The Korea Herald

[Editorial] Special counsel bill

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday vetoed a special counsel bill to investigate allegations that his office or others exerted undue influence on an inquiry into the death of a Marine last year. "The special prosecutor system is an exceptional measure that can only be introduced supplementarily when the investigation by law enforcement agencies is inadequate or when the fairness or objectivity of the investigation is in doubt, but investigations by police and the CIO are currently underway,&

EditorialMay 22, 2024

[Editorial] Cross-border trade

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s embarrassing backtracking of its hastily formulated policy plan to block consumers from directly buying cross-border items -- mostly from China -- has sparked a wave of criticism, raising questions about its administrative capabilities, as well as its ulterior motives regarding the country’s safety certification system, which is saddled with some critical issues. On Sunday, Lee Jeong-won, second vice minister of the Office for Government Policy Coor

EditorialMay 21, 2024

[Takatoshi Ito] The innocent bystanders of college protests

In 1968, protests against the Vietnam War swept through American college campuses and, in some cases, turned violent. At Columbia University, student protesters were angry about several issues, as James Simon Kunen chronicled in “The Strawberry Statement,” a series that first ran in New York magazine and was later published as a book. The protesting students opposed Columbia’s ties with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank researching war strategy, and the universit

ViewpointsMay 21, 2024

[Takatoshi Ito] The innocent bystanders of college protests

[Sandeep Vaheesan] The gig economy vs. America's workers

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and other gig corporations are once again seeking the law’s blessing in the United States for their unscrupulous employment practices. Ahead of November’s election, these firms have proposed several ballot initiatives in Massachusetts that would empower them to classify drivers and delivery people as independent contractors rather than employees. (The Open Markets Institute, where I work, filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to the constitutio

ViewpointsMay 21, 2024

[Sandeep Vaheesan] The gig economy vs. America's workers

[Yoo Choon-sik] KDI’s warning against Fed-tied policy

The Korea Development Institute’s revised economic forecasts and comments, released last week, contained sources of confusion for investors regarding the central bank’s monetary policy direction for the rest of the year because it warned against tying the country’s interest rate policy too closely to that in advanced economies. In its biannual event, South Korea’s most influential research institute upgraded this year’s economic growth forecast to 2.6 percent from 2

ViewpointsMay 20, 2024

[Yoo Choon-sik] KDI’s warning against Fed-tied policy

[Editorial] Doctors' self-isolation

The Seoul High Court on Thursday rejected a request from trainee doctors, medical professors and medical students to stop the government from increasing the medical school enrollment by 2,000 starting next year from the current cap of 3,058. While the planned increase could infringe on medical students’ right to learn, suspending it could have a severe impact on the public welfare promoted by the medical reform, the court said in its ruling. The court judged that the latter was more import

EditorialMay 20, 2024

[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency

Defining proficiency in a second language is one of the most controversial topics in second-language education. In the past, near-native proficiency was considered the ideal, but that has changed with the spread of communicative language teaching beginning in the 1980s. CLT focuses on individual learner needs rather than a definition that can be applied across groups of learners. Second-language teachers understand this, but society at large often has complex and conflicting ideas about second-l

ViewpointsMay 17, 2024

[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency

[Editorial] Start working on AI bill

OpenAI, a frontrunner in generative AI technology, unveiled ChatGPT-4o, a faster and more powerful iteration of its popular chatbot, on Monday, heralding a new chapter in the fast-evolving sector that is reshaping the way people work, study and communicate. Unfortunately, South Korea is lagging behind in the rapidly shifting global AI trend, with government officials and lawmakers stuck in a wasteful stalemate. The updated model of OpenAI is not only “much faster” but also capable of

EditorialMay 17, 2024

[Editorial] Korea-China relations

South Korea and China expressed a wish to improve ties in their first foreign ministerial talks in seven months. Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Monday, marking the first visit by South Korea’s top diplomat to the Chinese capital in more than six years. It is not without meaning that the two top diplomats expressed their goodwill to improve the countries’ strategic cooperative partnership. Bilateral ties had soured after South Korea

EditorialMay 16, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Nuclear proliferation and the US national interest

It is shocking to see the claims raised by former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby in recent interviews with Korean media. In particular, the argument that South Korea should consider its nuclear armament is very disappointing. Although such claims have been made intermittently, this time is uncomfortable and scary because he is known to be one of the best elites in the United States who studied at Harvard College and Yale University, and one of the strong candidates for a

ViewpointsMay 16, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Nuclear proliferation and the US national interest

[Doyle McManus] A lesson from Biden and Trump

A poll published by the Economist this month included a finding that was striking yet unsurprising: Almost 7 in 10 Americans believe things in the country have spun out of control. That's a problem for President Joe Biden, who campaigned in 2020 offering a return to normalcy after four years of chaos under Donald Trump. Biden promised, in effect, to Make America Normal Again, but "normal" never quite returned. The COVID-19 restrictions ended, but the ensuing recovery brought high

