[Editorial] Tax politics

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea is belatedly rushing to pass its bill to cut the real estate transfer income tax for homeowners without second homes during the ongoing parliamentary session. The party adopted a platform in June to ease the real estate transfer income tax and proposed a bill in August to expand the exemption of the tax to houses owned by persons without second homes from 900 million won to 1.2 billion won ($765,000-$1.02 million) in terms of sale price. It put the bill on t

Nov. 17, 2021

[Editorial] Shutdown law shuttered

South Korea finally moved to scrap the decade-old rule blocking minors from playing PC-based online games past midnight, a belated yet welcome move considering that the dispute-laden regulation has long been outdated and ineffective. The National Assembly on Thursday held a plenary session and voted in favor of a revision to the Youth Protection Act, abolishing what is called the “shutdown law” banning online PC game access for youngsters under 16 between midnight and 6 a.m. The co

Nov. 16, 2021

[Editorial] Swim with the current

Nuclear power has reentered the spotlight overseas as an effective response to climate change and energy issues. At home, heads of state-owned electric power enterprises drew attention for mentioning the need to change the current government’s stubborn nuclear phase-out policy. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation Tuesday that France would build new nuclear reactors to help the country reduce its dependence on foreign countries for energy and meet car

Nov. 15, 2021

[Editorial] Due attention

A draft resolution condemning North Korea’s dire human rights situation was recently submitted to the UN’s Third Committee for approval. If passed, it will be put to a vote at the UN General Assembly in mid-December. South Korea excluded itself from a list of 35 co-sponsors of the resolution, though it plans to join the document’s adoption by consensus. President Moon Jae-in’s government has taken such a lukewarm position with regard to a UN resolution on human suf

Nov. 12, 2021

[Editorial] Unfair probes

The prosecution and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials are investigating suspicions involving the presidential nominees of the ruling and main opposition parties, but their investigations seem unfair.　 The CIO booked Yoon Seok-youl, presidential nominee of the opposition People Power Party, again. This time, in connection with a complaint that he instructed prosecutors to document judges’ ruling tendencies when he was the prosecutor general. It marked the fourt

Nov. 11, 2021

[Editorial] Sensible policy needed

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea won a landslide victory in last year’s parliamentary elections after it blanketed negative voter sentiment with a pledge to provide coronavirus relief cash handouts to all households. After the electoral win, President Moon Jae-in’s government doled out 14.3 trillion won ($12.1 billion) in relief grants to more than 21 million households across the country. Lee Jae-myung, the liberal ruling party’s candidate for the presidential election in

Nov. 10, 2021

[Editorial] Diversify import sources

Diesel vehicles, including trucks and buses, are at risk of stopping across the country. This is largely attributable to China’s abrupt urea export curb since Oct. 11. South Korea depends on China for 97 percent of its urea imports. Due to the shortage of urea, the price of diesel exhaust fluid has already risen tenfold. Urea is the main component of diesel exhaust fluid, a solution that is injected into the exhaust stream of a diesel engine using a process called selective catalytic redu

Nov. 9, 2021

[Editorial] Many tasks ahead

Former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, who was nominated last week as the main opposition People Power Party’s presidential candidate, faces the task of framing himself as a capable and inclusive leader if he is to achieve a change of power with the election four months away. After a period of soul-searching following his resignation from the top prosecutorial post in March, Yoon declared he was entering politics in June and joined the conservative opposition party a month later. What

Nov. 8, 2021

[Editorial] Get to core of case

The prosecution is showing signs of winding down its investigations in the Daejang-dong scandal. The scandal stems from the unusual profit distribution scheme of a public-private partnership project to develop Daejang-dong in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, just south of Seoul. A few speculators realized astronomical rates of return from their modest investments in the project led by Seongnam Development Corp., a public enterprise funded by the Seongnam municipal government. The prosecution on Mo

Nov. 5, 2021

[Editorial] Habitual contender

Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the minor centrist opposition People’s Party, announced Monday that he would run for president in the 2022 election. It marks the third presidential bid by the software mogul-turned-politician. Ahn withdrew from the 2012 presidential race to lend his support to Moon Jae-in, then candidate of the main opposition party. He ran again in the 2017 election and finished third with 21.4 percent of the votes. Moon won the election to succeed disgraced President Park Geun

