Opinion - The Korea Times

Britain's vanishing countryside

By Donald KirkMANCHESTER, England ― The Brits face a problem that Koreans might ― or might not ― appreciate.By now Koreans have gotten thoroughly used to zipping up and down the Republic of Korea, that is, the Korean peninsula south of the DMZ, on super-fast trains at relatively inexpensive prices.Who would believe that Britain, that is, England, Scotland and Wales, crowded onto a ``tight little island” that should be ideal for high-speed rail traffic, is actually stuck back in the 19th century, or maybe the early 20th century, with a rail system that slogs along at a slow but dignified pace from London compared to the swift pace of travel from Seoul down to Busan on the east and Mokpo on the west?Although the world’s first passenger trains operated in England and Wales in the early 19th century, Britain has ceded to just about every other ``advanced” country the race to be first with high-speed rail service.The coalition government led by conservative David Cameron is now talking about a high-speed link running from London to Birmingham and Manchester, England&rsqu

Jan 31, 2013By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Obama's windy words

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― A mood of collective celebration swept over the American capital as President Barack Obama entered his second term under clear skies in freezing temperatures. It was as though the country were taking a break from fears about the economy, the next ``fiscal cliff” and debate on gun control that’s likely to be even more contentious than efforts to raise taxes on the rich. Amid these concerns, worries about foreign wars seemed remote from the mass political consciousness. Obama in his inaugural address dispelled any qualms in lofty terms that might have left anyone who hadn’t been following the news in recent years with the impression that U.S. forces weren’t doing much overseas beyond putting out a few fires.``We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully,” he said. ``We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East ….”Obama failed to name any of the countries within this broad American embrace, but none of the analyses I’ve read

Jan 24, 2013By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Japan's quest for allies

By Donald Kirk           MANILA ― Japan is probing the possibilities of a most improbable alliance in a corner of Southeast Asia that once lay at the heart of the ``Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”           The term ``co-prosperity” was a euphemism for Imperial Japan’s policy of prospering off impoverished people from Burma through the French Indochinese states of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and on to the Philippines, Indonesia and the South Pacific.   None suffered so much as the Filipinos after Japanese forces trapped the Americans on the Bataan peninsula in early 1942, ruled the American colony with increasing severity and then went on a rampage of murder and mayhem after General Douglas MacArthur returned with a re-conquering army in 1945.           After all that, would anyone believe Japanese and Filipino officials are talking ever so circumspectly about cooperating against the threat posed by China in the South China Sea? Japan&

Jan 17, 2013By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Googling sedition in N. Korea

By Donald KirkThe visit of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to North Korea this week raises intriguing questions about internet usage there to which we may not get real answers for a long time. Belatedly, North Korea has had to open access to the Internet to highly select elite that includes students at two or three leading universities as well as officials with a specific need to know.Those restrictions may rule out casual surfing of the web, but you have to wonder how authorities can totally prevent someone from stealing a few glances at contraband topics such as the real background of the ruling Kim dynasty, its origins under Soviet rule and its systematic repression of its people. For those who are able to go on-line, we have to assume all that stuff, plus much else, is not going to show up on a routine search. If the police in South Korea can keep people from looking at the website of Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency by posting a “warning” whenever you try to click on the site, you may be sure the North Koreans can stop anything at all distasteful.B

Jan 10, 2013By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Branding Korea by Psy

By Donald KirkLONDON ― There was a time when Korea was best known overseas for Samsung gadgetry and Hyundai cars. Now Korea is permeating the global consciousness in ways that would have seemed unlikely if not impossible two or three years ago.The latest proof positive is a New Year’s eve feature in The Times ― that is, the venerable London paper ― headlined ``All you really needed to know about 2012.” There, at the top of the page, are two faces familiar not only to Koreans but apparently to people everywhere else. ``The chubby Koreans with global influence,” reads the caption. ``Kim Jong Un v. Psy.”Comparisons are tempting. Both seem charismatic, both are young, and both are overweight ― Kim Jong-un more so than Psy.  The feature credits the former with having ``finally launched a rocket” that ``nobody apart from North Korea was happy about.” More to the point, it adds, helpfully, ``There are even rumours that he’s got his wife up the duff, so good going, you tubby little weirdo.” The next line is still nastier: ``Shame about the

Jan 3, 2013By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Christmas tree in N. Korea

