Foreign Relations

Despite the clear benefits of KORUS FTA for the United States and Korea, it has been stalled for nearly 18 months due to disputes over U.S. beef and the sale…

There is certainly a place for regionalism in Northeast Asia.1 It already exists in various amorphous ways, but regional identity is relatively weak in Northeast Asia, and for this and…

The rise of China means that the regional (not global) power structure is shifting from unipolarity to bipolarity. Whether this is a positive or negative development depends on a particular…

In the spring of 2009, North Korea’s second nuclear test, its long-range missile tests, and its provocative rhetoric once again threatened stability in Northeast Asia. Once again, North Korea engaged…

At the end of August, U.S. officials at the United Nations headquarters in New York and White House officials in Washington cited intelligence reports that Moscow was seeking weapons and ammunition from North Korea.  Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, stated that “Russia is negotiating potential deals…

The 18 August 2023 summit that brought together the leaders of Japan, South Korea and the United States at Camp David was rightly hailed as a breakthrough moment in consolidating trilateral security ties, especially after years of near-frozen relations. US officials stressed the importance of creating enduring institutions and structures among the three countries. These…

In August, President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio held their first standalone U.S.-Japan-Korea trilateral summit with President Joe Biden. At the conclusion of this historic meeting, the leaders unveiled the “Spirit of Camp David” which described their desire to advanced closer trilateral coordination to address regional and global challenges. “We’ve laid in…

When the leaders of Japan and South Korea join President Joe Biden at Camp David on August 18, it will cap a year of remarkable progress in bringing relations in the region back from the depths of dysfunction. The summit will showcase the attempts by the Biden administration to institutionalize trilateral security cooperation – tying…