Opinion - The Korea Times

North Korea's road to riches

By John Burton Seymour Hersh, one of America's most prominent investigative journalists, recently spoke about a psychological profile of Kim Jong-un, based on electronic intercepts, that was done by a team of top experts for the U.S. government. They concluded that Kim “has a real desire to have money. He wants to be a leader in tourism,” Hersh said. That finding may explain why U.S. President Donald Trump said in a press conference immediately after the Singapore summit with Kim that North Korea had “great beaches” and they would be the perfect location for condos and hotels. Although Trump was mocked by many for the remark, Hersh suggested that Trump “knew enough [from Kim's psychological profile] to make this pitch _ I can offer this guy money and he will [abandon] his bombs.”Skepticism remains strong among most Korean experts that Pyongyang can undertake the economic reforms needed to make North Korea the next Vietnam _ another communist-ruled country that has become both a popular tourist destination and a growing industrial base for foreign m

Sep 17, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Calm before the storm?

By John BurtonThe North Korean nuclear issue abruptly fell off the radar of most in Washington, D.C. this summer in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's summit with Kim Jung-un on June 12 in Singapore. The war-like rhetoric about North Korea was suddenly toned down as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Pyongyang to negotiate the details of the Trump-Kim accord to denuclearize North Korea.But things look like heating up again. Trump recently cancelled a scheduled trip in late August to North Korea by Pompeo to continue the negotiations, just days after a new U.S. special envoy to North Korea was named. The Pentagon has suggested that it will resume joint military exercises with South Korea that had been suspended as a goodwill gesture to Pyongyang, although Trump has reportedly not yet approved the move. Conservative critics of the Trump-Kim summit are crowing “I told you so” as they repeat their earlier suggestions that the American president had been hoodwinked by Kim. Pompeo apparently has not been able to achieve any considerable concessions. Meanwhil

Sep 3, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

History lesson

By John BurtonKoreans as well as many Americans are bewildered by the actions of Donald Trump. But perhaps the best way to understand him is that while he is the first outright demagogue to occupy the White House, many of his policies are coherent and consistent if they are viewed in the context of the American populist movement that stretches back to the 19th century. What Trump is doing has a long historical pedigree in the U.S.Populism gained force as an organized movement in the 1890s in the American Midwest and its prairie states, the nation's breadbasket, which were then suffering an agricultural depression due to competing imports of grain from Europe among other factors. This led to calls for protectionist measures, including tariffs, against foreign agricultural products.Fast forward a hundred years to when the Midwest had become the home for many of America's industries, such as cars and steel, before they started to buckle due to competition from Asian producers, including Korea. So Trump is resorting to the same populist playbook the existed more than a century ago when h

Aug 20, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Korea's sizzling summer

By John Burton Korea is not the only country to suffer record high temperatures this summer. A global heat wave is taking its toll on other regions ranging from North America and Scandinavia to the African Sahel and South Asia. What makes Korea interesting, however, is that it serves as a microcosm for the impact that extreme temperatures can have on both developed and developing countries. The Korean peninsula is one of the few areas where an advanced economy (South Korea) sits next door to a developing one (North Korea). A new report, “Chilling Prospects: Providing Sustainable Cooling for All,” (www.seforall.org/CoolingForAll/report) outlines the problems that countries face as temperatures continue to rise around the world. The report was issued by Sustainable Energy for All, a U.N.-affiliated organization that was launched in 2011 by then U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to promote universal access to energy by 2030 as one of the U.N.'s sustainable development goals.An estimated 1.1 billion people ― one-seventh of the world's population ― are at immed

Aug 6, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Bad timing

By John BurtonThe landslide victory for President Moon Jae-in's party in local elections last month has promised to give momentum to his ambitious economic reforms. But the recent backlash against such populist measures as raising the minimum wage suggests he still faces a tough fight in implementing them.Small business owners, including operators of inexpensive restaurants and mom-and-pop shops, are complaining that Moon's election pledge to raise the minimum wage to 10,000 won an hour by 2020 will depress their profits and threaten their livelihoods when they are already struggling to survive. The government recently said it would increase the minimum wage by 10.9 percent to 8,350 won next year after raising it by 16.4 percent this year. Although Moon introduced the measure to appeal to his lower middle-class supporters, it could still backfire among voters when parliamentary elections are held in 2020. One reason is that small businesses in the retail and restaurant sectors are likely to shed jobs to keep afloat in the face of the rapid wage increase, driving up the unemployment r

Jul 23, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Where are the Korean voices?