By Donald KirkThe fuss made by North Korea over the Christmas lights on a steel tower at an observation post overlooking the demilitarized zone reminds me of a similarly lit tree far inside North Korea. It was on the shelf behind the bar of a hotel in the industrial east coast city of Hamheung. I saw this miniature twinkling imitation of a Christmas tree when I visited Hamheung in July.The woman who was serving me at the bar, as well as several raucous North Korean officers at a table a few feet away, did not seem to have any idea of the significance of the tree. Nonetheless, its presence as a decoration did indicate the impossibility of keeping insidious anti-state religious influence out of the North, however hard the authorities may try to crush any sign of Christian belief.For North Korea, Christianity poses a serious challenge to a regime with its peculiar form of worship of the founding “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung and his son and grandson. Pastors from South Korea are among the main crusaders for human rights in North Korea. They also play a vital role in caring for

Dec 27, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

John Kerry in war and peace

By Donald KirkThe U.S.-Korea relationship is about to undergo a major transition, and that’s not just because Lee Myung-bak is stepping down after five years in which his American advocates professed their love for him even as his popularity sank ever lower at home. The big difference, from the U.S. perspective, is the likely appointment of a new secretary of state, John Kerry, whose view on Korea may well be quite different from that of his predecessor, Hillary Clinton.There’s no certainty that Kerry, on the basis of his record from the Vietnam War onward, will be in favor of all the military support the United States guarantees South Korea. The record shows Kerry as an anti-war figure from his student days, a Vietnam War hero who turned against the war and an early advocate of U.S. intervention in Iraq who turned against the U.S. role there too.So who’s to say where Kerry would end up on Korea? As chairman of the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee, he’s called for dialogue between North and South Korea and between the U.S. and North Korea. It’s no

Dec 20, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

On the brink in NE Asia

By Donald KirkTwo stories dominate the news in the U.S. There’s the “fiscal cliff” over which civilization-as-we-know-it is doomed to tumble on New Year’s Day unless President Barack Obama talks some common sense into his intransigent foes in Congress.You get so tired of hearing the grating voices of the Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner battling against higher taxes on the super-rich that news from anywhere else is almost welcome. Then comes the other tedious story, conflict in the Middle East, and all that footage of violence and threats of violence across northern Africa through Syria and on to Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.In the confusion of unending bad news, one story gets lost, at least to American readers. That’s the looming cliff of leadership change in Northeast Asia from China to Korea to Japan. North Korea’s insistence on firing off a long-range rocket sharpens the confrontation. It’s as though the Korean peninsula is the prize just as it was in 1895 when the Japanese defeated the

Dec 13, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Off the rails in America

By Donald KirkLOS ANGELES ― You wonder when you travel around the United States whether you’re really in a first-world country or one that’s already falling behind more “advanced” societies  ― like Korea, for instance, or Japan or China.You realize something’s amiss when you get to Los Angeles International Airport and discover no train links the airport to downtown. I made that discovery years and years ago when there really were no trains anywhere within miles. Then they did build a train that gets near the airport but not actually there. You have to go the rest of the way by taxi or bus, a 10-minute wait and then a 10-minute ride that’s an incredible annoyance when you’re jetlagged and laden with a bag, computer and papers. Generally, after a long flight, you say the hell with it and rent a car.You have to wonder about the mentality of the people who planned the line to LAX, as the airport is known. What were they thinking when they ordered up a railroad that went nearly there but stopped short of the goal? I have a theory to offer.I

Dec 6, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

History lesson for today

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― Shin Dong-hyuk has an unequivocal message for anyone contemplating a trip to North Korea: Don’t go, you’re only aiding and abetting a money-hungry regime.Shin, who remains the only person to have escaped from North Korea’s notorious Camp 14, offered that blunt view at a session staged here by the Foreign Policy Initiative, a moderately conservative think tank.  In a conversation interpreted by Henry Song of Suzanne Scholte’s Defense Forum Foundation, Shin said that he’d been known to have “cussed out the people who go into North Korea as tourists.”Shin’s remarks may seem somewhat harsh, but he offered scathing comments that get at the heart of the issues and questions surrounding my own trips there. He had “heard a lot of Europeans, and some from the United States” had gone, he said, taken on guided tours as if “they’re visiting a zoo looking at the animals.” Tourists “go with fascination” but “cannot hear the cries of the people who are suffering.” Vi

Nov 29, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Read more

Britain's vanishing countryside

Obama's windy words

Japan's quest for allies

Googling sedition in N. Korea

Branding Korea by Psy

Christmas tree in N. Korea

John Kerry in war and peace

On the brink in NE Asia

Off the rails in America

History lesson for today

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