The Korea Herald

[Trinh Thanh Thuy] Focus on people to build smart communities and cities

People are talking industry 4.0 and 5.0, but in these efforts to build a smart digital environment, there is a serious lack of attention to those on the ground, or more accurately, to measures for improving the lives of the poor and destitute.Even with the recent adoption of the ASEAN Smart Cities Framework by ASEAN leaders in Singapore, with its promise “that no one is left behind,” the focus is mainly on the “urban centers.”Meanwhile at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in P

Nov. 26, 2018

[Trinh Thanh Thuy] Focus on people to build smart communities and cities

[Michael Schuman] Trump is doing China a favor

Prospects for a trade deal between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the upcoming Group of 20 meeting in Argentina are quite likely to founder on the question of China’s industrial strategies: While Beijing may be willing to buy more American goods to mollify Trump, it almost certainly won’t stop supporting sectors it sees as key to China’s technological and economic progress.In fact, China would be much wiser to scale back its industrial policies now. They could well

Nov. 26, 2018

[Michael Schuman] Trump is doing China a favor

[Noah Smith] Can Democrats save capitalism?

With the Democrats having retaken the House of Representatives, and with socialists gaining more clout within the Democratic Party, the US is awakening to the reality of a reinvigorated left. Long decades of increasing inequality have taken some of the shine off of capitalism, and the disappointment wrought by the Great Recession seems to have been a catalyst for a socialist resurgence.But a big question looms in the background: What kind of new system does the left want?There are two basic alte

Nov. 26, 2018

[Therese Raphael] A Thelma and Louise Brexit? You know the ending

Committed Brexiters have arrived at the conclusion that the deal Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated is not just bad; it’s worse than remaining in the European Union. That’s axiomatic. But what’s their plan? It’s not to cancel Brexit. And it’s not to hold a new public vote.Their preference appears to be for what they call a “managed” no-deal Brexit. The pitch is that this isn’t the catastrophic crash-out business fears, but a brisk exit to World Trade Organization rules, with key risks mit

Nov. 26, 2018

[Nisha Gopalan] Everything’s great in China’s economy. By decree

Consumers of brokerage research on China’s economy and companies have long known that they need to read between the lines. Securities firms are often circumspect in their judgments to avoid alienating powerful interests that could damage their business.So it’s curious that the head securities regulator went to the trouble of meeting with more than 30 brokerages and fund firms to admonish them to be careful in what they say. Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told

Nov. 26, 2018

[David Ignatius] Trump should use next week’s G20 summit to find a trade victory with China

If President Trump is the dealmaker he claims to be, he should use the upcoming G20 summit in Buenos Aires to declare a win in his trade war with China -- before his bombast does any more damage to the global economy.Trade is Trump’s signature issue. But more than a year after he began threatening tariffs on major trading partners, he has relatively little to show for it. The improvements in NAFTA are modest, at best. The US economy hasn’t suffered significantly, but global growth is beginning t

Nov. 25, 2018

[David Ignatius] Trump should use next week’s G20 summit to find a trade victory with China

[Kent Harrington, John Walcott] How Kim has played Trump

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is eager to hold a second summit with US President Donald Trump. Since their first meeting in Singapore in June, Kim has consistently outmaneuvered his counterpart. Trump may still fancy himself a world-class deal maker, but the truth is that Kim -- like Russian President Vladimir Putin -- has got Trump’s number.Kim’s bonhomie -- real or feigned -- and promises of denuclearization have muted Trump’s threats, brought the South Korean government closer to his side

Nov. 25, 2018

[Kent Harrington, John Walcott] How Kim has played Trump

[Jack Fruchtman] Under Trump, is jail next for journalists?

The press is under serious attack, but not only because President Donald Trump prefers to call it “the enemy of the people” and revoke credentials at will. Waiting in the wings may well be prison terms.Between 1917 and 2009, only one person was convicted of violating the Espionage Act for leaking classified information to the press. Then the Obama administration came along and prosecuted eight government whistleblowers at a far higher rate than those undertaken by all previous presidential admin

Nov. 25, 2018

[Hussein Ibish] Saudi king gets a pass on Khashoggi. Why?

One of the central figures in the drama over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has remained an invisible man. Global attention has focused on the role played by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oct. 2 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But another figure deserves equal billing: the prince’s father, King Salman.The crown prince is often referred to as the “de facto ruler” of Saudi Arabia. But that’s not what he really is. The king has virtually total power. He h

Nov. 25, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] How to protect Interpol

The election of South Korean Kim Jong-yang as president of Interpol put an end to fears that the global police cooperation organization would fall under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the controversy surrounding the election lays bare a more important issue: How does one keep international organizations inclusive without leaving them open to abuse?Last week, the Times of London named Russian police general Alexander Prokopchuk the front-runner in the Interpol election made

Nov. 25, 2018

[David Ignatius] A Thanksgiving wish: Slow it down

Here‘s a simple four-word wish for Thanksgiving 2018 -- a day when most of us take a break from the blurring, dizzying speed of our internet world: Let’s slow things down.I don‘t just mean stopping to smell the roses, or taking a hike in the woods, or hiding our screens for a few hours. I mean, literally: Slow down the circuits. Put more friction in the system. Make social media slower, more local and less instantly connected to people we don’t know. Our hyper-fast world has become destructive.

