Apr 29,2016 Special Forum

Navigating Historical Tensions: Pragmatic Leadership, Empathy, and the United States Factor in Japan-South Korea Relations

The year 2015 was, arguably, an important turning point for Japan’s relations with South Korea. Since the advent of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration of Prime Minister Abe in 2012, and the election of Park Geun-hye as South Korea’s president in 2013, political relations between East Asia’s most vibrant democratic polities had been in […]

John Nilsson-Wright
Abandonment-Entrapment model , Han Miracle , Kono Statement , Yasukuni Shrine
May 19,2015 Country Reports

Country Report: South Korea (May 2015)

The Park administration’s diplomatic strategy was tested in the last two months concerning AIIB and Japan. On AIIB, while Seoul kept silent about its decision before joining as a founding member, the pressure from Beijing and Washington was growing. The South Korean government labeled its diplomacy “strategic ambiguity,” but, on both the left and the […]

Editorial Staff (prepared by Han Minjeong)
AIIB , historical revisionism , Kono Statement , THAAD
May 15,2015 National Commentaries

A South Korean Perspective

  "Reading Abe’s Washington Visit"   A View from Seoul   From the standpoint of what Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and President Barack Obama wanted to achieve during the most recent US-Japan summit, Abe’s US tour was a resounding success. While a last-minute breakthrough on TPP did not materialize, the two leaders vowed to expedite […]

Lee Chung Min*
China’s rise , comfort women , historical revisionism , Kono Statement , territorial issues