By John BurtonA month after the Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the consensus in the U.S. media remains largely negative about the event. There have been recent reports based on intelligence leaks from the Pentagon, for example, that Pyongyang is continuing to expand its nuclear and missile programs despite its promises to Trump that it would denuclearize.In contrast, little attention is given in the U.S. to the continuing examples of engagement between the two Koreas, such as last week's inter-Korean basketball games in Pyongyang, the first joint sporting event in 15 years. Scant notice is paid to the fact that a majority of Koreans support the engagement policy championed by President Moon Jae-in, who is enjoying record popularity as highlighted in the recent local elections that his Democratic Party of Korea party swept.The skeptical mood in the U.S. was set immediately after the summit by influential opinion makers and pundits in leading media outlets. According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a progressive m

Jul 9, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Why Trump is right on North Korea

By John BurtonIf the Singapore summit had been a Broadway production, it would have been closed by now due to a critical panning. The U.S. media has largely dismissed the event as a typical piece of Trump showbiz without much substance. The Singapore Declaration is seen as lacking details to support Pyongyang's promise to denuclearize, with Trump falling victim to the trickery of a wily Oriental despot. Such an assessment has been supported by professional Korea watchers at think tanks in Washington, most of whom have a national security background and view the Korean peninsula through a Cold War lens.Trump is reportedly furious that the U.S. media has not given him more credit for the summit. He may have a point. The dominant storyline ignores several benefits of the summit. The most important, of course, is that it has averted the path to war that the U.S. and North Korea appeared to be traveling on just six months ago.Trump has been criticized for making big concessions to Kim Jong-un without getting much in return. But the U.S. president took the first step in breaking a long sta

Jun 25, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

What to look for at the summit

By John BurtonNo one believes anymore that the summit in Singapore between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will lead to Pyongyang immediately giving up its nuclear and missile programs. Many thorny issues remain such as what is meant by “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. Does that mean just that North Korea would eventually dismantle its nuclear and missile programs or that the U.S. will also withdraw its nuclear umbrella from the peninsula?Even if North Korea agrees to the U.S. interpretation of denuclearization, it will likely take months or even years of tedious negotiations to achieve that goal. In the meantime, North Korea will need to be assured that it can trust the U.S. in terms of security guarantees, while starting to receive economic benefits that makes the abandonment of its nuclear program worthwhile. Trump seems to understand this situation and is treating the summit as a means to open serious negotiations. But a good starting point would be for Trump to declare at the summit his intention to bring a formal end to the

Jun 11, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Bad blood

By John BurtonIf the Trump-Kim summit has gone off the rails, blame it on the bad blood between Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea's first vice foreign minister, and John Bolton, the new U.S. national security adviser, who have confronted each other over North Korea's nuclear program for years.Kim participated in the talks that established the 1994 Agreed Framework agreement that suspended North Korea's plutonium program until 2002 and then was the lead negotiator with the U.S. during the six-party talks a decade ago. His experience has given him a good insight into the bureaucratic politics and key players in Washington. Bolton has long been a bete noire for Pyongyang. He has been blamed for almost single-handedly sabotaging the Agreed Framework agreement in 2002 on the U.S. side. As the then undersecretary of state for arms control, one of the most senior State Department posts, Bolton actively lobbied against the agreement. When the U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2002 that North Korea was developing a secret uranium enrichment program, Bolton would later say in his memoir, &ldquo

May 28, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Moon's economic gamble

By John BurtonWith the euphoria surrounding President Moon Jae-in's detente with North Korea and his resulting sky-high approval ratings, it is sometimes difficult to remember that he was elected a year ago primarily on his promises to fix the economy. On that score, Moon has failed to deliver much.In a lot of ways, Moon cannot be blamed for this situation. One big reason is that he lacks a parliamentary majority, with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea holding only 40 percent of the National Assembly seats. In addition, his parliamentary political ally, the centrist People's Party, recently dissolved into two rival factions. That makes it even more difficult for Moon to push through his economic agenda when the passage of bills is already slow due to conservative opposition. Moon is also facing setbacks in reforming the chaebol, with the resignations of two successive heads of the Financial Supervisory Service due to scandals. The government's biggest recent success has been to end the opaque circular-shareholding structure of the chaebol, an initiative that was begun under the pr

May 14, 2018By John Burton

John Burton

Read more

North Korea's road to riches

Calm before the storm?

History lesson

Korea's sizzling summer

Bad timing

Where are the Korean voices?

Why Trump is right on North Korea

What to look for at the summit

Bad blood

Moon's economic gamble

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