Politics

This past June, President Bush made a series of telephone calls to leaders in the region calling on them to use their influence with Pyongyang in an effort to halt…

In September 2008, reports began to circulate in the world media that Chairman Kim Jong-il might be in serious condition after having suffered a stroke, and discussion on possible post-Kim…

The dramatic events of recent months—and, above all, North Korea’s second nuclear test and long-range missile launch—demonstrated once again that the Barack Obama administration and the international community at large…

Security relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, like those of any other two closely entwined neighbors, glisten with the multiple facets of complexity. A number of structural conditions…

At the Asian Games this September, Team Korea didn’t just get a gold medal in the popular video game League of Legends. The team also received an exemption from active-duty conscription into the armed forces of Korea. Maintaining an adequate fighting force is a critical issue for Korea, not just because of its unruly neighbor…

Words and labels have power. They can frame the way we think, fortify assumptions, and build expectations. They also obfuscate and mislead. In academic, diplomatic and media settings, the routine descriptor to contextualize South Korea’s role in the world is “middle power.” We rarely think deeply about the term and are prone to ignore its…

Two decades ago, South Korea was rarely called a middle power. Today, it invites ridicule to suggest South Korea is anything but a middle power. Given the concept’s ambiguity and lackluster academic credentials, why did the definition become so widely applied? The immediate answer is obvious. South Korea started to be labeled a middle power…

With the final rule regarding the CHIPS Act guardrails released on September 22, Korean chipmakers’ ability to receive U.S. subsidies while maintaining operations in China appears to be on firmer footing.  Korean chipmakers had been caught in a form of limbo ever since the U.S. Department of Commerce released the proposed guardrails in March 2023,…