[Nicholas Goldberg] Is democracy failing? Xi Jinping says it is, and he’s not entirely wrong

US President Joe Biden likes to say that we are locked in a global battle pitting democracy against autocracy. In Seattle last week, he described a phone conversation he’d had with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which Xi argued that democracy doesn’t work anymore. Among other things, Xi said, democracy requires consensus, and mustering a consensus takes too long in a fast-moving world. Biden dismissed the idea that democracy is passe or unworkable. But I’ve begun to wonder

May 3, 2022

[Zach Meyers] Elon Musk’s Twitter test

With Elon Musk set to buy Twitter for $44 billion, commentators are scrambling to understand what the “free speech absolutism” espoused by the world’s richest person will mean for the platform. But the principle could also create headaches for Musk himself. With the European Union and the United Kingdom about to enact laws aimed at making social media safer and more accountable, Musk has seemingly chosen a bad time to roll back content moderation on Twitter. In fact, despite o

May 2, 2022

[Lee In-hyun] Music for spring

When I was young, my mother used to take me for a drive in the mountains during spring. We enjoyed looking at the flowers. The frozen land during winter has resurfaced with a scene of spring surrounded by trees and flowers. The change from winter to spring was truly beautiful. When she took a drive with me, we always listened to songs related to spring. Mother and I especially enjoyed “Spring” by Vivaldi. We talked a lot about flowers, trees and scenery of spring while listening to

May 2, 2022

[Nicholas Goldberg] Some people hope the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will fade away. But that’s not happening

Five Israelis shot dead in Bnai Brak and two more in Tel Aviv. Clashes at the Al Aqsa Mosque, where more than 150 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli riot police. Stabbings in southern Israel and Jerusalem; counterterrorism raids across the West Bank that killed more than a dozen Palestinians. Exchanges of rockets and airstrikes between the Gaza Strip and Israel. These are headlines from the last month, marking the end of a period of relative calm between Israelis and Palestinians and raising

April 28, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] House-hunting mars presidential transition

Widespread skepticism and misgivings about relocating the presidential office and residence before Inauguration Day on May 10 have been validated, unfortunately. The eight-week window to replace the Blue House has proven overwhelmingly inadequate. President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol has painted himself into a corner with his campaign vow to “never spend a single night in the Blue House” after he takes office. Refusing to back down, he charged ahead. Now he will start his term with a mudd

April 28, 2022

[Stefano Graziosi, James Jay Carafano] Europe still struggling through Ukraine crisis

The level of European solidarity sparked by Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has surprised even Europeans. Leaders in Russia, China and Iran are perplexed as well. They had assumed the invasion would exacerbate strains in the transatlantic community. There is not, however, unanimity on every issue. The real question is how Europeans will deal with the consequences of the war and their own differences as they shape future policies. The three key fault lines that threaten to fracture po

April 27, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Standing between Uncle Sam and Big Brother

George Orwell’s prophecy was right, after all. In his 1949 dystopian novel “1984,” Orwell envisioned a world divided into three totalitarian super-states: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Oceania included the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Eurasia referred to continental Europe annexed to the Soviet Union. Eastasia indicated China, South Asian countries and the Japanese islands. Interestingly, today’s world seems to resemble what Orwell predicted after

April 27, 2022

[Mariana Mazzucato, Alan Donnelly] How to design a pandemic preparedness and response fund

With over two-thirds of the African continent still unvaccinated against COVID-19, it is clear that the global pandemic preparedness and response, or PPR, regime remains seriously underfunded and lacking in resilient, effective delivery systems. While the World Health Organization’s Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator has helped to address the gross inequity in access to testing, treatments, and vaccines, it lacks the financial backing needed to support low-income countries comprehensive

April 26, 2022

[Michael Den Tandt] For a US-led global order to survive, America must lead by example

For globalization to survive the war in Ukraine, the United States must do better and be better. It is unclear whether the world’s greatest democracy has the wherewithal to manage this. Unfair? It may seem so. US President Joe Biden has done a creditable job of rallying the West to Ukraine’s side as it battles a brutal Russian invasion. By going public early and often with good US intelligence, Biden has kept ahead of clumsy Russian propaganda and disinformation. The feared devastat

April 25, 2022

[Doyle McManus] The cost of China’s harsh ‘zero COVID’ policy

The stories from Shanghai, a city of 25 million entering its fourth week of COVID-19 lockdown, have been harrowing. Millions have been confined to their homes, their movements monitored by pandemic police in white hazmat suits. Almost 300,000 people who’ve tested positive or had contact with someone positive have been forcibly moved to spartan quarantine centers. Videos on social media have shown people fighting over food or screaming for help from their apartment windows: “Save us

April 25, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] The steady greening of Seoul

Preparing for my first visit to South Korea since fall 2019 has been a pleasure. I look forward to meeting friends who I’ve only been able to meet on social media or Zoom. And I look forward to visiting favorite places and exploring new ones. Preparing for a long visit to Korea means looking at maps, lots of them. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I looked at maps efficiently, but this time, I spend a lot of time wandering and clicking around. Following up on things of interest has led to long

April 22, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] South Koreans don’t care much about Ukraine war?

