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Beyond apologies: Writing adoptees into Korea’s global identity

In recent months, Scandinavian and Korean media alike have been saturated with echoes of the past. In my home country of Denmark, a group of Korean adoptees has sued the Danish state over alleged irregularities in their adoption practices decades ago. Simultaneously, Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating the historical practices of adoption agencies. It is a quest for justice that understandably dominates the national consciousness in Korea today. But amid the legal battles, the talk of reparations and the dark headlines of systemic failure, we risk overlooking a crucial conversation. This is not just about legal clauses or financial compensation. It is about something as fundamental as the right to belong — not as victims of history, but as an active part of Korea's modern, global presence. I am Susan Vinzents Jensen — born Jun Hong Ah — and I am one of the approximately 9,000 Korean adoptees living in Denmark. Globally, we form a massive diaspora of more than 200,000 children sent overseas in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War and during the countr

1h agoBy Susan Vinzents Jensen
Beyond apologies: Writing adoptees into Korea’s global identity
Guest Columns

Pax Silica: AI realigns global power balance

The latest Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi offered an important glimpse into how the Indo-Pacific region is being strategically reimagined. Among the many references to maritime security, economic resilience and trusted technologies, one phrase stood out prominently: “Pax Silica.” The term signals that the Quad is no longer merely a diplomatic consultation mechanism or a loose maritime framework. It is increasingly evolving into a broader strategic and technological architecture centered on semiconductors, supply chains, critical minerals, digital infrastructure, cyber resilience and advanced manufacturing. In many ways, the Quad is quietly transitioning from naval security dialogue into a platform that seeks to shape the future economic and technological order of the Indo-Pacific. This transformation also explains why the Quad remains highly relevant despite skepticism surrounding its purpose and longevity. Critics had long argued that the Quad lacked institutional depth, possessed no treaty obligations and consisted of countries with different strategic priorities

1d agoBy Jagannath Panda
Pax Silica: AI realigns global power balance
Guest Columns

The real choice confronting developing countries

BENGALURU—In a recent commentary, Dani Rodrik, one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of trade and development, explains why he became a “manufacturing skeptic” after decades of seeing industrial production as the key to unlocking economic growth. Since traditional manufacturing cannot absorb the 1.5 billion workers “in occupations that neither require university education nor are exposed to the international economy through trade or offshoring,” services-led growth models must take center stage. Expand the opportunities in retail, hospitality, and food service, and middle-class consumption will drive productivity gains. But largely missing from this analysis is the potential for AI-augmented gains in human productivity. Look around the world and you will find AI already quietly increasing productivity in labor-absorbing services in ways that neither require nor assume university education. This trend is especially apparent in India, which offers a path toward reconciling “manufacturing skepticism” with African and South/Southeast Asian policymakers’ per

1d agoBy Ravi Venkatesan
The real choice confronting developing countries
Guest Columns

More coordinated efforts needed to reduce nuclear weapons

It was no surprise that the recent Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) ended in disarray at the United Nations. The 191 states attending this five-yearly review of a 1968 treaty widely considered one of the world’s most important security agreements failed to make any real progress on its "three pillars" of non-proliferation, disarmament and the peaceful use of nuclear material. The treaty is in growing danger of unravelling. The four weeks of meetings in New York failed to reach consensus, and were instead marked by acrimony and a clear divide, with the five nuclear weapon states in the NPT (Russia, Britain, France, China and the U.S.) on one side and the vast majority of members — the non-nuclear weapon states — on the other. The five nuclear weapon states have promised under Article VI of the NPT to move towards the complete elimination of their arsenals. In return for this promise of disarmament, the non-nuclear weapon states have pledged never to develop nuclear weapons. Sharp disagreement between the U.S. and Iran was the main st

Jun 4, 2026By Marianne Hanson
More coordinated efforts needed to reduce nuclear weapons
Guest Columns

The pope should have gone further on AI

BOSTON — Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how we communicate, access information, and work, how income and status are distributed, and even how we wage war. Yet the public conversation remains narrowly focused on the competition between AI labs or on abstract debates about the technology’s capabilities. Almost no one is asking what purpose AI ought to serve, or whether our current mindset, institutions, and control mechanisms are capable of steering the technology toward broad-based improvements in human welfare. It was therefore refreshing to see Pope Leo XIV weigh in on the issue with his first encyclical, which describes AI’s current trajectory as a profound threat to human dignity. As an economist who has long argued that technologically driven outcomes are matters of choice, not fate, I welcome his intervention. Leo is ahead of most commentators in pointing out that “technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it.” And yet, I worry that even he has not gone far enough on the most consequent

Jun 4, 2026By Daron Acemoglu
The pope should have gone further on AI
Guest Columns

