The Korea Herald

[Bill Emmott] Xi’s strong hand against Trump

The world will soon witness a historic test of wills between China and the United States, two superpowers whose leaders see themselves as supreme. In the immediate sense, it will be a battle over trade. But also at stake is the strategic leadership of East Asia and, eventually, the international order. As things stand, China holds a stronger position than many people realize. The question is whether Chinese President Xi Jinping will feel confident or brazen enough to want to prove it.The test of

April 13, 2018

[Bill Emmott] Xi’s strong hand against Trump

[Christopher Balding] China is nationalizing its tech sector

As Bloomberg News reported this week, a key stumbling block in trade negotiations between China and the US has been Beijing’s extensive support for its technology firms. But if President Donald Trump’s administration thinks that will change any time soon, it hasn’t been paying attention: Far from reducing support for the tech sector, China is on the verge of nationalizing it.　By many measures, China’s tech companies seem unstoppable. Private equity and venture capital investment grew from $14 bi

April 13, 2018

[David Ignatius] The internet has a bigger problem than the Facebook fiasco

A word of advice for Congress as it ponders new schemes for internet regulation after the “perp walk” this week of Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg: Don’t do it. Zuckerberg is a very tempting target. His serial apologies show how Facebook became so entangled in its corporate mission to “bring the world closer together” that it stopped putting the customer first. Facebook is paying for its mistakes in loss of customer trust -- its main asset -- and this market punishment has only just begun. It’s

April 12, 2018

[David Ignatius] The internet has a bigger problem than the Facebook fiasco

[Joe Nocera] US was winning war against China’s intellectual property theft

Twelve years ago, the Chinese put my brother-in-law, Frank Williams, out of business. Frank was one of the last costume jewelry designers in Providence, Rhode Island, a city where costume jewelry had once been a major industry. His small company, which he’d owned since 1978, had been profitable for its first 20 years. But in the late 1990s, the profits began to dry up.　Frank soon realized what was happening: Customers who had once bought large orders were buying small orders, and sending every n

April 12, 2018

[Joe Nocera] US was winning war against China’s intellectual property theft

[Noah Feldman] Bolton, pugilist from the right, takes a new position

Here’s a prediction that is sure to annoy everyone: Now that he’s national security adviser, John Bolton will become more moderate.　Some extremists moderate when they take public office because of bureaucratic pushback from the middle. That’s not what I expect for Bolton. He’s made a career of fighting the bureaucracy from the right.　I predict Bolton will moderate for the opposite reason: In this stage of President Donald Trump’s administration, there’s almost no one left to push back at Bolton

April 12, 2018

[Zaher Sahloul] Syria is normalizing the use of chemical weapons

The scenes have become strangely familiar by now.　The latest videos and pictures, streaming since Saturday from war-torn Syria, show the dead bodies of children and women, crowded in basements and littering the stairs of shelters. White foam covers their mouths and noses. They look asleep, but they are dead. There are no external wounds to explain why they are dead, a hallmark of exposure to chemical agents.　Another suspected chemical attack has occurred in Syria. Bushra is a medical student who

April 12, 2018

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Trump’s trade war pushes Europe toward China

The trade fight between the US and China is posing a dilemma to the European Union: Should the world’s largest trading bloc pick a side? And, if so, which one?　In theory, the US is the more natural ally for Europe: The two have cooperated closely since the end of World War II. And yet, Donald Trump’s slipshod approach to trade diplomacy risks pushing the EU into the arms of China. The EU’s main strategic interest in this fight is to ensure that the multilateral trading framework -- including the

April 12, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Choosing war on past instead of tolerance

While watching the live TV broadcast of the Seoul District Court’s sentencing on Park Geun-hye last Friday afternoon, people must have had several different images of the disgraced former president passing through their depressed minds.The defendant’s seat was empty, as Park has boycotted her hearings since October last year. Filling the space in the courtroom between the two state-appointed defense lawyers, in my screen of imagination, was Park taking the oath of office at the pinnacle of her c

April 11, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Choosing war on past instead of tolerance

[John Morgan Wilson] Put your phone down and drive

Like many pedestrians, I’ve learned to treat Los Angeles streets as an obstacle course of distracted drivers. Rule No. 1: Make sure a vehicle is stopped or braking before stepping off the curb. But even that didn’t save me at a corner near my West Hollywood home.The approaching car was on my right, slowing for the stop sign ahead. I started across, but midway I realized the driver’s attention had drifted and her car was regaining speed, veering my way. It was too late to dodge it, so I threw mys

April 11, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Europe must learn to work with its autocrats

The landslide victory of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in Sunday’s election in Hungary may have disappointed European liberals -- but it drives home an important truth: The limits of the acceptable on the right flank of European politics are moving further to the right.　Orban has often been described as Europe’s black sheep, an outsider challenging European values, setting a bad example for others, and emboldening parties of the far-right fringe in Western Europe. Indeed, French nat

