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Semoon Chang

Donald Kirk has been covering Korean Peninsula issues for decades.

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Semoon Chang

Should Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi pay?

By Semoon Chang The answer is definitely yes, but not through the Korean legal system. On Nov. 1, 2013, a court in the southwestern city of Gwangju, Korea, ruled in favor of four Korean women who were forced to work for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan during World War II. The court awarded them 150 million won, or about $150,000, per person. Earlier in July 2013, Seoul and Busan’s high courts also ordered Nippon Steel Corporation to pay compensation demanded by its victims of forced labor. These cases are still in progress.The root of the problem with any attempt to resolve the forced labor issue is the 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan and the 1965 Korea-Japan Agreement that made it almost, if not totally, impossible for individual Korean victims of Japan’s wartime atrocities to recover any monetary damages that they may have suffered. I will stay away from the legal issue that is not likely to find an agreement between Korean plaintiffs and Japanese defendants anytime soon, if ever. Instead, I would like to look at the economic consequences of such courtroom con

Jul 5, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

Wasteful expenditures of US government

By Semoon Chang In April this year, U.S. Congressman Steve Russell from Oklahoma released a booklet called “Waste Watch.” You can sit back and enjoy reading some of these wasteful expenditures that Congressman Russell selected. This could be a good lesson for Korean politicians as well. International Relief and Development (IRD), a nonprofit contractor, has received over $2 billion in federal money from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to help rebuild Iraq, Afghanistan and other war-torn nations. Between 2007 and 2010, the organization billed the federal government over $1.1 million for “training” and “staff morale” items, Nearly half of that amount was for three staff conferences at a resort in Pennsylvania. Investigations by the Washington Post uncovered the perks IRD staff received at the resort, which included “free iPods at one retreat, Nikon Coolpix cameras at another; skeet- shooting outings; extreme-driving classes; and complimentary $50 gift certificates to spend on clothing, jewelry, massages ― wh

Jun 21, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

Getting old in Korea

By Semoon Chang I was not able to see the highly popular movie “Late Blossom” that portrayed the daily lives of the elderly in Korea, who were poor but lovely. My understanding is that it cost less than $1 million to make the movie, but it became popular over time. I only saw a segment of the movie that became available on YouTube. Life for elderly Koreans can be beautiful for some who are rich, but brutal for others who are poor.For more than 2,500 years, Korea has been known as the “Courteous country in the East,” meaning that people in Korea, located east of China, are very courteous to one another.As the Korean economy grew rapidly since the 1960s, Korea appears to have transformed from “Courteous country in the East” to the “Discourteous country in the East,” meaning that the people in Korea are no longer very courteous. If this is not an accurate explanation, how can one explain the high suicide rate among the elderly of Korea?You see more than 80 out of 100,000 Koreans 65 years and older commit suicide each year, while

May 24, 2015By Chang Se-moon
Semoon Chang

Geum-joo vs. Japan (II)

By Semoon Chang Sexual slavery of Asian women by the Japanese military during World War II was explained two weeks ago in this column through the introduction of Hwang Geum-joo vs. Japan. Today, I will conclude the story and make suggestions on what Korea should do to close the chapter on the brutal acts by Japan.Let me introduce three documents that have the bearing on the sexual slavery issue. The first document is the 1905 Taft-Katsura Agreement, which is heavily quoted here from the April 29, 2015, issue of KASTN (Korean-American Science and Technology News). At the dawn of the 20th century, Japan emerged as the unchallenged military power, while Korea under the inept kingdom slid into accelerated decline.On July 27, 1905, a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Taro Katsura and U.S. Secretary of WarWilliam Howard Taft, who later became the 27th President of the United States, was held in Tokyo, leading to the 1905 agreement. The agreement has been said to seal Korea’s death warrant and was a precursor to the 1905 Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty. In the agreement, th

May 10, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

Geum-joo vs. Japan (I)

By Semoon Chang I know this is an old story, but hear me out please because the debate continues to this date with no end in sight.This lawsuit was filed in 2000 in the U.S. District Court by 15 Asian women who were used as sexual slaves by Japanese military during World War II. The case was dismissed in 2001. The appeal by the plaintiffs was rejected even after the July 2004 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that ordered the appellate court to reconsider the case. Let me first introduce some facts as described in the October 4, 2001, ruling by Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C.Approximately 200,000 women were forced through abductions, deception, and coercion into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army between 1931 and 1945. These women were taken to so-called “comfort stations” where the women “were repeatedly raped — often by as many as 30 or 40 men a day — tortured, beaten, mutilated, and sometimes murdered. The women were denied proper medical attention, shelter, and nutrition.” Only about 25 percent to 35 pe

Apr 26, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

What if Jeju Island is sold to foreigners?

