The Korea Herald

[Kim Seong-kon] Where have all the great men gone in times of crisis?

In his monumental essay, “the American Scholar,” Emerson wrote, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Indeed, a truly great man can easily be misunderstood by his contemporaries. In English, there is a maxim, “Where everyone is one-eyed, having two eyes is a handicap.” There is a matching maxim in Korea, “How can a sparrow understand eagle’s eye-view?” Perhaps that is why a great man is always alone, surrounded by the people who do not and cannot understand him. In today’s Korea, we urgently nee

Sept. 5, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] Where have all the great men gone in times of crisis?

[Noah Smith] How Japan needs to change to welcome immigrants

The US has been roiled by debates over immigration. Japan has the opposite problem -- not enough debate. Immigration is happening, and no one is talking about it or preparing to deal with it.Americans tend to use Japan as an example of a country that doesn’t take in immigrants. For example, my Bloomberg View colleague Justin Fox recently wrote that “politicians have so far been unwilling to allow immigration to take up the slack” of an aging population. It’s true that Japan has a small foreign-b

Sept. 5, 2017

[Christoph M. Schmidt] How to renew European integration project

The French presidential and legislative elections earlier this year have instilled new hope in the European integration project, by raising the prospect of deeper Franco-German cooperation. And yet some forms of cooperation, not least shared liability schemes, would be a mistake. As long as member states have sovereignty over fiscal and economic policymaking, France and Germany should focus their efforts on making the eurozone itself more resilient.French President Emmanuel Macron has started to

Sept. 5, 2017

[Bill Emmott] A ‘China First’ strategy for North Korea

Most pundits agree that the least bad way to deal with North Korea’s nuclear saber rattling is a continued combination of tight containment and aggressive diplomacy. Fewer, however, have recognized that the least bad military option -- the one implied by US President Donald Trump’s insistence that China take responsibility for its dangerous neighbor -- is a Chinese invasion, or regime change forced through China’s threat to launch one.This outcome, which would sharply shift East Asia’s strategic

Sept. 5, 2017

[Conor Sen] How self-driving electric cars will change American road trips

With the long Labor Day weekend upon us, tens of millions of Americans will hit the road in an annual rite. Along the way, drivers will fill up gas tanks, grab a bite to eat, stretch their legs and perhaps stay the night at a motel. Should autonomous, electric vehicles displace traditional automobiles, this roadside economy and ecosystem will be disrupted. How and when remains to be seen.Thanks to the construction of the interstate highway system decades ago, it’s relatively easy and affordable

Sept. 4, 2017

[Andres Oppenheimer] Where’s the world outrage over Cuba’s dictatorship?

Latin American countries deserve credit for their recent denunciations of what they bluntly refer to as Venezuela’s dictatorship, but I have a hard time understanding why they don’t do the same thing with Cuba’s dictatorship. When it comes to Cuba, they all seem to look the other way.I was thinking about this when I read about Cuba’s Oct. 22 election for municipal council members. It will be the first of several tightly controlled steps leading to the election of a National Assembly that is to d

Sept. 4, 2017

[Oliver Bilger] Speaking English no threat to German culture

Germany will elect a new parliament on Sept. 24, and polls indicate that Chancellor Angela Merkel, head of the Christian Democratic Union party, is likely to be re-elected to a fourth term. With the outcome seemingly a foregone conclusion, the campaign hasn’t been too exciting. Fierce discussions? Heated debates? Nowhere.Into this vacuum stepped Jens Spahn, a 37-year-old conservative, whose recent newspaper commentary has drawn considerable attention in Germany. His concern is the use of English

Sept. 4, 2017

[Doyle McManus] Why hasn’t Rex Tillerson resigned?

President Donald Trump’s top lieutenants are going rogue again.Last weekend, his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, refused to say whether Trump’s statements about violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, reflected American values. Trump’s chief economic aide, Gary Cohn, suggested that the president was wrong to equate white supremacists with “citizens standing up for equality” and said the administration “must do better.” His secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, told troops that because of internal

Sept. 4, 2017

[Doyle McManus] Why hasn’t Rex Tillerson resigned?

[Robert Park] (2): Baekbeom would free NK’s political prisoners

“In every way, I reject dictatorial rules and tendencies. I shout to our compatriots. Be careful lest we find ourselves under a dictatorship. I shout that we should build a nation in which each individual among our people enjoys freedom of speech to its fullest and things are done according to opinions of our entire people. ... A nation that is as wide as the earth and as free as the sky.”- Kim Koo (1876-1949), “My Wish”As evidenced by the above citation from Baekbeom’s 1947 statement of politi

Sept. 4, 2017

[Robert Park] (2): Baekbeom would free NK’s political prisoners

[Christopher Balding] China realizes need for foreign companies

China is increasingly desperate for foreign investment. Yet foreign companies are less and less interested in what it has to offer. How this problem gets resolved may be one of the most important questions facing China’s economy.After China joined the World Trade Organization, in 2000, overseas investors couldn’t wait to jump in. Foreign direct investment grew at an annualized rate of 10.8 percent from 2000 to 2008. Enticed by China’s market size and development capacity, companies were willing

