In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

In an interview with the Korea Herald earlier this year, Hur Dong-Soo, CEO of Korea’s GS Caltex, called his company’s investments in heavy-oil upgrading facilities a “green growth business.” As the phrase “green growth” becomes ever more common

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North Korea’s National Defense Commission yesterday released a rare public statement on inter-Korean relations in response to Lee Myung-Bak’s May 9 Berlin speech inviting Kim Jong Il to attend next year’s Nuclear Security Summit.

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At a State Department briefing earlier this week, the spokesman stated that U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea Ambassador Robert King may be tasked to lead a food assessment mission to North Korea. This announcement comes following a round of consultations…

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There has been a protracted debate over whether the United States should give food assistance in response to North Korea’s appeals for assistance from earlier this year, with an exchange between Stephan Haggard and Lee Jong Cheol as the most recent example.

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From my hotel in Bangkok, I watched on CNN as President Obama announced to the American people and the world that “justice has been done,” shortly after Osama Bin Laden was killed by an elite group of U.S. forces in Pakistan.

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NHK live broadcasts on the tsunami that swept coastal villages in Eastern Japan on March 11 were a shocking scene to the Korean people. Japan now confronts the aftermath of triple natural disasters – an earthquake of a record 9.0 magnitude, a devastating tsunami, and the threat of radioactive contamination…

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One month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, the Japanese are still coping with an incredible accumulation of sorrow, devastation, and anxiety about the future. Beyond the most urgent question of how Japan will recover from such a calamitous situation, a secondary concern is the potential human, environmental, and economic impact the crisis will have on the rest of Asia. Economists seem to agree that the disaster is not likely to pose a significant, long-term risk to the global economy.

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Over the last several months, the Korea Development Institute (KDI) and The Asia Foundation have held dialogues on Asian approaches to development cooperation. The idea for the dialogues, which brings together development experts from Korea, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, grew out of concern over the absence of perspectives…

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I was a last-minute substitute speaker this week on the U.S.-South Korean nuclear relationship at the Carnegie Endowment’s 2011 Nuclear Policy Conference.The focus of our panel on “U.S. Nuclear Cooperation: How and With Whom?” was on issues surrounding a new U.S.-ROK nuclear cooperation…

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While the events of the past weekend have shifted the world’s attention to Libya, there are clearly reverberations for North Korea, especially given that Muammar Qadhafi pursued, then gave up in 2003, a nuclear weapons capability as part of what seemed then like a step toward normalcy with the rest of the world. Qadhafi’s strategic decision to give up Libya’s nuclear program in return for rapprochement with the United States was held up to North Koreans as a model for pursuing diplomatic normalization with the United States.

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