Opinion - The Korea Times

’Say it ain’t so,’ Korea

By Donald Kirk “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” The quote may be apocryphal, but it remains one of the best known lines in American sports history. A kid purportedly said it to Shoeless Joe Jackson as he was leaving a courtroom while on trial in Chicago during what was known as the Black Sox scandal. Jackson, one of the best batters in baseball, was accused along with half a dozen other White Sox players of accepting bribes to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Memories of the Black Sox come to mind as one reads about a couple of Korean pitchers accused of taking bribes. They’re under investigation in cases that are more sophisticated and complicated than throwing games. What pitcher, actually, wants to pitch so badly as to be sure of losing? In the Internet age, thousands of people can go online and bet instantly on the next batter, the next pitch, who will walk next. A pitcher may figure he can afford to take a bribe for promising, say, to walk the second batter in the third inning ― and then throw hard the rest of the way to win the game anyway. Easy ― so easy

Mar 8, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Fighting N. Korean ‘genocide’

By Donald Kirk The cases of Americans who have crossed the Tumen or Yalu Rivers into North Korea with unwelcome pleas for peace or human rights or relief from suffering bear one theme in common. Those who are crazy enough to go into the North become suicidal. Robert Park, the Korean-American Christian activist from Tucson, Ariz., has often been reported as threatening suicide since the North Koreans freed him on Feb. 6, 2010. That was 43 days after he walked across the ice on the Tumen River on Christmas Day 2009 bearing a letter urging Kim Jong-il to step down and, by the way, release all prisoners from North Korean gulags before doing so. Nobody other than Park knows exactly what the North Koreans did to get him to say as he arrived in Beijing that the bad stuff he’d been saying about the North was all ``propaganda” that turned out not to be true. Since then, after spells in a mental hospital, Park has been waging a campaign against North Korea’s ``genocide” of its people while threatening time and again to take his own life. He did so again, in conversations o

Feb 23, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

From pivot to pirouette

By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― The Chinese and Russian vetoes of a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing the slaughter of protesters by the Syrian government carries grave implications for peace and security in northeast Asia. For the benefit of those who have relegated the Korean War to the dustbin of history, it may be helpful to remember that China and the former Soviet Union bailed out North Korea in the Korean War. Nobody’s suggesting that these two countries have the slightest desire to ignite Korean War II, but the interaction of both of them with North Korea and Iran, and Syria, deepens the confrontation on that side of the Asian landmass as well. The problem is that both Russia and China, while they may not exactly like what’s going in Syria, and may not really want Iran to emerge as the world’s tenth nuclear weapons power, count on Iran as a source of oil. Iran in turn spreads power in the Middle East on the back of its long-time ally Syria. Like a chain reaction with explosive consequences, the more Iran swings its weight in

Feb 9, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Asylum for whistleblower

By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― A veteran U.S. immigration judge has reached a historic decision in the case of a former operative for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) who revealed in detail the manipulations and machinations that preceded the June 2000 North-South Korea summit and the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Kim Dae-jung at the height of his presidency. The judge, Charles M. Honeyman, spurning an impassioned appeal by the U.S. government, had granted asylum in the United States to Kim Ki-sam, his wife and two teenage children. In his ruling, the judge at the immigration court in Philadelphia found ``a reasonable possibility” that Kim Ki-sam ``will suffer the alleged persecution upon his return to South Korea” and was ``statutorily eligible for asylum based on his well-founded fear of persecution by the South Korean government and the NIS based on his political opinion.” What makes the case extraordinary is that Kim Ki-sam is not a refugee or defector from an oppressive regime, such as that of North Korea, but a patriotic South Ko

Jan 26, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Trick or treaty or truce?

By Donald Kirk One of the great cliches of the past 58 years and six months or so since the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War in July 1953 is that the combatants are still ``technically at war.” That’s because an ``armistice” is not quite the same as a ``peace treaty,” and scholars and journalists think the two Koreas, and the Chinese and Americans, are ``technically” at war with one another until they sign a ``treaty.” As any tourist to Panmunjeom and three or four other standard lookout points south of the demilitarized zone can attest, however, there’s no danger of getting shot at from the North Korean side. There is no war, technically or otherwise. The first Korean War is over. Another cliché of the Korean War is that it was an ``undeclared” war. I’m not sure who’s got to say, ``We’re at war,” to declare a war, but everyone knows the war began when North Korean forces poured across the 38th parallel in June 1950. You didn’t need the American president, Harry Truman, to ``declare” war even though he called it a ``police action.” I think peopl

Jan 12, 2012By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Stability and status quo

