The Korea Herald

[Andrew Sheng] A chaotic transition from unipolar to multipolar world

Anyone who enjoyed a tremendous World Cup tournament in Russia and Wimbledon tennis last weekend could not have been disappointed by Trump’s stunning journey east to call on NATO, President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and England’s Queen Elizabeth.The moment the leader of the largest of the Western powers called Europe a foe and seemed to prefer Russia to his NATO allies and his own staff has to be a historical turning point in America’s 100 years of foreign policy as the world’s unipolar leader.

July 25, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] A chaotic transition from unipolar to multipolar world

[Leonid Bershidsky] Iran faces consequences of snubbing Trump

Trump’s latest tweet telling Iran it would suffer “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before” is an almost-verbatim rehash of his August 2017 threat to North Korea; then, Trump promised “fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” It’s about as serious this time around, but there’s more bad blood behind Trump’s deployment of all caps against Iran.　Trump’s tweet is a response to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s speec

July 25, 2018

[Shannon O’Neil] Latin America looks past US on trade

This weekend a beleaguered Argentina hosted the G-20 finance ministers to work out the agenda for their leaders’ December conclave in Buenos Aires. While officially focused on infrastructure and the future of work, these more technical discussions were overshadowed by US tariff threats and President Donald Trump’s belligerence toward allies and the World Trade Organization.　The US attack on the global trading system comes as Latin America is finally embracing free trade. In a resurgence of marke

July 25, 2018

[Noah Smith] The poor don’t deserve toxic waste dumps in backyards

The American left has a lot on its plate -- universal health care, climate change, stagnant wages, wealth inequality and more. But there’s one more issue that needs to be added to the list: environmental justice. Poor Americans, especially minorities, are exposed to too many toxins and environmental hazards, destroying their health and harming their opportunities for advancement.　One of the worst hazards is lead. There is now good evidence that banning leaded gasoline contributed to significant

July 25, 2018

[John M. Crisp] Only Republicans can rescue our republic

The “Impeach Trump” bandwagon got underway as soon as he was elected, but I’ve never climbed on board.　His election surprised us. Donald Trump did not talk or act like a traditional president. In fact, a significant part of Trump’s appeal to his supporters was just how unlike a president he could be during the campaign. Many Americans wanted a president who would “shake things up,” and their wish has been granted.　And even though the election was much closer than Trump likes to imagine, the will

July 25, 2018

[John M. Crisp] Only Republicans can rescue our republic

[Ann Friedman] Kylie Jenner didn’t build that

When Forbes put Kylie Jenner on the cover of its latest issue and declared her one of the “60 richest self-made women,” the magazine seemed to think it was telling a simple, inspiring tale: About how the youngest child of America’s reality TV royal family, the Kardashians, became an almost-billionaire cosmetics mogul before the age of 21. But the meaning of the story was in the politics of the beholder.　There are two basic ways to read the cover. The first is that there are more bootstrapping en

July 24, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Cool men are hard to find in today’s Korea

In Korean society, women often complain about the scarcity of cool guys. They say many Korean men are hot-tempered, get emotional easily or are prone to anger. Among other complaints, when a girlfriend wants to break up, some Korean men do not let go easily. In O. Henry’s short stories, we can find some admirable guys whom Korean men should benchmark. For example, Jimmy Valentine in “A Retrieved Reformation” is arguably one of the coolest guys in literature. Valentine is a famous safecracker who

July 24, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Cool men are hard to find in today’s Korea

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Donald Trump is pushing Europe into Asia’s embrace

With friends like these, it’s wise to look around for some new ones.　Donald Trump has called the EU a “foe” and advised British Prime Minister Theresa May to sue the rest of the bloc over Brexit. The US president has already levied tariffs on European steel, and is threatening to do the same on lots of other products, including cars. So it’s hardly a surprise that Europe’s leaders are turning eastward in search of new allies.　Last week, the EU signed a landmark trade deal with Japan, known as JE

July 24, 2018

[Francis Wilkinson] The accused Russian agent as Trump Republican

Here are some things we know about Maria Butina. She is a 29-year-old white woman with an enthusiasm for guns who has attended multiple National Rifle Association events, socialized with NRA leaders and repeated NRA talking points.She attended Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015 announcement seeking the Republican nomination for president, and later supported Republican Donald Trump for president. She attended the National Prayer Breakfast, a Republican gathering place, in Washington this year.　B

July 24, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] To make peace, declaring the war is over is an important first step

“We declare that the war is finally over and that interested parties will seek to establish a peace regime on the peninsula” or something along the line will be the gist of an official ‘declaration’ to terminate the Korean War. As encapsulated in the title, it is just a declaration -- a political, diplomatic statement without binding legal effect. Even if adopted, it itself does not change the present Armistice Agreement. So, it is an easy target. At least so it seemed. After the sluggish meetin

July 24, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] To make peace, declaring the war is over is an important first step

[Trudy Rubin] Trump’s homage to Putin at Helsinki proves him unfit to make foreign policy

