 in an election that some 60 percent described as a referendum on the administration of President Lee Myung-bak. Despite perceptions that there was widespread dissatisfaction in South…
By Nicholas Hamisevicz After holding its Fourth Conference of the Workers’ Party of Korea, North Korea now has an eternal president and an eternal general secretary. Kim Jong-il was named Eternal General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), and Kim Jong-un was given the title of First Secretary of the WPK. These initial…