July 29,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (July 2019)

In the summer of 2019, South Korean media discussed the country’s relations with China, the United States, North Korea, and Japan. Specifically, they covered: (1) the Xi-Kim summit; (2) the G20 summit in Osaka, with three sub-topics: Seoul’s diplomatic leverage, the US-China trade war, and Abe’s decision to forego a bilateral summit with Moon⁠; (3) the Trump-Kim meeting i..

Editorial Staff
G20 , GSOMIA , Trump-Kim summit , US-China trade war , US-ROK alliance , Xi-Kim summit
July 01,2019 Open Forum

China and the Korean Peninsula after the Hanoi Summit

The Hanoi summit between President Trump and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un had been expected to deliver concrete results on the nuclear negotiations and/or US-North Korea bilateral relations. Widely speculated outcomes had included partial denuclearization by North Korea in exchange for partial easing of US economic sanctions on the country; a declaration of the end of the Korean ..

Yun Sun
byungjin , G20 , Hanoi summit , Osaka Summit , THAAD , trade war , Xi-Kim summit
June 20,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: China (June 2019)

In the spring of 2019, Chinese experts assessed China’s relations with the United States and Russia forty years after reform and opening began. They also evaluated China–Japan–South Korea and China–India–Russia relations. They analyzed the current US–Japan alliance and the US “securitization” of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Conspicuous in many of..

Danielle F. S. Cohen (assisted by Dong Jiaxin)
Cold War , Diaoyutai/Senkaku , Dokdo/Takeshima , freedom of navigation , South China Sea , trilateralism , US-Japan alliance
June 17,2019 Open Forum

Washington Insights, Vol. 7, No. 3

Trade overshadows security with human rights and democratization left on the sidelines in DC gatherings in the spring of 2019. The Hanoi summit left US-North Korean ties in limbo, reducing their salience in discussions as few new details emerged and the next steps remained difficult to fathom. In the Trump-Abe summits (two in the spring with as many as three more possible before the end of ..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , 5G , free and open Indo-Pacific , G20 , Hanoi summit , Huawei , THAAD , trilateralism , US-Japan alliance
June 04,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (May 2019)

Since the diplomatic collapse in Hanoi, talks between the US and North Korea have remained at an impasse throughout April and May, while President Moon Jae-in kept seeking ways to play his role as a middleman and bring the two sides back to the negotiating table. One such attempt was another meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, which conservatives in Seoul harshly criticized as ..

Kim Kimberly
Hanoi summit , Kaesong Industrial Complex , maximum pressure , Mount Geumgang , Six-Party Talks
May 28,2019 Country Reports

Country Report: Japan (June 2019)

In the first half of spring 2019, in the face of a difficult environment for diplomacy with North Korea, Sino-US relations, and ROK-Japanese relations, Abe Shinzo continued to show initiative. He was defying the odds in continuing his pursuit of Vladimir Putin and trying to join the fray in pursuit of a summit with Kim Jong-un, while preparing for a busy month in hosting first Donald Tr..

Editorial Staff
"Belt and Road" Initiative , free and open Indo-Pacific , G20 , Northern Territories , Putin-Kim summit , Reiwa
May 15,2019 Open Forum

Washington Insights, Vol. 7, No. 2

Exchanges in DC are increasingly torn between a focus on bilateral relations—in particular, US relations with China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan—or on trilateral relations. If the Sino-US relationship has enough heft to galvanize bilateral attention, the other pairings keep becoming enmeshed in triangular analysis. This report on recent seminars and presentations in DC concentrate..

Editorial Staff
comfort women , Hanoi summit , Singapore Summit , trilateralism , US-Japan alliance , US-ROK alliance
May 14,2019 Special Forum

Introduction

The subject of interests versus values figures importantly in queries on international relations in Northeast Asia. Four prime examples are: 1) What is driving the tensions in Sino-US relations, and how should the US respond to China’s perceived ideological challenge? 2) Is Abe Shinzo driven by national interests or national identity in foreign policy, and how is today’s deteriora..

Editorial Staff
Abe Shinzo , Donald Trump , Kim Jong-un , Moon Jae-in , Vladmir Putin , Xi Jinping
May 10,2019 Special Forum

Korea’s Choice: Synopsis of the Asan Plenum 2019

The theme of this year’s Asan Plenum was Korea’s Choice, and the core question regarded a choice between reaffirmation of the ROK-US alliance and prioritization of reunification with the long-separated northern part of the peninsula. For the first time in seven decades this choice had become a serious factor in Seoul’s diplomatic thinking. In many panels, both Koreans and Am..

Editorial Staff
Donald Trump , Global Korea , inter-Korean summit , Kim Jong-un , Moon Jae-in , US-ROK alliance
April 30,2019 National Commentaries

A View from Southeast Asia on South Korea

When Moon Jae-in announced the “New Southern Policy” (NSP) during his visit to Indonesia in November 2017, the Korean foreign policy watchers scrambled to find out whether there was a “Southern Policy” before. Though it is obvious that no president ever announced a policy of engagement with Southeast Asian countries as a “southern policy,” almost every pr..

Chiew-Ping Hoo
"Belt and Road" Initiative , 5G , New Southern Policy , Nordpolitik , Sunshine Policy