Sept. 3, 2017

[Dallas Morning News] Want to help American workers? NAFTA, not protectionism, is the way to go

There are reasons to be optimistic this Labor Day. The unemployment rate is low, at 4.3 percent. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs are being created every month. Second-quarter gross domestic product was revised up to 3 percent.That said, economic anxiety still lingers. President Donald Trump, trying to ease that anxiety, talks tough about the North American Free Trade Agreement and the possibility of implementing tariffs. While it sounds good -- what American doesn’t want to boost US manufactur

Sept. 3, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Travel barriers are worst of new Cold War

The latest loop in the escalation of US-Russia hostilities is probably the dumbest and the most damaging: The two countries are introducing de facto travel restrictions for each other’s citizens, choking off the friendliest, most human channel of communication between them. It’s the biggest step back into the Cold War era that the two governments have taken yet.The State Department has stopped issuing visas in Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg, a response to Russian demands for drast

Sept. 3, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Travel barriers are worst of new Cold War

[Ann McFeatters] How about that infrastructure plan?

Suppose the US all stood up at exactly the same minute, from Maine to Hawaii, and shouted at the top of our lungs: infrastructure!Would it make any difference? Not likely.You-know-who would probably be tweeting about how badly he is treated, and we’d all be ignored. Again.As danger, misery and heartache in the form of Hurricane Harvey plague those we love in Texas and Louisiana, we hear again and again that if aging reservoirs, pot-holed roads, outmoded drains and weathered water treatment plant

Sept. 3, 2017

[Robert Park] (1): Baekbeom and NK human rights

“It is definitely not good politics to interfere too much with the individual’s life. ... That it is extremely unnatural and dangerous to drag people along by orders of a single individual or of a few is all too well proven by the misfortunes that befell Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.” - Kim Koo (1876-1949), “My Wish”A “chinilpa” (collaborationist with Imperial Japan) he wasn’t. Neither was he especially fond of the monarchy which antedated Japan’s stealthy routing of Korea, having been judged

Sept. 3, 2017

[Robert Park] (1): Baekbeom and NK human rights

[Faye Flam] Americans are a little too relaxed about nukes

North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program isn’t the only news to unnerve arms-control experts this summer. A new survey has revealed that Americans are surprisingly willing to make a first nuclear strike -- and kill millions of civilians abroad.The survey casts doubt on the power of what experts call the “nuclear taboo,” said Stanford University historian David Holloway, author of “Stalin and the Bomb.” The idea, or hope, behind the concept is that it’s not just luck that humans haven’t dr

Sept. 1, 2017

[Faye Flam] Americans are a little too relaxed about nukes

[Jay Ambrose] For America’s sake, Trump must be his best self

You can only blow so much air in a balloon before it bursts, a concept President Donald Trump needs to master.One night, he gives a thoughtful, well-ordered, substantive speech on Afghanistan, but then what happened in Phoenix? At a political rally, he reverted to his worst self, a ranting, raving juvenile.His harangue was largely about criticisms of how he responded to the racist, neo-Nazi, KKK, alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and he was right on some points. But it was essentiall

Sept. 1, 2017

[Lisa Richardson] A black daughter of the Confederacy corrects history

As monuments to the Confederacy are swept away from public spaces, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the president of the United States have been fretting over the so-called attack on history, presumably their history. Their white history.Attack, assault, erasure, destruction — well, truth and justice in the face of denial and dissembling can certainly feel like that. But there is no such thing as whites-only history, there never was, not even with regard to the Confederacy.Like millions of Afri

Aug. 31, 2017

[Michael Schuman] China’s car sector needs a shakeup

China’s SUV specialist Great Wall Motor Co. may, in the end, never get its hands on Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s Jeep division. But expect more and more Chinese automakers to seek out foreign acquisitions. The Chinese government has long dreamed of creating a globally competitive car industry, and having Chinese automakers purchase established companies and brands would seem one obvious way to accomplish its goal.Unless the government rethinks its own industrial policies, however, the strategy

Aug. 31, 2017

[Michael Schuman] China’s car sector needs a shakeup

[Paul J. Ferraro] Start preparing for the next Hurricane Harvey

My heart goes out to the people who have borne the brunt of Hurricane Harvey and still face continued flooding and a long recovery. As a nation, we need to be better prepared for such catastrophic floods so as to mitigate their widespread damage and loss of life. Harvey’s 50 inches of rain in a few days might be unusual, but extensive flooding with its subsequent property damage and loss of life is not.It’s time to stop using the words “unprecedented” or “one in a pick-your-large-number-year flo

Aug. 31, 2017

[Maxwell King] Even if Trump were gone, forces he represents would still be here

Let’s be blunt about it: President Trump is inspiring fascism in America. And it is terribly important that we name it.What he says, and what he does, is making this evident to most people, especially the fascists themselves. This is not just true since the terrible violence in the recent demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia. It has been increasingly true since the days of his candidacy, as he has encouraged those forces in America that promote racism, ethnic hatred, violence and white sup

Aug. 31, 2017