Opinion - The Korea Times

Campaign Stop on Myanmar Road

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES - How much suffering must a nation and its people go through before everyone says enough is enough? You could certainly ask that question of Sudan, which is relentlessly war-ravaged. The question could surely be put to North Korea, which is all but kept medieval by a profoundly inept government. And you could certainly put that question to the ruling junta of Myanmar, which is historically known as Burma. To her immense credit, Hillary Clinton raised exactly that question in the course of her remarks on May 6 in Indiana after the primary. At a time when any other candidate wouldn't have even bothered to bring up the terrible human disaster in Myanmar, the former first lady, though fighting for her White House life against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, urged her viewers and listeners to think of the fate of the many tens of thousands of Myanmarese either killed or left homeless by the horrendous weekend cyclone. It was difficult not to be touched by her unexpected appeal because there are no Democratic primary votes coming out of Myanmar! There is n

May 11, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Japan’s Old Political Magic

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― I wish more people understood Japan better. In point of candid admission, I wish I understood Japan better. It's not that Japanese people are so utterly inscrutable, that's an almost racist proposition. And it's an essentially silly one: It's not that Japan itself is so impossibly mysterious: other countries and cultures that shall remain nameless come much more readily to mind as inscrutable. Understanding Japan, however we come to understand it, is vitally important. The country remains one of the world's economic powerhouses, and its exceptional culture of literature and movies has injected deep roots into humanity's consciousness. We should never forget, either, that Japan is the only nation on which nuclear weapons have been dropped. What's more, its foreign policy is adjusting to new circumstances, however slowly, as China rises and the West (and the rest) has to change with this obvious reality. Underestimating Japan, as China's rise proceeds apace, would be a huge mistake. Notice the recent news story, in The New York Times reporting the

May 6, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Grand Asian Master

By Tom Plate Los Angeles ― The Grand Asian Master, no more than a few thousand years old, appeared to me yet again the other night. He does this from time to time when my frustrations with Asia go through the ceiling _ and up to the stars. He comes into my dreams and asks what it is that I want now! But the nice thing about this occasional dream is that the Grand Asian Master always tries to wish for me what I want. So here's what I said to the Master the other night: China and Tibet: I tell him that I dream of good karma between China and Tibet. They must end this fighting and work together for peace and prosperity. The Grand Master nods supportively, and asks what he could do to help. I reply: ``How about you arrange for the Dalai Lama to personally carry the torch into the Olympic Stadium in Beijing at the official ceremonial opening of the Summer Games? The Master says he would try to get some columnist to propose this in public print to test the idea in the current roiling political waters. He adds sagaciously: ``Sometimes miracles do happen.'' Japan: I ima

May 2, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

China vs CNN

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― A noisy trans-Pacific storm has blown up, starring the Chinese Foreign Ministry and CNN. That's a superpower squall if there ever was one. But it's hard to know for whom to root! The story so far: Some Chinese officials and many Chinese on the mainland are steamed over Western media coverage of the Tibet demonstrations. Their complaint (and a whole lot of people elsewhere in Asia agree) is the usual Asian moan about our media: That we portray world events that are inherently complicated, nuanced and sensitive as if they were simple black and white morality plays. When will we ever learn that the more accurate coloration is almost always a shade or two of gray? And so Asian anger ― on a low simmer ― absolutely boiled over the other day when a CNN opinion-commentator offered highly opinionated and unflattering remarks about China and its tainted food exports and its policy toward Tibet. They won't be repeated in any detail here; you can simply ask your favorite search-engine to find you ``CNN, Jack Cafferty, China, Tibet'' and you will ge

Apr 18, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Asia and US Election

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― One early sign that a run of optimism may be on the way is the point at which the utility of continued pessimism is seen as utterly dysfunctional by all concerned. It is as if things will be sucked into some enormous black hole unless there is a dramatic change in the nation's emotional direction. And so you get this burst of optimism. This, in fact, is the point at which the American public is beginning to find itself. The growing sense is that the overall American position in the world, once a new President is sworn in early next year, is unlikely to get worse. Thus, even as virtually every opinion poll right now on the ``national mood" is bleak, the baseline for pessimism has been set and things can only go up from here. Or so we hope. One reason for optimism ― decidedly premature, of course ― is the belief that the next President, whoever he or she may be, cannot bumble on the world stage any worse than the incumbent has. That's the minimum expectation. The sunnier one is that the next President will actually get this nation moving in the

Apr 8, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Vote Heard Around Asia

