2007 Posts located
Does the forty-fifth president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, have a foreign policy, not least of all inclusive of the vital Northeast Asian region? The question is not…
When Xi Jinping’s strategizing in East Asia is discussed, attention centers on the southern tier, stressing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Policies toward Northeast Asia have been treated mostly…
This paper discusses the strategic framework for Russia’s policies toward Northeast Asia, placing it in the context of Moscow’s geopolitical repositioning after the Ukraine crisis and the ensuing confrontation with…
Abe Shinzo is the longest-serving prime minister in post-World War II Japan. Having occupied the office since December 2012, Abe has attempted to leverage his stable tenure to increase Japan’s…
Recently released data from the Department of Commerce confirmed that the United States achieved record-level export of services to South Korea in 2018 – $24.5 billion. Combined with the trade…
We imagine North Korea as a country that is carrying on not only a conflict left over from the Cold War, but also a decrepit legacy economy from the past.…
The second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on February 27 and 28 ended without an agreement. The key difference in the two leaders’ negotiating…
As the complex negotiations between North Korea, the United States, and South Korea continue, it is worthwhile to review what the current U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula looks like.…
What Happened Last week, the Justice Ministry announced a revision to a law that would allow singles to adopt children. This plan was announced in light of new census data, which shows nearly a third of households in Korea are single-person households. The new adoption bill comes after the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family passed new regulations that allow children…
On August 31, 2021, South Korea’s National Assembly approved the amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act (전기통신사업법), which essentially imposes new restrictions and mechanisms of greater regulatory scrutiny over the operators of app markets (e.g., Apple’s ‘AppStore’ or Google’s ‘Play Store’). Hailed as the first successfully implemented measure against the giants operating global app markets,…
In the last two posts, we have provided data on the share of military personnel in the Politburo and analyzed in more detail the diversity of military backgrounds, some tied to the weapons program, but others linked more clearly to the military-industrial complex, technology and internal security. Here, we consider several intepretations of these developments,…
South Korea’s dominant position in the global market for auto manufacturing and chip fabrication are well known. Less well-known is the country’s increasingly expanding gaming industry. In 2019, South Korea’s gaming industry brought in USD 6.9 billion from abroad - approximately 10 times that of the country’s vaunted pop music industry. Now, Korea’s gaming companies are looking…