Korean Kontext

For many years, South Korea has been a homogeneous country. But with more foreigners coming to live in Korea, that is starting to change. In fact, the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs estimates that the number of multicultural families in Korea could reach nearly 750,000 by 2020. This week's guest is Dr. Daisy Kim, who studies these multicultural families, with a particular focus on marriage migrants - women who move to Korea to marry a Korean man. We discuss some of the particular issues these women and their families face, what the Korean government has done to support them, and much more. Note: This is a rebroadcast of an episode from August 11, 2016. Image from Steve Baty's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

With President Donald Trump finishing up his first official trip to Asia, including a stop in South Korea last week, this week's episode of Korean Kontext asks: what do South Koreans think of President Trump?    KEI program manager Juni Kim has been following the polls, and has found that while very few members of the Korean public have confidence in President Trump, their views of the United States as a whole remain high. In this week's podcast, host Jenna Gibson sits down with Juni to discuss some of the polling in South Korea about the United States and its leader, as well as how he thinks President Trump's trip to Korea could affect his approval rating among Koreans.   Image from Republic of Korea's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

President Donald Trump is off on his longest international trip yet, stopping in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. There, he is expected to tackle a range of issues, including responses to North Korea's nuclear and missle programs as well as economic ties between the United States and the Asia Pacific.    In this episode, we talk with Mark Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of IISS–Americas, about his expectations for the trip, how he thinks President Trump will handle the North Korea question, and particularly how his first visit to South Korea will go.   *Please note this episode was pre-recorded, some details of the trip may have subsequently changed*   Image from North Charleston's photostream on flickr Creative Commons. 

As a communist state, North Korea has promised to provide its people with basic services, including healthcare and medical treatment. However, particularly in recent years, the cash-strapped Kim regime has been unable to provide even some basic medical services. Famine and poverty have exacerbated the problem, leaving diseases like tuberculosis to run rampant in the DPRK.   Researcher Dr. John Grundy, an expert on public health, recently completed a paper for KEI on the functionality and limits of the North Korean healthcare system as it evolved from 1953 to the present. In this episode of Korean Kontext, he sits down with host Jenna Gibson to discuss his paper and some of the unique challenges North Korean healthcare faces today.   To read Dr. Grundy's paper, please click here. Image from United Nations Photo on flickr Creative Commons.

While North Korea under the Kim regime has tried to maintain tight control of information sources within its borders, the North Korean populace in recent years has found creative ways to access outside media, which includes everything from foreign news broadcasts to the latest South Korean dramas.   Nat Kretchen, Deputy Director at the Open Technology Fund, participated in a panel here at KEI this week and discussed his research on North Korea’s developing information environment. Nat sat down with us afterwards to talk more about how everyday North Koreans access information and how the regime is fighting back against the increase of foreign media in the country.

With North Korea becoming an increasingly dangerous threat to the U.S. and its allies, it can be all too easy to overlook North Korea’s origins and how its foreign policy first took shape. One of the lesser known aspects of North Korea’s foreign policy was its heavy involvement in supporting non-state actor and rebel movements in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.   Benjamin Young, a PhD Candidate in East Asian History at George Washington University, recently presented his paper on North Korea’s support of non-state actors as part of KEI’s Academic Paper Series. He sat down with Korean Kontext guest host Juni Kim to discuss how North Korea’s first leader Kim Il Sung’s experiences in guerrilla warfare shaped his foreign policy and what his legacy means for North Korea today.   Please note the following corrections: 16:59 - Kim Il-Sung died in 1994 17:49 - The aid agency is called Doctors Without Borders

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong met this week to discuss the future of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). With concerns of a possible withdrawal hovering over the talks, the two countries agreed to move forward on working to improve the agreement, which is surely welcome news for US exporters that have benefitted from the KORUS FTA.   This week we sat down with Sam Cho, founder and CEO of Seven Seas Export, to discuss his company's work in exporting American eggs to South Korea and the benefits that KORUS provides to American farmers. We also discuss how Sam got started in the trade business and how the bird flu affected the South Korean egg market.

