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John Burton

John Burton is freelancer writer. He was Korea correspondent of the Financial Times, business editor of Korea JoongAng Daily, vice president of Insight Communication, Korea.

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John Burton

YS acted as'bridge' in transition

By John BurtonIf one word summed up Kim Young-sam, it would be “bridge” in the sense that he served as a bridge between dictatorship and democracy, between Korea’s status as a developing economy and an advanced one and as a bridge between the analog age and the digital age.The last achievement may be the most important. Although most of President Kim’s obituaries have focused on his career as a campaigner for democracy and bringing Korea into the OECD, the club of developed economies, they have largely ignored perhaps his most enduring legacy. Just as U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower is now celebrated for introducing a trans-continental highway system in the 1950s that propelled the growth of the American economy, so Kim should be credited for constructing the “information superhighway” in Korea that has dramatically transformed the country.In 1995, Kim expanded the Ministry of Information and Communications and ordered it to implement the Korean Information Infrastructure project, a program to build a high-speed internet infrastructure tha

Nov 25, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

I.Seoul.U.2

By John BurtonAs predicted, the campaign to select a new slogan to promote the capital city has turned into a debacle. A majority of Koreans and 70 percent of Seoulites have expressed displeasure about the selection of “I.SEOUL.U,” according to an opinion survey. At least one major Korean newspaper has called for the campaign to be suspended. I understand that even some of those involved in the process are unhappy about the outcome. Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, however, is sticking to his guns, saying that the city will adopt the motto, even though he personally preferred another of the three finalists, “Seouling.” I understand that the mayor can’t be seen as backing down since it would represent a loss of face when many believe he is preparing to make a run to become Korea’s next president.    But Mayor Park is not really to blame for what happened. Primary responsibility falls on the nine experts who appeared to have hijacked the process at the last minute during the announcement ceremony on the evening of Oct. 28. Before the ce

Nov 18, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

Park Chung-hee's place in history

By John BurtonOne of the assumptions explaining why President Park Geun-hye and her conservative supporters are so intent on introducing a single government-authored history textbook for middle and high schools is that they want to correct distorted views of the president’s father, Park Chung-hee.They claim that the current textbooks primarily portray Park Chung-hee as a pro-Japanese dictator who abused democratic and human rights while they largely ignore his contributions to making Korea an industrial powerhouse.In this regard, the conservatives may have a valid point. Seen in an international context of the mid-20th century “Third World,” Park was an extraordinary figure.The May 1961 coup led by Park was just one of a wave of military interventions that toppled governments in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of them were highly nationalist in their rhetoric and goals, although the reasons for the military taking control varied.Coups were normally mounted by officers disgruntled with the state of the nation, angry at the &l

Nov 4, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

Seoul's terrible new slogan

By John Burton Seoul is becoming hip.  A city that when I first arrived nearly 25 years ago had all the greyness and charisma of an East European Communist capital is now seen as cutting-edge. It is the epicenter of Asian pop culture with K-Pop bands, television soap operas, films and video game tournaments, while the city’s citizens enjoy some of the fastest Internet speeds on earth. In short, Seoul has glamour and high-tech style. So it is not surprising that the local government recently decided to come up with a new slogan for the city that would capture this excitement and replace the rather insipid “Hi! Seoul.”   No doubt they had in mind such successful campaigns as “I Love (heart) New York” and “Hong Kong: Asia’s World City,” which sums up in a few words the essence of a city’s appeal. The New York and Hong Kong slogans were the product of advertising and public relations agencies that had long experience in these matters and subjected their ideas to focus group testing. In the case of &l

Oct 21, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

'The Sorrow and the Pity'

By John BurtonIn 1969, the French documentary maker, Marcel Ophuls, produced a film on the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, called the “The Sorrow and the Pity.” It examined collaboration and resistance to Nazi rule by focusing on one city, Clermont-Ferrand in central France.The film wanted to explore why some of the French were willing to collaborate with the Germans. But it also revealed a complicated picture of life under the occupation, with the French response ranging from the heroic to the opportunistic.When it was released, the film created immediate controversy and was banned from French television for a decade afterwards. The reason for the outrage was that it exploded the myth that nearly all of the French had resisted Nazi rule.But it also opened an important debate about France’s history between 1940 and 1945 and led to an examination and acknowledgement of some of the war crimes that the French had committed, including the roundup of French Jews and their deportation to German concentrations camps for extermination.Given the rather murky h