President Donald Trump’s shameful surrender to Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki summit revealed a threat to US security far greater than Russia’s hack of the 2016 election: The president himself.　The situation is far more dangerous, and the threat is more urgent than most Americans realize. The president’s shameful performance at Helsinki provided all necessary warning.　In recent days, Trump has openly embraced Putin’s worldview: disdain for NATO, disdain for US intelligence agencies, disdain for

July 23, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Trump’s homage to Putin at Helsinki proves him unfit to make foreign policy

[Michael Schuman] Xi needs a Confucian foreign policy

China has suffered a series of diplomatic blows lately. Relations with the US are at a multi-decade low as a trade war escalates. This month, Malaysia suspended four Chinese-backed projects as its prime minister tries to pull away from Beijing’s orbit. From Myanmar to Sri Lanka to Vietnam, China’s overseas investments are being met with a growing backlash.　These are all setbacks to President Xi Jinping’s hopes for global greatness. Despite his aspirations to play the responsible world statesman,

July 23, 2018

[Michael Schuman] Xi needs a Confucian foreign policy

[Eri Zorn] A 150-year-old human? Neither side is folding in The Great Longevity Wager

It’s possible that someone reading this column now, in July 2018, will be alive to see the resolution of a $1 billion bet between Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of public health, and Steven Austad, chairman of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.　Eighteen years ago, the two friends began their discussion on an issue that long has intrigued scientists and laymen alike: What is the limit of the human life span? Given that advances in medicine and nutrit

July 23, 2018

[Jonathan Bernstein] Trumponomics is all about the short run

It’s hardly a surprise that Donald Trump broke with longstanding presidential practice and publicly criticized the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates.　Trump told CNBC on Thursday that he was “not thrilled” with signals from the Fed that it planned to raise interest rates. “I don’t like all of this work that we’re putting into the economy and then I see rates going up,” he said. The White House issued a statement saying the president “respects the independence of the Fed,” but he seemed t

July 23, 2018

[Andy Mukherjee] Manila’s disaster backup rises in iCloud City

Monsoon rains battered down on Manila this week as a tropical storm -- the ninth this year -- howled nearby. Schools, courts and the senate were shut for two days; roads were flooded; public transport was affected. 　It could have been worse.　That the Philippine capital is one big ocean wave away from disaster isn’t news to climate scientists or economists. After analyzing 393 cyclone-vulnerable coastal cities in 31 countries, World Bank economists have concluded that 40 percent of the burden of

July 23, 2018

[Kent Harrington] Trump in denial about North Korea

No one yet knows what deals US President Donald Trump may have struck with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their private two-hour meeting in Helsinki. But it is already clear that Trump’s self-congratulations for striking a deal to “denuclearize” the Korean Peninsula during his Singapore summit with Kim Jong-un are ringing hollow. In addition to backsliding in its working-level negotiations with the United States, the Kim regime has continued to solidify its position as a nuclear-weapons

July 22, 2018

[Kent Harrington] Trump in denial about North Korea

[Noah Smith] China invents different way to run economy

In the US and other developed countries, there are three basic philosophies of macroeconomic stabilization. Each of them was present in some form during the Great Depression, and each survives to this day.　The first is Keynesianism, which centers on fiscal stimulus, mainly in the form of increased government spending. The second is monetarism, which holds that getting economies out of recession is the job of the central bank, which can lower interest rates, engage in quantitative easing or ease

July 22, 2018

[David Fickling] Burning brimstone promises fresh hell for coal

For all the disruptions ricocheting through the global oil market as its traditional sulfur dumping grounds of marine bunker fuel and Indian petcoke clean up their act, there’s a darker cloud of pollution billowing on the horizon.　Just 30 percent of global industrial sulfur dioxide emissions come from petroleum. The biggest share, at around 50 percent, comes from burning coal -- and there, too, new regulations are set to disrupt markets.　South Korea this month adopted rules forcing generators to

July 22, 2018

[David Fickling] Burning brimstone promises fresh hell for coal

[Justin Fendos] Changing Korean culture

No country’s culture is static. Many, even some scholars in the field, often make the mistake of referring to culture as if it were some monolithic constant that persists from one generation to the next. Nothing could be further from the truth. Take, for example, the culture of young Korean adults.Joseon-era Korean culture was characterized by Confucian ideals: most notably, the emphasis on family. Filial piety and the willingness to sacrifice for one’s family were considered great virtues. Even

July 22, 2018

[Ann McFeatters] Time for Trump supporters to stop supporting him

At least we know Donald Trump is not a Manchurian candidate. His proclivities for US enemies are exuberantly open, naively uninformed and boldly anti-American.　Trump is, as conservative columnist George Will wrote after the jaw-dropping Vladimir Putin-victory-in-Helsinki summit, “this sad, embarrassing wreck of a man.”　And that was before Trump tried to “walk back” his insistence that he believed Putin’s denial of interference in US elections over the unanimous finding by 17 American intelligenc

July 22, 2018