KEI Live

After North Korea launched its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, an outraged international community once again cracked down, passing tough sanctions both at the UN and domestic levels. While early signs seem to indicate that these sanctions are putting a dent in North Korea's trade with other countries, it remains to be seen whether they will have a real impact on the DPRK's policies.

This week's guest is skeptical about the ability of sanctions to push real change in a targeted country. Dr. Dursun Peksen, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis, has studied sanctions around the world for years, and his new paper for KEI suggests that sanctions against North Korea may be less effective than we hope.

In May 2016, Park Geun Hye became the first South Korean president to visit the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia. This trip, which also included stops in Uganda and Kenya, has been hailed as part of a growing Korean interest in Africa, particularly when it comes to development aid.

To discuss this trend is this week's guest, Valerie Dabady Liverani. She has worked at the African Development Bank (AfDB) since 1998, and now serves as the manager of their Resource Mobilization and External Finance Department. 

In this episode, Dabady Liverani talks about Korea's work with the AfDB, some areas where more resources are needed, and possible overlap between Korea's cultural promotion and aid projects.

Photo from Korea.net's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

This week, we have a very special guest who flew in from Paris to talk about Korea's economy. Dr. Randall Jones is head of the Japan/Korea Desk at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), and has studied the Korean economy extensively for the OECD's new economic survey of Korea.

In this episode, KEI senior director Troy Stangarone spoke with Jones about the report, including Korea's recent economic performance and future outlook. They also discussed some of Jones' recommendations to help Korea increase its growth moving forward.

As Seoul has grown, it has become more and more international. The city has been making an effort to attract more foreign visitors, whether as tourists, students or workers. This week, we sit down with one of those visitors, who called Seoul home for more than five years.

Ross Tokola first visited Korea in 2009 when his father, KEI Vice President Mark Tokola, was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. He returned in 2011 and stayed, working for the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and spending time learning Korean at Sogang University.

In this week's episode, we chat with Ross about his experience living and working in Seoul, how the city has changed since he first moved there, and more.

Over the last 50 years, Myanmar has oscillated between periods of friendship with South Korea and partnership with North Korea. As Myanmar opens to the international community, however, investment and aid from South Korea seem to be cementing its loyalty to Seoul. 

How has Myanmar interacted with the two Koreas in the past, and could they swing back toward Pyongyang in the coming years? In this episode, we talk with Myanmar expert Dr. David Steinberg to flesh out Myanmar's tangled relationship with the two halves of the Korean Peninsula. As a government official, researcher and academic, Dr. Steinberg has decades of experience following Myanmar's many political and economic transitions. This week, he brings that expertise to Korean Kontext.

Anyone who has spent time in Korea knows the term Yellow Dust. Sand from Mongolia sweeps across China, picking up pollutants and carrying them across borders. Every spring, Koreans bring out their facemasks and lament China's lax environmental standards. But according to this week's guest, the "Blame China" narrative is an oversimplification of the problem.

Our guest for this episode is Dr. Matthew Shapiro, associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He recently wrote a paper for KEI on Asia's air pollution problem, including how Korean industry investment in China may be partly to blame.

This week, we delve into how Japan views the security threat from China, and how these perceptions shape Japanese policy. For this, we turn to security expert Dr. Narushige Michishita.

Dr. Michishita is a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo and is currently a Japan scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. KEI recently commissioned a paper from him for our Academic Symposium program. The paper looked into how different sectors in Japan view the Chinese security threat, including politicians, the defense ministry, and the media.

In this episode, we discuss his findings and Japan's view toward Chinese security intentions more broadly. We also discuss some of his other research on security and strategy in Northeast Asia.