Essays

Six Hours to Midnight: GSOMIA and the US Indo-Pacific Strategy

By | November 25, 2019

South Korea’s narrowly-avoided decision to terminate GSOMIA underscores how the ROK’s defense priorities in Northeast Asia affect the US’s Indo-Pacific strategy as a whole.

Minority Affairs in the Xi Jinping Era: Hardened Cadre on the Periphery

By | March 18, 2019

What does the increasingly harsh tone of Chinese Communist Party’s policy toward ethnic minorities mean for Koreans in the northeast? Adam Cathcart looks at officials and the new Xi environment.

North Korea’s Nuclear State Status: Seeking Legitimacy in the International Community

By | January 29, 2019

Leeds University PhD student Yujin Lim, previously of the Brussels-based European Institute for Asian Studies, describes some of the deterrence theory and IR apparatus around North Korea’s quest for nuclear legitimacy.

South Korea’s Resettlement of South Vietnamese War Refugees

By | December 20, 2018

Matthew VanVolkenburg explores many angles of an overlooked or forgotten episode in South Korea’s history: the resettlement of South Vietnamese war refugees.

Ending the Korean War: Donald Trump as Ex-President

By | July 31, 2018

Adam Cathcart looks at the end of the Korean War and its resonance today from an American perspective. Cathcart argues that Trump is in many respects in Korea acting more like an ex-President than a conventional, active one.