Asia

The goal of this study is to explore the current state of U.S.-Korea trade and economic relations, with special emphasis on the impact of the rise of Asian regionalism and…

For more than a half century, the specter of renewed conflict across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) has dominated thinking about Korea’s future. To be sure, the prevailing political-military situation at…

The Korea Economic Institute (KEI) is pleased to issue the second of its new “Special Studies.” In contrast to KEI’s other publications, which generally take the form of a compilation…

During the past decade, the United States and Korea have pursued free trade agreements (FTAs) with a number of bilateral trading partners. For the United States, the Korea-U.S. (KORUS) FTA…

In this episode, Korean Kontext speaks with Ms. Jie-ae Sohn, President of Arirang TV & Radio, Korea’s first English language international broadcast system. Ms. Sohn worked as the former CNN…

Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons has emerged to be one of the key foreign policy priorities of the Obama administration. Despite efforts among Western powers to form a united…

By the time you read this, the KORUS FTA will have entered the implementation stage. To celebrate, Korean Kontext caught up with two of the main movers-and-shakers behind the deal…

This episode of Korean Kontext has a distinctly British flavor, featuring interviews with two leading Ambassador’s that work closely on UK and Korea related affairs. While recently in London, Korean…

Last Thursday, Korean chipmaker SK Hynix made history by developing a 10-nanometer (nm) transistor process for 16 GB Double Data Rate 5 (DDR5), the latest iteration of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips. By allowing for greater memory capacity and processing speeds for the corresponding central processing units (CPUs) that are used for cloud computation, this…

“You can either buy clothes or buy pictures.” (Gertrude Stein) The air will be filled with a different kind of buzz in Seoul this week as it hosts the third annual international art fair, Frieze Seoul. Over 110 leading art galleries worldwide will assemble for four days at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in…

The public sector financed 76 percent of healthcare in OECD countries in 2021 using compulsory health insurance and government programs (Figure 1, Panel A). Korea is an outlier in this regard, as only 62.3 percent of its health expenditures were covered through mandatory financing schemes. The low share of mandatory financing in Korea was offset…

The overwhelming majority of refugees who flee North Korea are generally those who live in border areas adjacent to China and do not have prominent government or economic positions. Few are from Pyongyang because it is very difficult for citizens to travel within the country unless police and internal security officials approve the travel. Meanwhile,…