The Korea Herald

[Tyler Cowen] US needs Saudi Arabia, and vice versa

Following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, there have been many calls for re-examining the US-Saudi relationship, even for imposing sanctions. As an economist, I understand there are diplomatic fine points to this relationship that lie beyond my expertise, but still: It is worth reviewing the economic and exchange-based reasons US-Saudi relations have been so robust.First, trade between the US and Saudi Arabia is currently about $24 billion per year. You might think the US is now energy

Oct. 24, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Pain and rain in Spain

If you go to a foreign country without knowing about the country’s language and culture, you might feel hopeless and at a loss. Suddenly, you will find yourself in an unfamiliar environment, if not hostile, where you instantly become a hearing-impaired and verbally challenged person. Unable to communicate with others, you will be embarrassed and frustrated because you will not be able to understand others or make others understand you. If you are a politician or a diplomat, who is accompanied by

Oct. 23, 2018

[Andrew Wolman] Korea’s denial of refugee status to Yemeni asylum seekers

The Korean Ministry of Justice’s recent decision to deny refugee status to around 550 Yemeni asylum seekers -- granting most of them “humanitarian protection” instead -- represents a predictable ending point for one of the country’s least laudable episodes of recent years. In short, the Korean Immigration Service had earlier this year included Yemen on the list of countries whose nationals could travel to the resort island of Jeju without a visa. Perhaps unsurprisingly (at least in retrospect),

Oct. 23, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Our clothes could be made in the USA again

Europeans and Americans have grown used to buying clothes made in Asian countries. But apparel industry sourcing executives are sure that’s changing: By the middle of the next decade, much more of our clothes will be made closer to home.China and Bangladesh are the two biggest suppliers of apparel to Europe. In the US, China and Vietnam are the top two import sources. But almost a quarter of apparel-sourcing executives who participated in a study by McKinsey and Germany’s RWTH Aachen University

Oct. 23, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Our clothes could be made in the USA again

[Therese Raphael] Theresa May in Brexit foxhole

Last week’s European Union summit on Brexit attracted a lot of attention for little real news. To understand why the talks are so stalled, it helps to borrow a somewhat strained metaphor from Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab.When Raab, then new to the job, met the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, for the first time three months ago, he gave him a copy of Isaiah Berlin’s much-appropriated essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” In it, the philosopher quotes the Greek poet Archilochus saying

Oct. 23, 2018

[Anjani Trivedi] China’s Tesla wannabe has a big brother problem

Investors are throwing billions of dollars at connected cars. The technological advances that enable vehicles to be linked into wireless networks promise greater efficiency and, in theory, safety. They also open the possibility of being watched and monitored more closely -- and that may be a problem for China’s self-proclaimed rival to Tesla.Nio, the electric vehicle maker that raised almost $1 billion in a New York initial public offering last month, is banking on its smart and connected car. B

Oct. 23, 2018

[Johnny Runge] Are Britons really softening on immigration?

In the United Kingdom, the new conventional wisdom is that attitudes toward immigration are softening. A headline in the Financial Times this July stated that “negativity about immigration falls sharply in Brexit Britain.” Likewise, a recent report by the UK Migration Advisory Committee surmises that “the UK may find itself in the position of ending free movement just as public concern falls about the migration flows that result from it.”This is notable, considering that it has been only two yea

Oct. 22, 2018

[Johnny Runge] Are Britons really softening on immigration?

[Nisha Gopalan] China M&A isn’t dead, it’s gone under the radar

You’d be forgiven for thinking Chinese M&A is dead.Over the past several months, the US has led the charge among developed markets to close mainland buyers out of deals in technology and other sensitive sectors -- and scrutiny will only get worse. That’s put a lid on big-ticket acquisitions.But don’t sound the death knell: Deals are still happening, just ones that slip under the radar. Some are for small amounts in “boring” sectors, like infrastructure, logistics or health care. Others are in pl

Oct. 22, 2018

[James Stavridis] Putin’s big military buildup is behind NATO lines

Last week I visited Naples and spent time with Jamie Foggo, the four-star admiral in command of NATO’s powerful Joint Forces Command located there. Foggo has responsibility for much of NATO’s European operations and defensive posture. At the moment, he is preparing for a major exercise, Trident Juncture, focused on countering Russia’s recent increase in the combat posture of its small enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. Russia is continuing to add real combat capability in Kaliningrad by t

Oct. 22, 2018

[James Stavridis] Putin’s big military buildup is behind NATO lines

[Meghan L O’Sullivan] US is forced to see it is far from ‘energy independent’

The disappearance and likely death of Jamal Khashoggi is a clarifying moment.If the crown prince of Saudi Arabia proves to be complicit, this moment will reveal much about the nature of the Saudi leadership. It also tells us something about US-Saudi relations and how vulnerable a partnership not based on shared values can be.It is a clarifying moment for the US to see just how much freedom from the Middle East American oil production has secured. This crisis over the disappearance of the journal

