[Kim Myong-sik] China remains Third World in South Korean minds

  The 2022 Winter Olympics are underway in Beijing, among the nation’s closest foreign capitals at just some 950 kilometers from Seoul, four years after South Korea hosted the PyeongChang Games in Gangwon Province. Sixty-four Korean athletes are competing on snow and ice with the modest goal of ranking 15th or 16th in the medal standing. Famous movie director Zhang Yimou used a lot of his genius and high technology to add a landmark in the ongoing rise of China, but the opening cere

Feb. 10, 2022

[Peter Singer] Is it time for plant liberation?

“Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence. Eat meat.” These words, written last month by an Edinburgh butcher on a blackboard outside his shop and shared on a vegan Facebook group, led to a heated online discussion. Some condemned the butcher for seeking to blur an important line between beings capable of suffering and those that are not. Others took it as a joke, as the butcher said he had intended it. But jokes can make serious poin

Feb. 9, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Understanding South Korea’s Generation MZ

Lately, the foreign press has featured some intriguing articles on South Korea’s “Generation MZ,” a term that encompasses millennials and Generation Z, or roughly those born from the 1980s into the 2010s. For example, Bloomberg reported on young people in Korea in their 20s and 30s standing in a long line at 5 a.m. to buy famous brands at a department store. The New York Times, too, in an article called “The New Political Cry in South Korea: ‘Out With Men Haters,&rs

Feb. 9, 2022

[Peter Jensen] How to save democracy - elect fewer jerks

Having recently completed my 40th year as a card-carrying journalist, I feel compelled to share the one small nugget of wisdom I have gleaned from all those misspent hours hanging out with mayors, governors, legislators and other ne’er-do-wells of elected office. They are not all the same. This will shock some of you, I know, but like other human beings, they range from truly nice people to miserable jerks. This is not a matter of political viewpoint, age or gender. Awful people come in al

Feb. 8, 2022

[Slawomir Sierakowski] The view from Kyiv

For international observers, Russian President Vladimir Putin either will start a new war in Ukraine or he will not. But for Ukrainians, the war started when Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, and it has continued ever since. Thousands of Ukrainians already have experienced armed struggle against Russian forces. That is why politicians in Kyiv are not preoccupied with guessing what Putin will do next; they are focused on what they must do today. The Ukrainian mindset reflects a sober assessment of t

Feb. 7, 2022

[Mark Buchanan] How to win global warming lawsuits

The fight against global warming is rapidly moving into the courtrooms. In the past few years, in landmark cases in the Netherlands, Germany and France, courts have agreed that state and corporate entities have a duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and demanded they adopt more aggressive policies. A Dutch court, for example, ordered the government to reduce emissions to 25 percent below 1990s levels, forcing it to go beyond its proposed goal of 17 percent. These rulings mark an encouraging

Feb. 4, 2022

[Jean Pisani-Ferry] European inflation is not American inflation

Eurozone consumer prices increased by 5 percent year on year in December, while the number of Google searches for “inflation” has recently risen threefold in Germany and tenfold in France. So, at first glance, it is difficult to avoid the impression that Europe -- like the United States, where annual price growth has hit 7 percent -- will have a tough time taming the inflation dragon. Having dismissed concerns about rising prices for too long on the grounds that the main risk was de

Feb. 3, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] Anguish of defectors continues unattended

From time to time, we hear about North Korean defectors. Then they quickly recede from the public conscience, as if their plight has been fully understood and cared for. But is it? A young North Korean defector recently risked his life to return to a poor, authoritarian environment 14 months after he crossed the border in the reverse direction. How horrible was trying to adjust to the South that the North looked like a better place? News of the “double defection” overlapped with a

Feb. 3, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] The 386 Generation’s first president

The presidential election is coming up fast. The leading candidates, Lee Jae-myung and Yoon Suk-yeol, are locked in a close race as each candidate looks for a breakthrough to gain a decisive advantage. Third-placed Ahn Cheol-soo has seen a slight uptick in support, but he may have peaked as conservative voters shift back to Yoon. Regardless of who wins, the election marks an important generational change in South Korean politics. The top three candidates in polls are all members of the 386 Gene

