Opinion - The Korea Times

Many Ways to Watch Iran

By Tom Plate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is unpopular in many places around the world. It should then follow that almost everyone watching the vivid video reports of the antigovernment demonstrations in Tehran from afar is cheering all the jeering. But that is far from the truth. Western observers tend to regard protest demonstrations as always a good thing ? as a sign of healthy dissent, almost angelic in their innocence. This is probably a global minority view. In many places outside the West ? and especially in Asia ? the opposition movement in Tehran gets mixed reviews. This is because people around the world don’t necessarily look at the world through the same rose-colored glasses as we do. To the binary Western eye, we cast Ahmadinejad as the bad guy and so therefore anyone opposed to him has to be a good guy. In our Manichean political morality, no room is allotted for ? well ? gray guys. It’s so simple, really, we hardly even have to think about it. But binary thinking can be foolish. The West in general made exactly this kind of kindergarten error of perception and si

Jun 21, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

The Captors Dilemma

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Call me a dupe of the Commies, if that makes you happy ― I really don't care at this point. Maybe all these years I have been wrong to argue that we can negotiate with North Korea; maybe my critics are right and the regime does need to be either totally ignored and further isolated, or, in the worst case scenario, attacked. All I care about right now is getting those two American journalists out of that Pyongyang jail. The two women were recently sentenced to years of hard labor for alleged espionage against North Korea. Back in March, you see, they were standing (1) near or (2) on or (3) slightly inside the border between China and North Korea, working on a story for their San Francisco-based cable and internet station, co-owned and most prominently fronted by Al Gore, former U.S. vice president. Before the journalists knew it, North Korean border guards grabbed them, threw them in prison and charged them with high crimes. Fairness, justice and a sense of proportion are not qualities the world has grown to expect from the Democratic People's

Jun 17, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Chinas White Cellar

By Tom Plate China has been raising its eyebrows (and sometimes mouthing blunt questions) over the safety of its mountainous portfolio in U.S. government treasury investments. But the complaints are starting to get tiresome. The bottom line is that Beijing and Washington are in this swamp together. Teamwork, not finger-pointing, is the way out. On one level, to be sure, you can't blame the Chinese for their worrying. Past undulations of the American economy have given even U.S. officials that sinking feeling. And who knows what's in store for the future? Once upon a time, holdings in U.S. Treasuries were considered the safest places to house bucks aside from Aunt Tilley's bedroom mattress. But the U.S. economic crisis began making the mattress option look more attractive. The Chinese have socked something like a gazillion dollars with us - mainly in the form of U.S. Treasury obligations. But, like American investors in fear of waking up and seeing their 401(k) spiraling downward in the direction of the 101(k)-cellar, the Chinese shiver from the thought of years of expo

Jun 7, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

How to Treat North Korea

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― On the question of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), better known as (a) North Korea, (b) notorious charter member of Bush's ``Axis of Evil" and (c) pain-in-the-neck threat to world peace and stability, here are a few humble observations (basically, no one really knows what to do about North Korea, including China): First, you do not need to scramble to the telephone to get the local contractor to sink that bomb shelter into your backyard ― not just yet, anyway. In its current state evolution (only partially post-dinosaur), North Korea is still far from being a serious world-threatening nuclear power. It is true, the trend lines are ominous: in recent days this much unloved regime test-fired a few missiles and looks to have detonated yet another underground nuclear explosion of unclear size and uncertain sophistication. Even so, this all amounts to a mean flurry of activity from a regime claiming the adherence of some 23 million residents ― almost every last one being ethnic Korean, and too many being mainly hungry. Two, y

May 31, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Bumpy Times in Asia

By Tom Plate Asia can be tough to figure out. Any given week in Asia offers more highs and lows than the New York Stock Exchange. The region shimmers from the sublime to the ridiculous. Let's start with the ridiculous: In Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), the majority Sinhalese government announces victory in the endlessly self-destructive civil war against minority Tamils; but in the process it looks to have torched many innocent Tamils. Do we call this progress or regression? Will Sri Lanka become more or less stable over time? Will there be justice for all? In Myanmar (formerly Burma), the government removes Nobel Laureate and anti-junta leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 63, from house arrest and dumps her in regular prison while charging her with new crimes. Can this ruling junta get any dumber? Hasn't this remarkable woman been through enough? Why doesn't the crack British commando unit assigned to this problem go in and extricate her before these idiot Burmese generals are the death of her? And in Pakistan (formerly a non-failed state), the military is expanding its nuclear arse

