[Dr. Joannes Ekaprasetya Tandjung] Let creativity be core of Indonesia-Korea relations

“If there is one thing that unites us, it is our never-ending creativity. The world salutes the power of individuals to remain creative, to put forward our most thought-provoking ideas and turn those ideas into real events and sellable products,” Gandi Sulistiyanto, Indonesia’s ambassador to South Korea, said at the opening of the Korea-Indonesia Cooperation Forum in Jakarta on Nov. 30 last year. Launched by The Korea Herald CEO Choi Jin-young, the Korea-Indonesia Cooperation F

Jan. 16, 2024

[Thitinan Pongsudhirak] Myanmar's military junta is losing power

As autocratic leaders gain influence, if not power, in more countries than proponents of democracy care to count, Myanmar is a remarkable exception: its military junta appears untenable. In fact, Myanmar’s people are putting their lives on the line to break the generals’ grip on power and reclaim their future. After nearly a half-century of military dictatorship, starting in 1962, a decade of political liberalization, economic reform and development progress followed, lasting from 20

Jan. 15, 2024

[Jieun Kiaer] Hangeul should be at the heart of Hallyu

"I want my country to be the most beautiful country in the world. I don't want it to be the richest country. I don't want my country to invade other countries because I've been heartbroken by invasions. I’m satisfied if we have enough wealth to provide for ourselves and enough strength to keep us safe from invasion. Yet one thing that I deeply wish to have is a culture that has lasting legacy and power." ("My Wish" from Kim Ku, 1876-1949) As I start a new

Jan. 15, 2024

[Media Art Now] TZUSOO engenders new cybernetic imagination

When advanced technologies bring about radical changes in society, there is always a collision of utopian and dystopian views. The heated debate last year over generative AI is one example. If you want to learn how to have your own point of view, why not turn to artists of our time, to their “anthropologically” attentive exploration of the contemporary conditions of the world? A group of young, free-spirited Korean artists stands out in this respect. Born digitally and technologica

Jan. 12, 2024

[Robert J. Fouser] A visit to Osaka’s Koreatown

For the first time in years, I spent the holidays in Japan. One of the highlights of my visit was a long afternoon walk through Osaka’s Koreatown. The area has changed dramatically since my first visit in the mid-1990s. As I walked around, I thought about what the many changes mean and about how the area might change in the future. Located near Tsuruhashi Station in south-central Osaka, the Koreatown here had historically been the largest in Japan. An influx of people from South Korea in t

Jan. 12, 2024

[Takatoshi Ito] When will Japan normalize its monetary policy?

Japan has had a difficult year so far. On Jan. 1, as Japanese families gathered to celebrate the new year, a powerful earthquake shook the Noto peninsula, causing buildings to collapse and forcing mass evacuations. More than a week later, the death toll -- already in the dozens -- continues to rise, as road damage, heavy rains, and landslides impede rescuers’ ability to reach affected villages. The next day, a Japan Airlines plane landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport collided on the run

Jan. 11, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] When ‘misreading’ met ‘misleading’

On the earliest days of the new year of 2024, South and North Korean military forces have conducted artillery drills in the West Sea, causing an anxious atmosphere in which residents must evacuate. Notably, there are concerns over the situation since it was right after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made hostile remarks against the South at a plenary session of the Workers' Party late last year. As the South has also made violent remarks against the North, a confrontational structure in wh

Jan. 11, 2024

[Eric Posner] The AI octopus

With long-gestating antitrust cases against Google, Apple and Amazon coming to fruition, many observers think that 2024 could be a turning point for Big Tech. Yet even as authorities press ahead with this litigation, they risk being blindsided by the rise of artificial intelligence, which is likely to reinforce Big Tech’s dominance of the economy. The recent firing and rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was interpreted as a conflict between cautious board members who worried about the risks

Jan. 10, 2024

[Kim Seong-kon] Liberal democracy will be at stake in 2024

Experts have pointed out that the year 2024 will continue to pose major challenges from many quarters, from the far-reaching devastation of climate change to the negative impact of artificial intelligence, including a massive rise in disinformation and fake news. For these and many other reasons, democracy will continue to be at stake worldwide. Indeed, hosts of specialists and scholars have recently warned of a worldwide crisis and decline of democracy in the international community. In 2016, f

Jan. 10, 2024

[Andreas Kluth] America has new Axis of Evil

Since Feb. 24, 2022, and especially since Oct. 7, 2023, a specter has haunted the world and worried President Joe Biden in particular: Will Russia’s war against Ukraine, or Israel’s against Hamas, draw in other belligerents, perhaps even culminating in World War III? Biden has therefore done everything in his power to support Ukraine and Israel while also keeping the US and its Western allies out of direct confrontations with Russia, Hamas’ backers in Iran, and their Chinese

Jan. 9, 2024

[Shang-Jin Wei] How can the world's growth engine do better?

