Foreign Relations

China’s political attitudes toward the Korean peninsula and its role in managing North Korea have been a constant source of intrigue for many Asia watchers in the U.S. Trying to…

This PDF is the full publication and contains all of the following sections: KEI Board of Directors KEI Advisory Council Preface Download PDF here Political Change in 2010-2012 and Regional…

The year 2012 may be determinative in transforming the leadership that will decide the fate of the hexagonal maneuvering over the North Korean nuclear threat and the prospects for reunification.…

On June 10, Cuba’s first Ambassador to South Korea Claudio Monzón Baeza formally opened his country’s embassy in Seoul. The festive event was held with the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director-general for Latin American affairs and included remarks from the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director-general for Asia and Oceania. The Cuban diplomats…

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…