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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

Abe stumbles

By John Burton My office is near the Japanese Embassy, and every Wednesday I can hear the shouts of protesters at their weekly demonstrations, demanding that Tokyo pay reparations to the Korean women who were used as sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II.In recent weeks, the voices have been louder than usual as another issue has excited passions ― the decision by the Japanese Cabinet at the beginning of July to reinterpret the country’s pacifist constitution to allow the Japanese armed forces to provide military aid to close allies in the name of collective self-defense.While strategists might see the move as an attempt by Japan to strengthen its military ties with the United States and South Korea in response to China’s growing regional might, many Koreans view the decision as a significant step toward Japanese militarism.But what has largely escaped notice in the Korean media frenzy over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s proposal is that the decision is also unpopular in Japan. Public support for Abe last month dropped to its lowest level si

Aug 27, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

The Russians are coming

By John Burton One unexpected and perhaps ironic consequence of Russia’s stand-off with the West over the Ukraine is Moscow’s renewed role in playing peacemaker on the Korean Peninsula in hopes of increasing natural gas sales to Northeast Asia.The Ukraine crisis has forced European countries to reconsider their heavy dependence on Russia for gas supplies. The threat that Russia could lose future gas sales in Europe has accelerated existing plans by Moscow to boost gas shipments to China, Korea and Japan, where demand is growing faster than in Europe and where gas prices are higher.A major element in Russia’s strategy is the construction of a series of gas pipelines that would bring gas from Siberia through the port of Vladivostok and then down through North Korea into South Korea.Russia has long eyed South Korea as a big gas customer since it is already the world’s second-largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is more expensive to buy than natural gas shipped through pipelines. Russia sent a big delegation to the World Energy Congress in D

May 21, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Korea's Google challenge

By John Burton Many American university graduates regard Google in the same way as their Korean counterparts view Samsung Electronics: it is their top choice for a job. But there is one important difference.  Among the new hires at Google are those with little or no college university ― and I’m not talking about the kitchen staff. Such a state of affairs at Samsung or any other leading Korean company is unimaginable. Paper credentials are the key to success. As Korea grapples with the Sewol tragedy, one of the clear lessons is the failure of Korean management to respond to a sudden crisis. Anyone familiar with Korean government ministries or the chaebol knows that their ranks may be filled with people who have graduated from a SKY university but have become trapped in a bureaucratic machine that runs on paper and discourages initiative, innovation and independent thinking. Korean organizations remain caught in what Joi Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab in the U.S., calls the “before Internet” age where a map is the primary means of guidance,

May 7, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Sampoong at sea

By John Burton As I read accounts of the capsizing of the ferry Sewol, it brings to mind disturbing parallels with Korea’s biggest peacetime disaster: the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store in southern Seoul in 1995, which killed 502 people. One of the distinguishing features of both disasters was the dereliction of duty by those at the top. Lee Jun-seok, the Sewol captain, has been arrested for being one of the first to flee the vessel instead of organizing evacuation procedures that could have saved most or all of the nearly 450 passengers onboard during the two and a half hours before the ferry sunk. The abandonment of the Sewol has shocked not only Korea, but the world, since it violates one of the basic tenets of seamanship that the captain’s first duty is to ensure the safety of his passengers. In the case of the Sampoong Department Store, on the morning of June 29, 1995, cracks began to appear on the top floor of the store. But instead of closing the building and issuing orders for customers to leave the store, the management kept qu

Apr 23, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Taming Tokyo

By John Burton President Obama’s forthcoming trip to Korea and Japan in late April is partly meant to narrow the growing differences between Washington’s two important allies in Northeast Asia.The need for action appears to be urgent from the U.S. perspective in regards to maintaining its Asian strategy.What is particularly worrisome for Washington is that South Koreans, according to opinion polls, are supporting warming relations with both China and North Korea ― one a U.S. regional rival and the other an adversary ― as Seoul’s relations with Tokyo deteriorate.South Koreans are uncertain which side the U.S. would support in the continuing dispute between their country and Japan, with opinion about evenly split, although domestic support for the U.S. alliance has not changed much over the past year.Indeed, most South Koreans would still side with the U.S. in any dispute that Washington would have with Beijing, the opinion polls reveal.But the longer the troubled ties between Seoul and Tokyo continue, the greater the potential that this could undermine

Apr 9, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Korea's Finnish lesson

