The Korea Herald

[Kim Young-sun] Korea’s ‘Look South Policy’

Two weeks after his inauguration, President Moon Jae-in unprecedentedly sent a special envoy to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He also announced that his government would bring its relations with ASEAN up to the level of the four major powers -- the US, China, Japan and Russia. While such efforts are on the rise, we may still ask, what is exactly the Korean government’s vision and strategy toward ASEAN?　Pursuing mutual and sustainable prosperity, increasing people-to-people exchange

Aug. 31, 2017

[Kim Young-sun] Korea’s ‘Look South Policy’

[Mihir Sharma] India and China dial back heat

As summer reached the high Himalayas this past June, one corner of the mountains turned hotter than expected. On a small plateau called Doklam, close to where the India-China border meets the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, two of the largest armies in the world faced off against each other. Chinese soldiers, convinced they were on Chinese territory, had brought equipment to extend a road; Indian soldiers, who viewed the land as disputed, blocked the earth movers. For three months, the armies camped jus

Aug. 30, 2017

[Mihir Sharma] India and China dial back heat

[Noah Feldman] Police have to protect both people and free speech

When black-clad anti-fascist protesters broke through police barricades Sunday afternoon and swarmed a peaceful rally in Berkeley, California, law enforcement stood aside and let them. City police Chief Andrew Greenwood explained the decision with a rhetorical question: “Does it make sense,” he asked, “to get into a major use of force over a grassy area?”With all due deference to police expertise, things are not that simple. Violent protesters who cross barriers and disrupt peaceful protest are

Aug. 30, 2017

[Kim Myong-sik] Ask for sweat, blood instead of handing out sweets

The wet, sultry summer is finally over and above us are high, blue skies filled with cool, crisp air. Salaried workers are looking forward to a long Chuseok holiday, which could be the longest ever if the seemingly most generous government ever inserts a onetime holiday into the October calendar. That gift is expected for the first Monday of the month, which will link the previous weekend to the Oct. 3 National Foundation Day and the official three-day Korean Thanksgiving holiday to then be exte

Aug. 30, 2017

[Kim Myong-sik] Ask for sweat, blood instead of handing out sweets

[Dan K. Thomasson] Trump fails to cut losses in Afghanistan while succumbing to military persuasion

Just as actor Tom Hanks said “there’s no crying in baseball” in “A League of Their Own,” there’s also no victory in Afghanistan. It’s a zero-sum game.Somehow, I think Donald Trump understands this despite his announced decision that he isn’t ready to give up on the longest war in US history -- a decision that will require additional troops and estimates of financial outlay of more than $800 billion on top of the $1 trillion already spent as a direct and indirect result of 17 years of US presence

Aug. 30, 2017

[Christine Flowers] The shameful pardon of man who was ugly face of law enforcement

I spent some hours this week trying to prevent a deportation. I wasn’t successful. It happens, the law must be followed and sometimes the clock runs out. I get it, and I have mental calluses.The immigration officer I dealt with in Philadelphia was a truly decent man. He tried, while following the law, to be compassionate and dispassionate at the same time. He did his job, but showed immense respect to the poor fellow who is now a continent away.There are very good, professional men and women on

Aug. 30, 2017

[Robert J. Fouser] Trump could still win re-election

Under President Donald Trump, politics in the US takes odd turns almost daily. In his need to control the political narrative, the president makes contradictory tweets and statements that keep politicians off balance. One day, he appears disciplined and “presidential”; the next day he appears petty and impulsive. Nobody knows what is doing or what he will do, which is creating a spreading sense of unease about his presidency.The recent barrage of tweets attacking Republican leaders in Congress,

Aug. 29, 2017

[Robert J. Fouser] Trump could still win re-election

[Mac Margolis] Brazilian politicians dance around reform

“Two steps here, two steps there”: When storied singer Elis Regina purrs the honeyed Brazilian bolero, lovers tingle. When deft politicians take up their familiar two-step, voters know that democracy is in for a hit. So it has been in recent weeks as national lawmakers have finally begun to overhaul Brazil’s discredited political system.It’s about time. With 35 registered political parties -- 28 of them with seats in congress -- Brazil is home to one of the most convoluted and politically fragme

Aug. 29, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] What we can learn from ‘Mockingjay’

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy is a powerful criticism of contemporary society that is seriously plagued by hate and divided by ideological differences. “Mockingjay,” the last installment of the trilogy, especially illustrates many compelling issues regarding the process of democratization and revolution.In “Mockingjay,” during the uprising of the rebel force against the Capitol, an aircraft bearing Capitol markings drops parcels into the crowd. People shout for joy, assuming the parc

Aug. 29, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] What we can learn from ‘Mockingjay’

[Noah Smith] How Wall Street gets rich off savers

To borrow a joke from the movie “Shrek,” money management is like a parfait -- it has a lot of layers. There’s the person who recommends investments for you -- a financial adviser, a wealth manager, a pension-fund manager or a private banker. Then there are the managers of the funds they invest in, or which you invest in on their recommendation. Finally, there are brokers, dealers, exchanges and other intermediaries that handle the actual trading of the assets the fund managers buy. Each layer t

