PROFESSOR GRAHAM ALLISON WRITES (COURTESY OF THE PACIFIC CENTURY INSTITUTTE) — As President Trump finally meets face to face with North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at 9pm tonight in Singapore—which will be 9am Tuesday there—I’ve agreed to appear on the 9-10pm Eastern Fox News discussion. As I noted…
Full Article SINGAPORE GAMBLE: A CRAFTY HARVARD PROF BREAKS DOWN THE ODDS OF SUCCESS
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES – To appreciate the sageuk drama unfolding on the Korean Peninsula, understand that not just two Korean entities have starring roles in history’s cast but three. The first is the Republic of Korea of the south – developmentally accomplished, politically volatile. The…
Full Article KOREAN COUNTDOWN: GETTING TOGETHER SURE BEATS STAYING APART, BEATING YOUR CHEST AND PLAYING WITH YOUR RED BUTTON
JINGFEI CHEN WRITES – According to all news reports, North Korean President Kim Jong-Un and his wife Ri Sol Ju listened happily to a K-Pop concert performed by a group of South Korean singers in Pyongyang. The concert lasted more than two hours, after which time Kim Jong-Un enthusiastically applauded…
Full Article NORTH KOREA: WILL RI SOL JU PROVE HER HUSBAND’S SOFT-POWER SECRET WEAPON?
TABITHA THEARD WRITES — Rice, water bottles, and bicycle tubes are not usually seen as political statements, but in South Korea, activists are using these items to inspire hope and encourage more North Koreans to become defectors and flee their country. According to Fars Ghani from Aljazeera, approximately 31,000 North…
Full Article NORTH KOREA: Defector Using Rice-Filled Water Bottles to Assist Future Defectors
TOM PLATE WRITES — America is now more confused than ever about North Korea. And it’s not all Mr Trump’s fault. Neither can America fairly say it’s all China’s fault. For as long as I have been writing about Asia, North Korea has been the black hole of American foreign…
Full Article KOREAN CRISIS: IS THE KILLER PROBLEM AMERICA’S OWN DOMESTIC DIVISION AND INTELLIGENCE FAILURE??
TRUMAN DALY WRITES – It is widely known that the Olympics take a heavy economic toll on the host country. With this in mind, the question must be asked: What kind of economic effect did the 2018 Winter Games have on PyeongChang? If economist Andrew Zimbalist is to be believed,…
Full Article SOUTH KOREA: Tallying the total for Winter Olympics
EMILY CARMAN WRITES – North Korea withdrew its participation from a pre-Olympic intercultural event set to take place on Monday, February 4. The event would have combined popular artists from the North and South, and was set to take place at the Mt. Kumgang Resort in North Korea, a location…
Full Article NORTH KOREA: BACKS OUT OF PRE-OLYMPIC EVENT
TRUMAN DALY WRITES — The last time the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea appeared at the Olympics was after the end of the Korean War. Fast forward 54 years, the DPRK and the Republic of Korea have put forth a unified women’s ice hockey team for the 2018 Winter Olympics…
Full Article KOREA: North and South Korea Announce Joint Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey
Monday, November 27 at 6 P.M., Philip Yun, former Clinton Administration Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, will be giving a lecture at the Hilton Main Auditorium at Loyola Marymount University on both the possibility and effects of a war on the…
Full Article LMU Center for Asian Business – Philip Yun: Is War Looming on the Korean Peninsula?
ANDREW GUMBEL OF THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER (LONDON) WRITES — The US’s large Korean population tends not to agree on much. But when it comes to Donald Trump’s approach to North Korea, the community – whether Republican or Democratic, religious or secular, part of a thriving small business community or a…
Full Article DPRK AND LOS ANGELES: U.S. KOREAN LEADERS WARN PRESIDENT TRUMP OF THE DEVELOPING DANGER
S PROF TOM PLATE WRITES — Despite not having before his all-seeing eyes the example of Donald J. Trump, the 17th century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal came to the conclusion: “All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.” Next week, our…
Full Article PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ASIA TOUR: THE AMERICAN MEDIA NEEDS TO TAKE A CHILL PILL
FROM AMERICA’S PUBLIC BROADCASTING SYSTEM – North Korea has long rallied its people with bombastic threats against the U.S., but lately the evolving war of words has escalated between the two countries. Nick Schifrin speaks with Kathleen Stephens of Stanford University and Balbina Hwang of Georgetown University about President Trump’s…
Full Article KOREA CLASH: TWO VIEWS ON THE DEBATABLE UTILITY OF ORAL BOMBAST DURING A TENSE CRISIS
ELIZABETH SOELISTIO WRITES – In a definitive swing of the political pendulum, South Korea has elected Moon Jae-in as president, after his predecessor was impeached. The new, liberal occupant of the presidential Blue House is a lawyer, former student activist, former soldier and the son of North Korean immigrants. Moon…
Full Article S. KOREA: NEW MOON RISING IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES — There is a famously funny but technically accurate saying to the effect that even a broken clock is right twice a day. For some reason – don’t know why … – this adage comes to mind in looking at Donald J. Trump’s emerging foreign policy.…
Full Article PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE: TRUMP’S UPTICKS
SPENCER H. KIM WRITES – Generally speaking, for decades there have been basically two frames of reference in South Korea ― the conservative world view and the progressive world view. There was a certain tribalism mentality in that conservatives or progressives felt the need to subscribe to their “list” of…
Full Article KOREAN PENINSULA: MOON FOR THE MISFORGOTTEN?
CHARLES E. MORRISON WRITES – Predictions of the outcomes of the Trump-Xi Jinping meeting in Florida range from a looming disaster to a rosy new beginning. Of course, both leaders will claim success as a bad meeting helps neither, but true success is measured in the longer-term against expectations. These need…
Full Article CHINA-U.S. SUMMIT: HOW BEST TO NEGOTIATE