Opinion - The Korea Times

Korea-India relations require long-term strategic cooperation, patience

A Korea-India summit is expected soon, seven years after the last full-fledged bilateral summit in February 2019. Amid tumultuous geopolitical and geo-economic developments around the world, and given India is expected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy in the first half of 2026, surpassing Japan, the importance of stronger Korea-India relations cannot be overstated. The two countries have not centered each other in their respective geopolitical and geo-economic maps. They have paid lip service to being natural partners without producing any concrete results. Current developments compel the two countries to finally change that. To this end, multilayered and multidimensional efforts are required. First and foremost, frequent meetings and exchanges between the leaders are crucial for building trust and expanding cooperation. This will invigorate cooperation at the ministerial, vice-ministerial and working levels that have been moribund for some time. The Korea-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the 2+2 Vice-Ministerial Meeting of Foreign Affairs and Defense, and the National

Jan 20, 2026By Song Kyung-jin

Korea-India relations require long-term strategic cooperation, patience

ED Atlantic order at risk

U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed push to acquire Greenland has triggered the most serious crisis in transatlantic relations since World War II. What began as an audacious geopolitical idea has now escalated into a full-blown confrontation, as the United States threatens punitive tariffs against European allies that oppose the plan and Europe prepares to retaliate in kind. At stake is not merely a trade dispute, but the integrity of the postwar international order that the United States itself helped to build. After several European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Denmark, participated in military exercises aimed at reinforcing Greenland’s defense, Trump announced plans to impose additional tariffs on their exports: 10 percent beginning next month and rising to 25 percent by June. The message was unmistakable. Opposition to Washington’s Greenland ambitions would come at a tangible economic cost. In response, the European Union has begun considering countermeasures worth up to 93 billion euros ($108 billion), including retaliatory tariffs and restr

Jan 20, 2026

ED Unilateral onslaught of tariffs

When a senior official opens with the phrase “you have two choices,” the instinctive response is a sense of coercion rather than partnership. That was precisely the tone struck by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick when addressing global semiconductor firms at the groundbreaking ceremony for Micron’s new plant in Syracuse, New York. “Everyone who wants to build memory has two choices,” he said. “They can pay a 100 percent tariff, or they can build in America.” Korea has long understood that Washington’s tariff policy flows from an “America First” agenda aimed at reviving domestic manufacturing. Yet such blunt, almost threatening language from the U.S. commerce secretary starkly illustrates how unilaterally tariffs are now being wielded — even against countries that have stood alongside the United States for decades as close military and economic allies. U.S. semiconductor tariffs on Korea were postponed after Seoul and Washington finalized details last November, under the broader tariff agreement reached in July. That deal reduced tariffs on Korean imports to

Jan 19, 2026

ED Don't silence opponents

The U.S. has warned that it will use all appropriate means, including visa restrictions and financial sanctions, against foreign governments, activists and groups responsible for restricting free speech under the pretext of combating fake news, disinformation and hate speech. Korea is vulnerable to such sanctions. Controversial legislation passed in December, which calls for massive fines on media companies and individuals accused of creating or spreading fake news, has come under renewed scrutiny following the U.S. announcement. In the Agency Strategic Plan (ASP) for Fiscal Years 2026-2030 unveiled last week, the U.S. Department of State warned that foreign governments, activists and international organizations that restrict free speech will pay a price. “For their own domestic political purposes, foreign governments have imposed restrictions on speech that would be unacceptable in the U.S., including enforcing conditions to operate or levying fines on technology and media companies that operate in those countries,” the plan states. “The Department will oppose efforts by foreign

Jan 19, 2026

ED A verdict beyond one man

The conviction of a former president is never a comfortable moment in a democracy. It is destabilizing by nature, polarizing by effect and revealing by consequence. Yet such moments test not the resilience of political loyalties, but the integrity of constitutional order. The recent ruling finding former President Yoon Suk Yeol guilty of obstructing law enforcement is therefore significant not because of who was convicted, but because of what his conduct, and his response to the judgment, reveals about power, accountability and democratic restraint. Predictably, reactions have fractured along partisan lines. Yoon's supporters dismissed the verdict as judicial overreach and political retaliation. Critics viewed it as a necessary reckoning. But beneath these surface disputes lies a more troubling reality: a persistent willingness to excuse abuses of power when committed by one’s own political champion. In Yoon’s case, this reflex has been reinforced by his own posture — defiant, dismissive and strikingly devoid of contrition. Rather than acknowledging the gravity of interfering wit