The global economy demonstrated remarkable resilience in 2023, as the United States defied expectations and managed to avoid a recession. India, Vietnam, and Japan also achieved impressive economic performance given the circumstances. But while these countries have good reasons to be optimistic about 2024, China will most likely be the single largest contributor to global GDP growth this year. This may come as a surprise to many, given the wave of increasingly gloomy forecasts for the Chinese

Jan. 9, 2024

[Peter Singer] Killing innocents in Israel and Gaza

Last year, I was invited to join other Princeton University academics in viewing a compilation of raw footage from GoPro cameras carried by Hamas gunmen killing civilians in Israel on Oct. 7. Additional video and audio material came from dashboard cameras, traffic cameras, phone intercepts and victims’ phones. The invitation carried a warning that the footage would show horrific violence and murder. I avoid violent movies, so my instinctive response was to decline the invitation. But as so

Jan. 8, 2024

[Jean Guerrero] How to converse with your MAGA dad

Lately, I avoid conversations with my father because of his passion for lecturing me about politics from a hard-right perspective. It began during COVID lockdowns. Not long ago, he told me he sees Tucker Carlson as a hero. Exasperated, I told him he was idolizing a guy who had mocked his daughter's reporting on national TV. He shook his head as if I were lying or whining, then soliloquized about Carlson's defense of traditional masculinity. "Tucker has balls down to the floor,&quo

Jan. 5, 2024

[Serendipity] Golden Rule

It was a hectic year-end. Flying 13 hours for a family reunion, doing last-minute gift shopping and getting together with extended family for Christmas dinner kept me busy with scarcely any time to think about the coming year, much less the requisite New Year’s resolutions. Coming up with New Year’s resolutions, as perfunctory as they may be, for me is an opportunity to ruminate on how I want to live the next 12 months. Of course, by February, I would come to realize that I had bit

Jan. 4, 2024

[Andreas Kluth] Only patriotism can save the US from nationalism

It’s patriotism when love of your own people comes first; it’s nationalism when hate for people other than your own comes first. That definition comes from Charles de Gaulle, a former national hero and president of France. It’s worth keeping in mind as we enter an election year in the US where these two deceptively similar and yet utterly contrary forces will clash. De Gaulle was onto something subtle but big. Patriotism, when you observe that warm feeling welling up inside of

Jan. 4, 2024

[Karin Klein] Holiday travel darkens climate picture

The jetliner was packed so tight that I couldn’t even work on my laptop. The tray table was too low and the seat in front too far back. The screen on the seat in front was too close for my eyes to focus on a movie. I’ve opened cans of sardines that seemed to have more room. My partner, Rick, and I were among the 7.5 million estimated US air travelers this holiday season, a record number since the American Automobile Association started tracking numbers in 2000. We headed from LAX to

Jan. 4, 2024

[Kim Seong-kon] What we wish for in the Year of the Dragon

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. In classical Western mythology, dragons are hideous monsters to be slain by valiant warriors. Thus, dragon-slaying was an initiation ritual for would-be heroes. For example, Beowulf, Siegfried and Tristan were among the famous dragon slayers of medieval and early modern legends. In classical Chinese mythology, however, a dragon is a pious and auspicious creature that soars into the sky. A python has to wait a thousand years to beco

Jan. 3, 2024

[Noah Feldman] NYT’s edge in suit against OpenAI

The lawsuit filed by the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement pits one of the great establishment media institutions against the purveyor of a transformative new technology. Symbolically, the case promises a clash of the titans: labor-intensive human newsgathering against pushbutton information produced by artificial intelligence. But legally, the case represents something different: a classic instance of the lag between established law and emerging technology.

Jan. 3, 2024

[Jeremy Adelman] What kind of authoritarian would Trump be?

Following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election in 2016, many pundits predicted a worldwide breakdown of democracy, and some warned of civil war. But, aside from Africa’s Sahel region, military coups remain rare, and civil wars rarer still. Instead, democracies have tended to break down through civilian coups. Such coups have been of three types in the post-Cold War era. Two have attracted much media attention; the one that should worry us the most, especially give

Jan. 2, 2024

[Robert Fouser] Improving housing quality in Seoul

City rankings often produce strange results. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s high ranking for Osaka, Japan in recent years has always struck me as odd. The group produces the “Global Liveability Ranking” report for cities around the world. The 2023 report examined 172 cities around the world using more than 30 quantitative and qualitative indicators. Among Asian cities, Osaka was tied for 10th place with Auckland, New Zealand. The most liveable city ranked as Vienna, Austria,

Dec. 29, 2023