April 11, 2018

[Kim Ji-hyun] System fails erring human

The latest rumor in the mill that is corporate Korea is that the employee who recently made the fatal mistake of entering the wrong order for Samsung Securities in what has become a multibillion-won loss case is on the brink of suicide. It’s hard not to feel sorry for whoever the person is, given how devastating it must be to see just how much damage he or she has caused. Samsung is doing all it can to prevent his or her identity from slipping through the highly wired cracks of Korea, but it see

April 11, 2018

[Elizabeth Cline] Still no brakes on fast fashion

Fast fashion giant H&M has lost its luster. Its stock price dropped more than 40 percent in the last six months. It will close 170 stores this year, more than it has in two decades. It suffered a string of public relations missteps, including launching an ad campaign viewed as racist and getting caught incinerating tons of leftover goods. Then last week news broke that the company is sitting on a staggering $4.3 billion in unsold apparel.　The internet is flooded with schadenfreude over H&M’s woe

April 11, 2018

[Robert J. Fouser] Revisiting multicultural policies

The year 2008 is remembered most around the world for the financial crisis that brought on the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. In South Korea, 2008 is remembered as the first year of recently jailed Lee Myung-bak’s presidency. In spring, only months after his inauguration, massive demonstrations against the resumption of US beef imports caused Lee’s popularity to dip. In fall, the spreading financial crisis raised the specter of another 1997-style collapse, but Lee moved quickly, and Ko

April 10, 2018

[Robert J. Fouser] Revisiting multicultural policies

[Kim Seong-kon] The courage to make apologies -- and accept them

These days, apologies seem to have become a controversial issue in Korea. When a scandal breaks out, we immediately demand that the person involved apologize. Some people apologize instantly, but others refuse. Either way, we do not forgive. When someone apologizes, we seldom accept the apology. We complain that the apology is not sincere enough. If the person refuses to apologize, we condemn him or her as an insolent, brazen creature. In fact, apologizing for something in Korean society is alwa

April 10, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] The courage to make apologies -- and accept them

[Eli Lake] Expect Trump to strike Syrian forces again

If the past is a prelude, we should expect a US strike sometime soon against Syrian airfields.　A little more than a year ago, Syrian forces gassed rebels. The grotesque crime earned a condemnation tweet from President Donald Trump. And on April 7, 2017, the president ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles to the Shayrat Airfield, the base from which the attack had been launched. He told his Chinese counterpart about it over chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago.　Over the weekend it looked like history repeating. T

April 10, 2018

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Trump’s trade confusion about multilateral trade

The trade skirmish between the United States and China on steel, aluminum and other goods is a product of US President Donald Trump’s scorn for multilateral trade arrangements and the World Trade Organization.Before announcing import tariffs on more than 1,300 types of Chinese-made goods worth around $60 billion per year, in early March, Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, which he justified on the basis of national security. Trump insists that a ta

April 10, 2018

[Gerald Kamens] The citizenship question

Over two decades ago, I relentlessly pursued a few score folks, who -- for reasons of forgetfulness, fear, apathy, orneriness, principle or a combination thereof -- had neglected or deliberately refused to fill in the decennial census questionnaire previously mailed to them.　It was a “temporary enumerator” summer job, paying $15.25 an hour, and, more to the point for this contracted government retiree, offering a chance to get out of my comfort zone.　Most of the people I tracked down were foreig

April 10, 2018

[Timothy L. O’Brien] Reality meets reality TV in Oval Office

The Trump Era began when the future president descended into Trump Tower’s lobby on June 16, 2015, aboard an escalator. He launched his campaign there with a speech in which he promised to build a “great, great wall on our southern border.”　Trump has clung to that idea ever since. On Wednesday he vowed to send the National Guard to the southern border to patrol the area until the wall is built.　Trump also vowed in that 2015 speech that “nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump,” referri

April 9, 2018

[Stephen Roach] US needs China more than China needs US

Not one to be outdone by any adversary, Donald Trump has upped the ante in a rapidly escalating trade war with China, threatening an additional $100 billion of tariffs on top of the initial round of $50 billion. In doing so, the Trump administration is failing to appreciate a crucial reality: The United States needs China more than China needs the US.　Yes, China is still an export-led economy, and the American consumer is its largest customer. But China’s export share of its gross domestic produ

April 9, 2018

[Stephen Roach] US needs China more than China needs US

[Cass R. Sunstein] Bad nudge from California

Should coffee come with a cancer warning?　As a matter of policy, the answer seems obvious: Of course not. As a matter of law, it’s much more complicated, at least in California. A tentative judicial ruling in Los Angeles County last week suggests that when people go to the local coffee place, their morning ritual is going to be accompanied by a jolt of fear.　It could potentially turn into a fiasco, I think, and it tells us something important about how well-intentioned laws can go badly wrong.　T

April 9, 2018