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Eugene Lee

Eugene Lee (mreulee@gmail.com) is a lecturing professor at the Graduate School of Governance at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. Specializing in international relations and governance, his research and teaching focus on national and regional security, international development, government policies and Northeast and Central Asia.

Eugene Lee

Korea is about to meet a Central Asia it thinks it knows

In a few weeks’ time, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will arrive in Seoul for the Korea-Central Asia Summit hosted by Korea. My only worry is that the summit would produce another collection of bilateral agreements, photographs and carefully worded declarations instead of real partnership. Korea’s interest in Central Asia is not new. Korean companies have pursued energy projects, construction contracts, transport infrastructure and access to critical minerals there for decades. The region is also home to a substantial ethnic Korean population, a human and historical dimension of the relations that only few other states possess. Five resource-rich countries from the former Soviet space are now a region that is learning to think and act collectively. Yet, Seoul’s strategic imagination has remained limited. Policy makers and think tanks here still too often look at Central Asia as a map of separate opportunities: uranium and lithium in Kazakhstan, gas in Turkmenistan, infrastructure in Uzbekistan, hydropower in Tajikistan and developme

Aug 18, 2026By Eugene Lee
Korea is about to meet a Central Asia it thinks it knows
Eugene Lee

Korea's AI kingdom: The debate South Korea needs – and is not having

There is an invisible revolution taking place throughout Korea and the world that we do not see — it is called artificial intelligence (AI) agents, small programs designed with the use of AI that do small things on our behalf. They can sort your data, go through your shopping list, search and even buy items for you, run your schedules, draft and answer your emails and many more. What is unique is that they are created by tinkering by average persons, like you and me. At first, many of these agents are limited and unreliable. But users test them, fail and adjust their instructions and tools, and gradually make them more capable. Some have already become reliable enough for use in businesses. Employers are now asking whether agents can run routine administrative tasks and if humans are actually needed to do them. The consequences are huge. For now, most agents appear modest: a research assistant here, an automated scheduler there. Yet they are likely to become standard features of computers, phones, messaging platforms and workplaces far sooner than most governments are prepared for. I

Jul 30, 2026By Eugene Lee
Korea's AI kingdom: The debate South Korea needs – and is not having
Eugene Lee

Community vs. 'Epstein class'

Over the course of a week, I speak with many people from different walks of life. Our discussions about social changes have become heated, especially after the last elections — or rather failures tied to them and whether public institutions still understand responsibility. From my observations, a new trend is emerging to describe this change in the society. I would like to borrow one phrase now circulating in American political language to explain the mood: “Epstein class.” The concept can be used in two ways. The first way refers to the super-rich, who act as if ordinary rules do not apply to them. The second one, I use as a description of elite impunity. This class penetrates state bureaucracy, public agencies, party structures, an invisible nepotistic elite with connections extending to media and universities. The second type is quieter and therefore harder to confront. It is insulated and less visible, and the extent of it is much deeper. It reproduces itself across generations, not always through open corruption, but through access, protection and silence. It has become more

Jun 29, 2026By Eugene Lee
Community vs. 'Epstein class'
Eugene Lee

Why upcoming regional elections matter more than ever

I have written on several occasions about state policies and their success. They depend on both vertical and horizontal organized efforts. The same applies to the vision that President Lee Jae Myung holds. It will only become reality if all dimensions of the country come together: state, business and society. In order to succeed, the policies must also work in regions outside Seoul. Right now, however, the regions are in chaos, to put it mildly. Local primaries are choked with an unprecedented tide of candidates — sometimes a dozen vying for a single mayoral seat. The only hope is that these nominees can truly achieve ideological alignment and pare themselves down. Unfortunately, we are seeing gruesome internal factionalism, and these in-party conflicts have become so bad that some protest groups are delivering coffins to the party headquarters. This regional disarray echoes the turmoil at Samsung, where management has been locked in a fierce fight with labor over profit sharing. To me, it all stems from the DNA of the company and its corporate values. Samsung management has histori

May 31, 2026By Eugene Lee
Why upcoming regional elections matter more than ever
Eugene Lee

On debt and us

It wouldn't be wrong to say that everything around us is held through debt. Or, to rephrase: Debt has become a major driver for everything. We often hear of national debt weighing on us or future generations. Different cultures view debt differently. It is often simplified to a relation between “borrower” and “lender” in the Western sense. Responsibility lies with the individual and being independent is perceived as a virtue. The side effects are obvious — you may hear about people carrying their student debts their whole life. In Islam, the view is that debt is a larger matter of spirituality and divine judgment for both sides. Philosophically speaking, debt means we are never fully independent. In the West individual autonomy is often seen as the ideal: the self‑sufficient individual who forms contracts but is not bound by unearned obligations. Korea’s more traditional approach complicates that ideal. It suggests that we are always already indebted simply because of our existence — be it to parents for life, or teachers for education or elders for guidance, and even t

