Asia

On the night of December 16, 2012, a confident Abe Shinzo met with the Japanese press shortly after a convincing general election victory for his Liberal Democratic Party that would…

This paper reviews China’s technological rise and assesses whether it poses a threat to the South Korean economy. In terms of comparative advantage between the two countries, many experts have…

The rise of China generally presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in economic terms. In the past several years, new kinds of challenges have been emerging and are looming larger…

Russia is widely accused of employing a range of instruments—both overt and covert—to undermine Western unity. However, to what extent is Russia engaged in comparable activities to weaken the South…

Growing up in Tennessee and Alabama, Dr. David Oh never imagined he would one day be leading a mission to explore a metallic asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. But…

In 2017, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) will complete the move of nearly all troops and support staff from Yongsan Garrison in Seoul to Camp Humphreys, 50 miles south of the…

For the first Korean Kontext podcast of 2017, five members of the KEI staff sat down with host Jenna Gibson for a chat about the volitility of 2016 and what…

The last several rounds of UN sanctions against the DPRK have been called the "strongest ever," and the new sanctions passed on November 30 are no different. There are some…

South Korea’s trade relations have undergone changes since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, South Korea surpassed Japan and became China’s second-largest trading partner. However, its exports to China saw a decline of 20 percent in 2023, plummeting to $124.8 billion from $155.7 billion in 2022. Consequently, South Korea ran a trade deficit of $18 billion…

In a historic break with a policy of most of the past eight decades, North Korea disbanded all of its government organizations which are focused on reunification with South Korea or which reflect a special relationship between the two Koreas. In a lengthy speech on January 15 to the Supreme People’s Assembly (the North Korean…

North Korea was the first country to severely restrict travel and trade across its borders when the pandemic began in 2020. While the rest of the world has since largely returned to normal, many of North Korea’s COVID restrictions remained in place at the beginning of 2023. However, Pyongyang began to ease these constraints in…

A year has passed since Korea published its “Strategy for a Free, Peaceful, and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region” in December 2022. Since then, Korea has strived to bolster its image as a “global pivotal state” in both mending and fortifying relations with like-minded nations including the United States, Japan, the European Union, Australia, ASEAN, and others.…