Asia

This PDF is the full publication and contains all of the following sections: KEI Board of Directors KEI Advisory Council Preface Bilateral Competition and Cooperation Under New Leadership Introduction by…

In the first months of 2013 the leadership transitions in Northeast Asia were completed. After a year in office Kim Jong-un was consolidating his grip on power and clarifying, through…

The countries bordering China are in the forefront in facing the challenge of a widening divide between China and the United States. Others, including those in Parts I and III,…

After more than a decade of energetic pursuit of FTAs, a moment of decision has arrived in 2013. Three far-reaching, multilateral initiatives are simultaneously under negotiation: TPP, Regional Comprehensive Economic…

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…

There is ample public opinion data suggesting a link between U.S. attitudes on trade and trade partners. Recent poll results show that Americans favor trade with countries like China less than with allies like South Korea and Japan. One consideration appears to be how Americans think about trade within the broader context of national security.…

The United States and South Korea scored nearly identical GDP results in the first quarter of 2025 according to newly updated but still preliminary data. Both showed slightly negative change from the fourth quarter of 2024; the United States declining at a negative 0.2 percent rate and South Korea at a negative 0.8 percent rate,…

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…