By Tom Plate HO CHI MINH CITY ― Sure, the election of the next President of the United States will be the most closely watched election in Asia or anywhere else this year. America, for all its stumbles, is still the number-one superpower: So whoever the American voter picks, the world is stuck with them, like it or not. But there's another up-and-coming power ― predicted to become superpower No. 2, which we will all watch closely, with obsession. It's China. It doesn't, to speak of, have direct elections of any vast significance itself; nor (at least not yet) does its annexed Hong Kong. But another orbiting territory does hold elections ― real ones, fiercely fought, as if the people have never known anything else. And one was held there March 22. The result offered dramatic and historic significance. The place is Taiwan, the island offshore mainland China. Yes, its population is but 23 million or so, but nonetheless it's a major player in the evolution of Asia. That's because of tensions with mainland-monster China, which considers the island a bratty defector from the

Mar 30, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Another Kennedy or Bush Jr.?

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Admirers of Barack Obama who glibly and favorably compare the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Presidency to John F. Kennedy always assume that they are doing the former a favor. But there's a whole other way to look at it ― and it is less pretty. Consider the spring of 1961. JFK had settled into the White House for only a few months and was still greener than cheap bathtub beer on St. Patrick's Day. Suddenly the Joint Chiefs of Staff dropped a major decision on his Oval Office desk: whether to green-light the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, originally ginned up during Eisenhower's time, that was designed to topple the then-young Communist leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. As a former junior Senator from Massachusetts ― only 44 years old ― JFK was of course eager to prove his chops in a world still divided by Communism into competing empires. So the young President (then the youngest in American history) made the wrong decision and gave a 'go' sign to what became the well-known Bay of Pigs mess - the otherwise legendary Kennedy's darkest hour. Fl

Mar 11, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

New Day for Pakistan

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― The central nervous system of the Bush administration's ``war on terror" may now be frayed beyond recognition or repair. Tired American soldiers are bogged down in Iraq, whose indigenous politicians cannot get their act together, and where the real al-Qaida terrorists are fewest in number. In Afghanistan, where are there more of the bad guys, the NATO alliance is undermanned and demoralized; European governments are shakier than ever in their resolve to do what it takes. And in Pakistan, where there may be the greatest number of al-Qaida anywhere, including residency of The Man himself ― Bin Laden ― the Bush administration's chief ally has just been embarrassingly told to take a hike by his people. The recent Pakistan election must be the most astounding low-turnout landslide in recent memory. Many people were too frightened to vote, fearing retaliation from the government of Pervez Musharraf, the military careerist who tried to repackage himself as the savior of rectitude and integrity. But those who did courageously overcome their

Mar 2, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Hill Deserves `Oscar’ for NK

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― For much of the first few years of the new millennium, North Korea was viewed as the most probable nation-state aggressor in Asia. The holed-up Communist regime had precious little to show for its decades in power, apart from its notorious pile-up of arms and soldiers, which it brandished in pathetic abundance. Its creepy isolation and penchant for primitive propaganda pronouncements made scenarios of aggression more sellable than silly. In short, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was everything a paranoid anti-Communist could hope for by way of a credible mean tangible villain. But nothing much happened. Save for a few missile tests that seem more scattershot than strategic, and the occasional minor naval dust-up at sea, North Korea stayed on its side of the Demilitarized Zone. In due course, in fact, the regime was even negotiating possible unilateral nuclear disarmament with its immediate neighbors (South Korea, Russia, Japan and China) as well as with the United States, an Asian power itself ever since World War II, of cours

Feb 25, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

When Snow Falls on China, Japan

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Snow has been falling on two of the world's greatest cities ― lightly on Tokyo, brutally on Shanghai. Whether anything can or should be made of this comparative weather differential is questionable, of course. But suddenly it does seem a lot colder in China than in Japan. Let me explain. The Japanese tend to take the ups-and-downs of fortune and misfortune ― not to mention the weather ― with the serenity of time-tempered vision. ``Little white flakes are falling on Tokyo, like tiny crystal cherry blossoms," emailed one of my best friends, living happily in Japan's sprawling and slightly snowy metropolis. ``It is all very pretty." It is true that neither the Japanese economy nor polity is getting any prettier, but neither is it getting any uglier. After being nearly frozen solid in the 1990s, the economy warmed up a little during the sunny spring of Junichiro Koizumi's five years as prime minister. The current prime minister ― Yasuo Fukuda, 71 ― is no ball-of-Koizumi, that's for sure. But in the few months he has held the job, he's be

Feb 11, 2008By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Read more

Campaign Stop on Myanmar Road

Japan’s Old Political Magic

Grand Asian Master

China vs CNN

Asia and US Election

Vote Heard Around Asia

Another Kennedy or Bush Jr.?

New Day for Pakistan

Hill Deserves `Oscar’ for NK

When Snow Falls on China, Japan

Top 5 stories