Asia

Japan’s Indo-Pacific Strategy predates that of the U.S. In fact, Abe Shinzo gets credit for envisioning it as early as 2007, during his first brief tenure as prime minister. When…

Over the past decade, the “Indo-Pacific” concept has replaced the late 20th century “Asia-Pacific” as a central frame of reference for strategy and external policy. Definitions vary. Some cast the…

KEI’s 2023 Report on American Attitudes Toward the Korean Peninsula summarizes results from a survey commissioned by KEI and conducted by YouGov from August 22nd to August 29th, 2023. The…

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…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz  Dennis Rodman and Seth Rogen have made the same mistake on North Korea. Both have mistakenly viewed North Korea as a helpless entity. Rodman viewed North Korea as so helpless that all it needed was someone to talk to, play basketball with, and sing “Happy Birthday” to its leader. Rogen saw North…

By Troy Stangarone North Korea’s cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the subsequent threats to target theaters that screened “The Interview” have had a chilling effect beyond Sony’s decision not to release it on Christmas day. The decision to withdraw “The Interview” from release has raised important questions regarding freedom of speech and how…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz As October faded away, the hopes for an early November high-level meeting as promised after an inter-Korean meeting during the closing of the Asian Games faded as well when North Korea informed South Korea via fax that it would not meet due to the balloons being sent by South Korean activists into…

By Jongsung Kim According to a recent Bank of Korea (BOK) release, Korea’s household debt reached its historically highest level at the end of the third quarter in 2014. The report shows that at the end of September 2014, the household debt registered at 1,060.3 trillion won, a 6.7 percent year-on-year increase (993.6 trillion won)…