Featured Essays
Yongusil 101: South Korea between Russia-US Great Power Tensions
The US policy community has, since 2018, applied the term “Indo-Pacific” to the lands and waters from Hawaii to west of the Indian subcontinent. Underscoring the geopolitical connection between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, the so-labeled Indo-Pacific has become the focal point of growing tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic […]
Brazil and Mexico’s Relations with North Korea
As the United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York, Tony Rinna revisits Latin American approaches to North Korean security issues. While neither state is presently serving on the UN Security Council, both Brazil and Mexico had served on the UNSC during some of North Korea’s security provocations in the late Kim Jong Il era […]
Power and the Periphery: The North Korea Factor in Sino-American Relations
North Korea is a constant feature, albeit an inconsistent one, in various aspects of China’s relations with the US. Anthony Rinna provides a reminder.
Yongusil 100: Mongolia and the Korean Security Crisis
The key factor in the success or failure of Mongolia’s Korea strategy is the extent to which others value Ulaanbaatar’s neutrality. As Anthony Rinna writes in his latest publication, the task for Ulaanbaatar is to maintain its relevance.
The Manchurian Myth: History and Power in North Korea
As the smoke clears from Kaesong and succession talk swirls around Kim Yo-jong, Sino-NK revisits one of the key foundations of North Korean history education.
Chinese Doctors and North Korea: Reviewing the Pattern
A Reuters report on Chinese doctors treating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un spurs Adam Cathcart to deeper investigation of party-to-party medical relations.
Yongusil 99: The DPRK Nuclear Crisis and Moscow’s Pivot Toward Beijing
Struggling to stay relevant at the Korean security crisis’s crowded negotiation table, the Russian Federation is undoubtedly among the least influential players in efforts to get the DPRK to disarm. Even within Russian foreign policy itself, the Korean Peninsula is not as important for Moscow as other sub-regions along the Russian periphery. This may seem […]
COVID-19 in North Korea: A Mirror into the Soul of the South
An outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea may, indeed, become the ending point of greater cooperation between the two Koreas for the time being, but the two Koreas were arguably never really that close in the first place. Robert Lauler explains.
Change and Continuity in North Korean Foreign Policy at the Dawn of the Millennium
Sino-NK’s Yujin Lim bridges the language barrier to provide insight into the view from Seoul over North Korean foreign policy at the turn of the millennium.
Six Hours to Midnight: GSOMIA and the US Indo-Pacific Strategy
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.
Live from Korea, live from anywhere: a review of “K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance”
Musician and scholar Wonseok Lee, in his debut publication for Sino-NK, offers a review of Suk-young Kim’s “K-Pop Live: Fans, Idols and Media Performance”.
Understanding North Korea: Foreign Relations of North Korea in 2000
In this translation from the original Korean, analyst Yujin Lim offers a glimpse of how Seoul perceived Pyongyang’s program of diplomatic outreach in the year 2000, offering observers a chance to peer into the origins of contemporary North Korean foreign policy.
Yongusil 98: Moscow and the Dilemma of Regional Development versus North Korea Sanctions
Russia’s North Korea policy involves a trade-off: refusal to support UN sanctions hurts Russia internationally, but supporting sanctions damages growth prospects in the country’s easternmost regions. Anthony Rinna covers this dilemma in Asian Studies International Review.
55 Remnants of Conflict: The Korean War Prisoners Who Chose Brazil
At the end of the Korean War, 88 North Korean and Chinese POWs decided to gamble on lives in third countries, eschewing South Korea and Taiwan. 55 were resettled in Brazil. These are their stories.
Law, Order, and Heroin in Dandong
The border city of Dandong maintains an important position for the Chinese Communist Party in its relations with the Kim Jong-un regime. Adam Cathcart investigates the latest sources.