Nov. 4, 2021

[Editorial] Means to get votes

Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s presidential candidate, is pushing for COVID-19 relief payments to everyone. When he was Gyeonggi governor, he defied the decision by the government and the party to restrict Chuseok holiday coronavirus relief to the bottom 88 percent income bracket and went through his plan to offer the assistance to all of the residents in the province by tapping the provincial budget. He expended more than 600 billion won ($510 million) to give 250,

Nov. 3, 2021

[Editorial] Policy fiasco

Many of the policies President Moon Jae-in’s administration has pursued with the purported intent of helping the less privileged have only brought more difficulties to them. The most obvious case of such policy paradox is Moon’s strenuous drive to turn temporary jobs into permanent positions. Just days after he took office in May 2017, Moon pledged to ensure that all temporary employees in the public sector would be given permanent status during his five-year tenure. Since then, hi

Nov. 2, 2021

[Editorial] Obsession with NK

North Korea is said to have demanded, as preconditions for talks on declaring the end of the Korean War, that South Korea and the United States stop their combined military exercises and that economic sanctions against Pyongyang be lifted. A lawmaker who attended a parliamentary audit of the National Intelligence Service on Thursday told reporters later that the agency’s chief had made the revelation. South Korea and the US have already reduced their combined drills, both to ease inter-

Nov. 1, 2021

[Editorial] Sapping momentum

Data released this week by the Bank of Korea cast doubts on whether the country’s economy will grow around 4 percent this year as forecast earlier by the central bank and the government. South Korea saw its real gross domestic product expand 0.3 percent in the July-September period from three months earlier. In August, the BOK said that Asia’s fourth-largest economy could achieve annual growth of 4 percent in 2021, if it grew by at least 0.6 percent on-quarter in the third and fourt

Oct. 29, 2021

[Editorial] A meeting at a sensitive time

The meeting between President Moon Jae-in and presidential nominee Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party was probably inevitable. Quite a number of party members still have bitter feelings toward him in the aftermath of the race to select a presidential candidate, and Lee may have felt the urgent need to create a united front. He wasted no time, visiting Cheong Wa Dae about an hour after registering with the National Election Commission as a preliminary presidential candidate. Of cours

Oct. 28, 2021

[Editorial] Belated bid

South Korea is hastening work to apply to join a regional trade bloc called the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. It plans to hold a meeting of external economy-related ministers early next month to make a formal decision to pursue CPTPP membership. The meeting was scheduled to be held Monday, but has been postponed due to the need to coordinate on differences among government agencies. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki, who doubles as deputy prime minister for economic affai

Oct. 27, 2021

[Editorial] Key charge dropped

The essence of the Daejang-dong scandal lies in breach of trust, and Yoo Dong-gyu is a suspect at the center of the scandal. When he was an acting chief executive of Seongnam Development Corp., a public enterprise affiliated with Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, he pushed a land development project in Daejang-dong, Seongnam, in a way that allowed several individuals to take astronomical profits, incurring an enormous loss to the corporation and the city. However, in taking his case to the cou

Oct. 26, 2021

[Editorial] Unfavorite contenders

A poll conducted last week showed only about 30 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of each of the three main contenders for the nation’s next presidency. In the poll of 1,000 South Koreans aged 18 and above, just 32 percent of respondents said they felt favorable toward Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung, who was nominated on Oct. 10 as the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s candidate for the presidential election in March. He might have some comfort from the similarly low

Oct. 25, 2021

[Editorial] Take precautions

North Korea’s test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile is a serious threat indeed. It is the North’s eighth missile launch this year, and its fifth since September. All of the missiles are hard to intercept, and they target South Korea. SLBMs, regarded as a game-changer in battle, are particularly threatening in that subs can move and fire missiles stealthily underwater. The SLBMs recently developed by South Korea without nuclear weapons are entirely different from No

Oct. 22, 2021

[Editorial] Unsustainable largesse

President Moon Jae-in attended an event in August to commemorate the fourth year since the introduction of a program meant to expand coverage under the state-run health insurance system. The initiative -- called Moon Jae-in care, or Mooncare -- has been instrumental in lowering medical costs for people, he said, vowing to accelerate efforts to further broaden health insurance coverage. He insisted that his administration has put the finances of the health insurance system under stable manageme

Oct. 21, 2021