Opinion - The Korea Times

ED Stop partisan feuding

Rival parties should move toward bipartisanshipLawmakers of the ruling and opposition parties have come under severe criticism for turning the National Assembly's audit and inspection of the government and related agencies into a venue for political wrangling. It is wrong for them to put narrow-minded partisanship before national interests in the face of looming economic woes and rising military threats from North Korea.Much to the disappointment of the public, the rival parties are engrossed in finding fault with each other, instead of working together to promote the principle of democratic checks and balances. They are apparently turning their backs on the Assembly's mission of holding the executive branch in check.The annual parliamentary audit and inspection began Oct. 4 amid a deepening political feud between the governing People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) over a set of contentious issues. The parties already clashed over what DPK lawmakers called a “diplomatic failure” by President Yoon Suk-yeol who went on a weeklong v

Oct 17, 2022

ED Heavy reliance on foreign software

Long-term strategy needed to refine software expertise, skills The proportion of foreign-made software has hit an all-time high in Korea's public sector, including government agencies and offices. According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the localization ratio of public-sector software stood at 40.7 percent last year, the lowest since relevant statistics began to be compiled in 2017. The ratio rose to 44.69 percent in 2018 but has declined since then.Despite the government's efforts to activate the use of homegrown software and public organizations' moves to adopt domestic software, there has been a constantly heavy dependence on foreign-made software.A closer look at the statistics shows how much foreign software is preferred here. As of 2021, the software localization ratio in information protection and control reached 73.72 percent and 90.25 percent, respectively. But the software localization ratio in other major segments remained at 10-20 percent.What's most worrisome is that the localization ratio in operating systems (OS), database management system (DBMS) and bac

Oct 17, 2022

ED Setback to Kakao

Tech giant hit by unprecedented service disruptionsThe country's tech giant, Kakao Corp., suffered service disruptions due to a fire at a data center Saturday. The incident shows how vulnerable our wired digital society is to such a malfunction.The fire broke out at around 3:33 p.m. at SK C&C's Pangyo building in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, which houses Kakao's data center. The building's power supply was cut off, causing a disruption for the country's dominant mobile messenger app KakaoTalk.The malfunctions on the KakaoTalk app included a message delivery failure and log-in error. Its affiliated firm Kakao Pay reported glitches in its online payment service and its gaming platform Kakao Games showed another problem. The fire-induced power cut in the data center also triggered service errors to Daum, Kakao's portal service arm. Additionally, Naver, the country's top internet portal, reported a partial disruption of its online shopping service.Those developments have caused chaos for users. They remind Koreans of a large-scale disruption of the wired and wireless communication ne

Oct 16, 2022

ED Humiliating defeat in UN

Nurture human rights and promote national prestige It is humiliating that South Korea has failed to retain its seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). It is the first time the nation has been denied council membership since it was founded in 2006. South Korea got 123 votes in a U.N. General Assembly in New York, Wednesday, coming in fifth among eight Asian countries competing to attain a slot for the council's 2023-25 term.Bangladesh ranked first, garnering 160 votes, ahead of Maldives and Vietnam which received 154 and 145 votes, respectively. Kyrgyzstan also outpaced South Korea with 126 votes. Given South Korea's prestige in the international community in terms of its democracy and human rights, this can be regarded as a bitter diplomatic blunder. Since it obtained its membership in the UNHRC, South Korea has continued to win all of the elections for the three-year membership, in 2006, 2008, 2013, 2016 and 2020. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs attributed the recent failure to the nation being in the running for membership or leadership of 14 international organiza

Oct 14, 2022

ED Viable deterrence options

New strategy needed to avert nuclear nightmareThe Yoon Suk-yeol administration is weighing various measures to strengthen deterrence against ever-mounting nuclear threats from North Korea. Yet it is tricky to sort out viable options as there are risk factors to consider. What's certain is that South Korea needs a new strategy as the Kim Jong-un regime is going all out to develop and deploy tactical nuclear warheads that can devastate the South.On Thursday, Yoon said he is looking carefully at “various possibilities” on how to strengthen U.S. extended deterrence against the nuclear-armed North. He declined to give further details, saying it is difficult to mention specific options given the sensitive nature of security-related matters. However, it is certain that Seoul is actively discussing the issue with Washington.There are some possible options, including the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, which were withdrawn from the South in 1991. Some hardline lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) are calling for South Korea's own nuclear armament, floati

