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Opinion

Columnists

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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).

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...

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...

2017-03-27 17:20

Park needed chaebol lawyers

So, Park Geun-hye’s impeachment has been upheld. What is the fallen president thinking? Perhaps, “Dammit! Why didn’t I employ a chaebol legal team?” Let’s backtrack. Friday’s decision by the Constitutional Court has been greeted with explosions of joy and thunderstorms of back slaps. The court ruling was the culmination of people-power protests that were notable both for their extreme civility and their extraordinary size. The result looks like a boost for democracy, a system that pushes power down to the people. So forgive me for sounding like a curmudgeon if I point to some downsides. The ...

2017-03-13 17:37

Dark work, well done: killing Kim Jong-nam

The long arm of the North Korean state is bloodied once again. The horrifying (but fascinating) assassination of (mild) regime critic, (ex) ruling-clan member and potential (if unlikely) leadership candidate Kim Jong-nam has transfixed the world due to the astonishing chutzpah with which it was undertaken; 007 creator Ian Fleming never scripted a more compelling hit. At least, this is the assumption. While there is no proven link to the North Korean state yet, the Malaysian murder looks like Pyongyang’s handiwork, for the regime has a formidable record of wet work.

2017-03-06 15:39

[ROUNDTABLE] Trump to force N. Korea to choose: nukes or survival

Land of extremes, revisited

Talk about getting it wrong. In my last book on Korea, published in 2014, I mused on the changing nature of street politics. My experience of reporting demonstrations, post-2008, was that most featured more cops than protesters. Given that the hardcore of past demonstrators were students - who, amid the present, mature economy, need to study hard to get jobs, leaving little time for protest - I speculated that the day of the Korean mass demo might be over. Buttressing this thought was the ever-expanding bailiwick of the interweb, which enables heated debate without physical protest. Then cam...

2017-02-27 17:42

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