By John BurtonMany years ago when I was working as a foreign correspondent in Sweden, I covered the rise of Nokia in next-door Finland. Nokia then was what could be described as a Finnish chaebol. It made everything from rubber boots and paper products to electricity cables and TVs. But in the early 1990s, the struggling conglomerate decided to focus on only one sector ― mobile phones and telecommunications equipment. It became widely successful, dominating the global mobile phone market between 1998 and 2012.  During that same period Nokia sales were equivalent to 20 percent of Finland’s gross domestic product. It accounted for 30 percent of the nation’s R&D spending, 20 percent of its exports, nearly a quarter of corporate taxes and almost 30 percent of Finnish patent applications. At one point, Nokia made up 70 percent of the Helsinki stock market capitalization. Then in the space of only two years, Nokia collapsed, dethroned by Apple and Samsung in the smartphone sector, causing it to tumble to 10th place among mobile phone vendors worldwide.&n

Mar 26, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Japan's Korean envy

By John Burton Koreans are angry about the growing nationalism of the Japanese government when it comes to issues from Dokdo to comfort women. But they also can take perverse pride in it as well, since Japan’s posturing reveals the gnawing sense of inferiority that Japan now feels toward Korea.That is a huge psychological shift in relations between the two countries. For centuries, the Japanese looked down upon the Koreans with a dismissive attitude.  Racist stereotypes of Koreans as garlic-smelling peasants were used to justify both Japan’s harsh colonial rule and the continued discrimination against the Korean-Japanese population. But Japan is no longer self-confident and feelings of anxiety about its national status are growing. The country’s economy has been stagnant for more than two decades. The same can be said of its political system, which has failed to tackle the increasing challenges that the nation faces. The result has been a population that feels both alienated and disenfranchised. In contrast, Korea’s international image has

Mar 12, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Horrible histories

By John Burton   There are a series of books published in the U.K. called Horrible Histories that detail gruesome events from the past, with such titles as Angry Aztecs and Vicious Vikings, to amuse schoolboys. It’s proof of the old adage that tragedy plus time equals comedy. Most periods of history are viewed dispassionately if they are not subject to near total public apathy. Few Europeans nowadays are concerned about the appalling devastation of the Thirty Years War  (1618-1648), which killed an estimated 8 million people. Koreans do not protest against China about the Manchu invasions of Korea in 1627 and 1637. It’s history. But other periods of history attract abnormal attention, dominate the public consciousness and are no laughing matter. These tend to be recent traumatic events such as military defeats, civil conflict or political oppression that are within the living memory of at least some of the population. The resulting feelings of loss, humiliation or injustice promote a moralistic view of the events in the belief that “tho

Feb 26, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Where Korea is weak

By John Burton I first came to live in Korea in 1992 and during these past 20 or so years I have watched the country complete its transition from a developing to a developed economy. Many of the elements that account for Korea’s astonishing success are still present. One is its industrial flexibility and rapid product development. An example is the smartphone. Five years ago, smartphone were practically non-existent in Korea. Now the country is the world’s leading producer. That nimbleness reflects two other Korean characteristics:  a strong work ethic and respect for educational achievement. But will these features be enough to see Korea through the next 20 years as it shifts toward a services-oriented economy, the path followed by other advanced and maturing countries? In that respect, I have some doubts. Korea faces two big challenges in the years ahead. One is its rapidly aging population that threatens to reduce economic productivity, the single most important factor determining a country’s prosperity. The other is the disappearanc

Feb 12, 2014By John Burton
John Burton

Anxiety attack

By John Burton Korea is beginning to confront an issue that is likely to dominate politics for years to come: a generational battle between young and old in one of the world’s fastest aging societies. Demographic trends are working against Korea’s future prosperity. Korea now ranks as the world’s 13th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. By 2030, it will have slipped to 14thplace and then to 17th by 2050 (where Australia is now), according to an estimate by PwC, the international consultancy. The main reason for Korea’s slowing growth and weaker economic performance will be a steady decline in the country’s working age population. Fears that the standard of living could deteriorate over the next 40 years already seems to cause angst among the nation’s youth. For the first time since the end of the Korean War, the present generation of Korean university graduates cannot expect to have a better material life than their parents. The latest manifestation of such worries is the recent “How are you all doing?&rdq

Jan 29, 2014By John Burton
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