Introduction

The four years from 2016 through 2019 were the most eventful in the post-democratization and post-Cold War period of South Korean history. Three goals had defined the entirety […]

Tracking the Downswings in a ‘Virtual Alliance’: Japan’s Policy toward the Korean Peninsula over a Decade

This year, 2022, could be critical for Japan-ROK relations. The relationship has been in free fall for a decade—although there were a couple of moments at which the […]

Introduction

The period 2013-2015 in South Korean foreign policy was transformative for three reasons: (1) it exposed the fallacies in Seoul’s assumptions about the future of Northeast Asia more […]

Negative Scenario II

Jennifer Lind has sketched positive prospects for South Korean-Japanese relations and the history issue. She broadly finds that geopolitical pressures will overwhelm historical narratives of animosity or re-write […]

Alliance Trilateralism at a Crossroads

South Korea is facing a nightmarish international environment, wholly unexpected as recently as 2015. Then the country was riding high in its foreign policy agenda: trustpolitik leading to […]

Country Report: Russia (March 2017)

On February 10, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried an Interfax interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov on Russian Asia policies in the past year. He cited […]

Country Report: South Korea (March 2017)

In the first months of 2017, the cloud of impeachment hung heavily over South Korea’s foreign policy, while China’s anger at the THAAD deployment kept growing, and signs […]

Negative Scenario II

Two months following the passage by the ROK National Assembly of a motion of impeachment against Park Geun-hye, power remains in the hands of Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn, […]

Positive Scenario II

The Constitutional Court of South Korea has until June to rule for or against the impeachment decision made by the National Assembly last December. As a majority of […]