North Korea

4:00 PM Pacific Seventy-five years after the onset of Asia’s Cold War, the world remains focused on the geopolitics of inter-Korean relations. Meanwhile, an emerging community of more than 33,000 refugees from North Korea currently live in South Korea; half aspiring to become entrepreneurs. Despite the potential insight the refugee community could… Read more

It has been more than a century since the world first celebrated March 8 as International Women’s Day. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women when representatives from 189 governments signed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action…

The Asia Foundation’s director of Regional Cooperation Programs, John J. Brandon, recently spoke with former Foundation grantee, Dr. Han Sung-joo, former ambassador to the United HanSungjooStates and Korean foreign minister.

Recent vituperative comments by the North Korean regime can normally be dismissed as the ravings of a state that either misinterprets their negative external impact, or as rhetoric that is intended for consumption by a remarkably unsophisticated internal audience.

South Korea’s new President Park Geun-hye took the oath of office [on February 25] as South Korea’s first female president, the first Korean president to have previously lived in the Blue House, and the first Korean president to have visited North Korea prior to her term in office.

Following an early ambassadorial visit and a courtesy call on President-elect Park Geun-hye from China’s special envoy Vice Minister Zhang Zhijun, Park has decided to reciprocate by sending her first special envoys to Beijing during the transition.

South Koreans proved once again why they have one of the most vibrant democracies in Asia by narrowly electing the first woman as president of the country on December 19. Even though exit polls showed that she would lose, five-term lawmaker Park Geun-hye secured 51.6 percent…

The DPRK (North Korea) National Defense Commission responded with predictable bravado (“DPRK NDC Reiterates Its Stand to Fight It Out against U.S. and S. Korean Regime”) to Sunday’s announcement by the government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) that it had secured U.S. agreement…

North Korea’s failed rocket launch accomplished the rarest of feats. The regime managed to simultaneously outrage the world and embarrass itself at the same time. Unfortunately, this increases the likelihood that Pyongyang will undertake a nuclear test…

Weeks into his new post, In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with The Asia Foundation’s new Korea country representative, Peter Beck, from Seoul for his insight on South Korea’s domestic politics, North Korea’s transition, Seoul’s new mayor, the contentious National Security Law, and more.

Two South Korean marines guarding an island near the West Sea demarcation line that has been the site of several inter-Korean incidents in recent years last Friday mistakenly shot their K-2 rifles at a Korean civilian airliner traveling from Chengdu with 119 passengers on board…

North Korea’s National Defense Commission yesterday released a rare public statement on inter-Korean relations in response to Lee Myung-Bak’s May 9 Berlin speech inviting Kim Jong Il to attend next year’s Nuclear Security Summit.

At a State Department briefing earlier this week, the spokesman stated that U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea Ambassador Robert King may be tasked to lead a food assessment mission to North Korea. This announcement comes following a round of consultations…

There has been a protracted debate over whether the United States should give food assistance in response to North Korea’s appeals for assistance from earlier this year, with an exchange between Stephan Haggard and Lee Jong Cheol as the most recent example.

Over the last months, the world has watched as uprisings and revolutions have spread across the streets and squares of the Arab world. In Egypt, entire families – mothers, wives, daughters, grandmothers, showed remarkable courage in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their brothers, sons, and fathers…

Journalist David Ignatius recently wrote on Foreign Policy’s website that the “Arab Spring” may be part of a “global political awakening,” a concept he borrows from former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.

NHK live broadcasts on the tsunami that swept coastal villages in Eastern Japan on March 11 were a shocking scene to the Korean people. Japan now confronts the aftermath of triple natural disasters – an earthquake of a record 9.0 magnitude, a devastating tsunami, and the threat of radioactive contamination…

While the events of the past weekend have shifted the world’s attention to Libya, there are clearly reverberations for North Korea, especially given that Muammar Qadhafi pursued, then gave up in 2003, a nuclear weapons capability as part of what seemed then like a step toward normalcy with the rest of the world. Qadhafi’s strategic decision to give up Libya’s nuclear program in return for rapprochement with the United States was held up to North Koreans as a model for pursuing diplomatic normalization with the United States.