By Donald Kirk The demise of Kim Jong-il provokes contradictions and questions to which there may be no answers. The word ``stability” comes up constantly. Everyone seems to want ``stability” up there. Top diplomats from here to Washington to Tokyo to Beijing and back again advocate “stability” with disquieting regularity. No one wants to think of the calamities that might befall the Korean Peninsula and the region if the whole dynastic edifice collapsed or even showed unmistakable signs of creaking and cracking. But then, if you ask people if they would like to see an end to the dynasty and the rise of a humanitarian leader or regime with concern for ordinary citizens and a desire to patch up relations with South Korea, the answer is of course, yes. The contradiction is you can’t really crave stability on the one hand and regime change on the other. They simply won’t go together. It would be wonderful if history would prove me wrong, but can’t we pretty much rule out the prospect of a happy peaceful change in leadership ― that is, to an entirely new

Dec 29, 2011By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Fishing in troubled waters

By Donald Kirk The Chinese have it both ways when it comes to the Korean Peninsula. They have North Korea beholden to them for military protection and economic support, and they’re South Korea’s biggest trading partner. While Kim Jong-il has to go courting Chinese leaders for just about everything, South Korea’s giant chaebol go courting Chinese politicians and business people for the right to build huge factories on Chinese soil. All the while the Chinese can be grateful the Korean Peninsula is divided between the communist North and the capitalist South. The strategy of divide-and-rule was never more relevant than now for both Koreas when everyone’s counting on the Chinese to keep the lid on whatever mischief North Korea might have in mind while becoming ``a strong and prosperous country.” The Chinese do love to see everyone looking to Beijing as the place for six-party talks, if they ever resume, and they love to see both Koreas, and the United States begging them to please play honest broker and bring peace and tranquility to a tense corner of the world. The tro

Dec 15, 2011By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

When protest is a joke

By Donald Kirk Here I thought the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was a done deal, having been approved by the legislatures of both the U.S. and the Republic of Korea, and I get back to Seoul after a few weeks away and discover protesters are out there every night vowing to get it ``nullified.” The whole show is puzzling to this observer, who’s been watching such displays so often and so long as to have little or no idea which side is right and which is wrong. The more I hear outfits like the American Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Korean Industries talking up the KORUS FTA as if it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, however, the less confidence I have in their protestations. I mean, who can place all that much credibility in organizations of extremely wealthy people telling everybody what’s good for them? Ok, I’m prepared to believe the KORUS FTA will enrich individuals and companies that belong to these august bodies, but I’m not at all sure of the degree to which all that extra money will trickle down. There was a time when I did believ

Dec 1, 2011By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Shame of US college sports

By Donald Kirk PRINCETON, New Jersey ― Young Koreans, having gone crazy over the college entrance exam and cramming madly for the scores and grades needed to get into elite universities, might have trouble believing the most outrageous scandal that’s hit any American college campus in decades. Would it involve such perennial banes as cheating, plagiarism, collaborating with friends to produce papers that looked remarkably alike? Or might it have anything to do with a professor faking a resume to suggest illustrious but non-existent credentials. Not likely. Who cares about all those mundane academic indiscretions when millions of Americans are totally transfixed by quite a different outrage that bears no relationship to whatever universities are allegedly for, namely to provide an education? The top story for days on America’s non-stop TV news networks has revolved around the case of a former assistant college football coach arrested and charged with the rape of numerous poor young boys in a program that he had founded allegedly to give these

Nov 17, 2011By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Cheers for cheerleaders

By Donald Kirk My thanks to the SK Wyverns for having introduced me to a new word ― new to me, that is. Wyvern ― how many people know the dictionary definition of a Wyvern ― ``a two-legged dragon having wings and a barbed and knotted tail”? That was a question I was tempted to ask while watching the last two games of the Korean Series in which the Wyverns went down to defeat by the Samsung Lions, first in Incheon’s Munhak Stadium on Saturday afternoon and then Monday night at Jamsil. My guessing was that few if anyone among the screaming, chanting, singing Wyvern fans would have a clue about the meaning of the word. Wrong. The wyvern, it turns out, has an esteemed place in the annals of heraldry, appearing on shields and name plates. How could I not have known? For that matter, how come nobody over 30 or so seemed to have any idea, either? The answer is a reminder of the generation gap. I may have read about King Arthur and his knights and even dabbled in Shakespeare but never deeply enough to perceive the existence of a beast whose name did not show up i

Nov 3, 2011By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Read more

’Say it ain’t so,’ Korea

Fighting N. Korean ‘genocide’

From pivot to pirouette

Asylum for whistleblower

Trick or treaty or truce?

Stability and status quo

Fishing in troubled waters

When protest is a joke

Shame of US college sports

Cheers for cheerleaders

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