Jul 3, 2020   Viewpoints

[Robert J. Fouser] South Korean leadership for openness

North Korea’s recent demolition of the South Korean liaison office in Kaesong is a sharp reminder that tension remains the norm on the Korean Peninsula. More recently, Prime Minister Abe of Japan came out against the idea of including South Korea in an expanded G-7 meeting. These events are reminders that tension remains the norm in relations between South Korea and Japan. China has been quiet recently but attempts in 2017 to bully South Korea into rejecting the US Terminal High-Altitude A

Jul 2, 2020   Viewpoints

[Kim Myong-sik] Pandemic to silence noise from April general elections

Two-and-a-half months have passed since the last parliamentary election threw South Koreans into a big surprise at the stunning leftist victory. During this period, suspicions of a rigged election persisted in diverse corners, on YouTube screens, social media dialogues and beer tables. The nation is now bracing for possible resurgence of the pandemic after the number of daily infections grew again from single digits to several tens through May and June. So it is about time to focus national ef

Jul 2, 2020   Viewpoints

[Noah Smith] Coronavirus brings US decline out in the open

The US’ decline started with little things that people got used to. Americans drove past empty construction sites and didn’t even think about why the workers weren’t working, then wondered why roads and buildings took so long to finish. They got used to avoiding hospitals because of the unpredictable and enormous bills they’d receive. They paid 6 percent real-estate commissions, never realizing that Australians were paying 2 percent. They grumbled about high taxes and hig

Jul 1, 2020   Viewpoints

[Anjani Trivedi] China’s financial system running out of room

Despite deleveraging rhetoric, risks lurking in China’s financial system are coming to the fore and starting to hurt a highly sensitive group: repressed savers. Eroding investor confidence and blockages in the allocation of money could become far more dangerous than previously. Beijing has few options but to backpedal on rules meant to clamp down on the unruly underbelly of its banking system. The problems range from hotspots in the nearly $3 trillion shadow lending industry to wealth man

Jul 1, 2020   Viewpoints

[Kim Seong-kon] Salute to the fallen soldiers of our country

The other day, I came across the 2009 HBO film, “Taking Chance.” Watching the movie based on a true story, I spent a riveting hour and 17 minutes, deeply moved by the way how Americans treat their fallen soldiers in war. It occurred to me that we should learn from the movie how to honor our soldiers killed in action. The movie unfolds the story of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a US Marine Corps officer who volunteers to escort the body of PFC Chance Phelps, who died in the Iraq War, bac

Jun 30, 2020   Viewpoints

[Andreas Kluth] The future of Europe could be decided in Poland

The European Union has many problems, but the most fundamental may be the rift between northern and southern member states and the even deeper fault line running between west and east. That latter fissure is especially dangerous because, unlike the largely economic one between north and south, it tears at the EU’s core values, including democracy, freedom of the press and the rule of law. For the past decade, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been flouting these principles

Jun 30, 2020   Viewpoints

[Andy Mukherjee] It’s hard to be next China

Is the global monetary order ready for another reboot? In the 1960s, Japan and Europe exported their way to post-World War II prosperity under the fixed exchange rates of the Bretton Woods agreement. The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but the established way of doing things didn’t collapse. Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being the world economy’s periphery and selling cheap widgets to a revamped core -- the West and Japan -- with the help of an undervalued ex

Jun 29, 2020   Viewpoints

[Natalie Gonella-Platts, Christopher Walsh] Kim Yo-jong a sordid example of female leader

As rumors of Kim Jong-un’s death circulated in April, some speculated that his sister and confidant, Kim Yo-jong, might soon succeed him as North Korea’s Supreme Leader. Perhaps still auditioning for the role, she has recently become North Korea’s chief saber rattler. Earlier this month, she escalated tensions with South Korea by cutting communications with Seoul and threatening military action over defectors’ distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets from across the border

Jun 29, 2020   Viewpoints

[Kent Harrington] North Korean leader goes back on same old script　

Like the leading character in a long-running television series, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has kicked off the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula with familiar theatrics. After cutting off all communications with South Korea earlier this month, the Kim regime bombed the building in which it had previously hosted South Korean diplomats. It has redeployed troops into demilitarized border areas and issued renewed threats of violence against the South. The latest displays of bombast follow