Asia

During the early days of Northeast Asian economic cooperation immediately following the end of the Cold War, the China-Japan-Korea FTA (CJK FTA) was considered impossible, not even mentioned as a…

On November 20, 2012, at the Japan-China-ROK Economic and Trade Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia,1 Ministers Edano Yukio, Chen Deming, and Bark Tae Ho, announced that they were launching…

The proposed China-Japan-Korea (CJK) FTA, if it comes to fruition, will be a major economic accomplishment in its own right; but it will also constitute an important milestone and potential…

As with many complex situations, any effort to address the question of how competing regional interests would play out in response to Korean reunification begins with “it depends.”1 Countless reunification…

In this episode, Korea Economic Institute’s Director of Communications Chad 0Carroll speaks with Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. Having written a number of publications on U.S. relations…

In this episode, Korea Economic Institute’s Director of Public Affairs and Regional Issues Sarah Yun speaks with Dr. Andrei Lankov of Kookimin University. Having written a number of books on…

In this episode, new Korean Kontext presenter speaks with Curtis Melvin, the man behind the NK Econ Watch blog and developer of “North Korea Uncovered”, a Google Map overlay that…

In this episode, we speak with Kevin O’Donnell, who, after decades on a private sector career path, became the first-ever Peace Corps country director for South Korea, followed by a…

In the early 21st century, global value chains (GVCs) grew longer and became reliant on low-cost countries for assembly, employing just-in-time production methods. These practices were tested during events like the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, many companies shifted their GVC strategies toward a focus on resilience and diversification. As this…

This is the first of two pieces exploring the continental-maritime balance on and around the Korean Peninsula Attention has turned to the re-emergence of a Cold War-like division in East Asia, with China, North Korea, and Russia on one side and the United States, South Korea, and Japan on the other. More recent reports of…

North Korea’s won has fallen in half against the US dollar since July for unclear reasons. An internal North Korean document collected by Daily NK blames perverse psychology for the trouble and warns that the won must be protected from further devaluation, suggesting high-level concerns of destabilizing inflation and a potential new banking crisis. The…

South Korea is facing some challenges as it integrates new digital technologies. A year ago, Seoul unveiled its “Digital Bill of Rights,” which seeks to preserve the rights and freedoms of Korean citizens online. But while it calls for building a “safe and trustworthy digital society,” this goal has been challenged by the rise of…