The Korea Times

The peace talks that are not going to happen

There is something admirable about the government's determination to talk to North Korea. There is also something increasingly disconnected from reality about it. On Wednesday, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told a parliamentary audit that last month’s land mine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) had made the need for “fundamental peace” on the Korean Peninsula “ever more crucial.” He is right about the need. But the incident points to a more fundamental problem: There is unlikely to be a peace process because the conditions for one do not exist. Just a day earlier, Pyongyang issued bellicose threats after the defense ministry informed lawmakers that the North had been planting land mines in the southern portion of the DMZ's no-man's land. Three South Korean soldiers were injured on Sept. 21, two of them seriously, by these mines. For the next breath to be an offer of peace sounds like we see it all as a ghastly misunderstanding. But it’s not. We’re in a complicated situation in which peace is not going to be created simply by deciding that peace is desirable. Th

Oct 8, 2026By Michael Breen

The peace talks that are not going to happen

When 'the people' become the problem

Amid the yelling and screaming at the current round of National Assembly confirmation hearings, there is a quiet irony at the heart of democracy that is easy to miss. The system is supposed to be government of the people, by the people and for the people. Yet one of the weaknesses of Korean democracy, from the outset and still evident today, is that its political leaders care too much about what “the people” think. That sounds counterintuitive. What is our columnist smoking? How could caring about the people possibly be a weakness in a democracy? But there is an important distinction between listening to citizens and constantly watching them. The current confirmation hearings provide a good illustration. Nominees for senior government positions are subjected to intense questioning about their records, families, associations, past remarks and alleged misconduct. That scrutiny is legitimate. The public has a right to know whether people being considered for important public offices are honest, capable and qualified. But increasingly, confirmation hearings can look less like examinations o

Sep 17, 2026By Michael Breen

What is wrong with interfering in politics?

The sentencing of Han Hak-ja, the leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, and the trial of Shincheonji leader Lee Man-hee raise a question that does not seem to get asked very often in Korea: Why are churches and some social organizations so restricted in their involvement in politics while others aren’t? Han, 83, and legally blind, was sentenced this week to two years in prison after being found guilty of political funding and other offences. Among the charges was approving the delivery of luxury goods, including a Chanel handbag and a diamond necklace, to Kim Keon Hee, the former first lady, through an intermediary. She faces further proceedings over other alleged financial offences. Lee Man-hee, 95, meanwhile, is being tried over allegations that he ordered tens of thousands of Shincheonji members to join the People Power Party in order to influence its primaries and elections. The prosecutors describe this as a serious matter of religious-political collusion, saying they had uncovered “the first case in which a religious organization used its large-scale

Sep 3, 2026By Michael Breen

What is wrong with interfering in politics?

NK peace

Are we on the cusp of change in Korea? It is a question that makes us reach for our helmets in this part of the world. For decades, the pattern has been remarkably consistent: crises, talks and tensions, all managed so superbly under the American umbrella that North Korea has been held in check and South Korea has become a major industrial power. Two developments this week suggest that the tectonic plates under the peninsula might shift. The first came on Saturday, when President Lee Jae Myung used his Liberation Day speech to call for talks with North Korea aimed at formally ending the Korean War and replacing the 1953 armistice with a permanent peace agreement. The second is coming from Washington. Reports say President Donald Trump is pushing his aides to arrange a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as early as this autumn. Trump has already ordered a substantial reduction in US-South Korean military exercises, saying he wants to revive his relationship with Kim. We should not over-analyze, but it is worth being on alert for how Kim might respond to both initiatives — and how

Aug 20, 2026By Michael Breen

Why don't we like our neighbors?

Moving into a new office recently reminded me of something that seems to typify life in Seoul. We're not very neighborly. It's not that we're unfriendly people once you get to know us. Quite the opposite. It's simply that, with neighbors and strangers alike, we tend to keep our distance, engaging only when necessary. For the first few days after the move, the foreigner still living within me, even after all these years, was eager to introduce himself to the people in the offices on either side of mine. It was World Cup season, and I even imagined organizing a little gathering in the two lounge areas on our floor. Admittedly, I was also imagining the occasion — England making the final. It didn't take long to absorb the building's unwritten rules. Within a couple of weeks, I found myself doing what everyone else seemed to be doing: avoiding eye contact in the elevator, passing people silently in the corridor and quietly getting on with my day. What accentuates this culture is that this building doesn't separate offices from residences. Each unit could serve as either. The silence made me w

