Politics

On 30 June 2007, United States Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab and Republic of Korea Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong signed the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), an encompassing…

As the first decade of the twenty-first century nears an end, distinct patterns are emerging in the global trading system. The Doha Development Round remains stalled and has begun to…

According to a preliminary estimate by the Bank of Korea on 4 January 2008, Korea’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita gross national income (GNI), which adjusts…

In Northeast Asia and the United States during the later months of 2008 a great deal of attention was paid to the health of Kim Jong-il. Rumors of a stroke,…

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,…

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…

This is the eight 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. Partisan shifts in Korea can give rise to subtle—and not-so-subtle—differences in Seoul’s…