The South Korean ferry MV Sewol capsized off the southwestern coast of the peninsula on the morning of April 16, 2014. Sewol’s departure from the port of Incheon the night before had been delayed by nearly two-and-a-half hours, due to a thick, persistent fog. Sewol commenced its journey shortly after the low visibility warning was … Read more
In March 2024, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held their 10th Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) in Seoul, marking the first such gathering in almost six years. A week later, in their trilateral technology dialogue, the United States, South Korea, and India explored possibilities for collaboration in key … Read more
“With God’s help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas City,” Kenneth Wherry, then the mayor of a small town in Nebraska, proudly proclaimed in 1940. It was a glaring display of race-driven paternalistic attitudes of the 19th and 20th centuries. Nearing a century later, the United … Read more
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens global security, in an apparent call for China to apply greater pressure on its neighbor and close strategic partner to resolve the conflict. Scholz also said the use of nuclear weapons in the two-year-old war should not even … Read more
Central and Eastern Europe has been one of the most interesting regions to follow in terms of the Chinese global presence. When China stepped up its engagement with the region via its 16+1 initiative in 2012, the debate in Europe soon after started to revolve around the notion of the region serving as a “Trojan … Read more
The need to alleviate the strain of great-power competition and navigate uncertainties in international politics has prompted many countries to broaden their partnerships and establish new avenues of cooperation. Taiwan is no exception. Since the official launch of the New Southbound Policy (NSP) in 2016, the Tsai Ing-wen administration has made great strides to strengthen … Read more
Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned in its Annual Threat Assessment that China is intensifying its “efforts to mold U.S. public discourse” and will also likely continue to “apply military and economic pressure as well as public messaging and influence activities while promoting long-term cross-Strait economic and social integration to … Read more
On April 2, North Korea unveiled the long awaited successor to its Hwasong-12 “Guam Killer” intermediate range ballistic missile. The test launch of the Hwasong-16B followed years of reports on the testing of associated technologies facilitating a generational leap in performance. With an estimated range of 4,000-5,000 kilometers, North Korea’s intermediate range missiles – beginning … Read more
Mongolian Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai’s latest visit to South Korea at the beginning of April shed light on Ulaanbaatar and Seoul’s growing economic and cultural cooperation. Oyun-Erdene’s visit envisaged several economic initiatives Seoul could participate in, ranging from collaboration between large corporations to increasing tourism and promoting the Korean creative industry to enter Mongolia. Mongolia … Read more
For two years Chinese authorities secretly detained the newborn baby, her siblings, and their parents. Their whereabouts and wellbeing remained unknown to family members or lawyers until word began to trickle out in July 2022: the baby and her sister, then 6 years old, had been kept in a psychiatric hospital since October 2020. Their … Read more