May 24, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

In Search of Fair Sheikh

By Tom Plate The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a federation of seven emirates, each with its own ruler, sits, usually quietly and prosperously, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, across a long stretch of bay water from Iran. But last week the UAE had two of its more prominent Sheikhs on public display. They offered such contrasting visions of their home country that, frankly, you were left shaking your head. The Sheikh that virtually everyone in the world saw - on network news broadcasts and on their YouTube ― was Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan. He is no simple Sheikh. Issa, though not formally a member of the ruling, oil-drenched U.A.E. federation, is a half-brother of the U.A.E. President himself, no less. Also and alas, Sheikh Issa is now internationally famous as the world's number-one Torture Poster Boy. He has replaced, if only temporarily, the vivid image of the U.S. torture of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 as the most picturesque miscarriage of justice we have. In gruesome, gritty digital footage smuggled out of the Gulf state, Sheikh Is

May 10, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

China, Taiwan Try New Way

By Tom Plate On the surface of things, it might not seem like such a big deal. Taiwan is to get recognition as an observer at an important world health meeting in Geneva to be held later this month. Big deal. But in the context of Asian diplomatic history, actually, it is. Here's why: For years Beijing has successfully blocked Taiwan's participation ― formal or otherwise ― in everything from international organizations to beach volleyball pick-up games. Beijing's venom for a Taiwan that at any moment might declare formal independence scared everyone off ― including the U.S. Instead of increasing the island's ``international space," as diplomats put it, Taiwan's independence ploy only sucked more air out of it. Few nations wanted to be seen standing close to Taiwan with the mainland dragon shooting fierce flames of diplomatic fire at the island ― and at anything that got in the way. China's current leadership structure is never going to rest until Taiwan has morphed into some kind of Hong Kong _ semi-separate but unequal, and an indivisible part of political Mother Ch

May 5, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Eliminating Honest Journalism

By Tom Plate It seems that quality journalism is becoming more conspicuous than ever by its absence. But the causes are complex. Sometimes governments are the fault. In Sri Lanka, convulsing in civil war, independent journalists have not been permitted near the fierce zones of conflict between government forces and beleaguered clusters of minority Tamils. Many are deported. Earlier this month, Jeremy Page, of The Times of the U.K., was kicked out and put on a plane back to England. That was nothing. In January, editor and Sri Lankan government critic Lasantha Wickrematunga penned and published his own fatalistic obituary, writing: ``When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me." Three days later, he was murdered, and arrests have been made yet. Thus, no one has a clear idea of whether Tamil civilians are being held as human body-shields by what is left of the anti-government terrorists among them, or are huddled in fear of possible ethnic cleansing by the government. No one knows much ― except that the crisis is ``nothing short of catastrophic," simp

Apr 26, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

North Korean Dilemma

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Once more North Korea throws its nuclear baby-rattle out of the crib. Yet again it checks whether the adult world will continue ignoring its cries. This is the way it goes in Pyongyang: By acting like an infant, it re-establishes its reputation for conducting public diplomacy the only way it knows how. It now vows to re-engineer its nuclear program while ordering international inspectors to leave the worker's paradise of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. So there, world! Get out of my life! To this latest salvo, the world needs to react with urgency but not alarm. There is a crucial difference. The real profound urgency is on the side of North Korea's leaders, whether they realize it or not. They keep going over the top emotionally because they are bottoming out economically. They keep sending up rockets because not many North Koreans have much of an anything left in their pockets. It cannot go on like this forever. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea will become the governmental equivalent of the woeful commercial airlin

Apr 19, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Listen to Asia Carefully

By Tom Plate President Barack Hussein Obama's self-proclaimed proclivity for listening does not necessarily prove that he is a good listener. The art of listening is more than a passive act. Meanings must be carefully monitored and processed as words are received and acknowledged. The proof of the listening comes in the payoff on policy. Do we Americans learn from others as well as just listen? Obama's recent streak across Europe provided the new U.S. President with plenty to listen to. In France there's an old saying about their much loved language to the effect that the ``French have a word for it." During Obama's time in Europe, though, it seemed as if that grandstanding blowhard, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, had more than a few words to say regarding just about everything. The French connection to Europe is in fact deeply revealing. If Obama did listen carefully there, he would have heard a whole lot of talking from all the European super-egos ― but very little action. He wanted a lot more help on Afghanistan, for example, and got back precious little i

Apr 12, 2009By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Read more

Many Ways to Watch Iran

The Captors Dilemma

Chinas White Cellar

How to Treat North Korea

Bumpy Times in Asia

In Search of Fair Sheikh

China, Taiwan Try New Way

Eliminating Honest Journalism

North Korean Dilemma

Listen to Asia Carefully

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