Are South Koreans generally impassive on the war in Ukraine? No way. But when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his video address appealing for South Korean help last week, a small audience turned up at the auditorium of the National Assembly library to reveal an apparent lack of interest among the representatives of this free democratic country in the bloody war started by Russia’s unprovoked invasion. Present were less than 60 members of the 300-seat legislature, who clapped their ha

April 21, 2022

[Martin Schram] A Nobel solution to Putin’s Ukraine horror

Day and night, images that are unwatchable yet unforgettable pour out of the great news funnels all around the planet. The images bring a flood of anguish into the lives of people who cannot bear looking at the horrific slaughter and inhumane cruelty that a superpower is inflicting upon its much smaller neighbor. But these same people also cannot bear looking away. So they watch the blatant and undeniable war crimes that Russia’s military is inflicting upon Ukrainian innocents. They witn

April 20, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Finding our way ‘back to the Republic of Korea’

The inauguration slogan of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration is “Back to the Republic of Korea.” It resonates with the Biden administration’s slogan, “America is back.” Indeed, both slogans suggest, “Back to normal” or “Back to those good old days.” Many people in Korea thought that something was not quite right for the past five years. Among other things, our political leaders seemed to be indifferent or even unaware of what is actually g

April 20, 2022

[Preston Brashers] Every day is tax day

The deadline for filing federal income taxes is later than usual this year. Tax Day has been pushed back to April 18 to avoid coinciding with the District of Columbia’s Emancipation Day holiday. However, Americans don’t just pay taxes one day out of the year. Taxes are a part of our everyday lives, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Many politicians prefer that we don’t notice how much we’re taxed. And, so, taxes are often buried in the cost of products or subtl

April 19, 2022

[Abe Shinzo] US strategic ambiguity over Taiwan must end

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded many people of the fraught relationship between China and Taiwan. But while there are three similarities between the situation in Ukraine and Taiwan, there are also significant differences. The first similarity is that there is a very large military power gap between Taiwan and China, just as there was between Ukraine and Russia. Moreover, that gap is growing larger every year. Second, neither Ukraine nor Taiwan has formal military allies. Both c

April 19, 2022

[Ana Palacio] How to sanction a nuclear foe

The gruesome scenes left behind after Russia’s withdrawal from Bucha, where Ukraine accuses Russian troops of torturing and slaughtering civilians, have intensified pressure on the West to provide more offensive weapons to Ukraine and for Europe to ban Russian energy imports. But beyond the legitimate question of Europe’s willingness to pay such a high price on Ukraine’s behalf lies the stark reality that sanctions are hardly a silver bullet. Calls for sanctions began well bef

April 15, 2022

Tackling pandemic of inequality in Asia and the Pacific

After two years of human devastation, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 while trying to balance the protection of public health and livelihoods. For countries in Asia and the Pacific, this is challenging not only because national coffers are heavily strained by record public spending to mitigate pandemic suffering, but also due to deeper structural economic issues. COVID-19 has exposed a pandemic of inequality in a region which has the world’s most dynamic economies, but also

April 14, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] Chanel jacket, bloated resume -- what else?

When President Kim Dae-jung was in office, he was asked if he had heard a joke about Bill and Hillary Clinton: At a gas station, Hillary recognizes a high school boyfriend and later, Bill smugly says, “See, if you’d married him, you’d be working at a gas station.” Hillary replies, “If I’d married him, he’d be president.” Hearing the joke, President Kim laughed heartily. He apparently understood it was related to his wife, Lee Hee-ho, whom he cher

April 14, 2022

[Nicholas Goldberg] Why I won’t cheer as Germany ends its anti-war experiment

In the first half of the 20th century, Germany was aggressive, expansionist and dangerous. Its legacy includes millions of needless war deaths and the unspeakable crimes of the Nazi regime. After 1945, however, the country changed. Chastened, defeated and shamed, Germany demilitarized at the insistence of the victorious Allies and soon adopted a constitution banning “wars of aggression.” Germans, to their credit, looked in the mirror, wrestled with their dark history and rejected vi

April 14, 2022