The Korea Herald

[Lee Jae-min] Coming to a full circle

To many South Koreans, this could not have come at a worse time. With the ousted former president in prison and the prime minister and acting president merely performing a transition caretaker’s role until the May 9 presidential election, the United States’ apparent exploration of a ‘military option’ to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem sends a wave of nail-biting concern across South Korea over the possibility of a serious military conflict on the Korean peninsula, the first time since

April 18, 2017

[Other view] What comes after ‘mother of all bombs’?

The US bombing last week in Afghanistan, using the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal, signals a shift in US foreign policy.　It was the second Thursday night in a row -- after the justified airstrikes in Syria -- that the US used military force in a big show of might in a foreign conflict. This time the US used the biggest weapon ever employed in combat.　If this was just about stamping out Islamic State group soldiers hidden in caves and tunnels, we would laud the move unconditional

April 18, 2017

[Gregory A. Maniatis] Trump's Tomahawks won't help

There is a tragic inconsistency in US President Donald Trump’s response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of sarin gas against his country’s people. Trump said that he was moved to act by images of innocent children in Idlib province who had been killed by the deadly nerve agent. Yet Trump’s administration stands behind a proposed budget that will cause even greater harm to people in Idlib and around the world.　For starters, Trump wants to slash overall funding to the United Nations -- a

April 17, 2017

[Gregory A. Maniatis] Trump's Tomahawks won't help

[Andrew Malcolm] What Trump's attack on Syria did - and did not - do

President Donald Trump’s sudden missile strike against a Syrian air base in retaliation for a gas attack on civilians will not change one thing about that sad land’s bloody civil war.　It will, however, alter the strategic calculus in many places within but also far beyond the troubled Middle East. Politically, the missiles were also a big blast against allegations that Trump is a patsy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Watch upcoming job approval polls for the popular verdict.　The nearly 60 T

April 17, 2017

[Noah Feldman] On China, Trump realizes trade and security mix

The news media have been quick to note US President Donald Trump’s embrace of bombing in Syria and the need for NATO as reversals of the foreign policy he advocated on the stump. But he’s made another flip in the past week that’s just as consequential, and possibly more important for his future foreign policy. By asking China to “solve the North Korean problem” in exchange for an improved trade deal, Trump has embraced linkage.　Broadly, linkage is the idea that economic policy and geopolitical s

April 17, 2017

[Noah Feldman] On China, Trump realizes trade and security mix

[Brian Peterson] Foreign Affairs Ministry’s public diplomacy team and the 'Rock Wall Group'

On a rainy April day, a small group of distinguished foreign professors met with the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s public diplomacy team, including Ambassador for Public Diplomacy Park Enna. They met at a museum in Seoul for a team building event with a taste of Korean culture and history, and then moved on to a nearby restaurant for dinner and a discussion. The goal of this group is to harness the knowledge and experience of foreign professors who have lived and worked in Korea for many years to

April 17, 2017

[Conor Sen] United Airlines feeling the sway of consumers in Asia

On day one of the fiasco over United Airlines’ forcible removal of a passenger from an overbooked flight, the stock of United Continental Holdings Inc. actually rallied. Perhaps Americans were outraged by how the passenger was treated, but airlines operate in a consolidated industry where consumers don’t have much choice. Investors seemed to shrug and assume that customers would still fly United anyway.　But an interesting thing happened on the second day. Overnight, there were reports that the s

April 17, 2017

[Endy M. Bayuni] Widodo turns to Islam-nationalism to preserve Indonesia’s diversity

Irrespective of the result, the Jakarta gubernatorial election Wednesday will leave a bitter aftertaste that could have consequences on the political landscape in the rest of Indonesia. The election is already billed as the ugliest, most divisive and most polarizing the country has ever seen.　Religion, and to a lesser extent, race, were issues that were widely exploited in the election. Rivals trying to unseat the hugely popular incumbent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, virtually forced Jakarta voters

April 17, 2017

[Endy M. Bayuni] Widodo turns to Islam-nationalism to preserve Indonesia’s diversity