Less than three months after North Korea’s shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, North and South Korea opened preliminary, colonel-level talks yesterday to set an agenda and date for ministerial-level defense talks. However, the talks adjourned without reaching an agreement, raising questions about prospects for renewed diplomacy…

Both North and South Koreans appear to have had disproportionately high expectations in the run-up to last week’s Hu-Obama summit, judging from their reluctant willingness to edge toward tension reduction and dialogue following the November 23rd Yeonpyeong Island artillery shelling…

Recent turbulence on the Korean Peninsula raises several key questions: What is the best way to assure stability there? How can the U.S.-ROK alliance play its due role while still being perceived as a stabilizer by other stakeholders, and how can China positively interact with the two allies? If China still feels that the “evidence” that the ROK-led investigation secured regarding the Cheonan’s sinking…

In a new report published by The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy, Research Associate See-Won Byun assesses regional security in Northeast Asia in the aftermath of the Cheonan sinking and the Yeonpyeong artillery barrage. The report focuses on dynamics among the United States, China, and the two Koreas. Read an excerpt below, or downl… Read more

While most of the news from Korea focuses on the division between South and North, there has always been another sharp division – that between the political right and left in the South. So deep has been the distrust between the two camps that polls showed that some one-third of the South Korean public did not fully accept the findings of the offici… Read more

China’s response to North Korea’s artillery shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island last week has been relatively rapid compared to the slowness of its response to the sinking last March (it took three weeks for the Chinese government to express its condolences in response to the sinking of the Cheonan). But, as underscored in Sunday’s New York… Read more

The Office of Senator Richard Lugar has released the latest Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, along with a statement that “the findings include a stark reminder that U.S. and China interests regarding North Korea are largely incongruent. While the United States presses for elimin… Read more

A major, largely overlooked development of the recent financial crisis has been the emergence of the G20 as the informal steering committee of the world economy. In recent decades that function had been played by the G7, a group of rich industrial democracies. The shift from the G7 to the G20 signals the growing pluralism of world affairs, and the… Read more

Having spent the past week in Seoul in the aftermath of the September 28 Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) conference and on the eve of the unprecedented 65th anniversary celebrations of the WPK’s founding, I was struck by just how few facts South Korean analysts (and the rest of the world!) yet have at their disposal in analyzing the latest North Kore… Read more

I spent last week at several meetings in Tokyo, Seoul, and Jeju that revolved around the Cheonan incident and its implications for regional security. The Lee Myung-Bak administration got high marks for its handling of the immediate aftermath of the incident. It is important to remember that in the hours following the Cheonan’s sinking on March 26th… Read more

The vision of a world free of nuclear weapons was boldly initiated three years ago by four U.S. senior statesmen – Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn. To achieve the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and to bring the world back from the tipping point, the vision aims to reduce nations’ reliance on nuclear weapons, pre… Read more

On June 15, The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy director Scott Snyder, along with a “task force” composed of roughly two dozen experts, released a landmark report: U.S. Policy toward the Korean Peninsula, which emphasizes that “despite the difficulty of the challenge, the danger posed by North Korea is sufficiently severe, and the co… Read more

In spite of their appropriately firm responses to North Korea over the sinking of the South’s naval vessel in March that left 46 dead, both the United States and South Korea have left open the door for humanitarian assistance to the North, especially aid to vulnerable populations. This is a positive signal in the midst of a dangerous crisis and esc… Read more

The Washington Post reports that interim results of a South Korea-led international investigation into the March 26th sinking of the 1,200-ton corvette Cheonan near Baek-ryong Island are due to be released by the South Korean government on Thursday morning (Wednesday evening EST). The report, which concludes on the basis of strong circumstantial fo… Read more

The latest BBC/World Service Poll conducted in January and released earlier this week has some results in Northeast Asia that offer some food for thought—at least for anyone who thinks that public views are a potentially decisive influence on foreign policy. The two most notable results in Northeast Asia are the precipitous rise in negative Chinese… Read more

The Council on Foreign Relations interviews Scott Snyder, Director of The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy, on the possibility of a visit by North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il to China. Snyder wonders if such a visit would include China’s urging North Korea to return to the Six Party Talks, which have been at a standstill since last December…. Read more

China’s Ambassador to the United States Zhou Wenzhong spoke to a packed room of 350+ yesterday at a World Affairs Council event, co-sponsored by The Asia Foundation, on the future of U.S.-China relations. In an atmosphere of increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, due in part to recent reports of wide-scale cyberattacks, the ambassador refe… Read more

North Korea has traditionally utilized the new year to set priorities and provide guidance to its people. Under Kim Jong Il, this guidance has come out in the form of a combined New Year’s editorial published by three major media outlets. South Korean presidents have also used a New Year’s speech outlining major priorities. North Korea’s joint edit… Read more

For a country that appears to be so isolated from the outside world, North Korea seems to have been on edge for months regarding the possible impact of swine flu (H1N1) on its population. These rumors of North Korean anxiety have been underscored by an unusual admission last week of nine confirmed cases of swine flu in Pyongyang and Sinuiju (the WH… Read more

Every North Korean seems to have been mobilized for an all-out push to mark their country’s arrival as a “strong and powerful nation” in 2012, which marks the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth, Kim Jong Il’s 70th birthday, and the 30th birthday of Kim Jong Il’s third son and reported successor, Kim Jong-Eun. Pyongyang citizens have cleaned u… Read more

