KOREA PRO Podcast

In this week’s episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, co-hosts Jeongmin and John discuss the unexpected election of five-term lawmaker Woo Won-shik as the National Assembly speaker and the strategies employed by Woo and his rival, Choo Mi-ae. The duo also examines the first lady’s recent public appearance amid the ongoing Dior bag scandal, with the latest investigations focusing on

In this special extended episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, co-hosts Jeongmin and John are joined by Dr. Victor Cha, the senior vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). Dr. Cha discusses the findings of his new report on South Korean elites’ fragile opposition to nuclearization and shares his insights on the current de

In this week’s episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, co-hosts Jeongmin and John discuss recent developments in South Korea-Japan relations, focusing on the tech leak that compromised hundreds of thousands of Japanese personal data. They also discuss Japan’s push to force out Naver, a South Korean tech portal company, from its partnership with Japan’s SoftBank in the wake of the i

In the latest episode of the Korea Pro Podcast, Jeongmin, Lina and Joon Ha discuss the much-anticipated first formal meeting between opposition leader Lee Jae-myung and President Yoon Suk-yeol since Yoon's inauguration. The episode highlights how Lee’s surprise speech to the press allowed the opposition to dominate the optics. However, the outcome remained ambiguous, with both si

In this week's episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, co-hosts Jeongmin and John delve into the upcoming meeting between President Yoon Suk-yeol and Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung. They discuss Lee’s proposal to provide $180 to every South Korean citizen, which would cost around $9 billion, and analyze the potential impact and motivations behind this plan. The duo also examine

In this week’s episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, Jeongmin is on vacation, so John is joined by news trainees Joon Ha Park and Lina Park. The trio discusses the aftermath of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s senior staff resignations following the ruling People Power Party’s defeat in the previous week’s general elections. The team examines potential candidates for the prime minist

In this slightly extended episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, Jeongmin and John delve into the aftermath of South Korea’s general elections, which saw the ruling People Power Party (PPP) suffer another landslide defeat while the Democratic Party (DP) and the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) emerged victorious. The hosts discuss the string of resignations that followed the election, in

In this episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, Jeongmin and John cover three key topics surrounding the upcoming South Korean general elections. First, they delve into the record number of overseas South Koreans who participated in early voting. John shares his experiences with this demographic from his younger days and discusses how the group may have changed over the years. Next, th

In this special extended episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, Jeongmin and John are joined by special guest Jumin Lee, a Los Angeles-based attorney and Korea Pro contributor. The trio delves into three critical topics surrounding the upcoming South Korean general elections. First, they examine the decrease in the number of female candidates running for office, a stark contrast to the

On this week’s episode of The Korea Pro Podcast, we start by discussing the Seoul city bus drivers’ strike, which began just hours before our recording and ended just hours after we finished recording. The drivers demanded higher wages, and the strike marked the first in 12 years. Next, we explore People Power Party interim leader Han Dong-hoon’s pledge to relocate the Natio