Jan 18, 2026

ED When protection becomes pretext

The recent intervention by U.S. lawmakers in Korea’s investigation of Coupang has been framed as a defense of fair trade and American enterprise. In reality, it reveals a deeper flaw in political reasoning, one that conflates lawful regulation with discrimination, and corporate nationality with immunity from accountability. What is being sold as principle increasingly looks like pretext. At the center of the controversy are claims by several Republican members of Congress that Korea’s actions amount to “unfair treatment” or even “state-sponsored hostility” toward U.S. interests. Rep. Darrell Issa has characterized the investigation as discriminatory, while others have warned that Korea will “pay a price” for scrutinizing the company. Such rhetoric rests on a fundamental error. Regulatory enforcement in response to alleged misconduct, particularly involving large-scale data breaches and corporate governance failures, is not a trade barrier. It is a core function of a sovereign government. To argue otherwise implies that multinational corporations should be exempt from lo

Jan 15, 2026

ED No leniency for Yoon

Exactly 406 days after Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, the special counsel team requested the death penalty for the former president, who stands accused of masterminding an insurrection. By seeking the toughest penalty possible for insurrection charges, the independent counsel is sending the message that the former president’s actions, including sending armed forces and the police into the National Assembly and the National Election Commission, gravely undermined the constitution. In a country where no executions have been carried out since 1997, the special prosecution team is saying that the legal judgement should be so severe as to “convey that such history will not repeat itself again.” The trial that took place at Seoul Central District Court and the resulting death penalty request are a painfully jarring reminder of what took place in 1996. Prosecutors had requested the death penalty for former President Chun Doo-hwan, over his role in the Dec. 12, 1979 military coup and the bloody crackdown on the May 18 Gwangju uprising, while life imprisonment was sou

Jan 14, 2026

ED Seoul, Tokyo look to future

The second Korea-Japan summit between President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was held not in Tokyo, but in Nara, Takaichi’s hometown and electoral district. There, she greeted Lee with a gracious smile, proud to show where she comes from. The warm reception set the tone for the summit that would be forward-looking, with stress on economic cooperation and reinforcing both bilateral and trilateral ties with the United States amid a volatile world order. North Korea issues figured prominently where the two leaders agreed to closely cooperate on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and on North Korea policy. The two also realized the vital importance of trilateral cooperation with the United States. To touch upon historical aspects, often a source of friction between the two nations, the leaders agreed to pursue DNA testing on remains recovered last year from a former undersea mine site in western Japan where 183 Korean and Japanese workers died in a flood in 1942. The reaffirmation of their cooperative relationship at the summit should go some way to defu

Jan 13, 2026

ED Pyongyang’s hypocrisy over drones

“Rules for thee, not for me.” North Korea has long criticized South Korea with this kind of hypocritical double standard — condemning actions by the South that mirror tactics the North itself has repeatedly employed. This time, Pyongyang’s anger is directed at drones. North Korea on Saturday blasted South Korea for allegedly sending drones into its airspace on two occasions, earlier this month and in September last year, claiming that the flights constituted a violation of its sovereignty. The North said the actions were unacceptable and warned that South Korea would “pay the price” for its alleged provocations. The vehemence of the response has raised eyebrows. During the previous Yoon Suk Yeol administration, North Korea sent trash balloons into the South 32 times, totaling between 6,000 and 9,000. Yet now the regime is issuing threats over two drones, widely believed to have been operated by civilians. According to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, its military detected an object in the sky near Ganghwa County on Jan. 4 and brought it down using unspecifi

Jan 11, 2026

ED When America rejects international law, global order is put at risk

U.S. President Donald Trump has now said the quiet part out loud. Declaring “I don't need for international law,” he has openly challenged not only specific treaties and institutions, but the very idea of a rules-based global order. After threatening to take Greenland from Denmark — a fellow NATO member — by force if necessary, and after asserting that alliances themselves are merely “a matter of choice,” the president has moved from selective disengagement to outright repudiation of the norms that have underpinned international stability for decades. The remarks, delivered in a recent interview with The New York Times, were as startling as they were revealing. Trump suggested that acquiring Greenland could justify abandoning NATO, and further claimed that he would not be constrained by international law, but only his own morality. It was an extraordinary assertion of personal authority over collective rules, implying that sovereignty, treaties and legal restraints are subordinate to the will of a single leader. That such language comes from the head of the world’s most