1919 Posts located
Recent developments on the Korean peninsula are raising expectations that the DPRK may finally be ready for a new era of political rapprochement and economic opening. This possibility is reflected…
The United States and Korea finished the eighth round of negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in mid-March 2007, and the agreement is likely to be concluded eventually.1…
The U.S.-ROK bilateral economic relationship entered a new era 1 April 2007 when President George W. Bush notified the U.S. Congress of his intent to enter into a free trade…
Economic relations between Korea and the United States reached new heights in the year 2006 with the launch of negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement. While the negotiations were…
Although it is happening more rapidly in South Korea, an aging society is a common feature in post-industrial societies around the world. With the number of retirees growing and the…
In March, Seoul suffered from the worst air pollution on record. Enough that the South Korean government has officially designated the problem as a "social disaster." But what is causing…
Over the past few years, Korea and Koreans have experienced incredible political, social, and diplomatic shifts. It is hard keeping up with all these new developments as a Korea Watcher,…
Even before the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, foreign policy practitioners and observers were talking about the difficulties of sequencing international sanctions relief for North Korea…
By Sarah K. Yun July 27, 2012 marks the 59th anniversary of the armistice agreement that put a pause to the three-year Korean War in 1953. Although the armistice is a significant and still-relevant document in Korean and world history, little attention is paid to the document due to a lack of institutionalization, the challenging…
By Joy Kim South Korea is currently the world’s 15th largest economy. This fact strikes many as amazing given that Korea’s Gross National Product (GNP) per capita increased by more than 243 times over the span of 50 years, from $82 in 1961 to $20,000 in 2006. The baby boom generation who were born in…
By Nicholas Hamisevicz The surprise news to start the week is that Vice Marshall Ri Yong Ho, chief of the general staff of North Korea’s army as well as a member of the Political Bureau and the Central Military Commission, was relieved of all his positions due to “illness.” During the last year of Kim…
By Chad 0'Carroll Chosun Ilbo columnist Kim Dae-joong wrote yesterday that because South Korea is surrounded by three nuclear weapons countries (DPRK, China and Russia), it should consider acquiring nuclear weapons. He argued that new laws passed in Japan meant that Tokyo “wants to develop nuclear weapons”, leaving the ROK as the only country in…