This piece originally appeared on September 2, 2022, in The Korea Daily. SPENCER H. KIM WRITES – President Yoon Suk-yeol has presented an “audacious” plan in which South Korea will “significantly improve North Korea’s economy and its people’s livelihoods in stages if the North ceases the development of its nuclear…
Category: North Korea
CHINA-ROK RELATIONS: CHINA AND THE ROK SHOULD AVOID SACRIFICING THEIR LONG-TERM, COMMON INTERESTS FOR SHORT-TERM, PAROCHIAL ONES
This article originally appeared on August 30, 2022 in China Daily. CHUNG-IN MOON WRITES – The Republic of Korea and China are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their diplomatic relations this year. The relations between the two countries have witnessed a sea change over the past three decades. People-to-people exchanges…
US-KOREAN RELATIONS: US MEDIA MUST LAY GROUNDWORK FOR PEACE OFFENSIVE ON KOREAN PENINSULA
This column originally appeared in on August 23, 2022 in the South China Morning Post. CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – A media system can filter your world-view not unlike the narrowest religion claiming to know what’s best about everything. Truly professional media platforms, especially if print-based, will aim to…
BOOK REVIEW: AERIAL CONCAVE WITHOUT CLOUD (2022) BY SUEYEUN JULIETTE LEE — STUDYING LIGHT AND GRIEF
Aerial Concave Without Cloud – 113 pages – $16.95 – Nightboat Books, New York, NY ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Grief is a lonely process as much as it is all-encompassing. Like all pain, it takes away, gives back wisdom, and breaks people open. Aerial Concave Without Cloud (2022) by Sueyeun…
BOOK REVIEW: THE WAITING (2021) BY KEUM SUK GENDRY-KIM
BRIANNA HIRAMI WRITES — Historians often skip over the pain that war leaves on the countless hearts of those who have lost their loved ones to senseless violence. Whether it is a soldier caught on the battlefield, a parent praying for their drafted child, or a refugee actively escaping a…
KOREAN PENINSULA: RESPONDING TO SKEPTICISM ABOUT AN END-OF-WAR DECLARATION
MOON CHUNG-IN WRITES — Since South Korean President Moon Jae-in asked the international community to support formally declaring the end of the Korean War during his speech at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 21, the issue has been at the forefront of the government’s diplomatic efforts as Moon’s presidency…
NORTH KOREA: THE BLAST HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
KAMRAN ALISHOV WRITES-The United Nations Security Council announced an emergency meeting following North Korea’s latest missile launch. On October 19th, North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile into waters off the coast of Japan. The information was immediately confirmed by South Korea’s military. At around 10:17 am, South Korea’s Joint…
NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE: ONLY KOREANS THEMSELVES CAN FIND A WAY OUT OF THE IMPASSE
TOM PLATE WRITES — Frustrations come with any occupation, and writing columns about Asia and America, as I have without stop for 25 years, is no exception. Asia is powerful and dynamic, and one size does not fit all. But, for me, no one subject has proven more elusive and…
VIDEO: BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND A NEW APPROACH TO DENUCLEARIZATION OF KOREAN PENINSULA
EVENT — The Loyola Marymount University Center for Asian Business, in collaboration with the Center for International Business Education, presented a special webinar on April 22th 2021 with Victor Cha, Senior Vice President and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Dr. Cha holds…
NORTH KOREA: WHAT’S NEXT UNDER THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION?
VALERIA GURROLA WRITES — April 30th, 2021, marks US President Biden’s first one hundred days since taking office in January at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States. He has wasted no time setting the tone for the future of North Korean relations. North Korea must denuclearize—or…
NORTH KOREA: SPECTER OF SEXUALITY
VALERIA GURROLA WRITES — Jang Yeong-jin has found love as a gay man nearly twenty-five years after his escape from North Korea. He first made international headlines in 2015 with A Mark of Red Honor’s release, his memoir about living as an openly gay defector in South Korea. In the…
NORTH KOREA: NUCLEAR ORIENTALISM AND THE HERMIT KINGDOM
VALERIA GURROLA WRITES – Nuclear Orientalism deeply permeates US media. In December 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned the US of a “Christmas gift” dependent on the outcome of nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration. Days after the announcement, satellite images uncovered new activity at the previously dormant Sohae…
KOREAN PENINSULA: HOPES AND FEARS ABOUT BIDEN’S NORTH KOREAN POLICY
MOON CHUNG-IN WRITES — While it doesn’t appear that the Joe Biden administration has completed its review of North Korea policy yet, the outlines of that policy seem to be slowly taking shape. Ned Price, a spokesperson for the US State Department, said on Feb. 12 that the North Korean…
TOP PROF ADVISOR GRILLED OVER N. KOREA OUTRAGE
COURTESY OF THE PACIFIC CENTURY INSTITUTE — We are pleased to share PCI board member Dr. Chung-in Moon’s recent interview in a South Korean TV news special on “North Korean Killing of a South Korean Government Worker at Sea: Getting to the Bottom of the Truth with Moon Chung-in” that…
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS: DUMPED BY TRUMP?
TOM PLATE WRITES — The way it is going now, I might have been wrong. The professor had written a good book but (in my mind) smudged it with an ethically snarky title: Destined for War. A few critics (okay, mainly me) pointed out that the addition of a simple question mark (Destined for…
DIVORCE, NORTH KOREAN STYLE
(This is the fifth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Thirty-eight years. That’s how long it took for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to approve, for publication in…