"Rising Stakes, Upgrading Forces" is a brand new @CrisisGroup report on South Korea, part of a series on the politics of military modernization in a number of Asian states. Download it here: crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pac…

AI riches turn Samsung factory town into luxury hotspot via @FT ft.com/content/52cdae7d-5553…

Very disappointed to see that @AramHur's latest paper in @koreaobserver has six completely fabricated citations. Academic integrity matters, people. A short 🧵

Here is the recording of Wednesday's informative @CrisisGroup webinar on the Xi-Kim summit and South Korea's response. youtube.com/live/YxFMaQxOV_4…

The ambition to trade has increasded, but the many barriers to trade remain. dailynk.com/20260611-5/

ICYMI: Yesterday’s ICG’s event on the Xi-Kim summit implications featuring me, @Dest_Pyongyang, @WilliamYang120, and @le2huong is archived online. youtube.com/watch?v=YxFMaQxO…

As Pyongyang-Moscow ties deepen, Beijing is aggressively moving to reassert its grip. What’s the next geopolitical shift? Join us for the chat on the Xi-Kim summit & Korean Peninsula security w/ @j3nnyt0wn, @Dest_Pyongyang, @WilliamYang120 & @le2huong. us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi…

South Korean Starbucks probe: arbitrary power in justice's name asiatimes.com/2026/06/south-… via @asiatimesonline

Rumors of a Xi Jinping visit to Pyongyang are spreading in DPRK border areas — dividing ordinary citizens (hopeful for cheaper goods) from traders (fearful of tighter controls). 🔗 dailynk.com/english/xi-jinpi… #NorthKorea #DPRK #ChinaDPRK #KimJongUn

[The Chosun Ilbo Op-ed] "Pro-China Left-Wing Label Sparks South Korea-U.S. Alliance Crisis" By Choi Kang (President) asaninst.org/bbs/board.php?b…

South Korea sits at the dangerous intersection of multi-dimensional big-power rivalries. The country’s strategists have their hands full and some in the country rightly fear what could be just over the horizon. crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pac…

What do North Korea’s constitutional revisions actually signal? warontherocks.com/2026/05/wh…

PM Takaichi: “I have arrived in South Korea. We will hold a summit meeting in Andong, the hometown of President Lee Jae Myung.”

South Korea's submarine plan confirms its intention to produce reactor fuel. Yes, the document says the sub reactors will run on low-enriched uranium. But the capability moves South Korea closer to the threshold of nuclear weapons. And with US support... mnd.go.kr/user/newsInUserRec…

*Samsung is paying 78,000 chip workers a $340,000 bonus each* .Not their salary. The bonus. The total bill is $26.6 billion, which equals 1.4% of South Korea's entire economy, going to less than 0.3% of the country's workforce. The average Korean earns roughly $32,000 a year. So each Samsung chip worker is pocketing about a decade of normal pay in one go. Memory-division employees may collect closer to $396,000. The cash comes straight out of Samsung's chip profits, which are projected to hit 330 trillion won (around $218 billion) this year. It's seven times higher than just a few years ago, driven by the AI boom. The deal gives workers 12% of those profits: 10.5% as company stock, the other 1.5% in cash. And not just this year. The setup repeats every year for the next decade, as long as profit targets get hit. KDI, South Korea's main economic think tank, just raised its 2026 growth forecast from 1.9% to 2.5%, thanks entirely to the chip boom. The extra growth works out to about $48 billion in new GDP. More than half of that is now landing in the bank accounts of 78,000 workers at one company. Real estate noticed early. In the first three months of 2026, before the contract was even signed, apartment sales in Dongtan, the suburb next to Samsung's main Hwaseong campus, more than doubled compared to a year earlier. Up 128.9%. Pyeongtaek climbed 36.8%. Yeongtong, where Samsung's headquarters sits, rose 28.7%. Local agents told the Seoul Economic Daily the buying began the moment bonus talks leaked. The tax bill is even bigger than the bonus. The Korean government expects to collect roughly 100 trillion won, around $67 billion, in extra tax revenue from the chip sector this year alone. The presidential office has openly floated a "national dividend," a direct cash payment to every Korean citizen, to redistribute the gains. Other industries are paying attention. SK Hynix locked in a similar 10% profit-share deal last September. Hyundai's union has reportedly asked for the same arrangement. Trouble is, cars and batteries don't run chip-level margins, and Korea's main business lobby has warned that copying this deal across the country's big family-owned conglomerates (the chaebol world) could blow up wage talks everywhere. Samsung's group of companies already account for around 22% of South Korean GDP. Whether 2026 ends up a good or a great year for Korea now mostly depends on a single number: how many memory chips Samsung and SK Hynix can ship to AI data centers from California to the Middle East. Forty trillion won, going to 78,000 people clustered in three cities south of Seoul. Korea's wealth map is being redrawn around the chip belt.

Re-upping my 2018 piece on sports diplomacy and inter-Korean ties. Worth reflecting at length on how much the situation has changed since then. crisisgroup.org/cmt/asia-pac…

Although South Koreans favouring inter-K engagement may lament it, this would not be a bad outcome for the peninsula.

Meanwhile, the Statue of Peace near the former Japanese Embassy has finally been freed from its barricade after almost six years. The 1,752nd Wednesday rally was held today - the first after last week’s barricade removal event. The statue itself appears to be in decent condition.

South Korea sits at the dangerous intersection of multi-dimensional big-power rivalries. The country’s strategists have their hands full and some in the country rightly fear what could be just over the horizon. crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pac…

Yes, Putin 🇷🇺 had to rely on troops from 🇰🇵 to repel the 🇺🇦 incursion into the Kursk region last year. I have difficulty seeing this as anything but a sign of weakness. And now the 🇰🇵 troops are parading in the Red Square.

South Korea lives with the constant threat of a major crisis. Its geostrategic position has always meant that it must contend with several challenges at once. But today these are growing ever greater. Our new report explains why: crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pac…