Opinion - The Korea Times

Slavery in Korea

By John BurtonThe U.S. earlier this month established Juneteenth, which commemorates the ending of slavery in 1865, as a new national holiday. The move had broad bipartisan support despite increased political polarization and reflected growing public interest in the lasting impact of slavery on the U.S. Perhaps it's time that Korea examine its own legacy of slavery, which was only legally banned in 1894, 29 years after its end in the U.S. Mark Peterson, a former professor of Korean studies at Brigham Young University and one of the few U.S. scholars who has studied Korean slavery, has argued that Korea had the longest, unbroken chain of slaveholding in the world, lasting nearly 1,500 years. Its legacy might help explain such modern phenomena as the sex slavery of the “comfort women” during World War II and North Korea's “seongbun” caste system. The seongbun system, in particular, is just a modern update of the social stratification that reached its height during the Joseon period, with the nobi class of servants, serfs and slaves serving the yangban class of n

Jun 28, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Sinophobia

By John BurtonMuch attention in Washington is often given to the fraught relations between Korea and Japan due to its national security implications for the U.S. in Northeast Asia. Surprisingly, less attention is being paid among U.S. commentators to the unfavorable views that Koreans have about China, which could help the U.S. agenda in containing expansionist moves by Beijing.President Moon Jae-in's explicit endorsement of the U.S. stance on the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea during his summit with President Joe Biden last month in Washington may have indeed reflected the public mood back home.Sino-Korean relations have always been complex. Throughout most of their history, Koreans were comfortable with China's cultural influence. But that began to change at the turn of the 20th century with the rise of Korean nationalism.Bilateral ties have been on the downslide since 2017 when China introduced economic retaliatory measures against Korea in response to Seoul's deployment of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system. Beijing's moves to block Korea products, ban K-pop stars from Chi

Jun 14, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Moonshot in Washington

By John BurtonA quid pro quo was at the heart of the recent Washington summit between Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden: The U.S. president promised to pursue diplomatic engagement with North Korea in return for Moon accepting the principles supporting the U.S. strategy against China.Seoul has wanted to avoid becoming involved in the strategic competition between China, its biggest trade partner, and the U.S., its main security ally, and being forced to choose sides. But Moon now appears to have tilted in favor of the U.S. in return for receiving several concessions from Biden.Moon had been worried about whether the Biden administration would pursue active negotiations with North Korea to find a peaceful solution to ending its nuclear and missile programs. The Biden administration signaled that it was willing to resume talks with Pyongyang by reaffirming the Singapore joint statement reached between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018. Biden also announced the appointment of Ambassador Sung Kim as the special envoy for North Korea, a post he also hel

May 31, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Devil is in the details

By John BurtonWhen Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden hold their summit meeting in Washington later this week, it should provide more clarity on the new U.S. administration's policy toward North Korea.The conclusions produced by the policy review on North Korea by the Biden administration and released earlier this month remain maddeningly vague, although this vagueness is due to the fact that U.S. officials do not want to reveal their negotiating hand. Officials said that they sought to strike a balance between President Donald Trump's top-down engagement diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Barack Obama's arm's-length “strategic patience” strategy. Instead, they want to pursue “a phased agreement” based on a “calibrated, practical” approach that should lead to North Korea's full denuclearization. But the steering of a middle course between the Trump and Obama policies leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and the devil will be in the details. It also smacks of similar policies of diplomacy and deterrence that were pursued

May 17, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Semiconductors: Digital gold

By John BurtonIt may not be surprising that, among the topics that will be discussed between President Moon Jae-in and President Joe Biden at their scheduled summit meeting in Washington, D.C., on May 21, will be North Korea, climate change and cooperation on COVID-19 vaccines. But more noteworthy is that semiconductors will also be high on the agenda.This fact is an acknowledgement that Korea has become a semiconductor superpower, and its importance as a supplier has been highlighted by the current global shortage of chips. President Moon was right in recently describing the semiconductor sector as a core national strategic industry that could determine the future of the economy. Korea's leadership in the semiconductor industry gives it unprecedented power in commanding global supply chains. Just as countries that produced oil ― black gold ― dominated the 20th century, so could countries producing chips ― digital gold― dominate the 21st century.It is for this reason that the U.S. is now focusing on semiconductors as a key bilateral issue with Korea, when Biden is pushing for aggress

