Opinion - The Korea Times

Can Samsung become Swedish?

By John BurtonAs a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times who covered both Korea and Sweden, I wrote a lot about the biggest business group in each country. That was because both groups were controlled by a single family who dominated their national economies on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the advanced world.I’m referring to Samsung’s Lee family and Sweden’s Wallenbergs. The Samsung Group is said to account for a fifth of Korea’s gross domestic product. The Wallenberg companies, which include Ericsson (telecoms equipment), ABB (energy generation),  SKF (ball bearings), Electrolux (home appliances) and Atlas Copco (mining equipment), are estimated to account for a third of the market capitalization of listed companies in Sweden.But public perceptions about the role these families play in their respective countries are quite different. The economic power wielded by Lees is often blamed for stunting the growth of the small business sector and causing growing income inequality, which has led to calls for “economic democratization,” o

Apr 6, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

Korea's stake in US elections

By John BurtonThe most important election that will affect Korea this year will not be the upcoming parliamentary polls on April 13. Instead, it will be the U.S. presidential and congressional elections in November.The reason these elections are so crucial is they could signal a change in U.S. policy on global free trade, which has been one of the key supports for Korea’s economic success. Almost all of the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are now attacking free trade. That should worry Korea, which has one of the most trade-dependent economies in the world, with exports accounting for half of gross domestic product.The fiercest critics have been Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, and Bernie Sanders, the Democratic insurgent candidate. Trump, in particular, has highlighted Korea in his attacks. He has complained that he has been forced to buy Korean TVs for his luxury resorts because America no longer makes TVs and he has linked this observation to the fact that the U.S. helps pay for Korea’s military defense but “gets nothing in

Mar 23, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

Authoritatian way

By John BurtonVox, the American news website, recently published an interesting explanation for the rise of Donald Trump as the leading Republican presidential candidate. It concluded that Trump has tapped into a strong but until now latent authoritarian streak within American society and that 44 percent of white Americans have authoritarian leanings.But how do you discover what people have authoritarian views? After all, few would openly admit in the Land of the Free that they hold extreme political positions such as hating minorities and wanting a strongman as leader.Stanley Feldman, a political scientist at SUNY Stonybrook in New York, sought to address this problem in the 1990s in trying to identify the personality type that favored authoritarianism by asking questions to respondents about parenting goals to determine whether they prized hierarchy, order and conformity over other more democratic or individualistic values.The four questions were what those being questioned considered more important for a child to have: 1. independence or respect for elders; 2. obedience or self-re

Mar 9, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

Park's one-two punch

By John BurtonIt might have seem a good idea at the time when President Park Geun-hye recently, but rashly, decided to deliver a one-two punch to North Korea and China, Pyongyang’s closest ally, by first closing the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and then agreed to start talks with the U.S. on the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system, which Beijing opposes.Both moves appeared meant to persuade China to agree to stricter international sanctions against North Korea as punishment for its recent nuclear test and missile launch. The real rationale for closing the Gaeseong would be to remove any appearance of hypocrisy of Seoul urging Beijing to reduce fuel and food supplies to Pyongyang while South Korea maintained an economic lifeline to North Korea with the joint industrial project.Seoul’s expressed willingness to deploy THAAD was a more bare-knuckle move since it appeared to threaten Beijing with what China considers a hostile act if it did not accede to South Korea’s wishes on economic sanctions.Many South Koreans, including President Park, may have seen the

Feb 24, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

Trouble at Arirang TV

By John BurtonWith the sudden resignation of the head of Arirang TV, President Park Geun-hye has the opportunity to reverse the decline of Korea’s state-run international broadcaster that has happened under her watch.I have closely followed developments at Arirang TV since I worked there four years ago. At the time, I was asked by Sohn Jie-ae, then the Arirang TV CEO, to serve as a newsroom editor as she sought to raise reporting standards.I have known Sohn since 1992, when I came to Korea as correspondent for the Financial Times, and she was working for The New York Times and later as Seoul correspondent for CNN. She went on to serve as foreign media spokeswoman for the 2010 G-20 Summit and then the Blue House under President Lee Myung-bak before being appointed as head of Arirang TV. She was the first Arirang TV CEO to have international broadcasting experience and had the vision of turning the channel into an outlet that would rival regional peers such as Singapore’s Channel News Asia and the global services ofJapan’s NHK and China’s CCTV.I was attracted by