ViewpointsMay 16, 2024

[Doyle McManus] A lesson from Biden and Trump

[Kim Seong-kon] The last thing we learn in this world

We keep learning until we breathe our last breath on earth. No matter how old and erudite we are, there are always new things we need to learn. Learning continues even after graduating from school and becoming a grown-up. Many things around us constantly change and we have to keep up with them. Our language is a good example. The usage of vocabulary or verbal expressions constantly changes and we need to catch up. When I taught at Brigham Young University in the US in the 1990s, my colleague, pr

ViewpointsMay 15, 2024

[Kim Seong-kon] The last thing we learn in this world

[Antara Haldar] The psychologist who convinced economists that to err is human

The recent passing of psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman is an apt moment to reflect on his invaluable contribution to the field of behavioral economics. While Alexander Pope’s famous assertion that “to err is human” dates back to 1711, it was the pioneering work of Kahneman and his late co-author and friend Amos Tversky in the 1970s and early 1980s that finally persuaded economists to recognize that people often make mistakes. When I received a fellowship at S

ViewpointsMay 15, 2024

[Antara Haldar] The psychologist who convinced economists that to err is human

[Editorial] NK cyberattack threat

In what appears to be one of the biggest hacking attacks in recent years, it was belatedly known that a North Korean hacking group had continued to steal a massive amount of personal data from a South Korean court computer network over two years. The hackers, presumed to be from the notorious Lazarus Group, stole a staggering 1,014 gigabytes of data and legal documents from a Seoul court's computer network, according to the police, the prosecution and the National Intelligence Service on Sa

EditorialMay 15, 2024

[Grace Kao] American racism against Stray Kids

As a K-pop fan, I was delighted that Stray Kids were attending the Met Gala on May 6, 2024. K-pop fans generally and Stays (the name of Stray Kids’ fandom) specifically celebrated the increasing inclusion of K-pop. Perhaps the US media now took K-pop seriously and would treat its artists respectfully. We were wrong. A few members of the paparazzi’s treatment of Stray Kids was shameful and racist, and embarrassed me as a fellow American. However, none of it was surprising and all of i

ViewpointsMay 14, 2024

[Grace Kao] American racism against Stray Kids

[Lilja Dogg Alfredsdottir] How to close the gender wage gap

Last year, a 24-hour women’s strike was organized to protest the country’s gender pay gap and gender-based violence. Thousands gathered in central Reykjavik to demonstrate their solidarity. For the 14th year running, Iceland (91.2 percent) takes the top position in the Global Gender Gap Report 2023. It also continues to be the only country to have closed more than 90 percent of its gender gap. The Economist’s glass-ceiling index rates Iceland as the best place in the world for

ViewpointsMay 14, 2024

[Lilja Dogg Alfredsdottir] How to close the gender wage gap

[Editorial] Dating violence

A gruesome murder of a young woman by her boyfriend shocked the nation last week. The assailant, a medical student in his 20s, stabbed her multiple times on the rooftop of a building in Seoul. In March, another man named Kim Re-ah in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, murdered his girlfriend after she expressed her wish to break up with him, and hurt her mother as well. In Incheon, a man in his 30s who was under a restraining order after physically attacking and stalking his ex-girlfriend killed her i

EditorialMay 14, 2024

[Yoo Choon-sik] Promises for living cost problems

President Yoon Suk Yeol promised to do his best to control consumer prices as he resumed activities to interact directly with the public on Friday for the first time after the ruling party’s crushing defeat in the early April parliamentary election. The government also announced fresh measures to help counter the surging cost of living, led by rising food prices. This came a day after Yoon apologized for failing to solve the issues people face during his first news conference in nearly two

ViewpointsMay 13, 2024

[Yoo Choon-sik] Promises for living cost problems

[Ken Taylor] Reshaping the discourse on heritage

The focus of the proposal by Korea‘s Cultural Heritage Administration to shift the emphasis of the Korean system on perceptions of heritage is a landmark decision. Notably, it reflects international scholarly discourse and professional best practice thinking in the field of cultural heritage and natural heritage management in that over the last thirty years or so, the concept of heritage, its management processes and the very role it plays in the social arena have gone through significant

ViewpointsMay 13, 2024

[Ken Taylor] Reshaping the discourse on heritage

[Editorial] Simplify property taxes

In South Korea, property tax is one of the most controversial and sensitive topics for both politicians and citizens. Since real estate prices and related taxes involve the bulk of individual assets, even a slight policy change, especially regarding taxation, tends to touch off heated disputes. In particular, the comprehensive real estate holding tax -- an additional tax burden imposed on owners of pricey houses -- is a hot-button issue, since major parties have long exchanged attacks at each ot

EditorialMay 13, 2024