2004 Posts located
Tensions between South Korea and Japan are frustratingly persistent. Despite the shared interests of both countries, such as economic development in Southeast Asia, and keeping a robust alliance with the…
While North Korea has developed Special Economic Zones for several decades now, these zones have attracted little attention from foreign investors, due to a mix of lack of economic reforms…
A coherent North Korea strategy must proceed from a theory of North Korean politics, strategy, and decision-making. Structured analytic techniques, particularly the analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH), are instrumental in…
During 2017-18, international attention turned to the Korean Peninsula as the threat of conflict reached new heights. This led to an explosion in the growth of “North Korea watchers”— the…
From nuclear power in the United Arab Emirates to new free trade agreement negotiations opening with Israel, to South Korean President Park Geun Hye's visit to Iran, 2016 seems to be…
With no shortage of North Korean news in 2016, we look back at one of our interviews with Ambassador John Everard of the UK. He provides an inside perspective of…
After North Korea launched its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, an outraged international community once again cracked down, passing tough sanctions both at the UN and domestic levels. While…
In May 2016, Park Geun Hye became the first South Korean president to visit the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia. This trip, which also included stops in Uganda and Kenya,…
By Luke Herman As the Kim Jong Un regime completes its eighth month in power following Kim Jong Il’s death in December 2011, there seem to be a number of differences between how this succession is being carried out with how it was carried out in 1994. For one thing, it has proceeded at a…
By Clare Hubbard The 2012 Heritage Foundation/ Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom ranks North Korea last, after Cuba and Zimbabwe, with an economic freedom score of 1. However, in the mid-1990s famine when women and men had to focus on securing food by generating income and bartering for staples and foodstuffs, small-scale markets…
In the latest public opinion poll from the Asan Institute for Policy Studies Park Geun-hye and Ahn Cheul-soo remain in a neck and neck race. While in a two way race between Park and Moon Jae-in, Park has opened up a 5 point lead. In the race to determine who will represent the progressive side,…
By Nick Miller Main Actors within North Korea Decision Making North Korea’s political structure is a set of institutions built to sustain the Kim family. The Korean Worker’s Party (WKP) and other state agencies were designed by Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to be used to play rivals off one another and assist him in…