Asia

This past year—2007—was another solid one for Korea’s economy. Buoyed by continued strong exports and a pickup in domestic demand, real GDP is estimated to have grown by nearly 5…

The year 2007 demonstrated more clearly than ever that external economic engagement provides a chance to help convince North Korea to abandon isolation and take specific actions toward denuclearization that…

On 30 June 2007, United States Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab and Republic of Korea Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong signed the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), an encompassing…

As the first decade of the twenty-first century nears an end, distinct patterns are emerging in the global trading system. The Doha Development Round remains stalled and has begun to…

Since the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994 there have been numerous predictions that the collapse of the North Korean political system would be imminent, yet the Kim dynasty continues…

In February 2014, the United Nations' special Commission of Inquiry on on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched their report, laying out more than 400…

Starting from the period after the Korean War and continuing today, more than 100,000 Korean children were adopted around the world. As they get older, many of them decide to…

Much has been said about the power of outside information – news, weather, and even soap operas – to influence the North Korean public. But a new report takes a…

In the last two posts on Korea and the war in Ukraine, I showed that Moon administration moved relatively quickly to join the international sanctions regime and was rewarded by inclusion on Russia’s  "unfriendly nations" list. I also argued that the costs of standing on international legal principle were softened by the fact that the…

The OECD Economic Outlook, released on June 8th, projected that real GDP growth in OECD countries would drop by half from 5.5% in 2021 to 2.7% in 2022. The new projection is a sharp reduction from its December 2021 Outlook, which projected growth of 4.5% growth this year. With inflation expected to rise from 3.7%…

Over the last half decade, the Korean Peninsula has seen the prospect of war during Donald Trump’s period of “fire and fury,” but also a period of negotiations that resulted in a series of North-South and U.S.-North Korea summits. While war was avoided, those efforts at negotiation ultimately failed. The aftermath of those failed negotiations,…

After more than two years since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 has finally been detected in North Korea. Despite strict border controls limiting the movement of people and goods to prevent entry of the novel coronavirus, state media reported on 12 May that the Omicron BA.2 variant had been found in a sample taken…