[뉴스] How North Korea’s lucrative trade in human hair is helping it skirt the impact of sanctions

They almost certainly don’t know it, but western owners of shiny new wigs and false eyelashes could owe their look to North Korean slave labour.

[뉴스] Putin’s China Visit Highlights Military Ties That Worry the West

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia attended a trade fair on Friday in a northeastern Chinese city and toured a state-backed university famous for its cutting-edge defense research, highlighting how economic and military ties between the countries have grown despite, or perhaps because of, Western pressure.

[학술논문] Selective Reopening at the China-DPRK Border: Trade Recovery and the New Yalu River Bridge

By 2025, China-DPRK trade had largely recovered from the collapse caused by the COVID-19 border closure. The New Yalu River Bridge, however, remained a revealing exception: a completed cross-border corridor whose port-of-entry functions still lagged behind the trade rebound. This article uses that disjuncture to examine reopening after the COVID-19 border closure along the China-DPRK border. Drawing...

[학술논문] Opening Pandora's Box: Is South Korea's Nuclearization Feasible and Desirable?

...that technological, diplomatic, and domestic political factors pose obstacles to current feasibility. Even if such obstacles are mitigated, nuclear armament has limited security benefits and negative trade‐offs, limiting its desirability as a long‐term strategic solution. This article contributes to the literature by offering a critical yet holistic perspective on the implications of South Korea's nuclearization...

[학술논문] South Korea-United States Relations in 2025: Lee Adjusts to Trump as the U.S.-China Conflict Deepens

...drive inter-related military and economic threats to both South Korea and the U.S. Largely in reaction, Donald Trump has intensified his first-term effort both to confront China's threats and to use trade and other policies to re-industrialize the U.S. economy. South Koreans, after a period of foreign policy stasis under a series of acting, lame-duck presidents, elected Lee Jae-myung president in June...

[학술논문] Economic Experimentation under Authoritarian Closure: Urban and Social Transformation in North Korea’s Rason SEZ

...downtown Rason, while building density continued to rise in the city center and its surrounding areas. Regression analysis indicates that trade volume, targeted sanctions on specific goods, and the COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced the SEZ’s development, with trade with China exerting the most substantial effect. The interview findings corroborate the satellite data and highlight concrete spatial...

[학술논문] Economic Sanctions and Private Goods: Focusing on North Korea’s Trade and Finance Elite Coalition

...classifies elite types and traces annual compositional changes. It further conducts a longitudinal network analysis of trade and finance elites, whose prominence increased after sanctions. The findings show a structural shift from a military-centered coalition to one centered on trade and finance elites, characterized by sustained cohesion but declining concentration, indicating adaptive dispersion of...

[해외] Trade and Investment Factsheets: North Korea

This factsheet provides the latest statistics on trade and investment between the UK and North Korea.

[해외] How North Korea Won: The Strange Triumph of Kim Jong Un

...military parade—in Beijing, where he stood with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. North Korean soldiers were now fighting alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, North Korean trade with China had reached healthy pre-pandemic levels, and Kim had been welcomed into a unified cohort of leaders countering U.S. and Western influence. In a stunning reversal of fortune, North Korea...

[해외] Assessing the Impact of the US’ New Foreign Policy Approach on North Korea’s Arms Trafficking Activity

The Trump administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS) in early December 2025, outlining the US’ “America First” foreign policy aims. This policy formulation appears to indicate the Indo-Pacific region will take a back-seat to regions closer to home, such as Latin America and the Caribbean (LATAM). Underscoring this strategic refocus is Washington’s January 4, 2026 military operation

[해외] Why Korea's Nuclear-Powered Submarine Matters to U.S. Strategy

...summit in Gyeongju, President Trump announced he had given South Korea permission to build a nuclear-powered attack submarine—a breakthrough that President Lee Jae Myung had sought throughout months of trade and security negotiations. The details are still being worked out. What matters now is how Seoul and Washington go about turning words into warships. This is not just a Korean capability upgrade. In...

[해외] South Korea: Background and U.S. Relations

...Korea's second-largest trading partner. The U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), signed in 2012, is the United States' second-largest trade agreement by value. Over the past decade, congressional interest in U.S.-ROK relations often has focused on cooperation on North Korea and Indo-Pacific policies, the U.S.-ROK alliance, U.S.-ROK-Japan relations, and bilateral trade and investment.