Markus Bell, University of Sheffield and Marco Milani, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences In the wake of Pyongyang’s latest missile test, it’s clear that neither South Korea nor the US is making much headway in tackling the North Korean nuclear question. The south’s president, Moon Jae-in, is yet…
Written by Dr Gosia Jakimów, Lecturer in Chinese Politics With the sentencing of some prominent labour NGO activists in September 2016 to suspended prison terms, the precarious position of these organisations in Xi’s China became worldwide news. The arrests were preceded by a nation-wide crackdown on labour NGOs which started in 2012. The crackdown came…
The year 2018 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of modern circus in England, and will feature a variety of projects and events throughout the UK; including exhibitions, talks, and film screenings. In honour of this anniversary, the National Fairground and Circus Archive and the School of East Asian Studies at the University of…
1 June 2017 saw the publication of Unicode v.10.0. This now annual updating of the Unicode standard is publicly best known for the encoding of new emojis, allowing them to be reproduced in different platforms and on different computers correctly, and making them useable in email, in databases, and across the internet. Of course, the…
Peter Matanle is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies and Director of Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield’s School of East Asian Studies. He researches and teaches about Social and Cultural Geography. His current focus is on regional development, population and environment in the Asia-Pacific, particularly Japan and New Zealand. More information uploads of…
Małgorzata Jakimów, University of Sheffield The recent Belt and Road Forum in Beijing ushered in a new phase in China’s global repositioning. In his opening speech China’s president, Xi Jinping, reaffirmed the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive investment project launched in 2013 to dramatically expand land and sea trade across…
South Korea’s Moon Jae-in victorious on May 9, 2017. AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon Markus Bell, University of Sheffield and Marco Milani, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Democrat Moon Jae-in is the new president of South Korea. Moon, a former special forces soldier turned human rights lawyer, won a snap…
Markus Bell, University of Sheffield and Marco Milani, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences South Korea is under serious pressure on two fronts. Internationally, Seoul and its allies are scrambling to head off the threat from North Korea, which some fear is ramping up for another nuclear test –…
By Dr Markus Bell, Lecturer in Korean and Japanese Studies, SEAS Source: Mrs. B., A North Korean Woman (France/South Korea, 2016) North Korean forced migration has become a hot topic in the Western media. Largely driven by the publication of memoirs by several high-profile North Korean ‘defectors’, the plight of the North Korean citizenry and the…
By Luca Dorottya Pihaj, PhD student in the School of East Asian Studies Professor Christopher Hughes, Alumnus of SEAS, gave a public seminar on the newly emerged Abe Doctrine and its implications on Japanese foreign and security policy. Listen to Prof Hughes Seminar Christopher W. Hughes is a Professor of International Politics and Japanese Studies, and…
By Markus Bell, University of Sheffield and Marco Milani, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences When South Korea’s Constitutional Court finally upheld the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, ousted for cronyism and corruption, the massed protesters who spent months demanding her resignation breathed a collective sigh of relief. Their country…
The recent cancellation of planned “track 1.5” talks is disappointing By Maria Rosaria Coduti, North Korea Analyst at NK News and Academic Tutor at the University of Bologna. She is due to start studying for her PhD in The School of East Asian Studies in late 2017 The perception, by some North Korea analysts, that…
By Dr Peter Matanle, Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies and Director of Research and Innovation, School of East Asian Studies. Prime Minister Abe of Japan returned to Tokyo on Sunday 12 February having sealed his country’s position as a principal ally of the United States of America, in the process potentially even ousting the United…
Student voices from the lecture hall By Yuma Osaki and Emma Micklewright, Masters students Security in East Asia matters for the states and people in the region, and it matters for the rest of the world. Structural power shifts now coalesce with military modernisation and a multiplicity of transnational threats – ranging from the spread…
By Dr Markus Bell, Lecturer in Korean and Japanese Studies, SEAS, in collaboration with Marco Milani, University of Southern California The common thinking is that North Korea’s nuclear programme poses a threat to global peace and diverts economic resources from an impoverished population. North Korean leaders are depicted in the Western media as a cabal of…
