North Korea celebrated the 101st anniversary of its founder’s birth with flowers on Monday, although there was no sign of tension easing as South Korea warned that the North’s survival could be in question without change and development. Saying it with The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan after new U.N. […]
As Japan searches, still confusedly, for a new identity within Asia, it may come to appreciate, as Jeff Kingston, a close observer of contemporary Japan, writes, “the potential benefits of reassuring past enemies.” But how will the effort at reconciliation with victims of Japanese aggression shape official memories of Japan’s war in Asia? In most Asian […]
South Koreans look a little puzzled when asked whether they’re concerned about North Korea’s daily barrage of threats that, if carried out, would be the worst conflagration of modern times. What worse can a regime, governed ostensibly by a 29-year-old heir to his father and grandfather’s power, vow than a “thermonuclear war” that would annihilate […]
North Korea is a constant enigma, a point made apparent once again in the current crisis. Analysts of every stripe have mispredicted its behavior and longevity for decades, and this time around, it is again very unclear what exactly they want. So rather than make any predictions that will turn out to be laughably wrong next month, […]
The world’s task in addressing North Korea’s saber rattling is made no easier by the fact that it confronts an impoverished and effectively defeated country. On the contrary, it is in such circumstances that calm foresight is most necessary. The genius of the Habsburg Empire’s Prince Klemens von Metternich in framing a new international order after […]
It is interesting to take a look at some of the consequences of population decline that may lie ahead for Japan, particularly since, while Japan may be at the forefront of this trend, it is only one of many countries that will experience population decline over the coming decades. In East Asia, Korea has a […]
Sharma Sagar is the new face of Korean manufacturing. He’s from Nepal. Sagar studied Korean for years, competing with other candidates in his native Himalayan homeland to be chosen by a joint-government program that was set up to help South Korea supplement its dwindling labor pool. Read Here – Bloomberg
Abe Shinzō visits Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia in his first overseas trip after becoming prime minister and lays down ground rules for engagement with the region. Read Here – Nippon
“We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully—not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear,”President Obama said in his second inaugural address. How exactly does the international community “engage” hostile states? Take China, for instance. Xi […]
A recent research report on the growing economic integration between China and North Korea by the minority staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has attracted a bit of media attention. Like most other government documents,this report—titled, “China’s Impact on Korean Peninsula Unification and Questions for the Senate”— languished in obscurity until The Washington Post wrote a […]
looking beyond borders 