Asia

President Lee Myung-bak won a landslide victory in 2007. His popularity before the election was obvious, and it came as a surprise to almost no one that he won by…

Korea and Japan are two key allies of the United States in East Asia. These two countries are “window models” of postwar democratization and economic advancement in a free world.…

On 19 October 1983 in Kim Jong-il’s office at the Central Party Building in Pyongyang, a private conversation took place between Kim and two South Korean filmmakers: director Shin Sang-ok…

The world can only hope the recent U.S.-North Korean bilateral discussions will revive the six-power talks and lead to Pyongyang’s renunciation of its nuclear weapons ambitions. Hope, however, is not…

In this episode we speak with Doug Goudie, Director of International Trade Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Mr. Goudie draws from his experiences to share his perspective…

In this episode we hear from Tami Overby, Vice President for Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and former President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea. Ms.…

Now in its tenth year, KEI’s Opinion Leaders Seminar (OLS) is an annual gathering of some of the world’s foremost policymakers and scholars on the U.S.-South Korean alliance. In this…

An exclusive interview with Dr. Alon Levkowitz, author of the most recent edition of the Korea Economic Institute’s Academic Paper Series. His paper, titled “The Republic of Korea and the…

By Jeffrey Robertson When the Lee Myung-Bak administration took office in February 2008, the public’s mood shifted quickly. By the end of June 2008, people were on the streets in protest, including more than 80,000 in a single night’s candlelight vigil; the entire cabinet had offered its resignation; and Lee Myung-Bak’s approval ratings had fallen…

By Troy Stangarone In recent years, South Korea has been in a space race of sorts with North Korea, in which it risked falling behind after the recent successful North Korean launch on December 12. With the successful launching of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), South Korea has joined an elite group of thirteen…

By Adam Cathcart, Roger Cavazos, and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga No one knows if Kim Jong-un’s favorite films extend into the acerbic oeuvre of Peter Sellers, but the young North Korean dictator’s behavior indicates that he might indeed be taking one such film as inspiration. At various key moments at the end of 2012 and into the…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz Earlier this week the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) finally responded to North Korea’s December 12th rocket launch with a new resolution. Predictably, North Korea reacted angrily with statements, including one attributed to its National Defense Commission (NDC). The NDC statement specifically targeted the United States as a problem and as a…