Aug 6, 2026By Michael Breen

Korea doesn't bully just foreign companies

In the spirit of the new normal of criticizing allies, Washington recently complained out loud that American companies are being unfairly treated in Korea. The State Department flagged “significant concerns” over the “fake news” law, which went into effect this month. This followed a scathing House Judiciary Committee report that said Seoul was engaged in a “harassment campaign” against U.S. businesses, particularly the e-commerce giant Coupang. It’s a serious accusation, doubly so because it is coming from the country’s closest ally and trading partner. Cheong Wa Dae issued a flat denial and floated the suggestion that Washington was being played by Coupang lobbyists. This response could have been better. But that is not to say Washington was right. It wasn’t. It was only half right. The real problem in Korea is not whether the authorities mistreat foreign, or specifically American, companies. They don’t really. It is that Korea too often mistreats companies, period. That fine point is not always apparent to those in the firing line. Speak privately to foreign executiv

Jul 16, 2026By Michael Breen

Korea doesn't bully just foreign companies

Bye-bye left and right: Korea's politics needs a new vocabulary

If you have been following the protests at Seoul's Olympic Park over election mishandling, you will know that the protesters insist they are neither left nor right. Many commentators have welcomed this as evidence of a younger generation's independence from old political loyalties. I think the protesters are onto something more profound: a reality that much of political commentary has yet to recognize. The routine description of Korean politics as a contest between a progressive left and a conservative right no longer describes what is happening. More accurately, it never really did. The two main sides in politics today are descendants not so much of competing ideologies as of two political tribes that originated in historical circumstances that have largely disappeared. A generation ago, when many of today's political leaders were university students, Korean politics was defined by two intersecting divisions. The first separated an authoritarian government that claimed Korea was a "liberal democracy" from a democratic opposition determined to make it one. The ruling establishment justifi

Jun 18, 2026By Michael Breen

Bye-bye left and right: Korea's politics needs a new vocabulary

Was the Starbucks Korea 'Tank Day' fiasco caused by AI?

When Starbucks Korea launched its “Tank Day” coffee promotion on May 18 — the day South Koreans commemorate the 1980 massacre of protestors in Gwangju by martial law troops — the scale of corporate self-sabotage was astonishing. Public outrage erupted so quickly that even asking how such a disaster happened risked sounding like an attempt to excuse it. In Starbucks' hometown of Seattle — where May 18, 1980 is remembered for the eruption of Mount St. Helens with the loss of 57 lives — the corporate response was restrained support for its Korean affiliate. But the issue may not end there. Under its agreement with Shinsegae Group’s Emart, which owns Starbucks Korea, HQ could potentially claim severe brand damage and exercise a call option allowing it to acquire the Korean business — the world’s third-largest Starbucks market — at a discount. Given this corporate equivalent of a public execution, we ask: What was the company thinking? Or rather, who was thinking? Companies themselves do not think. They are concepts without consciousness. People think — so how did multipl

Jun 4, 2026By Michael Breen

Was the Starbucks Korea 'Tank Day' fiasco caused by AI?

S. Koreans may see North's footballers as sisters, but opposite isn't true

When North Korea’s Naegohyang Women’s FC arrives in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, this weekend for next Wednesday’s AFC Women’s Champions League semifinals, South Koreans will witness something rare: Young North Koreans walking openly among them again. The visit itself rings historic bells. This will be the first North Korean women’s football team to compete in the South since the 2014 Incheon Asian Games. It will also mark the first sports delegation of any kind since the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. That last date is highly significant because it was then that the portcullis came down on inter-Korean exchanges. It is worth explaining how that happened. Nobody on this side could see it coming — such was the earnestness with which rapprochement was being pursued — but it was Kim Yo-jong’s exposure to the South during those subzero days in Gangwon Province, ironically the world’s only divided province, that appears to have crystallized reality for North Korea’s number two. It must have seemed to her that, in the race to be the real Korea, the North’s revolution had

May 14, 2026By Michael Breen

S. Koreans may see North's footballers as sisters, but opposite isn't true

HYBE case raises uncomfortable questions about legal reform

Such is the never-ending drama of corporate malfeasance that when police this week sought an arrest warrant for Bang Si-hyuk, founder and chairman of HYBE, the company behind BTS, my first thought was: Here we go again. But this case is about more than a familiar cycle of scandal and outrage. It is a test of something far larger: whether Korea’s recent judicial reforms, championed by the current government, represent a genuine shift in principle or merely a reshuffling of power. At first glance, the case appears straightforward. Investigators allege that Bang misled investors ahead of HYBE’s initial public offering, potentially violating the Capital Markets Act. Until recently, such a case would have been led by prosecutors. Now it is in the hands of the police. This change reflects a series of reforms over the past six to seven years aimed at curbing the once-dominant power of the prosecution by separating investigative and prosecutorial functions. The intent was to create a more balanced system. The question now is whether it works. Before answering that, it is worth reflecting on o

Apr 23, 2026By Michael Breen

Michael Breen