Opinion - The Korea Times

Wedding present for N. Korea’s first couple

BY Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― I guess I am a sucker for old-fashioned romance. When I heard about the stunning marriage of Kim Jong-un, the young new leader of North Korea, to the lovely Ri Sol-ju, apparently a professional singer, I hurriedly buried the ideological hatchet and grabbed the latest Brides magazine to figure out what would be a trendy wedding present for the happy couple. Let’s face it: Humdrum daily life tends to be so difficult ― and not only in very troubled North Korea ― that these rare moments of inspired ritual and ceremony are just not to be ignored. But recently I almost missed this one ― and what a big one it was! Yes, it was a cruel disappointment not to have been invited to the wedding, presumably in the party-going capital city of Pyongyang. But an invitation must have been hard to get (maybe it was one of the Vegas-style weddings with barely anyone else there). Still, look at it from my standpoint: For more than half as long as new leader Kim Jong-un, 29, has been alive, I have been writing about Asia, America and North Korea’s tenuous relations

Aug 8, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

America’s Tiger Moms

By Tom Plate Los Angeles ― High up in the category of news that’s too familiar to be newsworthy is the latest poll that finds Asians are the most-educated and highest-earning population in the United States. OMG ― I didn’t know that, did you??!! Yeah, right: And so the good people at the Pew Research Center pretty much wasted their time and much of America’s newsprint on this one. In fact, they could have spared themselves the cost of their otherwise meritorious and laborious statistical methodology and simply have called around to ask a few professors here in the U.S. what’s going on. Unless the faculty member were at some cow college in range of some fly-bitten southern swampland, the probability of their best prepared and best performing students being Asian or Asian-American would be quite high. This almost nationwide trend has been steady for years and hardly any secret. From 1994-2008, I was privileged to teach undergraduates at the University of California, Los Angeles. Not all of my best students were Asian but a lot of them were and there were very many of

Jun 27, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Bowing out with notable farewell

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― What was most amazing, to Westerners at least (and perhaps especially to the Chinese people), was that his comments were broadcast live on official China TV. After all, his official observations weren’t exactly pretty. Here is the back-story: In every historical movement and moment, there are good guys (good ladies, too) and bad. But they often come to us in shades of gray, making it difficult to sort them out. That is precisely the case with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. After all, for years he has been nothing less than the number two (behind impassive-faced President Hu Jintao) of a regime rated, certainly by the West, as relentlessly repressive and suspiciously corrupt. And he has been in office long enough to speak out forcefully long before this parting shot as he was stepping down. Even so, in many places ― including Hong Kong and on the mainland as well ― they tend to call him Uncle Wen, often with genuine affection. Misplaced or not, that is the political image he has carefully and successfully cultivated. And there is good reason

Mar 19, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

China on Syrian intervention

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Intellectual precision is especially vital in times of geopolitical passion. The full totality of evil of the Syrian government is now on display for the entire world to see. The brutality of President Bashar al-Assad is beyond immense. And so the blame game has begun. The obvious target of global wrath is the hateful Bashar. But not far behind on the international hate and blame list is Russia and China. They committed the sin of blocking United Nations Security Council action against Damascus by refusing to vote for resolutions that called for major changes (i.e., Assad must go). But about the use by Moscow and Beijing of the so-called ``veto,’’ two things must be said. The first is that Russia and China come at the issue from different perspectives. Moscow works from strictly defined national interest. Damascus has been a friend that has given it broad and significant access to the strategic Middle East without which Russian influence would have been much reduced. By contrast, Beijing approaches the issue from a broader perspective of (i

Mar 1, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Quiet diplomacy better than public airing

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Don’t get me wrong. Abject kowtowing is no way to forge an honest and productive relationship with anyone, including the People’s Republic of China. We have differences with Beijing ― and Beijing with us. Covering them up or ignoring them will allow them to fester. Relatively minor issues can become major when both sides act as if serious problems don’t exist. The Chinese are unhappy with the U.S. because they view us as having raised the military stakes in the Pacific region, parts of which they regard as more or less their backyard. For its part, the U.S. government is unhappy for a host of reasons, including (1) human rights in China (so what’s new?) and (2) China’s treatment of Tibet (or so Washington complains ― but it’s not going to do anything about Tibet and never will) and (3) intellectual property theft on the mainland (okay, this does need work) and (4) obstruction of collective action on Syria (but Moscow is more to blame than Beijing). Solving such difficult issues may take almost forever. Both sides have their positions and they are w