May 4, 2026By Eugene Lee
On debt and us
Eugene Lee

Anarchy, Month 3: Just keep the course, captain

In international relations, knowing history is not just an intellectual exercise, it is a prerequisite for a national survival. Drawing parallels with the past where Korea was a century ago would be wrong, as the country today isn’t what it used to be, plus it is Korea we need to think of. Getting my share of news every morning for the past month got me thinking and a flurry of questions now swarming in my head. Are we witnessing the U.S. falling into a spiral of “endless wars to end wars”? With the U.S. economy being battered by gas and oil prices, what does it all mean for the global market, and particularly for South Korea? What will the U.S. do with North Korea? Of course, President Donald Trump, with what has already been achieved in Iran, could always call it a victory and walk away. That would be the most rational decision, but the likelihood of it happening is zero and it is just my wishful thinking. Yet, envisioning possibilities is necessary, because our resources are limited and external pressure is rising. As uncertainty grows around the U.S. global commitments, South

Mar 29, 2026By Eugene Lee
Anarchy, Month 3: Just keep the course, captain
Eugene Lee

Want to talk to North Korea? Deal with apartment prices first

After reading the title, readers might think that I have gone bonkers. And rightly so — it’s exactly the time for non-ordinary thinking. I repeat my earlier words: The old-world order is over, and we must think out of the box. As there is more room for executive action in foreign affairs, we saw last October that South Korea has a long way to go to learn all “the bells and whistles” of independent engagement. Some ask even if we should be talking to the North: I’d say if we don’t speak, guns soon would. The current administration under President Lee Jae Myung is trying hard to talk to North Korea. However, all efforts are falling short, to the extent that we are losing important people. Take for example Lee Hae-chan, a national-scale strategist, who passed away on Jan. 25 while on a trip to Vietnam. His goal was to attend the meeting of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council to find ways to restart talks with North Korea. Yet, it seems these efforts have not borne any fruit. Think from the North’s perspective for a moment — after all, of everything we here in the Sou

Mar 3, 2026By Eugene Lee
Eugene Lee

Why global anarchy demands a governance upgrade

The year 2026 has arrived not with a whisper, but with a bang that has shaken the foundations of the international order. Only days into the new year, the world is reeling from the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their residence in Caracas. As Maduro sits in a New York prison cell facing charges including narco-terrorism, the global community is left to grapple with a blunt reality: international relations is not a courtroom, but a theater of anarchy. This event is a masterclass in Realpolitik. Will it be Cuba, Colombia, Iran or even Greenland next I don’t know, but it is a reminder that in a world without a global sovereign, states, particularly superpowers, will do whatever they deem necessary to secure their interests. While the rhetoric of "justice" and "rule of law" will fill the airwaves, for me the underlying arithmetic is simpler - Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. In an era of shifting alliances and energy insecurity, those reserves are a gravity well that no superpower can ignore. I can only imagine the polite,

Jan 20, 2026By Eugene Lee
Why global anarchy demands a governance upgrade
Eugene Lee

The Seoul job: A year after the failed coup

Remember the night the Han River froze over? Not with ice — global warming took care of that years ago — but with the cold, metallic grinding of tank treads? It’s been exactly one year since Dec. 3, 2024. One year since a sitting president walked onto a television screen, tried to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but instead pulled out a live grenade and dropped it. The verdict, one year later? Metaphorically speaking, the patient survived, but the medical bill is bankrupting us. In the beginning of 2025, we told you this was a story about deleting the ghost of dictatorship. We called it a victory. We popped the champagne because the institutions held. But now it is almost Christmas and the hangover has set in. It is a throbbing, migraine-inducing realization that saving democracy is expensive. First, the cold facts: Korea’s growth has flatlined at 0.8 percent. The "Korea discount" investors used to complain about? It didn't go away — it calcified into a political risk. Samsung, Hyundai and SK aren't leaving, but their new factories? They’re being built in Texas, Vietnam and Pola

Dec 3, 2025By Eugene Lee
The Seoul job: A year after the failed coup
Eugene Lee

Central Asia: A whole new world not far away

While we all were busy with our domestic affairs for the year, the world has drastically changed, and that includes the region I would like to talk about: Central Asia. The cluster of five states — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, all uniquely different — is at a turning point. To describe the countries in a few words isn’t easy, so I will focus on their recent achievements and why we should care. First and foremost, we should understand that this region is one and it is stable. In other words, whenever we deal with any country of the five, we should keep all of them in mind. In spite of the general preference of the countries to be viewed as their own entity, Central Asian states are increasingly — and sometimes even without realizing it themselves — conducting their foreign policy while including their neighbors. In February, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan signed a historic agreement on border demarcation, laying the foundation for stability in the region. Some had predicted the region to be a hotbed of terrorism on the world map, but the reality

Nov 27, 2025By Eugene Lee
Central Asia: A whole new world not far away
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