With North Korea launching missile after missile and even conducting a massive nuclear test within the last month or so, attention is understandably focused on how to get the regime in Pyongyang to back down from its provocative actions. But at the same time, there is another important issue that can also affect how the world deals with North Korea - human rights.    Olivia Enos of the Heritage Foundation researches human rights issues around Asia including the DPRK, and believes that human rights can, and should, underpin our diplomatic and security strategies toward Pyongyang. In this episode, she tells Korean Kontest host Jenna Gibson about how human rights and security are intertwined, how the Trump Administration can weave human rights into their extreme pressure and engagement policy, and what role China plays in the situation.

The Global Financial Crisis highlighted the importance of international coordination to prevent, manage, and resolve financial crises. To this end, global institutions such as the G20 and IMF have garnered significant attention, but complementary institutions at the regional level also play an important role. Though it may not be the largest economy in these initiatives, South Korea has increasingly played a central role in their advancement, such as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization and ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office.   In this episode, KEI's Kyle Ferrier sits down with Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Co-director of the London Asia Pacific Centre for Social Science King's College London, to discuss the central role Korea plays in East Asian financial institutions.

With the increasing prevalence and acceptance of video games and e-sports has also come an increasing concern about potential negative side effects of spending too much time playing video games. From the debate over violent games causing real violence to the concerns about kids becoming addicted to their favorite game, these concerns are nothing new. But the debate continues in the scientific community about whether video game addiction even technically exists and, if it does, how to diagnose it.   Seoul-based science journalist Mark Zastrow has looked into this debate both in the United States and in Korea. In this episodes, he shares what he has learned about the different ways each country approaches video game addiction - and what they are doing about it.   Image from Joop's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

Entering into effect in 2012, the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) has brought benefits for both the United States and South Korea. But the Trump Administration recently called for a review of the agreement, even going so far as to suggest that the United States may withdraw from KORUS altogether.   To shed some light on the complicated details of KORUS and the U.S.-Korea trade defecit, Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson sat down with three KEI experts specializing in economics and trade. They discuss the background of the free trade agreement, why President Trump is opposed to it, and how political considerations may sink a good trade deal.   Image from Port of Tacoma's photostream on flickr Creative Commons.

Many of the news stories about North Korea that make their way into the Western media fall into one of two categories: 1) breaking news about provocations and the nuclear crisis or 2) look at the crazy thing Kim Jong Un did today. As a journalist who covered the DPRK from both Seoul and Pyongyang, Jean Lee is working to get past the caricatures that often make their way into how we see North Koreans.    Jean, who is now a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center, is here in DC for an event she organized about this very topic. The seminar features journalists, novelists and historians who all face unique challenges in gathering information and writing about the DPRK. She agreed to sit down with us while here in town to give us a preview of the roundtable, which took place on December 7, 2016 at the Wilson Center.   To hear more from Jean and learn about her work covering North Korea, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram with the handle @newsjean.

With the recent retirement by Yi So-yeon, South Korea’s remaining astronaut, many have turned attention to Korea, wondering whether there is a future for its space program. According to Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group, South Korea’s space program is a necessary and integral part of President Park Geun-hye’s future economic policies. Furthermore, it can and is being used used to enhance its relations with its allies. Challenges that do arise include how its space program affects the security situation in the region and whether enough data is being shared between countries to properly manage peaceful exploration and usage of space.   Please click here to read his recent KEI APS paper on South Korea’s space program and to view the September 10, 2014 program.

In this episode from 2011, we spoke with Kevin O'Donnell, who, after decades on a private sector career path, became the first-ever Peace Corps country director for South Korea, followed by a term as national director of the Peace Corps. Mr. O'Donnell shares with us his accounts of moving to Korea for the first time, some of the challenges he faced during a budget crisis, and the relationship between the Peace Corps and its host nations.

The last month has seen two North Korean ICBM tests, a new round of UN sanctions, and threats exchanged between Washington and Pyongyang. To catch up on the latest developments from the Korean Peninsula and try to make sense of some of the rhetoric that has been coming out of the Trump Administration, three members of the KEI staff sat down with Korean Kontext host Jenna Gibson for this episode of the podcast.    Mark Tokola, KEI's vice president, Troy Stangarone, our senior director, and Kyle Ferrier, director of academic affairs and research, discuss a variety of topics related to North Korea, including the difference between a preventative strike and a pre-emptive one, possibilities for the use of cyber attacks, and some of the strengths and weaknesses of the new UN sanctions.   Photos from the U.S. Coast Guard and Prachatai on flickr Creative Commons.