S. Korea's long, hard road to nuclear propulsion

After months of diplomatic delay — and a week after Seoul released its Basic Plan for the Development of South Korean Nuclear-Propelled Submarines — U.S.-South Korea negotiations dedicated to this issue are quickening. This week, Washington has a serious, whole-of-government delegation in Seoul, led by Allison Hooker, the fourth-ranking official in the U.S. State Department. Her team is tasked with moving forward on South Korea’s ambition to develop indigenously constructed nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs). The visit signals that some recent alliance friction — including slow South Korean legislation on a U.S. investment package and lingering Seoul-Washington acrimony concerning e-retailer Coupang — has been dealt with enough to move forward on a sensitive topic. But hard questions about the SSN program have not gotten easier while the politics stalled. Let’s start with the obvious: The current South Korean plan for four 8,000-ton displacement nuclear-powered attack submarines, to be indigenously designed and constructed to use low-enriched uranium in small modular

Jun 2, 2026By Mason Richey
S. Korea's long, hard road to nuclear propulsion
Guest Columns

American decline on display

BERLIN — On his recent trip to Beijing, U.S. President Donald Trump, the world’s most powerful person, was accompanied by many of the top names in American business, finance, and technology, all of whom understand the importance of maintaining a working relationship with China. For the rest of the world, this was a positive development, because we should all want the world’s two biggest powers to speak directly to each other. Trump’s Chinese hosts showered him with pomp and circumstance — including flag-waving children — and he repaid the favor by lavishing praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping. Beyond the spectacle, however, the summit’s results were meager. There seems to have been little progress on substantive matters like trade, nor (as far as we know) were there any major new supply contracts for American industry and agriculture or coordinated efforts to resolve major international conflicts such as the wars in Ukraine and the Gulf. But the images from the summit visit spoke for themselves. Trump found himself in the rather unfamiliar role of a supplicant. Everyon

Jun 2, 2026By Joschka Fischer
American decline on display
Guest Columns

Let Korean humanitarians answer the call

In the summer of 2014, I received a message from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calling on former fieldworkers to volunteer for the Ebola response in West Africa. The call went out to MSF colleagues around the world — and, like me, many responded. Among them were fieldworkers from MSF Korea. They joined a global effort built on decades of experience responding to Ebola, a disease that repeatedly strikes in low-resource, remote and often conflict-affected settings, hitting hardest those communities with the fewest resources and the least access to health care. MSF never works alone in these crises. It is always part of a broader coalition of actors, drawing on expertise and solidarity from across borders. Korean staff have been part of that effort — respected, capable and committed to saving lives under the most challenging conditions. Today, we are facing another Ebola outbreak with the potential to escalate into a major crisis. But this time, no Korean doctors, nurses, epidemiologists or logisticians will be there. Not because they are unwilling, but because they are unable. A b

Jun 2, 2026By Emma Campbell
Let Korean humanitarians answer the call
Guest Columns

How many AI regulators has the pope?

PRINCETON — Pope Leo XIV has now weighed in on the most pressing issue of our time: the advent of artificial intelligence and the recognition that humanity’s technological capability is advancing faster than the institutions designed to govern it. In his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Leo warns that AI without guardrails risks subjugating humankind; with safety measures, it can ensure that humanity thrives. But as morally powerful as Leo’s words are, it seems doubtful that the Catholic Church will set the global technology agenda. The lever of government looks unpromising as well. AI is the embodiment of a transnational issue that demands a multilateral governance framework. But this is unlikely at a time when the United States is abandoning global leadership, the US and China are competing to dominate frontier technologies, India is pursuing strategic autonomy, and most of the developing world is focused on growth, not constraint. The political conditions for an “AI Bretton Woods” simply do not exist. There is, however, one powerful lever left to pull, and it does no

Jun 1, 2026By Alex Friedman
How many AI regulators has the pope?
Guest Columns

Starbucks furor revives an illiberal habit

Korea’s latest Starbucks controversy is not only about a badly judged marketing campaign. It is about a recurring political habit: When public outrage gathers force, powerful actors treat collective denunciation as a substitute for due process and proportionate judgment. The result is a modern form of “meongseokmari”-style justice. Meongseokmari literally means “rolling someone in a straw mat.” Historically, it referred to rough private punishment after an informal public trial by village or interest-group leaders. In modern Korea, the image captures how quickly moral accusation can become collective punishment. Starbucks Korea’s “Tank Day” promotion was part of a sequence of tumbler promotions: “Dante Day,” “Tank Day” and “Nasu Day.” Promotional images included phrases such as “Perfect for One Hand!,” “Tak on the table!” and “Fits Right in Your Bag!” Activists declared the May 18 “Tank Day” event insensitive because May 18 is the anniversary of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. They associated “5/18,” “Tank Day” and the phrase “Tak on the

Jun 1, 2026By Joseph Yi and Lee Won-dong
Starbucks furor revives an illiberal habit
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