Opinion - The Korea Times

One Osama was enough

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Just when you begin to worry that maybe the United States cannot do anything right, this happens. And suddenly things seem just a little better ― and the barometric pressure in America a little bit lighter. This is to say that the loud noise you here coming from the 50 states of the United States is one big collective sigh of relief. The man is gone. Make no mistake about it. The end of the life of Osama bin Laden is the beginning of a number of new things and questions for the rest of us. Like 9/11 itself, it marks a clear chapter in our history. For an increasingly embattled President Barack Obama, this spectacular development should provide a measure of considerable assurance (if not an outright guarantee) that whoever runs against him next year won’t have the advantage of opposing an incumbent with a soft-on-terrorism image. A one-note Donald Trump-like assault that our president is weak-on-evil just won’t fly. That opportunity is now gone. It was Obama, after all, who authorized the invasive military operation inside the borders of sovereig

May 4, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

A man who always got the last word in

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Prior to the prime ministry of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, not that many people had ever heard of Malaysia, outside of adjacent Singapore, which shared a common border but also an intense mutual antipathy that entertained the rest of Southeast Asia for decades. But by the late 90s the land of the Malays was pretty well established on the world map. Love him or hate him, the once country-clinic doctor was something else again. Mahathir Mohamad is one of the giants of Asia because Southeast Asia itself is well on its way to becoming a giant player in the 21st century. The progression wouldn’t be happening quite as noticeably had the mainly Muslim Malaysia remained the largely rural and agricultural Muslim culture that it was in 1981. That was when this family doctor-turned-politician landed the job of prime minister ― and was to stick at the top for more than two decades. In his turbulent years this ultra-ambitious politician managed at times an almost unachievable feat: to alienate seemingly half the country (sometimes even imprisoning political

Apr 26, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Death of quiet American diplomat

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― He will certainly not be remembered for any grand theories of international relations, and his speeches were generally not memorable. But as U.S. secretary of state, he served President Bill Clinton during his first four years in the White House as well as he could, and his country over the course of decades in diplomacy basically as well as anyone could. Warren Christopher, who died last weekend at 85 here in Los Angeles, at home with his family, was a man who brought immense decency and an almost objective fairness in his dealings with all. Not everyone in public life can claim that distinction, and few, if any, would dispute that he had that special quality. As a journalist who would seek out his insights, I would be hard put to say that they were often scintillating. But his views were invariably helpful, and always honest. And he was sometimes more farseeing than people knew. As a once-Los Angeles Times staffer launching a column about Asia and America, I took missionary encouragement from his sense that American foreign policy was unbalanced

Mar 25, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Open-minded self-review

By Tom Plate SINGAPORE ― Many residents of this famous and successful city-state doubt that the new book “Hard Truths” offers true full disclosure. The political system here is not open in the breezy (even sloppy) manner of a Western democracy, and so such wonder about this new runaway bestseller spotlighting the wide-ranging views of Singapore’s founder Lee Kuan Yew is no surprise. But is it warranted? The soft truth is that I have been coming here on reporting trips virtually every year since 1996 and I can’t answer the question, either. But what must be said about this extraordinarily skilled 458-page compendium of interviews and commentary about the venerable Singaporean legend LKY is that it gives lie to the notion that this place is some sort of totalitarian society. Call it a “soft” authoritarian political system or even call it a Singapore Inc. economic system, if you like. In fact, label it almost anything you want ― but do not call it totalitarian. No such totally closed society ― the abject totality of the closure being the essence of the definition of the

Feb 25, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Chinas peaceful rising

By Tome Plate LOS ANGELES ― A metaphor for our dramatic world geopolitical change occurred in Melbourne at the prestigious Australian Open. There, even as time-honored warriors Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal were eliminated, a Chinese woman slammed her way into history. The relentless Li Na became the first Asian woman to advance to the final of a major tennis championship. Mirroring the rise of Asia itself, Asian athletes have been winning top-tier recognition all over the place. But Li Na’s victory deserves special mention. Her graciousness after her semi-final victory charmed an entire stadium of hypercritical tennis junkies. This mainland-Chinese born woman was funny, self-deprecatory and pleasant. When asked what motivated her smashing performance against a higher-seeded opponent, Li said, to a roar from the crowd, “the prize money.” She laughingly blamed her lack of sleep prior to the match on the snoring of her husband, who in turn laughed from his seat in the crowd. One hopes this special woman has many more wins on the world tennis circuit. In fact, her go

