Asia

Seoul has gradually adopted a more outspoken position regarding the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and framed it in increasingly expansive terms—as a regional and global…

The development of the concept of the Indo-Pacific strategy, since its adoption by the United States in 2017, has primarily been driven by the emergence of China as an object…

While the use of the term “Indo-Pacific” is relatively new, debates about its use echo longstanding arguments about how the region should be defined: who is in, who is out,…

When Kim Jong-il died in 2011, the world held its breath as North Korea entered uncharted waters. No other communist dictatorship in the last century – for that matter no…

On June 25, 1950, North Korea launched a surprise invasion of South Korea and started a war that is still technically ongoing. But it was – as North Korea’s Kim…

The North Korean economy is changing – we know this because of widely reported growth of private markets since the famine of 1990s. But black markets and illicit activities are…

In May, The Korean-born Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin was named The National League Pitcher of the Month. When you think of Asians and baseball, you might think first…

By Jenna Gibson “Thank you, @Samsung! We would love to have you!” Donald Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account, linking to a story about a possible plan for the tech company to build a factory for home appliances in the United States. The article called the announcement by Samsung “A win-win,” saying that “Companies…

By Jaeho Jeon Most Koreans are interested in two things now. Whether the people involved in the ‘Choi Soon-sil scandal,’ including President Park Geun-hye, Choi Soon-sil, and Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, will be punished and who will be the next president of South Korea. The Constitutional Court is scheduled to make a…

By Troy Stangarone In the most recent trade data released by China, imports of North Korean coal exceeded the volume and dollar caps set under the latest round of UN sanction by 1 million metric tons and by nearly $115 million.  With China having substantially surpassed the caps set for imports of coal from North…

By William Brown Chinese Customs reported yesterday that imports of North Korean anthracite surged in December, despite late November UN Security Council sanctions that are supposed to curtail North Korea’s coal sales, its biggest foreign exchange earner. The new data shows North Korea exported to China 22.5 million tons of anthracite worth $1.2 billion in…