Mission Statement
As an independent, non-partisan think tank, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies is dedicated to undertaking policy-relevant research to foster domestic, regional, and international environments conducive to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The Asan Institute was established in commemoration of the late Founder and Honorary Chairman of Hyundai Group Chung Ju-yung, who left an indelible mark on South Korea’s modernization and inter-Korean exchanges towards peace.
Named after Chung Ju-yung’s pen name “Asan”, Dr. MJ Chung founded the Asan Institute on February 11, 2008 to become a world-class think tank that mirrors South Korea’s place on the world stage.
Forum
The Asan Plenum is the annual gathering of leading national security and foreign policy experts from around the globe. In addressing the most pressing challenges facing the world, the Asan Plenum aims to impact the policy making process and enable the global community to better deal with the challenges it faces. The “conversational” format of the Plenum will allow for maximum interaction among the panelists and participants.
Bi-monthly E-Journal
The Asan Forum
The Asan Forum is an online publication, to best preserve the continuity and interactivity of live debates, while taking advantage of the extraordinary reach that the technology affords us.
The Asan Forum aims to bring together scholars and policy experts from across the region and disciplines. The aim is not simply to seek diversity of views; it is to harness the intellectual synergy created when perspectives compete, and more importantly, complement each other. We named it a Forum, like our signature conferences, because it is about exchanging insights and finding the best practices for the challenges that our region faces.
The Asan Forum consists of the following in addition to opinion pieces and reviews:
- “Country Reports” are filed by our local editors from Korea, China, Japan, and Russia, who provide monthly synopses of country specific issues that are often overlooked by the global media.
- “Open Forum” is reserved for fresh ideas that bring non-traditional, disruptive perspectives to the table. It is only fitting that we start off the section with a piece by Stephen Krasner of Stanford University, about the effects of unforeseen disruptions to the global system.
- “Special Forum” focuses on pertinent and timely topics chosen by the Editorial Board. “Cold War II?” is the inaugural topic for the section, with the contributions from Michishita Narushige of the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies, Scott Harold of the RAND Corporation, Rex Li of Liverpool John Moores University, Stephen Blank of American Foreign Policy Council, and Zhu Feng of Peking University.