By Semoon Chang I have visited Jeju Island twice. The first time was when I graduated high school. It was a trip with no money. One of my friends and I went all the way to the top of Mount Halla, saw the giant crater, and went to the other side of the island to Seogwipo. That was a long time ago. The second time was about five years ago in a group tour.As you know, Jeju Island is a volcanic island located about 85 kilometers from the tip of the Korean Peninsula. Mount Halla is actually a dormant volcano. It is 1,950 meters, or 6,398 feet, above sea level. The height is very similar to that of the popular Smokey Mountains in the United States. Mount Halla is believed to be a very young mountain of about 25,000 years, and it had its eruption about 800 years ago. Jeju Island has also been known as Samdado with “sam” meaning three; “da” meaning abundance, and “do” meaning an island in Korean, or Chinese if you are picky. Anyway, the three abundances are wind, rocks and beautiful women.But beautiful Jeju Island is in trouble. If not now, then it wi

Apr 12, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

Can women cross DMZ?

By Semoon Chang I am on an email list of the excellent Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. A March 17 e-News from the institute caught my attention. I followed up on the news to find an organization called WomenCrossDMZ, all one word with no space between words. Let me tell you what I discovered.May 24 is the International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, while the year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of  World War II as well as the beginning of the two Koreas. Earlier in March, a group of women made a proposal at the United Nations that on May 24, women peacemakers from around the world would walk with Korean women, north and south, to call for a new beginning for a unified Korea. They plan to walk across the 2-mile wide Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates millions of Korean families as a symbolic act of peace. They also plan to hold peace symposiums in Pyongyang and Seoul.Organizers of the walk appealed directly to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to support and facilitate the walk. The walk requires not only the supp

Mar 29, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

Consumer complaints about products

By Semoon ChangIn a market economy, consumers buy products that sellers sell. It is not unusual, however, to find that consumers are not happy about the products that they buy. Consumers then complain. I have good data on how much American consumers complain about the products that they buy. Although I do not know the extent of consumer complaints in Korea, it would be safe to assume that the types of complaints are similar. In America, there exists the Consumer Sentinel Network (CSN), which is a secure online database of millions of consumer complaints available only to law enforcement. Law enforcement partners worldwide can use information in the database to enhance and coordinate investigations. On Feb. 27, this year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission released the top 10 consumer complaints on the basis of more than 2.5 million complaints that they received during 2014. Topping the list are identity theft with 13 percent and debt collection with 11 percent of total complaints. The third is imposter scams in which con artists impersonate Internal Revenue Service and other gove

Mar 15, 2015By Semoon Chang
Semoon Chang

'Eye for Real Stories' program on TV

By Semoon Chang I live in Mobile, Alabama. You might call me a southern redneck. However, you may also know that we have a huge Hyundai Auto plant only 150 miles from where I live, and there is a regular shipping schedule between Mobile and Busan, both port cities. In Mobile, we have two good on-line cable TV packages: Comcast and AT&T. I subscribe to the AT&T U-verse package that, to my pleasant surprise, includes MBC for a little extra. I think it is aired through MBC-America in Los Angeles. One program on MBC that caught my eye is the “Eye for Real Stories” which is a 25-minute nightly program. It is hosted by two very good reporters ― Kim Jae-won and Park Yeon-kyung. The production group must spend a lot of time and effort to produce the program. It tells us sad stories of people who lost money to friends and relatives whom they trusted, who lost their lives through automobile accidents, and who experience complex human relations. Because of my background as a forensic economist, every time I watch the program, I pay special attention to monetar

Mar 1, 2015By Semoon Chang
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