Oct 13, 2022

ED Another big-step rate hike

Korea should preemptively respond to crisis signalsThe Bank of Korea (BOK) delivered another big-step rate hike on Wednesday by raising its benchmark interest rate from 2.5 percent to 3 percent. It is the first time in 10 years that the rate has climbed up to the 3 percent range. In addition, the central bank raised the policy rate for the fifth consecutive time, marking another first in its history. The successive rate increases were aimed at responding to relentless inflation and the local currency's slide against the U.S. dollar.The BOK also took into account the widening difference between the interest rates of Korea and the U.S. If the rare “rate reversal” continues, it could prompt capital outflows from domestic financial markets in pursuit of higher returns. On the other hand, the U.S. Federal Reserve's stance on keeping interest high remains unchanged. Therefore, monetary authorities must closely monitor and deal with inflationary trends and the dollar's super-strength. The recent series of rate hikes seems somewhat inevitable because of runaway consumer prices a

Oct 13, 2022

ED 'Worst is yet to come'

IMF downgrades 2023 economic outlookThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Tuesday the global economy will slow further to register 2.7 percent growth next year, 0.2 point lower than a previous forecast made in July. This is 0.5 point lower than a 3.2-percent estimate for this year. The IMF also expected Korea's growth to slide to 2 percent next year from 2.6 percent this year. “The worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession,” the IMF said in a report. It expected the world's three major economies ― the United States, China and the European Union ― will continue to stall. Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences Monday, warned against “capital outflows” from emerging markets due to a very strong U.S. dollar.The IMF cited the possible drastic drop in housing prices in China as a notable downside risk, given that the real estate market accounts for 30 percent of the Chinese economy. It also mentioned other risk factors such as the prolonging of the Russian invasion of Ukrai

Oct 12, 2022

ED War on drugs

Take extraordinary measures to uproot narcotic crimes Law enforcement agencies have declared war on drugs, as the use of narcotics has become more widespread in Korea, which was once touted as being “drug-free.” In a weekly meeting last Friday, Prosecutor General Lee Won-seok vowed to crack down on drug crimes, saying, “We have passed the critical point.” In August, Yoon Hee-keun, the new commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, even promised special promotions for investigators making significant contributions to uprooting drug offenses. But the government's avowed crackdown on drugs seems belated, given the severity of drug use here. Drug use, which has long been limited to the wealthy, some entertainers and those connected to organized crime, is spreading to ordinary people, including housewives, students and office workers. So it's no exaggeration to say that Korea has become a “drug-polluted country.” According to a report released by Rep. Song Eon-seog of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), the amount of drugs seized by cus

Oct 12, 2022

ED Boost chip industry

Assembly should pass semiconductor promotion billLawmakers of the ruling and opposition parties have taken flak for causing a special bill promoting the domestic semiconductor industry to languish at the National Assembly amid rising partisan conflicts. Despite rapid changes in global semiconductor industry conditions, they have yet to deliberate on the bill which was submitted in August. The Yoon Suk-yeol administration earlier unveiled plans to make the nation a semiconductor superpower. Yet such plans risk falling apart if the bill remains sidelined.The semiconductor industry, a mainstay of the national economy, has been experiencing growing difficulty buffeted by diverse challenges at home and abroad. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden announced a set of measures Friday to curb the sale of chips made using U.S. technology and equipment to China to prevent Beijing from using them for military purposes, in a bid to contain the Asian giant.Domestic chipmakers, such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, may be affected by the U.S. move, although its impact is considered li

Oct 11, 2022

ED Don't play with nukes

North Korea should stop raising tensionsNorth Korea has gone too far in making nuclear threats to South Korea and the United States. It conducted a series of military drills from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9 in response to combined naval exercises between the South and the U.S., according to the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).Marking the 77th anniversary of the establishment of the ruling Workers’ Party on Monday, the state media carried different photos of the drills including missile launches with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un overseeing them. What's notable is that the North's military staged “ballistic missile launching drills under the simulation of loading tactical nuclear warheads” according to the KCNA dispatch. The news agency reported that Kim guided exercises by nuclear tactical operation units over the past two weeks, using mock nuclear warheads.The KCNA said the aim of the drills was to check and assess the “war deterrent and nuclear counterattack capability” in response to the recent Seoul-Washington maritime exercises involving the nucl

Oct 10, 2022

Editorial