Asia

After the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) is approved by the legislatures of Korea and the United States, it will likely provide a turning point for the countries’ bilateral…

The denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues to be a source of considerable international concern. Yet, no coherent international framework has emerged to deal with this…

Korea is arguably the premier development success story of the last half century. Despite this success, there has been a nagging sense among many observers that the development of Korea’s…

The unique restriction of a one-time, five-year presidential term in the Republic of Korea (ROK) has often resulted in short-lived changes to the way the nation’s chief executive has staffed…

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…

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…

Yoon Suk Yeol was inaugurated on May 9th as Korea’s twentieth president. He takes office at a difficult with the global economy disrupted by the war in Ukraine and an increasingly threatening North Korea, which has launched 16 missile tests thus far this year. Meanwhile, inflation has accelerated to 4.8% (year-on-year), its fastest pace since…

Korea-Russia economic relations are redolent of Ricardo’s classic observations about trade between Britain and Portugal in the mid-19th century, which generated the very concept of comparative advantage. Korea is an advanced industrial state with a deep manufacturing base and far-flung global production networks. Russia relies heavily on the export of raw materials, and by no…