Foreign Relations

Despite turbulence in its bilateral relations with Japan and South Korea over the past several years, China has expressed a continuing and growing interest in establishing a trilateral China-Japan-Korea free…

As with many complex situations, any effort to address the question of how competing regional interests would play out in response to Korean reunification begins with “it depends.”1 Countless reunification…

The Park Geun-hye administration’s foreign policy/North Korean policy keyword is “trust,” which is intended to be the base on which to build a “New Korean Peninsula” and a new order…

The reunification of the Korean Peninsula has been an important aspiration of the Korean people on both sides of the 38th parallel for nearly six decades. The emotional family reunions…

By Troy Stangarone Nutritional aid might not be the only cost of North Korea’s recent failed satellite launch.  Only a few months prior to Kim Jong-il’s death there had been significant discussion of building a pipeline to transmit Russian gas through North Korea to the South. North Korea had indicated that it would be willing…

By Jack Pritchard There was a plausible scenario ready to work itself out with a successful launch of a missile by North Korea.  The Security Council would meet and issue a stern presidential statement condemning Pyongyang.  North Korea would push back rhetorically, claiming its sovereign right to space exploration while Beijing would send a high…

By Troy Stangarone It has generally been acknowledged that the U.S.-Korea alliance is at an all time high. At a time of rising international challenges from the 2008 global financial crisis to enhanced efforts to secure nuclear materials, Korea has played an increasingly prominent role on the global stage and become a key partner for…

By Duyeon Kim The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea could have been a watershed moment for nuclear security. The 58 heads of state and world leaders were expected to implement nuclear security measures conceptualized by the Obama administration’s first Summit in Washington two years ago, and pivot toward a harmonized and coherent roadmap.…