Asia

During the two-year period since the outbreak in August 2007 of the U.S. subprime crisis, Korea has felt its severe effects: Korea’s economy contracted sharply and experienced a liquidity crisis.…

There is certainly a place for regionalism in Northeast Asia.1 It already exists in various amorphous ways, but regional identity is relatively weak in Northeast Asia, and for this and…

The rise of China means that the regional (not global) power structure is shifting from unipolarity to bipolarity. Whether this is a positive or negative development depends on a particular…

The dramatic events of recent months—and, above all, North Korea’s second nuclear test and long-range missile launch—demonstrated once again that the Barack Obama administration and the international community at large…

With worldwide familiarity of Korean pop culture increasing through the viral exposure of Korean musician Psy’s hit record “Gangnam Style”, this episode Korean Kontext speaks to Mark James Russell, author…

In this episode we spoke to B.R. Myers, author of “The Cleanest Race” and regular contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.  Having been raised…

In this interview Korea Kontext speaks with Dr. Jennifer Lind, assistant professor at the Department of Government, Dartmouth College.  Well known for her work on North Korea and N.E. Asia…

In this episode we spoke to comedian and actor Steven Byrne, of the brand new TBS series “Sullivan and Sons”.  Known as one of the hardest working and energetic comics in…

In the last two posts on Korea and the war in Ukraine, I showed that Moon administration moved relatively quickly to join the international sanctions regime and was rewarded by inclusion on Russia’s  "unfriendly nations" list. I also argued that the costs of standing on international legal principle were softened by the fact that the…

The OECD Economic Outlook, released on June 8th, projected that real GDP growth in OECD countries would drop by half from 5.5% in 2021 to 2.7% in 2022. The new projection is a sharp reduction from its December 2021 Outlook, which projected growth of 4.5% growth this year. With inflation expected to rise from 3.7%…

Over the last half decade, the Korean Peninsula has seen the prospect of war during Donald Trump’s period of “fire and fury,” but also a period of negotiations that resulted in a series of North-South and U.S.-North Korea summits. While war was avoided, those efforts at negotiation ultimately failed. The aftermath of those failed negotiations,…

After more than two years since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 has finally been detected in North Korea. Despite strict border controls limiting the movement of people and goods to prevent entry of the novel coronavirus, state media reported on 12 May that the Omicron BA.2 variant had been found in a sample taken…