EAST ASIA

7 domains mapped · Code: KR

These are jurisdiction-specific research-progress records. They expose first moves, likely actors, and institutional infrastructure where mapped; they are not a claim that every country has a finished statutory memo for all 61 domains.

Canonical domain beta-W from Coal Combustion. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:South Korea operates ~37 GW of coal capacity and is the world's 4th-largest coal importer. The 10th Basic Plan for Electricity Supply and Demand targets coal phase-down. When carbon pricing (K-ETS) makes coal uncompetitive versus LNG and renewables, the overlapping interest weakens.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Platform Monopoly. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Naver controls Korea's dominant search and shopping rails while Kakao's KakaoTalk superapp threads through messaging, payments, taxis and banking, and both have been sanctioned by the Korea Fair Trade Commission for self-preferencing and squeezing small merchants on commissions. Because the harm runs through commission terms and ranking algorithms that the KFTC already adjudicates case by case, an ex-ante structural rule converts a slow enforcement game into an enforceable standard.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Tobacco. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:KT&G dominates Korea's domestic cigarette and heated-tobacco market while the National Pension Service and the state-affiliated Industrial Bank of Korea hold its largest shareholdings, so the same public funds that pay pensions and health costs also profit from a product that drives the country's leading preventable death toll. That dual position is exactly what makes the conflict resolvable: the state can divest and tax its way out of the trap it is sitting on both sides of.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Shipping & Maritime Emissions. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Korea builds a large share of the world's commercial ships through HD Hyundai, Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries, and runs a major flag fleet whose bunker emissions and ballast-water discharges are governed almost entirely at the International Maritime Organization rather than nationally. Because Korea is both a top builder and an IMO member with leverage, it can pull green-fuel and emission rules forward instead of waiting for the slowest flag states.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Gambling. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Kangwon Land is the only casino Korean citizens may legally enter, and the surrounding region and the country carry concentrated problem-gambling harm, while a far larger illegal online and overseas betting market drains households outside any safeguards. The legal monopoly is already tightly state-controlled, so the binding problem is the unregulated online channel that enforcement and licensing design can pull back into a supervised game.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Plastics and Petrochemical Waste. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Korea is a major exporter of polyethylene and other commodity plastics through firms like LG Chem and Lotte Chemical, and its single-use packaging waste and incineration burden fall on local air quality and waste systems while the Ministry of Environment already runs extended-producer-responsibility schemes. Because the harm is concentrated in single-use formats and the producer-responsibility machinery exists, raising fees and recycled-content mandates is a rule change within reach.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

Canonical domain beta-W from Ultra-Processed Food. Local route severity is a country-route triage value and is not used in the aggregate portfolio.

PRIMARY ROUTE:Convenience-store and instant-food culture has pushed ultra-processed products deep into Korean diets, and rising obesity, diabetes and sodium-related disease land on the single-payer National Health Insurance Service that the state directly funds. Because one public insurer carries the downstream cost, reformulation and marketing rules pay for themselves in averted claims, which makes the trap addressable from the fiscal side.

4 actor-lane actions mapped

© 2026 Erik Postnieks · Independent Researcher · Salt Lake City