1935 Posts located
In recent years, North Korea has faced economic shocks from UN sanctions and the pandemic. As Dr. Jongkyu Lee (Senior Fellow at the Korea Development Institute) writes in his new…
Following a record number of North Korean missile launches, as well as tests by South Korea, assertions have been widely and uncritically made that Seoul is participating in an inter-Korean…
Although the Korean Peninsula has been divided for over 70 years, North and South have not been able to make lasting progress in terms of reconciliation. While there are multiple…
Why is South Korea pilot-testing its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), and what made it shift from non-issuance to consideration? This paper investigates the Bank of Korea (BOK)’s CBDC-related developments…
When you hear about trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan in the news, people are usually talking about how these three countries can work together to…
In this episode, Korean Kontext speaks with Ms. Jie-ae Sohn, President of Arirang TV & Radio, Korea's first English language international broadcast system. Ms. Sohn worked as the former CNN…
Last week, the news of a high-level defection by a North Korean diplomat stationed in London captivated North Korea watchers. For the next few says, analysts and the media speculated…
Ghosts and goblins are everywhere in Korean folktales, causing havoc for people through their antics. Equally common are the shamans who act as intermediaries, helping offer solutions to life's supernatural…
By Jaeho Jeon The South Korean economy is drifting like a ship which has lost its captain while the ‘Choi Soon-sil Scandal,’ a civilian who has no official title, has shaken South Korea for over a month. President Park Geun-hye's approval rating has fell to 4 percent, an all-time low for elected Presidents in South…
By Troy Stangarone The United Nations (UN) sanctions on North Korea’s fourth nuclear test were flawed. The March sanctions were intended to limit North Korea’s ability to export coal, the most significant licit source of the hard currency that the regime has to fund its nuclear weapons and missile programs, while also not precipitating a…
By William Brown Kim Jong-un has been unusually silent about the election of Donald Trump. Does this represent fear of how a tough new U.S. administration might react to his usual posturing or indecision as to how to proceed with his dual nuclear weapons and economic development programs? Perhaps Kim feels his plans are progressing…
By Sungeun (Grace) Chung Maintaining peaceful and cooperative international relations has become exceptionally important in a global society. There are two means that a nation can use to influence the preferences of international audiences: hard power and soft power. While exercising hard power is associated with the use of military and economic compulsion, soft power…