Asia

During the past several decades numerous discussions about the problems of education in South Korea have been advanced by government officials, education experts, teachers, students, parents, as well as the…

The automobile industry is a dynamic and significant sec-tor in most of the major economies in the world. It is closely related to various other manufacturing sectors such as rubber,…

More than two decades ago, when the USSR still existed and the concept of the world socialist system presumed that all socialist countries were developing as one, I argued (still…

One cannot enter the same river twice. Every time one looks at North Korea, on the surface it appears boringly the same. Its life fl ows in the same predictable…

In 2010, a group of Asian countries made major strides toward economic integration with the launch of the Chang Mai Initiative Multilateralization. This currency swap arrangement has had a major…

With the recent season finale of The Walking Dead and the broadcast of his visit to South Korea with talk show host Conan O'Brien this past weekend, we look back at our…

This week our guest is noted scholar and North Korea watcher Dr. Stephan Haggard. Dr. Haggard is a Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies and director of the Korea-Pacific Program at the…

At KEI, we mainly focus on the relationship between the United States and South Korea, and their approaches toward North Korea. This week, we're taking a different look at the…

The United States and South Korea scored nearly identical GDP results in the first quarter of 2025 according to newly updated but still preliminary data. Both showed slightly negative change from the fourth quarter of 2024; the United States declining at a negative 0.2 percent rate and South Korea at a negative 0.8 percent rate,…

After months of political uncertainty, South Korea has a new president. Lee Jae-myung, the former mayor of a wealthy Seoul satellite city who leveraged that experience into a governorship of the country’s most populous province and chairmanship of the Democratic Party (DP), won a decisive 49.4-percent victory over the ruling party’s leading candidate. Lee’s victory…

South Korea’s political vacuum has been filled by a politician with a mandate to lead but who faces innumerable simultaneous and overlapping domestic and international challenges. Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung won South Korea’s snap election on June 3, 2025, in a race that was never seriously in doubt. Buoyed by a sizable majority in…

On May 20, 2025, the UN General Assembly held its first-ever “high-level session” devoted to the human rights abuses of North Korea. This latest action ups the ante in calling for reform of North Korea’s abysmal human rights record. Every year since 2004, the General Assembly has adopted resolutions criticizing North Korea and calling for…