Feb 10, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

Chinese nightmare

By John BurtonWhat is interesting about the recent backlash against the videotaped apology of Chou Tzu-yu, the Taiwanese member of the K-pop girl group Twice, is how it has exposed the pitfalls of Korea’s economic dependence on China and the underlying unease this has created among Koreans.For those who have not been following the story, Tzu-yu, was recently forced to make a public apology posted on Youtube that would not have looked out of place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution 50 years ago, with the singer appearing without make-up and bowing deeply before reading a prepared statement confessing her sins and parroting the language of Beijing in proclaiming her support for “one China.”.Her “crime” was that she had waved the national flag of Taiwan on a Korean variety show.  This incensed Chinese bloggers who accused the 16-year-old her of being a “splittist” by encouraging Taiwanese independence. Chinese TV canceled an appearance by Twice.The apology, however, aroused the ire of Koreans who believed she was forced to make her

Jan 27, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

No good options

By John BurtonNorth Korea’s latest nuclear test has underscored the challenges in stopping Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The North’s biggest bargaining chip is not its military arsenal, but rather the fact that it occupies prime real estate in the center of one of the most dynamic regions in the world.It’s North Korea’s geostrategic position that makes it so difficult to deal with. Kim Jong-un, like his father and grandfather, knows that he can safely engage in reckless behavior because he can hold Northeast Asia hostage since no one wants to see the region descend into war.Consider China, for example. North Korea’s latest nuclear test is in violation of U.N. Security Council’s resolutions that ban the country from nuclear or ballistic missile tests, a stance that has been supported by China, which was clearly angered by the new nuclear detonation.But Beijing is coming under renewed criticism for its failure to “punish” North Korea for its nuclear ambitions. The argument is that China is the main source of North Korea&

Jan 13, 2016By John Burton

John Burton

Happy New Year?

By John BurtonKorea is entering the New Year with two key questions hanging over the economy. One is what will be the impact of the recent rise in U.S. interest rates? The other is what will be the impact of China’s economic slowdown?The rise in U.S. interest rates poses a significant threat to countries, such as Turkey and Brazil, with large amounts of U.S. dollar-denominated government debt. They could experience a sovereign credit crisis similar to that Korea suffered in 1997.Fortunately, Korea learned from that experience of nearly 20 years ago. Since then, it has sharply reduced its exposure to borrowing from overseas. It maintains a strong current account surplus and high foreign currency reserves. Its financial position is now seen as stronger than China and even some European countries that have higher credit ratings. In a sign of increased confidence in Korea, Moody’s recently raised the country’s sovereign credit rating. However, the situation is different on the micro-economic level. Some Korean companies have high exposure to U.S. dollar debt and co

Dec 30, 2015By John Burton

John Burton

Finders keepers, losers weepers

By John BurtonSeveral Sundays ago, I returned from a business trip, laden with several bags, and immediately went to my office to do some work.  After several hours, I left for home carrying the luggage, including a carry-on, a suit bag, a document bag and a computer bag.It was 8 o’clock at night. It had begun to rain heavily and I had no umbrella. Although burdened with the luggage, I dashed to a corner restaurant whose entrance was protected by an awning and laid the assorted bags besides the door to the closed restaurant.My office is behind the Jungno-gu district office and there wasn’t much traffic on a Sunday night. Since it was raining, it was also difficult to flag down a taxi. After several minutes, one finally stopped. Relieved, I thrust my bags into the taxi and went home.When I arrived and took the bags out of the taxi, I was shocked to discover my computer was missing. Apparently in my rush to enter the taxi and get out of the rain, I had left the computer on the sidewalk by the restaurant.I asked the driver to take me back to where he picked me up.

Dec 16, 2015By John Burton

John Burton

Indonesia's history lesson for Korea

By John BurtonAs Korea continues to debate whether it should adopt state-authored history textbooks for middle and high school students and whether an “official” history is good history, perhaps it should study the example of how Indonesia has handled the most traumatic incident in its post-war history: the 1965 military coup that subsequently led to large-scale massacres.On Sept. 30, 1965, six senior army generals were seized from their homes by a group of soldiers from the presidential guard, who then killed them. The army blamed the killings on the powerful Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), saying the incident was a prelude to the communists seizing power from the country’s long-ruling independence leader Sukarno. The claims triggered the massacre of up to 1 million PKI supporters, many of them ethnic Chinese who were said to be supporting the alleged plot that was said to have been engineered in Beijing.A surviving army general, Suharto, took advantage of the turmoil to mount a coup d’etat shortly afterwards that placed him in power until 1998, when popula

Dec 2, 2015By John Burton

John Burton

Read more

Can Samsung become Swedish?

Korea's stake in US elections

Authoritatian way

Park's one-two punch

Trouble at Arirang TV

Chinese nightmare

No good options

Happy New Year?

Finders keepers, losers weepers

Indonesia's history lesson for Korea

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