Oct. 22, 2018

[Noah Smith] The best way Trump can squeeze China on trade

Beyond the name change, President Donald Trump’s new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement isn’t that different from the North American Free Trade Agreement that it replaced. But hidden in the bowels of the new trade deal is a clause, Article 32.10, that could have a far-reaching impact. The new agreement requires member states to get approval from the other members if they initiate trade negotiations with a so-called non-market economy. In practice, “non-market” almost certainly means China. If, for examp

Oct. 22, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Putin lives in a world without rules

It’s chilling when the leader of a nuclear power describes a potential nuclear conflict in terms one might expect from a suicide bomber. But the intellectual foundations of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest geopolitical utterances are even more unsettling: Putin’s policy wonks assume that the world can’t hope for reasonable coordinated action to prevent catastrophic war.Putin told a session of the Valdai Club, set up as a forum for Russian foreign-policy intellectuals to share their view

Oct. 21, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Putin lives in a world without rules

[Mac Margolis] How Peru’s caretaker-president turned into a star

Peruvians have never been easy on their leaders. For the land that elected Alberto Fujimori and then watched him dismantle democracy, assail human rights and flee the country before returning in irons, maybe that’s for the best.So when a low-profile vice president (Peru’s government has two) who doubled as ambassador to Canada was thrust into the top job in March, following President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s resignation via the sprawling Odebrecht graft scandal, Peruvians weren’t holding their br

Oct. 21, 2018

[M. Taufiqurrahman] Circus of shame rolls into town as Indonesia weeps over earthquake

The timing could not have been worse. While the majority of people in Indonesia had barely recovered from the horror of another massive earthquake and rescue workers were still digging through the rubble looking for survivors, people were sidetracked by a spectacle of shame that would live in infamy.It’s one of those moments when politics rears its ugly head and we are once again reminded that politicians will do the worst things imaginable to score political points.Political activist Ratna Sar

Oct. 21, 2018

[M. Taufiqurrahman] Circus of shame rolls into town as Indonesia weeps over earthquake

[Tyler Cowen] The right finds the perfect weapon against the left

Imagine the perfect political and intellectual weapon. It would disable your adversaries by preoccupying them with their own vanities and squabbles, a bit like a drug so good that users focus on the high and stop everything else they are doing.Such a weapon exists: It is called political correctness. But it is not a weapon against white men or conservatives, as is frequently alleged; rather, it is a weapon against the American left. To put it simply, the American left has been hacked, and it is

Oct. 21, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Are Beijing and Washington headed toward a new Cold War?

Are we entering a new Cold War -- this time with China?That is a question I will be discussing with Chinese diplomats, businessmen, think tank experts and academics this week, as I begin a visit to Beijing and three other Chinese cities. The issue, now being hotly debated in Washington, turns 25 years of bipartisan US policy toward China on its ear.Such a question would have sounded strange 18 months ago when President Trump was touting his brilliant relationship with Xi Jinping, whom he hosted

Oct. 21, 2018

[Eli Lake] If Mattis goes, Trump will miss him

It took nearly two years, but President Donald Trump has finally said something unflattering about Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Rumors of the president’s unhappiness with Mattis date back several months, yet only last weekend did Trump himself express any, telling “60 Minutes” that he thinks the retired four-star Marine general “is sort of a Democrat.”In another era, when retired generals gravitated toward the center, being called a Democrat by a Republican president would be worth its wei

Oct. 18, 2018

[Eli Lake] If Mattis goes, Trump will miss him

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] America’s ongoing civil war

America continues be in a state of civil war. Not just a civil war, but the civil war. In the first round, back in the 1860s, the Confederacy lost. Yet now the Confederacy is temporarily on top. The United States remains one country divided by two cultures.From the start, the US has been a battleground of two competing visions. America’s founding credo was that “all men are created equal.” Yet the founding reality was that white males were far more equal than everyone else. White men owned slave

Oct. 18, 2018

[Jeffrey D. Sachs] America’s ongoing civil war

[Noah Feldman] Warren and the death of genetic privacy

In theory, taking a DNA test to reveal your ancestry is optional. But it’s on its way to becoming obligatory. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, announced Monday that she had submitted her DNA to ascertain that she does in fact have Native American ancestry -- after President Donald Trump had taunted her by saying he would throw a testing kit at her. For those of us not in national politics, a study in the journal Science last week claimed that within a few years, it will be possible to ide

Oct. 18, 2018

[David Fickling] Just skipping ‘Davos in the Desert’ won’t cut it

The world’s business leaders have suddenly been stricken with a conscience.After the disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi from the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, executives who’d been lined up for the “Davos in the Desert” Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh this month are getting cold feet.JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and his peer at Blackstone Group LP Steve Schwarzman, along with BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Uber Technolog

Oct. 18, 2018