Aug. 29, 2017

[Barry Ritholtz] How to deal with a $759 million lottery jackpot

On Wednesday night, Mavis Wanczyk, a resident of Chicopee, Massachusetts, won the $759 million Powerball jackpot. Her first act was to call in to work to say she wouldn’t be coming in the next day. Or ever again.Before she starts celebrating beating those 292.2 million-to-1 odds, there are a few things Wanczyk needs to consider about her good fortune. If she learns these lessons quickly, then she and her heirs will be much happier and more satisfied with their lives.Lottery winnings are not what

Aug. 29, 2017

[Walter Shapiro] Echoes of Vietnam in Trump’s Afghan about-face

Donald Trump is the seventh president since the end of World War II who on taking office inherited his predecessor’s war or the planning for one. And like most of these American presidents, Trump decided that the most important strategic consideration was not to publicly lose a war on his watch.No president wants to replicate the experience of Jerry Ford watching images of the last desperate helicopters taking off from the American Embassy in Saigon as North Vietnamese troops battered down the g

Aug. 28, 2017

[Walter Shapiro] Echoes of Vietnam in Trump’s Afghan about-face

[Alan Garfield] Why does US allow hate speech?

Why does the US allow white supremacists to spew their bile? Why not arrest them for their hate speech? Why not lock them up before another person is poisoned by their ideas?Those are fair questions. Indeed, similar reasoning has prompted many liberal democracies to outlaw hate speech.So why, then, do we permit hate speech?It’s too simplistic to say that the First Amendment forbids us to punish hate speech. Yes, it’s true that the amendment says that “no law” shall abridge the freedom of speech.

Aug. 28, 2017

[Daniel Moss] US can live up to ideals that draw immigrants

For all the angst about America falling behind China, Dallas Fed Chairman Robert Kaplan offers a powerful and timely reminder of an American competitive advantage. One of the biggest things the US has going for it is immigration. Try making a case for that in, say, China or Japan, and you will quickly run into a brick wall. Japan’s demographic challenges have been well documented. And far from being a bottomless pool of cheap labor, China’s workforce is starting to shrink -- and become more expe

Aug. 28, 2017

[Nathaniel Bullard, Miho Kurosaki] Japan’s power players are multiplying

For decades in Japan, the world’s fourth-largest electricity market, just 10 utilities met the country’s power demand. Today these “vertically integrated regional utilities” -- each one owns its own construction firms and even equipment manufacturers -- face significant and growing competition.A bit of context: Power demand from Japan’s 10 big utilities peaked a decade ago, as it did in the US and many other developed markets. Today’s demand is down 15 percent from 2007.Part of that decline is d

Aug. 28, 2017

[Francis Wilkinson] What France knows about Robert E. Lee

Symbolic struggles over the Confederacy are uniquely American. But fierce battles over public spaces and monuments, and the values they elevate and enshrine, are not.“The French have their own versions of these battles,” said Peter Brooks, a professor of literature who has taught at Yale and Princeton. In such battles for cultural and political supremacy, history is a weapon. And in France, there is plenty of history to fight over.Like the American chasm opened between the Confederacy and the eg

Aug. 28, 2017

[Francis Wilkinson] What France knows about Robert E. Lee

[Tom Orlik] China’s future, reshaped by robots

Speak to China experts these days and you typically get one of two contrasting views on its outlook. The prevailing wisdom is that an unreformed state industrial sector and rising debt mean it is on an unsustainable path, with a financial crisis on the not too distant horizon. The optimists acknowledge that debt is too high, but hold out hope that a growing services sector will fuel stronger consumption, reducing the need for credit-fueled investment and putting the economy on a sustainable path

Aug. 27, 2017

[Tom Orlik] China’s future, reshaped by robots

[The Baltimore Sun] A little scary, a lot misleading

Former National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. may have put it best when — appearing on CNN after Donald Trump’s dyspeptic, disjointed, disgraceful pep rally Tuesday evening at the Phoenix Convention Center — he questioned the president’s fitness for office and whether he’s “looking for a way out.” What if, Clapper wondered in his most sobering assessment, a president capable of such a “downright scary and disturbing” performance before cheering supporters decides to use nuclear weap

Aug. 27, 2017

[Noah Smith] Economics has a sexism problem

This past weekend, the economics world was roiled by a controversy over sexism in the profession. A new paper by an undergraduate econ major revealed that an anonymous online forum called Economics Job Market Rumors is a hostile environment for women.The paper, by Alice Wu of the University of California-Berkeley, was a clever one. First it used text mining to identify which forum posts talked about women and which talked about men. Then, using cutting-edge statistical techniques, it found which

Aug. 27, 2017

[Peter Singer] Is violence the way to fight racism?

Should rallies by neo-Nazis and white supremacists be met with violence?That question was raised by the tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12. White supremacists held a rally to protest the planned removal from a public park of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Confederate army during the Civil War. A counterprotest was organized, and street fighting broke out. A woman, Heather Heyer, was killed and 19 people injured when James Fields, a white nationalist, drove his c

Aug. 27, 2017

[Peter Singer] Is violence the way to fight racism?