May 3, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Ground zero

By John BurtonNorth Korea is ground zero for international humanitarian efforts. For the first time since foreign aid workers were allowed into the country following the great famine of the 1990s, which Pyongyang described as the “Arduous March,” no U.N. or NGO staff members reportedly remain in the country, due to local COVID-19 restrictions.This situation creates an uncertain future for international assistance at a time when North Korea leader Kim Jong-un recently warned party officials that they would need to “wage another more difficult Arduous March.” His remarks suggest that the country faces serious economic problems as a result of Pyongyang closing the national borders in response to the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest annual report by the U.N. Panel of Experts on North Korea, which was released last month, paints a dire picture of the conditions faced by NGOs trying to deliver aid from China or monitor their distribution within North Korea in 2020. One NGO told the U.N. Panel that “Humanitarian work has literally come to a sta

Apr 19, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

White, Black and Asian

By John BurtonThe recent wave of anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. has complex roots. It is normally framed in the narrative that Asians have been victims of white supremacy. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese immigrants for 60 years and 120,000 Japanese Americans were put in internment camps during World War II.COVID-19 has added to the scapegoating of Asians, with frequent references by right-wing political leaders, including President Trump, to “kung flu” and the “China virus.” Growing anti-China sentiment in the U.S. over trade and national security has helped fuel xenophobia.Hate crimes against Asians, which are defined as anything from shouted racial slurs to unprovoked physical attacks, have risen by 150 percent in the past year, according to one estimate, with nearly 4,000 cases being reported and many of the victims being women.Observers draw parallels with the hate crimes committed against Muslims in the U.S. following the 2001 terrorist attacks and President Trump's ban against Muslim immigrants after he took office in 2017.Less acknowle

Apr 5, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Disaster trifecta

By John BurtonA trifecta once meant a winning horse racing bet in which the first-, second- and third-place finishers were chosen in the correct order. But in the case of North Korea, it has meant a losing streak over the past year as the country has suffered triple blows from COVID-19 restrictions, natural disasters and the continued impact of international sanctions. North Korea was one of the first countries in the world to go into self-quarantine against COVID-19 when it closed its borders in January 2020 and imposed travel restrictions within the country. Trade with China, North Korea's biggest trading partner, fell by 80 percent last year, including rice supplies and other food imports. Pyongyang believed that such strict controls were necessary since the spread of COVID-19 would overwhelm its fragile healthcare system.Meanwhile, several severe typhoons last summer flooded farmland, reducing crop output. This has exacerbated persistent food shortages. The U.S. and the U.N. have estimated that at least 40 percent of the population is malnourished.As a result, North Korea's alrea

Mar 22, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

Moon's last year

By John BurtonIt will be nearly a year from now when Korea holds its next presidential election on March 9, 2022. The last year in office usually proves to be a dismal one for Korean presidents due to their lame-duck status. That appears to be the case for President Moon Jae-in, whose popularity among voters has fallen to below 40 percent from 60 percent last May. While Moon garnered strong support earlier in the year due to his government's effective response to the outbreak of COVID-19, his declining popularity is now blamed on an upsurge of COVID-19 cases since November and the slow rollout of a vaccine program. Other problems have recently dogged Moon's presidency. One is a perceived conflict of interest when it comes to anti-corruption investigations of his administration as exemplified by the fight between the Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae and Prosecutor-General Yoon Seok-youl, which ended in Choo's resignation and undermined public trust in the government. The ruling party's progressive image was also damaged by sexual harassment allegations involving the mayors of Seoul and Bus

Mar 8, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

No way out

By John BurtonDuring his recent Senate confirmation hearings, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was in favor of “increasing pressure on North Korea to come to the negotiating table” on dismantling its nuclear weapons program. But he later added that at the same time he would support easing regulations that hinder humanitarian aid deliveries to North Korea.“Even if we have a strong grievance with the regime or with the government … We, to the best of our ability, try to do so in a way that in the first instance isn't harmful to the people in the country,” Blinken said. “We do want to make sure that anything we do, we have an eye on the humanitarian side of the equation, not just the security side of the equation.”This policy of increasing sanctions while promoting humanitarian aid works at cross-purposes. Would North Korea, for example, accept humanitarian aid from the U.S. while also being subject to a tighter sanctions regime?In many ways Blinken's comments reflect the same approach taken by the previous administration of Presi

Feb 1, 2021By John Burton

John Burton

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Slavery in Korea

Sinophobia

Moonshot in Washington

Devil is in the details

Semiconductors: Digital gold

Ground zero

White, Black and Asian

Disaster trifecta

Moon's last year

No way out

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