Nov. 22, 2018

[David Ignatius] A Thanksgiving wish: Slow it down

[Timothy L. O’Brien] Ivanka’s email scandal has a familiar moral

Ivanka Trump used her personal email account last year to handle as many as 100 discussions of official White House matters. If that doesn’t strike you as a rather ironic turn of events then fine-tune your antennae by looking up any old online video of her father threatening to put Hillary Clinton in jail for using a private email server, calling on Russian hackers to find her missing emails, or praising the FBI for reopening an investigation of the former secretary of state’s “criminal and ille

Nov. 22, 2018

[Hal Brands] America’s secret weapon against China: Democracy

In his speech at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence put the clash of political values between the US and China at the heart of the clash of geopolitical interests between the two countries. Pence declared that America seeks a “free Indo-Pacific” where countries and individuals can “exercise their God-given liberties”; he touted Washington‘s progress in deepening its relationships with the region’s democracies. Pence contrasted this approach w

Nov. 22, 2018

[Hal Brands] America’s secret weapon against China: Democracy

[Richard McGregor] Xi ignored private enterprise. Now he needs it

After more than five years in power, Xi Jinping has constructed a singular political persona: of a leader who places the Communist Party and its authority above all, on top of the state, the economy and military.So it may have come as a surprise to see Xi usher China’s top entrepreneurs into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People earlier this month to offer them reassuring bromides about their importance for the country’s economy. “All private companies and private entrepreneurs should feel totally

Nov. 22, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Germany doesn’t really want an EU army

For all the recent debate about creating a joint European army, Germany -- which has the second-biggest military in the European Union -- has little interest in setting up any kind of supranational force under the EU’s command. This reluctance is key to understanding the ineffectiveness of all the bloc’s existing military projects.In a recent op-ed for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen laid out her vision of “an army of the Europeans” -- note the ch

Nov. 22, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Surge of woman politicians in post-Park Korea

The end of the line for Park Geun-hye, the first and only woman president of South Korea, was feared to have a restraining effect on female politics for some time. Yet, new possibilities are seen for a surge of female politicians, with some new faces drawing the spotlight in the administration and legislature with remarkable individual talent and prowess.Female voices rise in our society amid the increasingly combative atmosphere of the #MeToo movement. Or conversely, women’s growing self-confid

Nov. 21, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Surge of woman politicians in post-Park Korea

[Leonid Bershidsky] Russia, Japan could finally end WWII

For decades, every sign Russia and Japan had made progress in talks on disputed territories and a post-World War II peace treaty turned out to be a false alarm. This time may be different: Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe need a deal more than their predecessors did.Putin and Abe met in Singapore last week and agreed to speed up talks on a peace treaty their two countries negotiated after World War II but the Soviet Union refused to sign. The talks wil

Nov. 21, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Russia, Japan could finally end WWII

[Keenan Fagan] Is all going well on Korean Peninsula?

These days, all looks to be going well on the Korean Peninsula. Guard posts at the DMZ are being destroyed. Southern delegations and inspectors are going to the North to reopen offices and restore railroads. Gifts of mushrooms and tangerines are being exchanged. Images of the smiling North and South Korean leaders fill the news. Speaking the same language, President Moon vouches to world leaders that Kim Jong-un will keep his word to him and denuclearize, thus ushering in a new period of Korean

Nov. 21, 2018

[Julian Lee] Oil price now controlled by just three men

OPEC has lost what control of the oil market it ever had. The actions (or tweets) of three men -- Presidents Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman -- will determine the course of oil prices in 2019 and beyond. But of course they each want different things.While OPEC struggles to find common purpose, the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia dominate global supply. Together they produce more oil than the 15 members of OPEC. All three are pumping at record rates and each could ra

Nov. 21, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Will Trump and Xi avoid new Cold War?

The lines of Chinese tourists eager to visit Mao Zedong’s mausoleum in the center of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square start building at 7 a.m., and the wait can be three hours. The tourist shops along one side of the square are filled with glossy pendants that feature Mao on one side and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the other.Those pendants are fixed in my mind on my return from my latest trip to China, as the clock ticks down to a critical meeting between Xi and President Trump at the Group of 20

Nov. 21, 2018