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Thu, April 25, 2019 | 04:08

Opinion > Columnists > John Burton >

Korea in an uncertain world

“Stop the World - I Want to Get Off” was the name of a 1960s Broadway musical. It also sums my feelings in this year of Trump and Brexit. What the world - at least the developed part of it - is witnessing is a populist backlash against three global trends that have accelerated since the early 1980s.

John Burton | 2016-06-29 16:45

Clinton and North Korea

Korea watchers in Washington DC are debating what policy Hillary Clinton will adopt toward North Korea if she is elected the next president of the United States as I found out during a recent visit to the nation's capital. Her stance is being closely watched since North Korea is likely to receive a higher priority in her administration than it did under President Barack Obama, who pursued what has been called a position of “strategic patience” by largely ignoring the North Korean issue for eight years as he focused on dealing with the growing power and possible nuclear breakout of Iran in th...

John Burton | 2016-06-15 16:27

To paraphrase Captain Renault in the movie Casablanca: I was shocked, shocked to learn that the foreign media scrum that recently descended on Pyongyang to cover the Korean Worker's Party was subject to tight control by their minders. This at least appeared to be news to the 130 foreign journalists who were invited to North Korea, judging by the kvetching they expressed on social media and which rapidly become a dominant theme in their coverage.

John Burton | 2016-05-18 16:44

Korea's economic frog

I spoke recently with a former presidential economic advisor who compared the economic situation in 1997 with the current one. While the corporate debt crisis in 1997 led to a sudden economic implosion, he predicted a gradual deterioration in economic conditions this time. “It's like the famous story of the frog being slowly boiled alive in a pot of water. He only realizes too late what is happening.”

John Burton | 2016-05-04 16:17

Social democratic moment?

Has the progressive wave that swept the left-wing Syriza party into power in Greece, elected Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the British Labor Party, and supported the insurgency of Bernie Sanders as the U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate reached Korea? That would appear to be the case based on the surprise victory of the opposition in the April 13 parliamentary elections.

John Burton | 2016-04-20 16:15

Can Samsung become Swedish?

As a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times who covered both Korea and Sweden, I wrote a lot about the biggest business group in each country. That was because both groups were controlled by a single family who dominated their national economies on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the advanced world.

John Burton | 2016-04-06 16:35

Korea's stake in US elections

The most important election that will affect Korea this year will not be the upcoming parliamentary polls on April 13. Instead, it will be the U.S. presidential and congressional elections in November. The reason these elections are so crucial is they could signal a change in U.S. policy on global free trade, which has been one of the key supports for Korea's economic success. Almost all of the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are now attacking free trade. That should worry Korea, which has one of the most trade-dependent economies in the world, with exports accounti...

John Burton | 2016-03-23 16:22

Authoritatian way

Vox, the American news website, recently published an interesting explanation for the rise of Donald Trump as the leading Republican presidential candidate. It concluded that Trump has tapped into a strong but until now latent authoritarian streak within American society and that 44 percent of white Americans have authoritarian leanings.

John Burton | 2016-03-09 16:36

Park's one-two punch

It might have seem a good idea at the time when President Park Geun-hye recently, but rashly, decided to deliver a one-two punch to North Korea and China, Pyongyang's closest ally, by first closing the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and then agreed to start talks with the U.S. on the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system, which Beijing opposes.

John Burton | 2016-02-24 16:25

Trouble at Arirang TV

With the sudden resignation of the head of Arirang TV, President Park Geun-hye has the opportunity to reverse the decline of Korea's state-run international broadcaster that has happened under her watch.

John Burton | 2016-02-10 16:28

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