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Oh Young-jin

Korea Times Korea Time Reporter

Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' publisher and president. He began to work at The Korea Times in 1988 as a sports writer. Then, he worked as a reporter and later as editor at the City Desk, Business Desk and Politics Desk. He worked as chief editorial writer before taking the current position. He has a keen interest in politics as well as defense affairs.

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'We are bringing in innovative disruptors to energy industry'

World Energy Council (WEC) Chairman Younghoon David Kim speaks during an interview with The Korea Times ahead of its Sept. 9-12 congress in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chulBy Oh Young-jin World Energy Council (WEC) Chairman Younghoon David Kim does not say anything Darwinian out loud, but as the Harvard-educated theologian prepares for its 24th congress, he makes it clear that it is a matter of survival of the fittest ― that the industry needs to adapt urgently or its fate will be the same as that of the dinosaurs.“The fossil fuels-based energy system is no longer viable,” Kim told The Korea Times ahead of the plenary gathering in Abu Dhabi, Sept. 9-12. “We need to bring innovative disruptions to our business-as-usual and embrace an out-of-box thinking approach to adapt, adopt and evolve.”For the past six years, Kim has served as co-chairman and chairman of the organization whose 3,000 members from 90 countries include a who's who of the global oil industry as well as NGOs, governments, state corporations and other stakeholders.Technology di

Sep 6, 2019By Oh Young-jin
'We are bringing in innovative disruptors to energy industry'
Tech & Science

Battery dispute may bring SK and LG leaders together

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, right, and LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo / Yonhap By Oh Young-jinSK Innovation has proposed a meeting between group chairman Chey Tae-won and LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo to settle the ongoing legal battle over electric vehicle (EV) battery patents. In response, LG said that it is the matter that should be settled by CEOs of the related firms, not chairmen. “We are ready to have a meeting of top executives who have decision-making power to settle this issue,” a senior SK official said. “It could be between LG Chem CEO Shin Hak-cheol and SK Innovation CEO Kim Jun. Our chairman Chey wouldn't mind meeting Chairman Koo to put an end to this issue.” The official said that this proposal for a high-level dialogue did not mean SK had a weak case against LG. “They just wouldn't listen and talk to us,” he said. He said it was really regretful for two leading firms of the country to fight on the international stage. “We want to find out who's wrong thro

Sep 3, 2019By Oh Young-jin
Battery dispute may bring SK and LG leaders together
  • Chinese rivals cash in on LG, SK feud
Opinion

Korea's open rebellion against US

Deputy National Security Officer Kim Hyun-chong talks on the phone before the Korea-Ethiopia summit at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Out of focus in the foreground is Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. Kim said after Korea's termination of an intelligence-sharing pct with Japan that Korea did not listen to repeated U.S. pleas to maintain the pact. Kang was obviously not in the know, indicating to her counterparts from the U.S. and Japan that the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) would be preserved. Korea TimesBy Oh Young-jin Although few have said it out loud, Korea's decision to pull out of its three-year-old military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan despite strong U.S. objections is nothing less than open rebellion. It marks a major departure from the role of junior partner that Korea plays in its alliance with the U.S., coming as U.S. regional stewardship is being challenged by a growing China and undermined by its isolationist leadership in Donald Trump turning increasingly “beggar-thy-neighbor-ly.” Signs of an alliance rift were captured by a bri

Aug 30, 2019By Oh Young-jin
Korea's open rebellion against US
  • South Korea expresses 'deep regret' over removal from Japan's whitelist
  • Cheong Wa Dae voices 'strong regret' over Japan's export curbs
Politics

US Embassy twitter account turns into battlefield for Koreans

By Oh Young-jin U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris. Korea Times fileThe U.S. Embassy in Seoul retweeted the U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus' “deeply disappointed and concerned” comments on Aug. 26 over Korea's decision to terminate its three-year-old military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. It has a Korean translation that was tweeted as well. Other postings have Korean translations but some may raise questions about its appropriateness. The responses vary widely, with some being very graphic. One posting talks about the importance of the ROK-U.S.-Japan alliance, while another suggests the U.S. pull out.There is one regarding the statement preventing Cheong Wa Dae from lying and another describing the GSOMIA decision as Korea's act of betrayal. One even went to the extreme of raising an issue over U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris' Japanese ancestry.First of all, it appears that the Korean account has not been screened for basic national, racial and linguistic sensitivities. Second, it appears that the U.S. Embassy is directly getting involved i

Aug 28, 2019By Oh Young-jin
US Embassy twitter account turns into battlefield for Koreans
  • Foreign ministry lodges complaints to US ambassador
  • S. Korea, US bristle at each other over GSOMIA termination
Foreign Affairs

GSOMIA decision may mark start of ROK-US alliance unraveling: expert

Evans Revere, a Korea expert in the U.S., served as acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. Courtesy of Evans RevereBy Oh Young-jin Korea's decision to quit a three-year-old intelligence-sharing pact with Japan could be looked back on as the start of the unraveling of the U.S.-led defense and security structure in Northeast Asia, a Korea expert in the United States warns."Years from now, when historians look back on this day, they will probably conclude that the unraveling of the U.S.-centric defense and security architecture in Northeast Asia began with this Korean decision," Evans Revere, the former U.S. acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told The Korea Times in a written interview. The interview followed Korea's Aug. 22 decision not to renew its General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Japan. Revere said the U.S. had tried to intervene without success, saying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials repeatedly told K

