The Korea Herald

[Colin Irwin and Yoon Seong-won] A tale of two peace processes: Korea and Cyprus

All peace processes are different, different peoples, histories, places, time lines and how they got in the mess they are in and how to get out of it. This is true of Cyprus and Korea but there are also some similarities and if we focus and those there may be some peace making lessons each side can learn from the other. Both Korea and Cyprus are “frozen conflicts,” Korea since the armistice in 1953 and Cyprus since the Turkish invasion in 1974. Although not all conservatives are intransigent, in

May 20, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Truth about Gaza: 3 myths keeping US, Jerusalem from owning up to their roles in the crisis

The knee-jerk reaction in the White House and Israel to the recent violence in Gaza is to blame Hamas and be done with it. The radical Hamas organization that controls Gaza drove thousands of Palestinians toward the fence, the argument goes, so it is wholly to blame for the 62 killed by Israeli snipers, the bulk of them Hamas members.　But this PR blame game obscures the bigger picture.　Two million Gazans, imprisoned in a tiny strip of land with a collapsed economy, see no political and economic

May 20, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Truth about Gaza: 3 myths keeping US, Jerusalem from owning up to their roles in the crisis

[Ramesh Ponnuru] Furor over Trump’s ‘animals’ remark misses the point

One of the oddities of our political moment is how frequently we are asked to tease out the layers of meaning of remarks by President Donald Trump as though he had chosen them with the care of a good poet. The latest controversy -- although by the time this appears it may have been overtaken by another one -- concerns the president’s comment, “These aren’t people. They’re animals.”　The New York Times and USA Today were among the media outlets that suggested that Trump had referred to illegal imm

May 20, 2018

[Christopher Balding] China’s economy is too frail to force open

The US demands that China either open up to increased foreign competition or agree on hard targets for boosting imports that overlook the weakness of that nation’s economy. If President Donald Trump’s team doesn’t recognize this fragility and Beijing’s wariness, it overlooks a profound unspoken worry.　Few are inclined to think of the Chinese economy as wobbly. According to official data, 2017 marked the first acceleration in real gross domestic product growth, to 6.9 percent, since 2010. Nominal

May 20, 2018

[Christopher Balding] China’s economy is too frail to force open

[David Ignatius] Trump is fomenting a trans-Atlantic rift

President Trump’s dismissive treatment of Europe is beginning to erode the trans-Atlantic alliance, which for many decades has been the central pillar of US national-security policy. The growing European-American rift may be the most important but least discussed consequence of Trump’s foreign policy. His disruptive style is usually seen as destabilizing distant adversaries in Pyongyang, Tehran and Beijing. But the diplomatic bombs have also been exploding here in Brussels, the capital of the Eu

May 20, 2018

[Stein Ringen] Putin fights for his empire

Russia’s behavior under Vladimir Putin seems baffling. Neighboring countries invaded: Georgia and the Ukraine. Crimea annexed. A covert war waged in eastern Ukraine. In Syria, chemical weapons and indiscriminate barrel bombing condoned. In Britain, one political assassination and another attempted. Throughout Europe, support of radical right-wing parties and organizations. In Britain again, propagandistic engagement during referendums on Scottish independence and “Brexit.” In America and Europe,

May 18, 2018

[Stein Ringen] Putin fights for his empire

[Noah Smith] US social safety net has improved a lot

There’s a common misperception that the US is the land of small government, where the poor receive little assistance. To many on the left, the US is a uniquely bad actor, eschewing the enlightened social democracy of Western Europe and leaving the economically unfortunate to suffer. Those on the right tend to take a more positive view of the same notion, trumpeting the US’s small welfare state as evidence of a commitment to free markets and self-reliance.　As with most myths, there is a grain of

May 18, 2018

[Dhondup Wangchen] Putting Tibet back on the agenda

In 2001, when Beijing was selected to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, expectations were high that China’s human rights performance would improve in the international spotlight. Even Chinese officials predicted change; as Beijing’s mayor said at the time, hosting the games would “benefit the further development of our human rights cause.”But 10 years later, China remains one of the world’s most illiberal countries. Ethnic minorities are targeted, the regime’s critics are imprisoned, and promises o

May 17, 2018

[Dhondup Wangchen] Putting Tibet back on the agenda

[Kishore Mahbubani] America’s collision course with China

The world’s most important bilateral relationship -- between the United States and China -- is also one of its most inscrutable. Bedeviled by paradoxes, misperceptions, and mistrust, it is a relationship that has become a source of considerable uncertainty and, potentially, severe instability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the brewing bilateral trade war.The key assertion driving the current dispute, initiated by US President Donald Trump’s administration, is that America’s trade deficit

May 17, 2018

[Kishore Mahbubani] America’s collision course with China

[Leonid Bershidsky] How media paywalls work in authoritarian countries

There’s been a lot of talk recently about journalism and paywalls. Much of the general conversation has been focused on the economics of supporting quality reporting.　I’d like to widen the frame on both counts -- by sharing my experience in Russia. There, the record is more complicated. In Russia, paywalls have been essential for maintaining journalistic integrity. At the same time, they have shown that charging for journalism can reduce its impact. In authoritarian countries, this can in turn l

May 17, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump’s leniency with China’s ZTE hurts his Iran strategy

When President Donald Trump announced America’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last week, he emphasized a broader message to foes and friends about US credibility: “The United States no longer makes empty threats.”　That was primarily directed at foreign banks and corporations that would now have to choose between the Iranian and American economy under renewed sanctions.　But the president was also saying he will not be hemmed in by advisers, the Republican Party or Washington’s foreign pol

May 17, 2018

[David Ignatius] Does the pathway to containing Iran pass through Moscow?

