Foreign Relations

In November 2011, the Obama administration announced that the United States would be “pivoting” towards the Asia-Pacific and away from the Middle East, expanding its already significant role in the…

After the collapse of the Six-Party Talks in 2008 and the confrontational setting of 2009-12 when Sino-South Korean relations were mostly troubled, a new dynamic has emerged in the China-South…

Korea traditionally occupies an important place in Russia’s foreign policy directed at Asia. That was the case at the turn of the twentieth century and in the Soviet period. In…

On December 26 China’s leadership commemorated the 120th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birth by bowing before his statue at the mausoleum in his honor on Tiananmen Square. On December 27…

South Korea established full diplomatic relations with Cuba on February 15, 2024, when the ambassadors of the two countries to the United Nations in New York City exchanged diplomatic notes formally establishing diplomatic ties.  The move was unexpected since there had been no recent public reports that the two countries were engaged in discussions regarding…

South Korea’s rapprochement with Japan and North Korea’s embrace of Russia significantly shaped events on the Korean Peninsula in 2023. Both promise to have a substantial impact on events in the coming year. After years of declining relations, South Korea took the initiative to mend ties with Japan by proposing a path for resolving the…

The war in Ukraine directly and indirectly impacted policy and perceptions on and around the Korean Peninsula, starting with Russia’s invasion in early 2022 and continuing apace in 2023. Although the war has provided Seoul the opportunity to enhance its contributions to global security, simultaneously it presents challenges that accelerate its security concerns closer to…

North Korea was the first country to severely restrict travel and trade across its borders when the pandemic began in 2020. While the rest of the world has since largely returned to normal, many of North Korea’s COVID restrictions remained in place at the beginning of 2023. However, Pyongyang began to ease these constraints in…