Chaesung Chun, President of EAI and Professor at Seoul National University, analyzes the shifts in the international order represented by China’s recent Victory Day celebrations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, and examines North Korea’s strategic position within the solidarity of authoritarian states. President Chun highlights the implications of U.S. hegemonic readjustment, the rise of a multi-topos system, and North Korea’s strategic diplomatic shifts for the Korean Peninsula, presenting the choices facing South Korean diplomacy. In this context, the author suggests t...

Commentary

• Chaesung CHUN
• September 18, 2025

Jaewoo Jun, an Associate Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), provides a sweeping analysis of the evolving role of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) within the broader currents of U.S. grand strategy and East Asian security. Tracing shifts from the Cold War through the present U.S.-China rivalry, Dr. Jun underscores that the ROK-U.S. alliance is not a static guarantee but a variable instrument of American strategic interests. The author highlights South Korea’s resulting structural dilemma and calls for a more rational, autonomous approach to alliance management that re...

Commentary

• Jaewoo JUN
• September 15, 2025

Youngsun Jeon, a HK Research Professor at Konkuk University, examines the reality and agenda of North Korea’s rural development. By analyzing A New Spring in the Paekhak Plain (2025), North Korea’s first ever contemporary television drama, Jeon identifies North Korea’s internal struggle against corruption and the people’s loss of faith in party policies. The drama candidly reveals the predicament of North Korea’s countryside and agriculture. However, it also presents North Korea’s commitment to boosting grain production through the eradication of “bluffing” and the implementati...

Commentary

• Youngsun JEON
• August 27, 2025