2004 Posts located
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…
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…
By Joy Kim South Korea is currently the world’s 15th largest economy. This fact strikes many as amazing given that Korea’s Gross National Product (GNP) per capita increased by more than 243 times over the span of 50 years, from $82 in 1961 to $20,000 in 2006. The baby boom generation who were born in…
By Nicholas Hamisevicz The surprise news to start the week is that Vice Marshall Ri Yong Ho, chief of the general staff of North Korea’s army as well as a member of the Political Bureau and the Central Military Commission, was relieved of all his positions due to “illness.” During the last year of Kim…
By Chad 0'Carroll Chosun Ilbo columnist Kim Dae-joong wrote yesterday that because South Korea is surrounded by three nuclear weapons countries (DPRK, China and Russia), it should consider acquiring nuclear weapons. He argued that new laws passed in Japan meant that Tokyo “wants to develop nuclear weapons”, leaving the ROK as the only country in…
By Elizabeth Hervey Stephen In a recent piece in the Asia Sentinel, which was re-posted in The Irrawaddy, Philip Bowring correctly noted that South Korea is facing a population crisis with sustained low fertility in the range of 1.2 children per woman. As one solution to the birth dearth, he proposes looking toward reunification with North…