Asia

The debate on TPP versus RCEP has been widely recognized as a struggle between the United States and China for expanding their influence in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is…

For many years, the major trading countries coexisted comfortably under a multilateral trading system. Major trade liberalizations were agreed upon multilaterally. In most cases, trade disputes were resolved peacefully under…

With the North Korean nuclear threat still lingering, the international community’s decadeslong effort to bring about peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was in vain. Although there were only a…

North Korea is the world’s most troublesome country, brutal at home and a bully abroad. In 2013 it became even more dangerous, both to its neighbors and to its own…

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…

For decades, U.S. foreign assistance has played a pivotal role in advancing U.S. interests, strengthening alliances, and promoting stability in key regions of the world. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Asia, where U.S. development cooperation with South Korea—itself a model for the benefits of U.S. foreign assistance—has been a vital tool for…

South Korea’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement sets a target of reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 percent by 2030 (relative to their peak in 2018). Korea also aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 (Figure 1, Panel A). The targets are ambitious, as Korea was the world’s thirteenth-largest GHG…

In the early weeks after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempted imposition of martial law and his subsequent impeachment by the National Assembly, the response in Japan among foreign policy specialists and in the mass media was uniformly supportive, even admiring, of the resilience of Korea’s democratic institutions. “Yoon’s action was undemocratic and inexcusable,” a senior…

Contributors (last name alphabetical): Je Heon (James) Kim, Joo Young Kim This timeline is the third part of a series that covers major events in the aftermath of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. This part covers the events from the request by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) for an…