Oct 7, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

Korea and the innovator's dilemma

By John BurtonClayton M. Christensen is one of the most famous management gurus today. He is considered the prime theorist behind the concept of the disruptive economy, where innovative start-ups successfully challenge industrial giants and even make whole business sectors obsolete. Think as an example of the taxi app Uber threatening the traditional taxi industry by making rides more efficient and at lower cost.Christensen, who was a Mormon missionary in Korea before entering the doctoral program at Harvard Business School in 1989, established the concept of the disruptive economy in his 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma.”The title refers to the fact the executives at established companies often focus on making their products better through incremental improvements to protect their current business model. Christensen calls this “sustaining innovation.” But the executives often ignore other market developments that could wipe out their business, what Christensen described as “disruptive innovation.”The reason why established executives are

Sep 23, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

Park's diplomatic 'reset'

By John BurtonPresident Park Geun-hye’s trip to China last week marked the start of a period of frantic diplomatic activity over the next couples of months that could prove to be a turning point for her beleaguered administration. For what her government is trying to achieve is to bring South Korea’s relations back into a more harmonious balance with China, North Korea, Japan and the U.S. and boost Seoul’s regional influence as a result.

Sep 9, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

Banking on the future

By John BurtonThe scheduled merger of Hana Bank and Korea Exchange Bank on September 1 is an effort to bolster the nation’s banking sector ahead of what could prove to a rough period in the global economy. Memories of how the 1997 Asian financial crisis devastated the Korean banking system are still strong.The new KEB Hana Bank, which will be nation’s largest bank by assets, can trace its roots to that crisis when KEB was taken over by Lone Star before the U.S. equity fund sold its majority stake to Hana in 2012.The merger comes at a time when Korea is facing economic headwinds. Korea’s exports of autos and other important products have fallen this year due to the negative impact caused by the weakening currency of its main trade rival Japan. Domestic demand is also slowing.In response, the Bank of Korea has cut the base interest rate to record low of 1.5 percent to help support the economy and rates could fall further. That is putting pressure on the profit margins of the local banks, which have already been suffering from low growth and thin interest margins

Aug 26, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

'Pyongyang time'

By John Burton The international media last week gleefully reported the decision by North Korea to switch to “Pyongyang time,” a half hour behind that of Seoul and Tokyo, as another example of the bizarreness of the Kim Jung-un regime. But the move was not as crazy as some may think.What are called non-standard, factional or unique time zones, like that adopted by North Korea, deviate between 15 and 45 minutes from Coordinate Universal Time (UTC), what used to be known as Greenwich Mean Time.Non-standard time zones already occupy great swathes of South Asia, for example, including Iran, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Other nations or provinces that have adopted such time zones include Venezuela, Newfoundland in Canada, the Northern Territories and South Australia along with city of Broken Hill in Australia, and the Chatham Islands and Marquesas Islands in the Pacific.Moreover, South Korea had a non-standard time zone, a half-hour behind that of Tokyo and conforming to North Korea’s new one, between 1954 and 1961. Previously the Joseon Kingdom

Aug 12, 2015By John Burton
John Burton

Naked Korea

By John Burton “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked,” is a famous quote by Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest investor, about how receding economic currents can reveal the vulnerabilities of those who previously appeared to be floating on success. With Korea’s export machine sputtering, is the country about to be exposed as naked?For the last few years, Korea has enjoyed relatively good economic growth because of its strong export performance. Companies benefitted from a weak won in overseas markets despite accusations by some that the government was engaged in currency manipulation.Korean exporters, such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, made great strides in making their products cool and appealing to global customers. The smartphones and cars that the country produced became known for their excellent quality and affordable prices, which is one reason why Samsung, and not Sony, now reigns supreme in consumer electronics, for example.Finally, Korea engaged in a flurry of negotiations to conclude preferent

Jul 29, 2015By John Burton
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