Asia

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…

Volcanologist Dr. Kayla Iacovino traveled to North Korea in 2013 as part of a team that was collaborating with North Korean scientists to study Mt. Baekdu, one of Korea's most…

Nicholas Hamisevicz has been KEI's director of research and academic affairs for four years. Now, he is leaving KEI to pursue his Ph.D at Catholic University. But before he goes,…

Within China, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a principle stakeholder in Beijing’s policy decision-making. In recent years, PLA officials have penned some of the more interesting, and forceful, articles…

Over the past few years, North Korea has been holding press conferences starring so-called re-defectors – people who fled to the South and chose to return. Researchers Steven Denney and…

By Troy Stangarone At first glance, the prospect of a summit meeting between Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin makes sense. Both Russia and North Korea find themselves increasingly isolated internationally and a summit meeting presents a potential opportunity to demonstrate that they are not as isolated as some may believe. However, below the surface, a…

By Phil Eskeland On August 1, 1975, 35 nations representing the rival Eastern and Western bloc alliances[1] signed an accord that created the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) designed to reduce tensions and promote dialogue during the height of the Cold War as part of the “détente” policy of the 1970’s.  The…

By Troy Stangarone South Korea’s ambition to become a regional free trade hub in East Asia took another step towards reality as South Korea and China announced the outline of a conclusion of their bilateral FTA negotiations at the opening of the 2014 APEC summit. Once the FTA has been implemented, Korea will find itself…

By Adam Cathcart As the rest of the world gets accustomed to seeing Kim Jong-un walk with a cane, we might do well to figure out what, if anything, is changing about the way that the broader North Korean state engages with the economic powerhouses that engulf its southern and northern peripheries. KEI's Director of…