Feb 17, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Thaksin wants to return to Thailand

By Tom Plate DUBAI ― Despite the blockbuster election of his sister Yinglick Shinawatra as Thai prime minister last summer, her much-older brother Thaksin, himself prime minister from 2001-2006, is still in exile in a luxury townhouse in Dubai, isolated and restless, awaiting the opportunity to return. Today, however, Thailand’s most controversial political figure even admits that as its ambitious leader he was sometimes a hard man to like. He told me: “I was so angry then ... so full of anger. And in my speed of reaching my anger and in showing it to everyone ... I was too fast with all that.” He says this with a kind of resigned sadness. “That is my bad quality. My good part is being very constructive and creative in my thinking. But when I cannot stand the pressure, I’m too easily angered.” It is clear that this is the part of his psyche he has come to regret. The military coup against him in 2006 was a dreadful setback for Thai democracy, as well as unconstitutional. But it also true that some of the ugly unfairness derived in part from risky behavior this very rich

Feb 8, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

2 ladies work together to get one big policy right

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Perhaps a democratic system of government will not prove the final answer for Myanmar. Just take a look at the Philippines if you’re crazy about another possible “for-sale” democracy in Asia. But considering what the good people of what used to be called Myanmar (Burma) have had to endure ― an intellectually decrepit military and economically dumb dictatorship ― you have to admit: It’s time to try something else. Certainly there is no reason for this expansive and verdant land to remain bogged down in the miasma of a third world economy. Yes, it has had abysmal governance. But that can be changed. It has so much else going for it. Now it has something else of value: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s belief that the regime’s recent loosening is a good first step in the inevitable direction of reform ― and not a cruel feint to fake people into believing no further reform is required. So for starters, the United States is restoring full diplomatic ties to the new civilian government, which has announced the release of some long-held po

Jan 20, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Remembering Father Day

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― How should the worth of a life be weighed? For when a phenomenon like Father John P. Daly, S.J., dies, that’s a question you start asking yourself. What is a life worth? In his own over-intellectualized Harvard way, T.S. Eliot used to tantalize around that question with this unforgettable line from the “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” poem: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” But the life of Daly, a longtime faculty member of Loyola Marymount University (LMU) here, was immeasurably too unique and real for such sterile ― not to mention sardonic ― gradations. On a life canvas that would have filled up the rooms of a mansion, this Jesuit visionary, a child of the U.S. Midwest, took Catholic America into Asia basically as an educational pioneer.

Jan 11, 2012By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

How to better understand Asia and world

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― It has finally hit Washington that Asia will be the major-league playing field for the foreseeable geopolitical future. But why should we complain when Uncle-Sam-comes-lately? Instead, we vow stay ahead of the great global game (and Washington) by reading those writers who are way ahead of everyone else. So here is my list of nonfiction books published in 2011. These works are deeply informed but also nicely readable. For me, this latter is a big deal: I accept that serious books need to be written seriously but I cannot stand to be bored, no matter how high-minded the author’s intent. You’re rather the same way, I take it? ■ “The Future of Power” by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. This well-known and well-liked Harvard professor is one exceedingly levelheaded thinker. He reminds me of the late George Kennan: always one step ahead of everybody. Like Kennan with his historic “containment” policy concept, Nye’s repeated iteration of the “soft-power” concept shows us a sensible, balanced way forward. He writes: “The United States is unlikely to decay like anc

Dec 7, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Vietnam pivot heralds Asia’s complex new age

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Real-life diplomacy reveals, as Lord Palmerston, twice British prime minister (1855-58, 1859-65), famously put it: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Over the decades the Palmerston principle has proven relevant to other countries in their foreign relations, including the United States. In our case, of course, we are notorious for our swoons of idealism but we can be brought down to earth by changes in reality. Case in point: the astonishing evolution of U.S. relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Vietnam today, like so much of Asia, is on a roll. Although its per-capita income is less right now than even the Philippines’, it is growing. Its population is three times that of Peru, a quarter more than France’s, more than double that of Canada’s, and almost four times that of Australia’s. Its economic reforms are starting to release its workforce from the prison of socialism. The last time I was in Vietnam, I felt no soc

Nov 20, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Read more

Wedding present for N. Korea’s first couple

America’s Tiger Moms

Bowing out with notable farewell

China on Syrian intervention

Quiet diplomacy better than public airing

Thaksin wants to return to Thailand

2 ladies work together to get one big policy right

Remembering Father Day

How to better understand Asia and world

Vietnam pivot heralds Asia’s complex new age

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