1940 Posts located
During his visit to Asia in November 2017, President Donald Trump announced his vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” as the U.S. approach to the region. The Department of…
North Korea has been under international sanctions for several years. It is only under U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure,” however, that China, North Korea’s most important trade…
The summit on February 27-28 in Hanoi between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ended on a sour note, casting doubt on the one-year old diplomatic process that had produced an…
Since the first historic summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last June in Singapore yielded a two-page joint agreement without a clear definition…
Not everyone in Korea or foreigners abroad want to hear about national advertising initiatives that focus on mainstream issues like K-Pop, Hallyu or ancient Korean Kimchi culture. Instead, many want…
On January 11, 2013, the Korea Economic Institute of America recently led Washington DC’s celebration of Korean American Day by hosting a luncheon event to honor two Korean Americans for…
With North Korea announcing to the world that it will be attempting to launch a second satellite for 2012, many analysts have been speculating as to why Pyongyang is so…
In this episode we spoke to The Economist’s South Korea correspondent, Daniel Tudor. Having been based in Korea for over a decade, Tudor has just finished writing one of the…
Words and labels have power. They can frame the way we think, fortify assumptions, and build expectations. They also obfuscate and mislead. In academic, diplomatic and media settings, the routine descriptor to contextualize South Korea’s role in the world is “middle power.” We rarely think deeply about the term and are prone to ignore its…
Investment Announcements July 24, 2023: Samsung SDI announced plans to establish a second EV battery manufacturing “Gigafactory” facility as part of their StarPlus Energy joint venture with Stellantis. September 27, 2023: Samsung SDI announced it will inject $1.98 billion as part of its investment into a battery factory, reportedly near Kokomo, IN where its gigafactory…
Two decades ago, South Korea was rarely called a middle power. Today, it invites ridicule to suggest South Korea is anything but a middle power. Given the concept’s ambiguity and lackluster academic credentials, why did the definition become so widely applied? The immediate answer is obvious. South Korea started to be labeled a middle power…
There are a plethora of studies on South Korea as a middle power. Some argue Korea needs to change to fit the term, some reinvent the term to fit Korea, and still others just use the term without questioning. Very few ask why we bother at all. The modern term “middle power” is an historically…