[Robert Park] High-profile political assassinations: a prelude to Korean War

Politically motivated killings became commonplace on the heels of Korea’s 1945 division: The merciless assassinations of Godang Cho Man-sik (1883–1950), Mongyang Yo Un-hyong (1886–1947) and Baekbeom Kim Koo (1876–1949) were the three most fateful.Circa 1945, Cho was “perhaps the most admired political figure in all of Korea” and the “Soviets’ first choice” as proxy leader of the North, owing to his immense popularity and proven ability to guide as well as effectually advocate for the people he s

March 3, 2019

[Park Sang-seek] A new world order is emerging

It seems that a new cold war system is emerging right now. The following changes in the world order are symptomatic of this phenomenon:First, the ideological cold war has been replaced by a geopolitical cold war. The ideological cold war was started by the two great powers, the US and the USSR immediately after World War II. World War II was started by the imperialist powers, mainly Germany and Japan, while the cold war was touched off by a power struggle between the Soviet Union leading the com

March 3, 2019

[Yoon Young-kwan] How to judge the Hanoi summit

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met in Hanoi, Vietnam, Wednesday and Thursday for their second summit. In assessing the outcome, optimists and pessimists alike should focus on three criteria: irreversible progress toward a formal peace settlement, denuclearization, and the potential transformation of the North Korean regime.In retrospect, if the unsuccessful diplomacy of the past 25 years has taught us anything, it is that denuclearization will not happen without fi

March 1, 2019

[Kim Myong-sik] Worsening political strife under security whirlwinds

The future framework of South Korea’s national security is being carved out by US President Donald Trump, the whimsical leader of our closest ally, and Kim Jong-un, the young dictator of an aggressive adversary, in a tete-a-tete in Hanoi, Vietnam. Frustrated over their position as powerless bystanders at this crucial moment, South Korean politicians are clashing over irrelevant matters. One of the top issues involves the government’s plan to destroy weirs built across major rivers 10 years ago.

Feb. 27, 2019

[David Ignatius] Shanahan could transform Pentagon

In the days after he resigned as secretary of defense in December, Jim Mattis told people he hoped to be succeeded by Patrick Shanahan, his deputy. Shanahan has remained in limbo since the beginning of the year as acting secretary, perhaps trying to convince President Trump’s critics that he will be independent, the way Mattis was, while simultaneously reassuring the White House that he won’t. Trump appears almost ready to name Shanahan permanently. Newt Gingrich, one of Trump’s confidants, told

Feb. 27, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Drivers of a bus named Korea

Koreans often enjoy mocking their ex-presidents by parodying their governing styles and characteristics. Recently on the internet, I came across a funny poster featuring photos of our ex-presidents with brief descriptions that metaphorically compared their leadership to driving. The metaphor seems appropriate because the leader of a nation is like the driver of a bus or the captain of a ship, both of which could be a microcosm of a country. On the poster, our first President Syngman Rhee was ide

Feb. 26, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] Focusing on what works with North Korea

The race for the Democratic nomination for US president in 2020 grows by the week, and more potential candidates are waiting in the wings. Each week also brings a new round of grand proposals: universal health care, free public college, the Green New Deal, universal child care, infrastructure, and reparations for slavery. The energetic left and its friends in the media are enjoying the proposals in the hope of “reshaping” American society. Candidates promise much, but offer few specifics other t

Feb. 26, 2019

[Jan-Werner Mueller] What’s left of the populist left?

As Venezuela’s crisis deepens, conservatives in the United States and elsewhere are gleefully pointing to the disaster of Chavismo to warn of the dangers of “socialism.” And, with Spain’s left-wing Podemos party apparently splitting and Greece’s Syriza steadily losing popularity since 2015, even impartial observers might conclude that the “pink tide” of left populism is nearing a low ebb.But such assessments conflate political phenomena that have little to do with each other. The only program th

Feb. 25, 2019

[Anjani Trivedi] China’s borrowers have $890 billion problem

Chinese industrial borrowers are strapped for cash, as billions of dollars of debt come due this year. The ones that benefited from Beijing’s largesse should be most worried. Issuers are on the hook for more than 6 trillion yuan ($890 billion) in 2019, up 15 percent from a year earlier. Companies in sectors including mining and materials, capital goods and real estate make up 4 trillion yuan of the pile -- and of that, industrial companies comprise about 60 percent.For years, this sector largely

Feb. 25, 2019

[Noah Smith] China’s recession-proof economy heads to a stress test

China bears have had a bad decade. Repeated predictions that China’s large and growing pile of debt would lead to an economic crash have been wrong so far. The country sailed through the global financial crisis. It has weathered the slowing global demand for its exports, the drying up of its excess rural labor supply, slowing coal production, and the peak and decline of its working-age population. In 2015 and 2016 it experienced the bursting of a stock-market bubble, followed by more than a year

Feb. 24, 2019

[Victor D. Cha] Human rights key to North Korea deal

If Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi this week goes as the US president hopes, the two will emerge trumpeting promises of North Korea’s denuclearization, the proclamation of an end to the Korean War, and commitments by the international business community and multilateral lending institutions to transform the nation led by “Little Rocket Man,” in Trump’s words, into the “economic rocket” of Asia.　While there’s probably a better chance of pigs flying over Pyongya

Feb. 24, 2019

[Christopher Balding] Bad jobs data could bite China

China has long been criticized both for its obsession with GDP statistics and their quality: Pressuring cadres to meet growth targets has encouraged a risky buildup of debt and, at times, the outright fabrication of numbers. If anything, though, the quality of China’s official employment data is even worse -- and the inaccuracies could have equally dangerous repercussions.　Until relatively recently, Chinese GDP growth would fluctuate even while remaining robust. The same can’t be said for jobles

Feb. 21, 2019

[Michael Schuman] Why US and China can’t make a deal

Optimism that the US and China can reach a trade deal is rising, with another round of intensive negotiations in Washington this week. What buoyant investors are ignoring, however, is that the talks have become a test of strength between the world’s two great powers -- or, more accurately, a test of how accurate each nation’s sense of its own strength is.　The inconvenient fact is that neither country possesses the power to impose its will on the other. The US is not on its own capable of compell

Feb. 21, 2019

[Kim Hoo-ran] Gwangju deniers damage democracy

In Gwangju for the first time a few years ago, I walked down Geumnanro, the site of violent clashes between Gwangju locals and troops enforcing martial law on May 18, 1980. Events were being held on the broad avenue closed off to traffic for the day -- a play, a concert and a samulnori performance to name but a few, all commemorating the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement. There were few people in attendance, but that didn’t seem to matter. These were people remembering the massacre in whic

Feb. 20, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] Even Trump can’t drive Europe into Russia’s arms

As the US demands more from Europe and castigates it ever more stridently, it’s increasingly clear that Russia is missing a historic opportunity. If President Vladimir Putin hadn’t made Russia an unreliable partner for its neighbors, he’d be poised to realize his fondest dream: of displacing the US as Europe’s security guarantor.　Despite European officials’ determination to preserve what’s left of the US-led liberal world order, the cracks in the transatlantic alliance are obvious. They were one

Feb. 20, 2019