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In this blog, we report on developments in and around North Korea, including the broader security setting and political, economic, and social change in the country.
In the early 1990s, when I was teaching international trade at Johns Hopkins University, students used to approach me wanting to write research papers on US-Japan trade relations, a hot topic of the day. I recommended two books: Reconcilable Differences? and War Without Mercy. The students had no trouble understanding why their professor would recommend […]
Recently, we ran a post on ongoing efforts to control cell phone communication along the border. The measures include jamming of signals, fixed and mobile radio wave detectors and—somewhat contradictorily—the distribution of more cellphones to security forces in the region. (An Open Radio for North Korea story on the first six months of the Kim […]
While I was traveling in Northeast China last week, there were a few diplomatic developments that warrant brief comment, starting with President Park’s bid to re-open a channel to the North and the outcome of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meetings in Burma. In addition, “strategic patience” has been taking a beating both in hearings […]
Jim Hage is an accomplished runner, a nice guy, and a complete obsessive. He’s been running every day for more than 30 years and has covered more than 100,000(!) miles during this streak. I learned how to say “wind chill” in French from an anecdote about arriving late one night in Montreal in the dead […]
In the last few weeks a spate of stories have emerged involving North Korean refugees in China and the people who may (or may not) be assisting them. Sorting out truth from fiction, systematic policy from ad hoc decisions by local officials, and signaling from fundamental policy shifts is no easy thing. Time to triangulate. […]
If you haven’t already seen it, “Enter Pyongyang” – a slick time-lapse video made in collaboration with Koryo Tours that shoots you through the North Korean capital – has made a big splash in news outlets and social media; at the time of this writing it has received 2.6 million views. In terms of technical […]
Has a Chinese oil embargo delivered a devastating blow to the North Korean economy? Probably not. There has been some hubbub over China’s alleged de-facto oil embargo to North Korea; according to the Global Post, Chinese trade data has shown no crude exports to North Korea in the first six months of this year. China has […]
Stephan Haggard was recently featured on an episode of KEI’s Korean Kontext, a podcast series that focuses on experts, artists and opinion makers that shape the U.S.-Korea policy world. The interview discusses possible reform paths for North Korea, including both domestic reforms of the agricultural and state-owned enterprise sector and the current push to induce […]
This week, I attended a conference in Taiwan organized by Yun-han Chu (National Taiwan University) and Larry Diamond (Stanford) on the important question of polarization in Asian democracies. Nae-Young Lee (Korea University) gave an interesting paper on Korea, comparing levels of party and voter polarization over time, and we summarize some of the findings here. […]
At a Korea Economic Institute seminar last week, I had the pleasure of running into Gil Rozman, the leading sociologist in the country working on the international relations of Northeast Asia. I had missed the fact that he has taken over an editorial role at The Asan Forum, an online resource on the region that […]
