[Serendipity] Do not ignore Myanmar’s calls for help

Since ousting the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup on Feb. 1, the military junta in Myanmar has killed more than 600 as the people of Myanmar continue to resist military rule and call for democracy. Among those killed are more than 40 children, including Khin Myo Chit, 6, who was shot while in her father’s arms as the military raided her home. There have also been reports of bodies being burned beyond recognition. In one case of egregious brutality, a ma

April 9, 2021

[Robert J. Fouser] President Moon’s last year

As of this writing, polls are open in by-elections for mayor in Seoul and Busan. The election offers a chance to assess public opinion only 13 months before the next presidential election in May 2022. President Moon Jae-in’s approval ratings have dropped recently, suggesting that his ruling Democratic Party may face strong headwinds moving toward 2022. Since 1987, presidents in South Korea have been elected for a single five-year term. The term limit came from a desire to check the power

April 9, 2021

[Noah Feldman] Could Congress end gerrymandering?

The “For the People Act” currently being proposed by House Democrats would transform the way the US runs federal elections. Known as HR 1, the bill would make it substantially easier to vote. It would also counteract restrictive legislation enacted by Republican state legislatures in recent years. One provision stands out from the rest: the one that would end state-level gerrymandering by requiring that all legislative districts be set by independent, nonpartisan commissions, rather

April 8, 2021

[Kim Myong-sik] Seoul, Busan by-elections start reversal process

By the time this edition of The Korea Herald is delivered to readers, the winners of the April 7 mayoral by-elections in Seoul and Busan will have been decided. There was a weeklong blackout of opinion polls before the vote, but popularity figures of major contenders in the last surveys had been so lopsided that few had doubts about opposition victories in both the capital and the nation’s second-largest city. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea was fundamentally disadvantaged in these e

April 8, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘I Am Infected’: Surveil and punish

A few days ago, many people around the world witnessed a video of a Black American man brutally attacking a tiny Asian woman, stamping her face with his foot repeatedly in broad daylight on the streets of New York. Watching this graphic video, we were distressed and appalled at this outrageous event, which is a part of increasing violence against Asian Americans in the United States. These recent attacks have not only damaged the image of America throughout Asia, but have revived tensions betw

April 7, 2021

[Doyle McManus] Biden in race against time

Joe Biden is racing against time. “We have to move now,” he said last week as he unveiled his giant $2 trillion-plus economic plan. “We can’t delay another minute.” Why is a 78-year-old president once considered a cautious moderate suddenly going for broke? Because he knows his time is short. Like most new presidents, Biden is enjoying a modest honeymoon in the eyes of the public, but he knows from experience it won’t last. His job approval rating has been

April 7, 2021

[Noah Smith] Joe Biden has big data

President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar plans to revitalize the US economy are rightfully drawing comparisons to his predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But while it’s the same goal, the two have somewhat different approaches, reflecting both the distinctive circumstances and the better data available to Biden. Biden’s initiatives are a lot like a newer New Deal in some respects. The recently announced infrastructure spending plan includes money for roads, bridges, housi

April 6, 2021

[Thitinan Pongsudhirak] The global reverberations of Myanmar’s coup

Myanmar is leading Southeast Asia’s race to the political bottom. Since overthrowing a civilian government on Feb. 1, the military has killed more than 530 unarmed civilian protesters and arrested thousands more. Now, the country is confronting a deepening humanitarian crisis and the growing possibility of a civil war -- developments that would have serious regional and even global consequences. Myanmar’s civilian government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democ

April 6, 2021

[Erika D. Smith] The secret to keeping this moment of solidarity between Black and Asian Americans

Najee Ali was surprised by the phone call. A young mother of Asian descent, Sia Marie Xiong, had been found dead at an apartment complex in Compton. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had said it didn’t believe the shooting to be a hate crime, but with the recent rash of attacks on Asian Americans, the family wanted to push investigators to consider that possibility. They needed help. “That an Asian family called a Black activist,” Ali said, pausing in wonderm

April 5, 2021

[Digital Simplicity] NCSoft mishandles dispute it creates, disregarding disappointed players

NCSoft is a truly unique game developer. It does not depend much on younger players. It is focused largely on wealthy, middle-aged users with deep pockets, who are willing to “pay to win.” NCSoft’s flagship PC and mobile title Lineage keeps introducing new upgrade options and expensive packages on a weekly basis, and players, fearful of getting left behind, are forced to spend a lot of money to stay competitive. This business model, based on the fear of users in the hypercom

