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…

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 Seventy hours down, three hundred to go. The South Korean National Assembly is currently in the middle of its first filibuster in decades, already smashing the world record for longest filibuster and still going strong. Members of Korea’s opposition parties banded together on February 23 to start the filibuster in an attempt…

KEI Communications Director Jenna Gibson, host of Korean Kontext, recently interviewed Justice Michael Kirby who led the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea. The following is a partial transcript of that conversation. The rest of the conversation can be found at http://keia.podbean.com/. Jenna Gibson: It’s now been two years since…

By Mark Tokola Since the United Nations’ “Situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (usually shorthanded to “COI” for commission of inquiry report) came out in September 2015, commentators have sometimes hypothesized that one of its positive effects could be that North Korean prison officials might moderate some of their brutality…

By Troy Stangarone With the global economy slowing and Korean merchandise exports and imports down in 2015 we recently looked at how U.S.-Korea trade compared to Korean trade in general and U.S. trade more broadly. However, Korea has one of the world’s most expansive network of free trade agreements. In this post we explore how…