Notwithstanding an international ban on ballistic missile and nuclear weapons tests, Pyongyang has launched seven ballistic missiles since January 2022. In this Special Report, Cheol-Wun Jang, Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, lays out the status of North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and the implications ...

Global NK Zoom & Connect has met with leading South Korean researchers who study North Korea and listened to their voices to understand current research on North Korea. For this issue, we interviewed Young-Sun Ha (Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the East Asia Institute and Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University). Based on the public s...

In the absence of Kim Jong Un’s New Years Speech, Young-sun Ha, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the East Asia Institute and Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University, states that we can deduce what North Korea has in mind for 2022 through his speech, “On the Orientation of the Work of the Party and State for 2022.” Despite the “t...

As part of the Global NK Zoom & Connect project, the East Asia Institute (President Yul Sohn) held “North Korea in 2022: Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Message and the Korean Peninsula." This webinar analyzed and forecasted North Korea's strategy in 2022 based on New Years' messages from the plenary meeting of the central committee of North Korean ...

North Korea is among the few states in the world with hereditary succession as the official policy for power succession; leadership is solely centered on the Kim family. This, however, is not to say that the successor is to inherit all characteristics of their predecessor. In this commentary, Hyeong Jung Park, Emeritus Research Fellow at the Korea ...

Both North and South Korea were both simultaneously admitted into the UN in 1991 yet have followed drastically different tracks since then. In this commentary, Shin-wha Lee, Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Director of Peace and Democracy Institute at Korea University, and the President of the Korean Aca...

Global NK Zoom & Connect has met with leading South Korean researchers who study North Korea and listened to their voices to understand current research on North Korea. For this issue, we met Sang Hyun Lee, President of the Sejong Institute, which has been closely analyzing the changing security environment and suggested alternatives to contribute ...

China, one of the parties involved in the Korean War Armistice Agreement of 1953, has shown considerable interest in President Moon’s end-of-war declaration. In this commentary, Dr. Jongho Shin, research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, analyzes China's current position, explains any potential changes regarding the declarat...

The end-of-war declaration has been the talk of the town since President Moon Jae-in’s address at the UN General Assembly. As the declaration lacks precedent, it has stirred a lot of controversy regarding its form and content. In this commentary, Nam-Ju Lee, professor at Sungkonghoe University explains China’s potential role in the end-of-war d...

The Biden administration and the Kim Jong Un regime have been at odds in regards to diplomacy with North Korea – negotiations have been stalled and prospects for dialogue have been bleak. In September 2021, President Moon proposed an end-of-war declaration during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly and has requested U.S. coope...