Arab leaders love the idea that President Trump is ready to give Iran a punch in the nose. But is this White House truly serious about challenging Iranian power in the Middle East? The evidence is mixed, at best. I heard passionate enthusiasm for Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal from prominent Arabs gathered here last weekend for a conference sponsored by the Beirut Institute. They know that scuttling the nuclear deal could be dangerous, and that the region is already a po

May 17, 2018

[Yossi Klein Halevi] Israelis, Palestinians need to honor two-story solution in the Middle East

The seemingly endless war between Palestinians and Israelis isn’t only about substantive issues of borders and land and sovereignty. It is, in essence, a war of competing narratives. This week, as Israelis celebrate 70 years of victory over repeated attempts to destroy the miraculous rebirth of Jewish sovereignty, and Palestinians mourn 70 years of defeat, displacement and occupation, each side clings to its founding story as an affirmation of its very being.　One reason that peace between Israel

May 16, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump needs human rights deal with North Korea

Here’s something you may not know about North Korea’s dear leader, Kim Jong-un: He really cares about North Koreans.　Yes, he presides over a Gulag state in which his people live in constant fear. Yes, he has recklessly built nuclear weapons despite severe international sanctions. And yes, he allegedly dispatched an agent to poison his half-brother in Malaysia with a nerve agent.　But deep down, the dear leader really wants a modern, open economy.　This is at least what President Donald Trump and h

May 16, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump needs human rights deal with North Korea

[Leonid Bershidsky] Why Germans are getting fed up with US

Germans have never liked US President Donald Trump, and the backlash against his actions is stronger than ever after he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal last week. But there’s a growing gap between the German establishment and German voters: The former may be anti-Trump, but the latter are increasingly anti-American.　German Chancellor Angel Merkel vented her frustration with Trump in a speech in the North Rhine-Westphalia city of Muenster on Friday, saying his Iran decision “undermines

May 16, 2018

[Kent Harrington] Gift that keeps on giving -- to China

All bad management, a business guru once remarked, is taught by example. Donald Trump is teaching a master class on how not to serve as America’s chief executive. By abandoning the thoughtful policymaking of his predecessors in favor of a presidency modeled on reality TV, Trump has failed to articulate anything resembling a credible national strategy.Instead, what Trump has delivered during his first 16 months in office is a blow to American influence, most notably in Asia. Trump’s misguided eco

May 16, 2018

[Kent Harrington] Gift that keeps on giving -- to China

[Jules Boykoff] Russia tarnishes World Cup

The World Cup opens in Moscow in a month, an 11-city, four-week chanting, flag-waving showcase for the world’s most popular sport and, this time around, for Vladimir Putin’s Russia.　Conventional wisdom has it that with Putin in charge (he was inaugurated again last week for a fourth term), the quadrennial world soccer championships will run like clockwork. Back in 2013, Jerome Valcke, then secretary-general of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, said as much: “I will say something which

May 16, 2018

[Pankaj Mishra] It’s no wonder Iranians hate America

“Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran,” a senior British official was quoted as saying to Newsweek in 2002, witnessing the competitive bellicosity in the Bush administration’s run-up to the war in Iraq.　US President Donald Trump asserted his claim to be a real man as he tore up the nuclear deal with Iran. But he has inadvertently accelerated rather than delayed an inevitable process: the emergence of Iran as a major geopolitical and scientific power in a world that is n

May 15, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] With great power comes great responsibility

Watching the fall of quite a few prominent social, political, and religious leaders of Korea amid the #MeToo movement and the “anti-gapjil” campaign against the abuse of power, one cannot help but lament the scarcity of decent, noble men in our society. There is an English maxim, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Unfortunately, many Korean leaders seem to think, “With great power comes great sexual dissipation,” or “With great power comes great privilege.”It should be self-evident t

May 15, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] With great power comes great responsibility

[Shuli Ren] Kim could make North Korea Samsung’s new backyard

It wouldn’t be hard for North Korea to become the next Vietnam, if only Kim Jong-un loosened up a bit.　North Korea today looks remarkably similar to the Southeast Asian nation in 1986, when its communist neighbor undertook “Doi Moi” reforms to tiptoe toward capitalism. North Korea may have a head start, because it’s richer and more industrialized.　Vietnam is now a huge manufacturing hub, boasting an economy that’s six times larger than North Korea’s. Last year, it expanded 6.8 percent, the faste

May 15, 2018