Foreign Relations

Over the past twenty years, economic relations between ASEAN and Korea have evolved quite rapidly. As a result, ASEAN has now become the second largest trading partner and FDI destination…

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…

After months of political uncertainty, South Korea has a new president. Lee Jae-myung, the former mayor of a wealthy Seoul satellite city who leveraged that experience into a governorship of the country’s most populous province and chairmanship of the Democratic Party (DP), won a decisive 49.4-percent victory over the ruling party’s leading candidate. Lee’s victory…

The second Donald Trump administration’s rapid start has put South Koreans on alert regarding the implications for managing U.S.-South Korea relations. Under normal circumstances, South Korea’s president would be near the front of the line outside of the Oval Office. But Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law last December and his subsequent impeachment have…

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called to congratulate Donald Trump shortly after the US presidential election, telling the president-elect that the first Trump administration had set the foundation for US-Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation. Yoon later told the press he expected cooperation “would proceed well even during the [second] Trump administration.” Although some of the personnel…

The visit by Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio to South Korea earlier this month created a few ripples. No major announcements were made, and the two leaders pledged to continue efforts to bolster ties. In South Korea, the opposition Democratic Party issued a somewhat ritual denunciation of the Yoon Suk-yeol government for “undermining national interest…