Asia

South Korean–Middle Eastern relations have been neglected in the literature throughout the years, mainly owing to the focus on Korea’s relations with the United States and Asian states and the…

An old Korean proverb says that when two whales fight it is the shrimps whose backs are crushed. Maybe that proverb best describes Korea’s situation on the trade front these…

The Domestic and International Politics of Spent Nuclear Fuel in South Korea: Are We Approaching Meltdown?

Geography alone would give Russia a prominent role in the Korean peninsula. The Russian Federation currently shares a recently demarcated 17-kilometer common border along the Tumen River with the Democratic…

    In the mid-1990s, North Korea experienced a famine that by some estimates wiped out 10 percent of the population. Though many at the time thought the regime would…

      Over the last decade, China has become an increasingly important country for South Korea has it has emerged as Seoul’s largest trading partner and a leading player…

    On April 8, North Korea withdrew all of its workers from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, temporarily placing on hold the last form of cooperation between North and South…

South Korea’s nuclear energy industry has for decades been facilitated through close cooperation with counterparts in the United States under what is known as a “123 Agreement”.  Today South Korea’s…

Kyle Ferrier As the Choi Soon-sil scandal has unfolded over the past several months the Korean public’s dissatisfaction with major Korean conglomerates known as chaebols has become second only to Park Geun-hye herself. Allegations of Park leveraging her political position to exchange favors with chaebols, particularly Samsung, are at the core of the public backlash.…

By Jenna Gibson “Thank you, @Samsung! We would love to have you!” Donald Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account, linking to a story about a possible plan for the tech company to build a factory for home appliances in the United States. The article called the announcement by Samsung “A win-win,” saying that “Companies…

By Jaeho Jeon Most Koreans are interested in two things now. Whether the people involved in the ‘Choi Soon-sil scandal,’ including President Park Geun-hye, Choi Soon-sil, and Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, will be punished and who will be the next president of South Korea. The Constitutional Court is scheduled to make a…

By Troy Stangarone In the most recent trade data released by China, imports of North Korean coal exceeded the volume and dollar caps set under the latest round of UN sanction by 1 million metric tons and by nearly $115 million.  With China having substantially surpassed the caps set for imports of coal from North…