President Obama will also visit Korea on this trip against a backdrop of tensions between North and South Korea after a naval skirmish and just-announced plans to send special envoy Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang in the near future. On the heels of the joint vision statement between South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak and President Obama in June,… Read more

The “Joint Vision for the Alliance of the United States of America and the Republic of Korea,” released by Presidents Barack Obama and Lee Myung-bak on June 16, 2009, forged a new agenda for the U.S.-ROK alliance extending to cooperation on common challenges beyond traditional security. Earlier this month, The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Kore… Read more

A new book Engagement with North Korea: A Viable Alternative released in September 2009, by SUNY Press, features a chapter written by The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Seoul, Edward Reed. Dr. Reed’s chapter, “From Charity to Partnership: South Korean NGO Engagement with North Korea,” discusses the contribution of South Korean NGOs in… Read more

In North Korea’s totalitarian system, political stability depends on the health of the leader more than on any other factor. For this reason, Kim Jong Il’s rumored health problems have drawn careful scrutiny since he failed to appear almost exactly one year ago at public events marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People’s… Read more

Bill Clinton’s dramatic mission to secure the release of two American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee following North Korea’s harsh verdict regarding their unauthorized entry into North Korea has succeeded on multiple fronts, based on criteria for success I offered yesterday: 1) the visit secured the release of the two journalists, 2) the visit… Read more

“The premise underlying the question of what do we do if North Korea says no is that we are still waiting for a North Korean answer…. It is North Korea’s pursuit of escalation that has foreclosed dialogue possibilities for now as Pyongyang, for a variety of domestic and international reasons, attempts to lock in its nuclear status as a fait accom… Read more

North Korea’s nuclear aspirations have served as the driving force for the development of ad hoc security multilateralism in Northeast Asia. This development has occurred in stages, with each successive phase in responding to the North Korean crisis resulting in strengthened regional cooperation, despite persisting underlying strategic mistrust amo… Read more

Snyder on The Six Party Process: A Regional Framework for North Korea’s Denuclearization: “North Korea’s unilateral pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities over the last two decades has ironically been a primary catalyst for strengthened regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. But this cooperation has thus far been insufficient to deter North Korea… Read more

North Korea did exactly what it said it would do on May 25, 2009, when it conducted a nuclear test as promised in its April 28 statement in response to UN sanctions imposed on three North Korean firms in accordance with an April 13 UN Security Council Presidential Statement condemning North Korea’s April 5, 2009, missile test. The test furthers Nor… Read more

Within hours following an April 14, 2009, United Nations Security Council presidential statement condemning North Korea’s missile launch, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) foreign ministry responded by stating that “six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence, never to recover,” and that the “DPRK will never participate… Read more

The Obama administration was a political target of North Korea’s April 5, 2009, missile test in addition to the targets of internal political consolidation, exploiting China’s DPRK dilemma, and the exploitation of possible divisions within the UN Security Council. North Korea’s strategic objective has been to secure its position as a nuclear weapon… Read more

North Korea’s efforts to exploit divisions among members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in its response to its April 5, 2009 test of a multi-stage rocket has proven to be a slightly harder political target than some in Pyongyang may have anticipated…read more. Scott Snyder is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Associate and Director of the… Read more

Notwithstanding media images of demonstrators in Seoul angrily denouncing North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket, the reaction among the general public in South Korea has been generally calm. The demonstrators in Seoul numbered in the hundreds (in a country where ten thousand is a modest turnout) and mostly represented small far-right groups…. Read more

North Korea’s launch of a multi-stage rocket has been assessed by international experts as a technical failure, but the test has been at least a partial success in hitting four political targets: North Korea’s domestic audience, exploitation of international divisions among members of the six party talks, testing of the newly-established Obama admi… Read more

History will record November 2008 as the crucial turning point for launching a new global order. No one knows what would exactly be the form of that order, but everyone seems to be in agreement that the existing international order cannot be sustained in light of two stunning developments. First, troubles in the U.S. financial market ignited a glob… Read more

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Seoul today on her first visit to South Korea in her new post. South Koreans have anticipated her arrival—and the establishment of the Obama administration’s policy toward the Korean peninsula—with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. This mood has been fed by a rapid deterioration in inter-Korean rel… Read more

Scott Snyder, Senior Associate in International Relations at The Asia Foundation, explores the transformation of the Sino–South Korean relationship since the early 1990s in his new book, China’s Rise and the Two Koreas: Politics, Economics, Security. Snyder considers the strategic significance of recent developments in China’s relationship with bot… Read more