Feb 6, 2011By Tome Plate

Tom Plate

Bruce Lee syndrome

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Looked at from all the angles, China has the capacity to prove a far tougher challenger for the United States than even al-Qaida and other like-minded evildoers. But that doesn't mean the relationship between Beijing and Washington has to be entirely problematic. Surely understanding China better will reduce misunderstandings faster. Yes, but ― there’s one hitch with that approach. It’s the tacit assumption that China more or less understands itself. Increasingly that doesn’t seem to be the case. Here’s why. Suddenly richer than it has been for many centuries, China now suffers from an embarrassment of options. Among them is the economic-development-first option ― maintaining a low global profile while it proceeds quietly with its extraordinary economic march. The opposite approach might be termed the “Bruce Lee” option. Under this alternative China starts cashing in its chips to pump up its muscle and project itself in Asia (and beyond?) as the new challenger to America’s superpower-class monopolization. These two approaches conceivably

Jan 17, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Something positive happening with Koreas

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― You have to be dumber than a brick to believe that the North Korean problem can be solved by anything other than diplomacy and negotiation. Even the Macho Man of South Korea seems to have been hit with a bout of annoying but inescapable reason. "We have no choice but … to have peace settled through inter-Korean dialogue," the oft-hawkish Lee Myung-bak recently squawked. Thank you very much indeed, Mr. South Korean President, for de-emphasizing non-peaceful options. We start on this acrimonious note because war is no way to cope with North Korea. Sure, its baby-bottle-throwing antics do sometimes make you want to put its leader over your knee for a serious spanking. But this bears repeating: The road to a peaceful Korean Peninsula is not through a second Korean War. The one back in the 1950s was quite bad enough. A policy of destroying the peninsula (remember: North Korea has nukes) in order to save it invokes more than a whacky whiff of Dr. Strangelove brought up to date. The South Korean public has got to watch its back. But that hawkish v

Jan 3, 2011By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Lawrence of America goes to Arabia

By Tom Plate DUBAI ― From the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia to the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East, it is the wise rulers who know two of the most basic rules of modern economic development. One is that you won't get much done over time unless you greatly invest in education. The other is that you won't go very far if you only invest in the education of boys. This is now the consensual Asian regional view. Consider that, just decades ago, when the calculating rulers of Singapore opened the floodgates of higher education to women, they were able to double the size of their educated workforce, to powerful economic benefit. Malaysia, to the north, moved in a similar direction: It now has more women enrolled in universities than men ― by far. The above I have known for years. But what I did not know until my visit to the booming Arab nation of seven emirates is that, in modernizing parts of Arabia, women are surging forward, while retaining Arab traditions, of course. Consider a recent class in mass communications, guest-conducted by a very Western professor fro

Dec 21, 2010By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Shortlist of the totally unexpected

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― Sometimes truly strange things happen in life. For those of us in America’s West Coast, who would have thought that Jerry Brown would become Governor of California again? His first time out as our chief state executive (in his 30s, and full of rather unconventional ideas), they called him “Governor Moonbeam.” This was not meant as a compliment. The Brown precedent suggests: Don’t be surprised by a surprise. Here is our shortlist of possible unexpected developments. Don’t be surprised if … China China is actually in serious trouble. This amazing economic success story has been flying along for two decades now like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes. But its first serious mid-course atmospheric disturbance is long overdue. Almost nothing else (save a power-grab by the huge People’s Liberation Army) can explain the extreme up-tightness and excessive crackdowns, the government’s ugly response to a jailed dissident writer receiving the country’s first ever Nobel Peace Prize, and the testosterone pushiness of its military in the surrounding

Nov 23, 2010By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

JFKs Ted Sorensen

By Tom Plate LOS ANGELES ― As far as I know, Nebraska-born Theodore “Ted” Sorensen, who died on Oct. 31 at 82, disagreed with me only twice. He was right both times, of course. The disagreements were memorable, for in my mind they illuminated why the influence of John F. Kennedy’s legendary right-hand man will remain enormous for decades. And why ― not to put too fine a point on it ― I am no Ted Sorensen. The first occasion came at Princeton University when the then-visiting professor tendered this humble student a measure of advice on the art of writing. “You’re a good talker,” complained JFK’s honored speechwriter about my term paper, noting my conversational contributions to his seminar on U.S. foreign policy and presidential leadership. “But writing is not just speaking.” It requires, he explained patiently, precision, discipline and careful organization. “You must take your writing more seriously,” he admonished. His invaluable rebuke was memorable precisely because no one took more seriously the need for discipline in the written word than Ted. His legend

Nov 10, 2010By Tom Plate

Tom Plate

Read more

One Osama was enough

A man who always got the last word in

Death of quiet American diplomat

Open-minded self-review

Chinas peaceful rising

Bruce Lee syndrome

Something positive happening with Koreas

Lawrence of America goes to Arabia

Shortlist of the totally unexpected

JFKs Ted Sorensen

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