Jan. 28, 2022

[Jonathan Bernstein] Don’t panic, Joe Biden. Be like Reagan

The New York Times reports that US President Joe Biden “will retreat from the tangle of day-to-day negotiations with members of his own party that have made him seem powerless to advance key priorities, according to senior White House advisers. The change is part of an intentional reset in how he spends his time, aimed at emphasizing his power to govern as president, rather than getting trapped in a series of congressional battles.” With any luck, it’s just harmless spin. Pres

Jan. 27, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] Outlook for March election is getting clearer

Politicians make speeches far more than ordinary people do, even more than salespeople, perhaps. They speak of the policies they are pushing for the interests of the people, present their opinions about domestic and international issues, and expose their own personal matters or their political opponents’. In particular, they are capable of mixing truths with half-truths and outright lies when necessary for achieving their goals. During election campaigns, they try their best to collect vo

Jan. 27, 2022

[Martin Schram] A tale of presidential press conference secrets

It had been months since the president’s last East Room press conference. And his team’s best and brightest understood that, just like sports stars, all-star political communicators can get rusty riding the bench, away from the game’s give-and-take. This time they were determined to leave nothing to chance. Their president was sitting in the center of the Cabinet Room, awaiting his advisers’ tough rehearsal questions. They realized his last full-fledged press conference

Jan. 26, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘The Lost Generation’ in the electronic era

Back when I lived in the US pursuing an advanced degree in the 1970s, Americans frequently exchanged a salutary “Hi!” or “Hello!” when they passed by on the street, even if they were total strangers. Even today, when a baby wakes up in the morning, American parents teach the baby how to greet, by saying “Hi!” with a bright smile. Surely, such warm and friendly greetings, among other things, made Americans among the friendliest people in the world. However, t

Jan. 26, 2022

[Sławomir Sierakowski] Has Biden already surrendered Ukraine?

After a long, mysterious silence, US President Joe Biden has spoken out about the ever-increasing concentration of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border. He would have been better off keeping quiet, given his astonishing and dangerous message. NATO officials -- and his own aides -- have had to scramble to redefine the meaning of his words. When asked at a press conference if he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin would attack Ukraine again, Biden said, “My guess is he will move in

Jan. 25, 2022

[Dhondup T. Rekjong] Why is Dalai Lama quiet on China?

At 86, the Dalai Lama is beloved around the globe for his promotion of world peace, religious harmony and the need for climate action. But while the Western world protests China’s human rights abuses, the Dalai Lama is eerily quiet. The spiritual leader of Tibet remains hopeful for a better future for Tibet with China. When the Dalai Lama was asked about the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping during a November talk organized by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, he s

Jan. 25, 2022

[Lee In-hyun] A symphony for the New Year from the New World

The “New World Symphony” by Dvorak has been performed at the most New Year’s concert series around the world. I think this is why. When I was studying in the United States, I often felt lonely and missed my family and friends who were in South Korea. Whenever I encountered any issues or problems, I had to solve them on my own. Since I was a graduate student, I had to prepare to face the real world. I applied for many auditions and college-level teaching jobs. Despite applying

Jan. 24, 2022

[Frantisek Vrabel] How Facebook became the opium of the masses

In the war on disinformation, the enemy can be hard to determine. Journalists, politicians, governments, and even grandparents have been accused of enabling the spread of online falsehoods. While none of these groups is entirely innocent, the real adversary is more mundane. As Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified late last year, social media’s own algorithms are what makes disinformation accessible. Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has grown from a students’ social net

Jan. 24, 2022

[Elizabeth Shackelford] To fight global corruption, US must address its role in it too

President Joe Biden has declared fighting corruption a core national security interest, and last month, the White House released a strategy to combat corruption globally. These are welcome moves, but to effectively impede corruption around the world, America needs to take a serious look at how our government inadvertently facilitates it too. Corruption, the abuse or misuse of state resources or positions of authority for personal gain, is endemic in many countries across the globe and remains a

Jan. 20, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] Gender war? No, it’s a deeper conundrum

Amid the dynamic race to the March 9 presidential election, the fates of two women test our moral compass. One vanished soon after she appeared, and the other virtually stays on track, her mystic presence piquing voter curiosity in novel ways with potential consequences. Last month, when Cho Dong-youn joined the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s campaign committee for Lee Jae-myung as co-chair, her accomplished military career fired up my imagination. A 38-year-old retired Army major an

Jan. 20, 2022