Indo-Pacific

This timeline is the fourth 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. Below includes all major court dates, their participants and other details related to the impeachment proceedings. Time stamps follow Korea Standard Time. December 14, 2024 The National Assembly votes…

Executive Summary This project builds upon earlier research tracing U.S.-South Korea signaling on “the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” The current project was based on the premise that there is a significant gap between such diplomatic rhetoric and the U.S.-ROK alliance’s preparedness to navigate an actual conflict between the United States…

On March 6, 2025, The Washington Post published a full-page article entitled “Abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea: Decades after their disappearance, only one parent generation left.” This was not a traditional news story from The Post, and the paper carefully and explicitly made clear that this was not generated internally but by the…

The dramatic clash in the Oval Office between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a profound shock to South Korea, which could not believe such an assault on an ally was possible. “It was a very concerning and worrying development,” National Assembly Representative Wi Sung-lac, a former senior diplomat and foreign…

While the use of the term “Indo-Pacific” is relatively new, debates about its use echo longstanding arguments about how the region should be defined: who is in, who is out,…

In 2020, Xi Jinping was on a roll. Donald Trump had left U.S. alliances in disarray and the home front in discord, unable even to unite against a pandemic. U.S.…

When South Korea released its “Strategy for a Free, Peaceful, and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region” in December 2022—marking Seoul’s first-ever effort to develop a comprehensive regional strategy—early commentaries honed in on…

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…