SEOUL, South Korea — He’s worked all his life to graduate from an elite university this year. But in a tight job market, Kim Jun-sang, 23, is worried about escaping his pileup of debt. Sound familiar?

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Jan 18, 2013

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Beat down by the sweltering Cambodian sun, a group of teenagers took a rest from peddling pirated books and newspapers to tourists. One merchant switched on his mobile phone, playing the usual hit “Gangnam Style.”

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Jan 14, 2013

SEOUL — So, we now know that Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt is heading to North Korea this month. As with virtually anything surrounding North Korea, the journey has triggered speculation and intrigue.

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Jan 4, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans assumed that Lee Kun-hee was the equivalent of royalty, an untouchable oligarch at the helm of one of the world’s largest companies, the Samsung Group.

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Dec 18, 2012

By Geoffrey Cain
Foreign Policy

Dec 18, 2012

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Dec 17, 2012

HO CHI MINH CITY – In what was once one of Asia’s most exciting emerging markets, Nguyen Van Nguyen sees only gloom ahead. Since 2008, his business in southern Vietnam’s economic capital has suffered through two volatile bouts of inflation, peaking in August 2011 at 23 percent — at the time, Asia’s highest inflation rate.

By Geoffrey Cain
Foreign Policy

Jul 11, 2012

In April 2011, a Vietnamese dissident explained to me why he gave up blogging critically about the government. “We have jobs, motorbikes, nice coffee shops, and big luxury buildings,” he said, pointing to the then-recently opened Bitexco Financial Tower, Ho Chi Minh City’s tallest edifice, with a helicopter landing pad jutting out of its side. “The Communist Party has made this blogging unprofitable. If we go up against them, how do we get a piece of that prosperity?”

By Geoffrey Cain
CARNEGIE COUNCIL for Ethics in International Affairs

Jun 28, 2012

How an idealistic spy in Asia challenged the American way of war, and what his tragedy teaches us about finding allies today.

By Geoffrey Cain
Washington Monthly

Jan 1, 2012

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Four years ago, the future looked bright for Vietnam. Investors and economists proclaimed that this emerging market of 86 million people would grow into an “Asian tiger,” the next country to reach middle-income status by attracting foreign investment.

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Oct 19, 2011