Aug 26, 2019By Oh Young-jin
GSOMIA decision may mark start of ROK-US alliance unraveling: expert
Opinion

GSOMIA decision: Moon Jae-in's nuclear option

President Moon Jae-in receives a briefing on the National Security Office's recommendation to scrap the Korea-Japan military intelligence-sharing agreement, Thursday. YonhapBy Oh Young-jin Not long after President Roh Moo-hyun took office in 2003, he gathered presidential aides and discussed how to lead and govern the nation. There was near-consensus against Roh's visit to the United States, espoused by former activists among the Roh aides who saw the U.S. as a supporter of the previous dictatorships they fought against. They were the so-called “386 generation” ― born in the 1960s, attending college in the 1980s and aged in their 30s. They belonged to the age when Korea was getting wealthy and starting to assert its national identity.Their objection to Roh's U.S. visit was based on their wish to break the tradition of a newly elected president visiting Washington as his first overseas destination to gain America's recognition. But a few experienced hands who insisted on the importance of the ROK-U.S. alliance torpedoed their effort. Ironically, those young cadres of Roh a

Aug 23, 2019By Oh Young-jin
GSOMIA decision: Moon Jae-in's nuclear option
  • Abe says S. Korea's GSOMIA termination 'damages mutual trust'
Opinion

Trump turns USFK into 'transactional' army

U.S. troops in Korea engage in an exercise. They have served as a key deterrent to North Korean invasions but their commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump, has attacked its relevancy. YonhapBy Oh Young-jin U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is under attack not by enemy but by its own commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump.Trump is prioritizing the size of the bill host Korea pays toward upkeep and is indulging himself in an unwarranted bromance with the head of the enemy. The risk is bringing confusion to the mission and raison d'etre of the peacekeepers and freedom fighters who have stood ready for decades to throw down their lives to help protect Koreans from North Korean invasions and assert a U.S.-led balance of power in the region where interests of big powers often clash. So a blow to the USFK credibility is feared. Already, Trump's first defense secretary, James Mattis, the soldier of the soldiers, called it quits over Trump's acts of belittling the allies, calling them freeloaders being piggybacked by the U.S., and his boss's readiness to sleep with enemies like the North's you

Aug 16, 2019By Oh Young-jin
Trump turns USFK into 'transactional' army
Society

3 Koreans killed; 3 injured in apartment construction elevator fall

Rescue workers search the wreckage of a crashed elevator in an apartment construction site in Sokcho, Gangwon Province, Wednesday. YonhapBy Oh Young-jin Three people were killed and three injured as an elevator fell at an apartment construction site in Sokcho, Gangwon Province, Wednesday morning, rescue workers and reports said. The three were riding in the elevator when it dropped 15 floors to the ground at 8:28 a.m. The fourth also in the elevator survived the fall and was transported to hospital. The remaining two ― foreign workers from Uzkekistan ― were on the ground and hit by debris when the elevator fell. They were also taken to hospital. All casualties were workers. It was not immediately known what caused one of the two elevators, installed outside the 30-story building, to fall. Police said that the workers were working to dissemble the elevators.

Aug 14, 2019By Oh Young-jin
3 Koreans killed; 3 injured in apartment construction elevator fall
Opinion

We Koreans are emotional and rational

Koreans gather in front of the Japanese Embassy in downtown Seoul, Aug.3, protesting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push for the delisting of Korea from its favored trade partners' list. Korea TimesBy Oh Young-jin Amid heightened tension after Japan's retaliatory trade sanctions against Korea, I met some foreigners who observed that Koreans are “emotional” compared with Japan's reputed exterior calmness and purposefulness. Even some domestic media outlets editorialized a cautionary tale against an “emotional” approach to Japan.The foreigners' definition of emotional likely indicates that Koreans are irrational and unrestrained, while the Koreans' definition means something opposed to measured and deliberate. Are Koreans emotional? True. Are they irrational? No. Let's rationally analyze the irrational epithet further. Emotional with rational reasonsThe current Korea-Japan trade row was triggered by Japan's export restrictions that hinder Korea's bread-and-butter industries such as semiconductor production. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Korea was

Aug 9, 2019By Oh Young-jin
We Koreans are emotional and rational
Politics

Duel with Japan: Korea's inevitable coming of age ritual

A man stages a protest condemning Japan's embargo against Korea in front of a building where the Japanese embassy is located in downtown Seoul, Thursday. YonhapBy Oh Young-jin Korea cannot take a step back from its duel with Japan because too much is at stake. On the surface it is a matter of trade but, more broadly and importantly, Korea's past, present and future are on the line.The issue of getting Japanese companies belatedly to pay compensation for Korean forced laborers during World War II ― the starting point of the Korea-Japan standoff ― only scratches the surface of the much bigger issue underneath.There is Korea's collective sense of resignation to the Toynbian surmise: history repeats itself. Karl Marx in his 1852 essay “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,” defanged its predictive venom, by stating, “History repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce,” but Toynbee beats Marx as the first inexplicably and ironically takes control of the Korean consciousness and serves to arrest its development. His shadows are manifest in two ways: Koreans

Aug 2, 2019By Oh Young-jin
Duel with Japan: Korea's inevitable coming of age ritual
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CEO & Publisher: Oh Young-jinDigital News Email: webmaster@koreatimes.co.krTel: 02-724-2114Online newspaper registration No: 서울,아52844Date of registration: 2020.02.05Masthead: The Korea TimesCopyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.