Leif-Eric Easley, Professor at Ewha Womans University, examines the new Lee Jae Myung administration’s initial foreign policies and explains the calculation behind their continuity with the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. Despite expectations that the progressive government would overturn the previous diplomatic initiatives, Professor Easley observes that the Lee administration is pragmatically limiting its scope of foreign policy change. According to him, this consistency is due to the new administration’s acknowledgement of the U.S.-ROK alliance’s strategic importance, the value of relat...

Commentary

• Leif-Eric EASLEY
• July 15, 2025

Minghao Zhao, Professor and Deputy Director at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, underscores the urgent need for strategic vigilance on the Korean Peninsula amid a confluence of destabilizing factors. Professor Zhao examines the deteriorating security environment shaped by North Korea’s military expansion, U.S.-China strategic rivalry, the repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine war, and shifting domestic politics in South Korea and the United States. The author presents a sober reassessment of the denuclearization impasse, critiquing past U.S.-North Korea diplomacy while warn...

Commentary

• Minghao ZHAO
• July 11, 2025

Jihwan Hwang, Professor at the University of Seoul, analyzes the Lee Jae Myung administration's pragmatic, national interest-centered diplomacy toward North Korea and its implications for the inter-Korean relations. Professor Hwang assesses the strategic opportunities and limitations facing Seoul’s inter-Korean initiatives and calls for an approach that departs from past ideological binaries and addresses the structural realities surrounding the Korean Peninsula. The author argues that it is essential to formulate a long-term, proactive North Korea policy based on South Korea’s national po...

Commentary

• Jihwan HWANG
• July 04, 2025