New research demonstrates that partisan and ideological affiliations retain influence in voter preferences in South Korea, despite the country's weak party system ..read more

South Korea's National Security Act is contentious for its restrictions on political freedoms under the guise of national security. New research indicates that law remains due to legislative inertia and public recognition of security needs, with proposals for revisions far more popular than outright abolition ..read more

In the main, public opinion surveys dealing with Korean unification employ direct questions within observational study designs. They measure public opinion on the necessity of unification, preferred timing for the process, and other related questions. These designs have inherent limitations in their (in)ability to capture trade-offs among relevant factors and, more seriously, to elicit true preferences on sensitive items. Direct questions that ask respondents whether they support unification are also underspecified and, frankly, vague. Respondents are often asked something like, “What do you t ..read more

Sun Weidong, left, chats with Choe Sun-hui in Pyongyang on 26 January 2024. Photo via Korean Central News Agency. The tempo of bilateral meetings appears to have stepped up between China and North Korea. PRC Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong’s meetings with Choe Sun-hui in Pyongyang yesterday is the latest evidence of that trend. This meeting follows on the heels of  have been Kim Jong-un’s autumn parlays with Liu Guozhong in Pyongyang, and the visit of Vice-Foreign Minister Pak Hyung-ho in Beijing in December 2023.  But what about China’s ground game in North Korea, an ..read more

In December 2022, the United States government released over 13,000 documents categorized as JFK Assassination Records. A handful of these records deal with China in some fashion, including US intelligence community readings of PRC media responses to the Kennedy assassination. As I went through the related files, I found a description of CIA interest in a Chinese target for defection. This person was none other than Liang Sicheng (梁思成), the famous architect whose career spanned the Republican period and the Mao years in the PRC. The author of the newly-declassified files was John McC ..read more

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (詹姆斯·克莱弗利) was in Beijing this past week for meetings with Wang Yi and Han Zheng. The Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) official readout of the meetings put cyber at the top of the agenda, with Hong Kong coming in a close second: The Foreign Secretary was clear about the UK’s position on China’s malign cyber activity. In detailed discussions on Hong Kong, he stressed the damage caused by the Beijing-imposed National Security Law to rights and freedoms and consequently to China’s international reputation and raised the case of Jimmy Lai ..read more

Comparisons abound between the DPRK and Turkmenistan, but this hasn’t stopped Seoul from pursuing deeper engagement with the totalitarian Central Asian state. As the ROK pursues parliamentary diplomacy in Central Asia, Turkmenistan has taken ROK National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo’s visit two Ashgabat as a chance to up its game in Central Asia-Korea parliamentary exchanges.    Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan holds talks with the Speaker of the ROK National Assembly[1] The national leader of the Turkmen people, Chairman of the Khalk Maslakhaty (People’s Council) of ..read more

China has struck back against efforts to restrict access to materials and technology needed in the semiconductor industry by stringently limiting exports of two critical minerals, gallium and germanium. Looking at Korea’s own role in the global semiconductor supply chain, Beijing-based Korean Mo Jong-hyuk sees several vulnerabilities in the ROK’s own position vis-à-vis China, especially when compared with those of other members of the “Chip 4” alliance, and warns that Seoul faces a much bigger disadvantage than other US partners in light of the PRC’s mineral export restrictions.    K ..read more

“When the winds of change blow, some build walls, others build windmills” goes the Chinese proverb. Foreign Chinese foreign minister and current Politburo member Wang Yi recently told former UN Secretary-General and current Boao Forum chairperson Ban Ki-moon that China’s policies toward the Republic of Korea have not fundamentally changed. In doing so, Beijing seems to be attempting to leverage the supposed lack of change as impetus for basing its relationship with Seoul on the progress of a windmill rather than the stagnation of a wall. Yet therein lies the issue. As per a previous ..read more

China has seemingly moved away from its so-called wolf-warrior diplomacy, arguably because of the damage it has done to Beijing’s global reputation. When it comes to the PRC’s relationship with the Republic of Korea, however, that line doesn’t seem to apply. According to a recent article in the Hankyoreh, the consensus among experts in Seoul seems to be that the Yoon Suk Yeol government’s position toward Taiwan has prompted Beijing to continue to relate to the ROK – and seemingly the ROK alone – in the spirit of wolf warrior diplomacy.    They weren’t like that toward the US or ..read more