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Sun, June 24, 2018 | 04:36

Opinion > Columnists > Andrew Salmon >

Was Park Chung-hee a dictator?

He was a Japanese collaborator and one-time communist who cynically engineered a path to the top. He was a sinister general who seized power via coup. To earn Yankee dollars, he ruthlessly exploited Korean workers in sweatshop factories and Korean soldiers in Vietnamese jungles. He bulldozed traditional architecture and created an urbanized Korea of brutish ugliness. He suppressed democratic institutions, wielded security services to suppress human rights and altered the constitution to maintain power. Park Chung-hee, in short, was a dictator. Particularly following the downfall of his daugh...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-07-31 18:20

Slaughtered dogs and media

On Saturday evening, I attended a film screening at a coffee shop arranged by the Seoul branch of the Asian-American Journalists’ Association. The location was comfortable and the company convivial, but the film was not your typical Saturday night bubble-gum viewing. In fact, it was harrowing. The film was a documentary covering Korea’s dog-meat trade from all angles. Dog farmers - whose demeanors ranged from coolly professional to savagely inhumane - showed their facilities, activities and doomed charges. A pusillanimous National Assembly adviser prattled about the threat to the “national i...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-07-17 17:00

Koreans old and new

There are definitely “old” and “young” Koreans. Are there “old” and “new” Koreans? This was a question I pondered when asked to join a recent Korea Times forum on the issue. Certainly, the turbulence that rocked this peninsula in the 20th century, and the pace of economic, political and social development in the second half of the century has opened chasms between generations. A Korean born in 1900 would have grown up in the twilight years of a medieval dynasty. He would have experienced colonization, national division, war and devastation. If he had lived until 2000, he would have witnessed...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-07-03 17:34

A bloody business: Koreans in Vietnam

It has been painted as the first misstep by newly minted President Moon Jae-in. On Memorial Day, he praised Korean Vietnam War veterans for their service, noting that their sacrifices had earned generous payments from ally the United States. Those U.S. dollars granted Korea much of the seed capital required for its “economic miracle.” owever, Koreans were not the only people monitoring Moon. The Vietnamese government took exception to his comments, which did not mention the sufferings of the Vietnamese people. A portion of those sufferings were brutalities inflicted on them by Korean troops ...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-06-19 17:26

Creatively reviving Gaeseong

President Moon Jae-in has pledged to look at ways to reopen the Gaesong Industrial Complex, or GIC, the stalled flagship project of inter-Korean commerce and cooperation. To do this, he will be forced to navigate a minefield of political and diplomatic issues. And even leaving aside those issues, the thorny, practical question behind restarting Gaesong is: Which companies are going to (re)populate the complex? After opening in 2004, the GIC was closed for five months by Pyongyang in 2013, and in February 2016, was closed by Seoul. Today, a complex which hosted 124 small South Korean companie...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-06-05 17:51

810,000 new jobs? Start here...

Korea’s incoming administration is enjoying its honeymoon: No member of the new government, it seems, can do wrong. Alas, the public will not be moonstruck forever; these dreamy days cannot last. Before long, questions are going to be asked regarding policy objectives and electoral promises. The most sensational pledge made by then-Presidential candidate Moon Jae-in was his promise to create a whopping 810,000 new jobs in the public sector. The fact that these jobs will be in the public sector is critical: If Moon aimed to create thousands of new positions in the private sector, he would be ...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-05-22 17:43

Moon orders audit of '4 river project' [VIDEO]

Election 2017: From merry-go-round to vortex

Experienced Korea-based reporters tend to acquire a portfolio of stories that crop up time and again. Nothing changes, so these “merry-go-round” stories can be dusted off and re-filed to editors, with minimal edits, ad infinitum. All the lazy, cynical hack needs to do is to alter the lede graf, a few names, dates and numbers, and voila! Another day! Another dollar! These pieces include the following: Corrupt chaebol chairman charged over fraud/embezzlement/bribery. Corrupt chairman let off by judge due to his “importance to the economy.” Chairman charged (again), jailed and pardoned due to...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-05-08 17:37

Voting enters final hour (Turnout: 75.1% at 7 p.m.)

Trump versus Kim

One leads a hyperpower suffering from eroded confidence, the other a basket case that is increasingly strident in global politics. One is derided as a dunce with minimal political experience, the other as a monarch crowned before his time. But both have their fingers on potentially devastating power buttons and neither is ignored for long by global news media (or political satirists).

Andrew Salmon | 2017-04-24 17:42

Don't panic! North Korea is not Syria

Two weeks ago, I dined with a rather interesting visitor to Seoul. An ex-military officer, he assesses geopolitical risk for a global bank, and had been put in touch with your columnist by a mutual acquaintance. We compared notes on various peninsula-related matters. He told me that several multinational banks and companies were quietly dusting off and reviewing plans to evacuate expatriates from South Korea in the event of a crisis. This raised my eyebrows. I live at ground zero - central Seoul - but had sensed no unusual tension. These concerns, the gentleman explained, stem not from North...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-04-10 17:36

Where are anti-Chinese protests?

Seoul’s Myeongdong is eerily quiet at present. I am not talking about the lack of Chinese tourism bustle in the department stores, I am talking about the lack of angry Korean shouts outside the Chinese embassy. Across South Korea - a country which is hyper-sensitive to national slights, as witnessed by the endless anti-Japanese protests and massive anti-American protests - the lack of indignation is astonishing. Making this doubly odd is that this silence is resounding at a time when the populace is politically mobilized and emotionally bubbling. How can we define Chinese pressure on Korea f...

Andrew Salmon | 2017-03-27 17:20

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Daily life in North Korea