Asia

Korea and Indonesia have developed an increasingly robust economic relationship over the past 40 years. Since the two states established diplomatic relationship in 1973, bilateral trade volume and Korean foreign…

Park Geun-hye’s Trustpolitik envisioned incremental, step-by-step exchanges, including economic ones, that would build trust. The strategy was disrupted by North Korean provocations during the first half of 2013 and had…

For the past two decades, studies have indicated that popular support for Korean unification is dropping. However, no explanation is offered for this. This report addressed a 2012 study undertaken…

The U.S. rebalance to Asia continues to stir debate in South Korea. This debate has thus far been carried out via the discussion of the political elite on what the…

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 Troy Stangarone On February 10, rumors that Kim Jong-un had been assassinated at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing began to rapidly spread across the internet. First making their way around Weibo and then jumping to Twitter, word of Kim Jong-un’s death eventually spread as far as the floor of the New York Stock…

By Anthony Kim With global economic recovery far from secure, many economies are at a critical juncture, and governments face decisive policy choices. Political and economic developments since the economic and financial turmoil in late 2008 have inspired a fundamental rethinking of the social contract between citizens and governments in many parts of the world.…

By Chad 0Carroll Rewind to April 1995, just one year after the death of Kim Il Sung, a nuclear crisis that nearly brought about war, and a time of biting economic hardship.  After such a long period of mourning, probably the last thing you would have expected to see taking place would be an international…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz Last month South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) commissioner Noh Dae-lae stated that DAPA had exceeded its defense exports goals last year and was now attempting to sell over $3 billion defense exports in 2012.  South Korea might have hit that $3 billion mark last year if it won a contract…