Foreign Relations

On 21 June 2005 the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flew outside of Blair House, across the street from the White House. Standing still on a windless day,…

The past decade in the Korea-U.S. alliance relationship has not been smooth. Since the late 1990s, Koreans have been raising issues related to the past or current actions of the…

As the reigning consensus has it, the U.S.-ROK alliance is one of the most successful of its kind in history. The alliance not only succeeded in defending South Korea from…

The year 2006 witnessed increasing concern among both Americans and South Koreans that their alliance of more than 50 years might be in jeopardy. Differences between the two governments over…

This is the second piece in a series looking at how the issues identified in KEI’s annual “10 Issues to Watch for on the Korean Peninsula” series and other issues of note developed in 2022. The original “10 Issues” piece can be found here. As we enter the new year, Korea-Japan relations seemed poised for a…

Since the mid-2000s, successive U.S. and South Korean administrations have touted the transformation of the ROK-U.S. alliance. They often highlight how a once asymmetric, Cold War alliance, rooted in strong military and security ties and shared sacrifice during the Korean War, has grown to encompass shared democratic and free-market values. In effect, U.S. and ROK…

Finding accurate and current information about North Korea has always been difficult, but steps taken by Pyongyang in an effort to deal with the COVID pandemic have made the problem of getting information about the North even more difficult.  A key source of first-hand information on the ground has been supplied by refugees who have…

At the end of September, the Republic of Korea attended a meeting of the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP). The initiative, led by the U.S., Australia, Japan, and Britain, aims at working with states in Oceania on advancing regional development. Ahead of the meeting, the Korean government was equivocal to the initiative. "Nothing has…