Asia

During the last two years ago, U.S.-South Korea relations have strengthened in ways that many Korea watchers did not expect. With a liberal President Barack Obama entering office, some feared…

Last year was a momentous year for the Korean Peninsula. As the world worked its way out of the global and financial crisis of 2008-2009, South Korea demonstrated its global…

On November 2-6, KEI President Jack Pritchard and KEI Director Nicole Finneman visited Pyongyang to discuss with North Korean officials the current state of North Korea’s foreign relations and gain…

In less than two weeks world leaders will arrive in Seoul for two days of intense discussions on the current global economic recovery. Unlike the prior G-20 meetings during the…

    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…

Both North Korea and South Korea sought to redefine their relationship in 2024. In the past, both countries have publicly affirmed that the unification of the two Koreas is a national priority, but the two governments have engaged in low-level hostilities and high-level denunciations, while little concrete effort has been made to bring the two…

South Korea faced the prospect of political paralysis and a protracted constitutional crisis resulting from the declaration of martial law by President Yoon Suk Yeol and its dismissal hours later by a National Assembly resolution. On December 3, Yoon announced at 22:25 his intent to impose martial law “to eradicate pro-North Korea forces and protect…

If we thought North Korea and Russia grew too close for comfort in 2023, they continued to surprise the world this year by taking bold and unprecedented steps to elevate their relations to new heights. The highlights are the new “DPRK-Russia Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” signed during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June, and…

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s signal foreign policy achievement is arguably the forging of trilateral security cooperation between the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and the United States. During the past year, the leaders of all three nations have moved unusually quickly to institutionalize the structure of cooperation. The desire to consolidate progress seems to have…