April 3, 2021

IAP chief stresses transborder synergy in crime prevention

As President of the International Association of Prosecutors, I was invited to attend the 14th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, March 7-12 in 2021, co-hosted by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Japanese Ministry of Justice, in Kyoto, Japan. The IAP, based in The Hague, is the only worldwide organization of prosecutors committed to raising standards of prosecutorial conduct and ethics, promoting the rule of law and respect for human r

April 2, 2021

[Anders Fogh Rasmussen] Building a democratic high-tech alliance

One of the existential challenges facing the free world today is its disunity over emerging technologies. Divergence between the United States and the European Union in this area has helped China and other autocratic regimes as they forge ahead with developing new tools and establishing rules and norms that will guide many aspects of our lives, economies, and security for generations. Russian President Vladimir Putin is absolutely right: “Whoever becomes the leader in this (artificial inte

April 1, 2021

[Lee Kyong-hee] Nurses recount battle against COVID-19

On the last morning of February 2020, South Korea awakened to the news that Daegu had the largest number of COVID-19 cases outside of China and the city didn’t have enough medical personnel to cope with surging infections. Kang Jeong-hwa heard the news while going to work, and it haunted her the rest of the day. By the evening, she decided to act; she would plunge herself into the crisis. “Why you, among all people, mom?” asked her daughter, who had hurriedly returned from

April 1, 2021

[Doyle McManus] Biden‘s revolution of modest expectations

If the Biden White House were a factory, management would post a sign at the front gate: 68 days without a presidential gaffe. What has come over Joe Biden? His first two months as president haven’t been perfect, but they’ve been as close to it as this 78-year-old career politician has come in his long and bumpy career. He passed his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill in only 51 days; now he’s working on a $3 trillion recovery plan -- for an economy that’s already growin

March 31, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] The society that induces us to become a snitch

In civilized countries, tattling on others is a despicable act. At home and school, children learn not to tell on others. If you become a snitch, you lose respect and integrity. It is an honor code for human beings that helps to make a decent society. Embarrassingly, however, it does not seem to be the case in South Korea. Even the government encourages the people to inform against others and rewards them with money. In fact, there are numerous informant reward systems for snitches in Korea. F

March 31, 2021

[George Magnus] China’s go-it-alone 5-year plan

This year’s meeting of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, was one of the most important in recent times. China is facing its most hostile external environment in decades, with a growing number of countries pushing back against its political repression and coercive diplomacy. And the imperative of reshaping its economic-development model is more urgent than ever. To meet the challenges ahead, China is banking on its 14th Five-Year Plan, which was officially a

March 30, 2021

[Andreas Kluth] We must start planning for a permanent pandemic

For the past year, an assumption -- sometimes explicit, often tacit -- has informed almost all our thinking about the pandemic: At some point, it will be over, and then we‘ll go “back to normal.” This premise is almost certainly wrong. SARS-CoV-2, protean and elusive as it is, may become our permanent enemy, like the flu but worse. And even if it peters out eventually, our lives and routines will by then have changed irreversibly. Going “back” won’t be an opt

March 29, 2021

[Jeffrey Frankel] Biden administration’s sensible stimulus

The United States and the world entered recession a year ago. Normally, economists can’t predict the onset of a downturn. But because this recession stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic, they could reliably discern its beginnings without waiting for the standard economic indicators. By the end of the second quarter of 2020, US gross domestic product had plunged by a record 11 percent, taking the economy from an estimated 1 percent above potential output at the end of 2019 to a level 10 perc

March 29, 2021

[Robert J. Fouser] South Korea should join the Quad

On March 18, the US and China met in Anchorage, Alaska, for the first time since Joe Biden took office in January. The two days of talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi were contentious, suggesting a long and tense competition between the two nations. Like previous great power competitions, the one between the US and China is about the acquisition and maintenance of power. In the competition, the US plays the role of domi

March 26, 2021

[Kim Myong-sik] A flop in leftists’ ‘save Han Myong-suk’ crusade

Han Myong-suk was the indisputable symbol of the feminist movement on the left side of politics in this country. A daughter of a war refugee family from North Korea, she started as a student activist at Ewha Womans University, joined a Christian pro-democracy movement and then turned to leftist politics under the influence of the man she married. Her political career that took her to the titles of the inaugural minister of what is now the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the minister of

March 25, 2021