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…

Observing the recent success of the TV show Squid Game on Netflix, many commenters suggest that the entry of multinational streaming platforms has been a net positive for Korea’s creative industry. The streaming platform has invested over USD 700 million into projects such as Kingdom and Sweet Home. For smaller Korean content creators, Netflix offers…

Korea’s real GDP increased 1.2% (saar) in 2021Q3, a significant slowdown from the first two quarters of the year, reflecting a decline in private consumption (table below). A tightening of social distancing measures since July, aimed at slowing a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, reduced spending on “consumer-facing services”. For example, demand in the food…

What Happened One of South Korea’s major telecommunications providers KT suffered a nationwide outage on October 25, causing widespread disruptions to daily tasks that require internet connectivity such as virtual classes, food delivery orders, and stock trading. A National Assembly hearing five days before the incident questioned telecommunications providers about the quality of the network services. The government still intends to…

What Happened South Korea will ease entry restrictions for migrant workers as long as they have been vaccinated and have negative COVID test results. Small and medium-sized businesses in rural Korea have complained about labor shortages due to the sharp drop in the number of migrant workers during the pandemic. In 2020, the death of a Cambodian migrant worker on a…