[Other view] Protect privacy at the border

In a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, naturalized US citizen Lubana Adi detailed how Customs and Border Protection agents seized and searched her phone without a warrant when she returned from visiting her family in Turkey. “Does the 4th Amendment apply to Muslim citizens at LAX?” she asked.The sad truth is that its core protections don’t seem to apply to any US citizen at the border, where customs agents are as free to pore through hard drives as they are to scrutinize roller bags and ba

April 17, 2017

[Other view] Stop pretending on Greek debt

Greece and its creditors say they’ve made progress in their endless negotiations over the country’s debts -- enough to avoid a default on payments worth more than 7 billion euros ($7.43 billion) in July. That’s good, but it was the easy part. The definitive settlement still isn’t in sight.For the past seven years, the International Monetary Fund and eurozone institutions have supported Athens with loans in exchange for fiscal austerity and structural economic reform. This strategy has failed to

April 16, 2017

[Robert Park] Japan and China visibly preparing for preventive strike fallout

Japan and China have already taken clear-cut measures to safeguard their nationals and interests in the event of a looming military confrontation.Meanwhile, Korean civilians -- who would suffer most devastatingly as “collateral damage” on account of preventive strikes against North Korea -- remain singularly and inexplicably vulnerable as well as thoroughly unprepared for the possibility.Bewilderingly, South Korea’s opposition to such strikes has yet to be delivered to the US in an unequivocal a

April 16, 2017

[Robert Park] Japan and China visibly preparing for preventive strike fallout

[Fabiola Santiago] US an increasingly authoritarian society

Finally, in a third statement two days too late made after United Airlines lost millions in stock market value, CEO Oscar Munoz got around to appropriately apologizing for the “truly horrific” forced removal of a passenger from a full flight.“I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard,” Munoz said in a statement Tuesday. “No one should ever be mistreated this way.”　In his last two tries, the executive only managed to increase by another decibel the outrag

April 16, 2017

[Adam Minter] Dude, who plugged in my plane?

The concept is familiar: Replace car journeys with high-speed, electric-powered travel for the masses. China does it with a famous (and famously expensive) high-speed train network. Last week, Boeing and JetBlue Airways invested in another idea: electric planes. If their bet pans out, travelers could start making their first trips in the Teslas of the air in a decade. That could transform the way great swathes of the world get from point A to point B -- to everyone’s benefit.　Electric planes are

April 16, 2017

[Ben Carlson] How markets overcame past geopolitical crises

According to a survey by the CFA Institute, more than two-thirds of global investment professionals expect the geopolitical climate to affect investment returns over the next three to five years. And a full 70 percent of respondents expect these changes to negatively affect market performance.　In the past nine months or so, the world has seen its share of upheaval, starting last June with the Brexit vote and continuing in November with the election of Donald Trump as president. On April 6, anoth

April 16, 2017

[David Ignatius] Trump gets taste of success

For a reminder of how new administrations can quickly get into trouble in foreign policy, consider that Monday, April 17, marks the anniversary of the catastrophic Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. Bad things can happen to good presidents, and vice versa. 　President Donald Trump, after a mostly disastrous first two months, has had a good run these past two weeks in foreign policy. He acted decisively in Syria, gained China as a possible partner in dealing with North Kore

April 16, 2017

[David Ignatius] Trump gets taste of success

[Other view] Congress must have say in war-making decisions like Syria strike

President Trump’s decision to order 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria last week does nothing to bring stability to that country, protect American national security or strengthen our position in the world.　It does, however, continue an unfortunate trend of American presidents committing acts of war with hardly even the pretense of legal protocol or long-term geopolitical strategy.　Ostensibly in retaliation for the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons which killed upwards of 100 people

April 14, 2017

[Martin Schram] US, Russia rewind and rerun their classic thriller

Some one thousand miles due east of Moscow’s always-tightly secured Kremlin, where Russia’s president and foreign minister met Wednesday with America’s secretary of state, life has long seemed pastoral and downright peaceful.It may well be that nothing about the small southwestern Siberian city of Shchuchye was on the minds of Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov and Rex Tillerson as they confronted each other’s diplomatic demons.They may never have known the tranquility that a handful of Americans sav

April 14, 2017

[Martin Schram] US, Russia rewind and rerun their classic thriller

[Adam Minter] Why United won’t lose altitude in China

By mid-afternoon Tuesday, Chinese online anger at United Airlines was running so hot that the hashtag #UnitedForcesPassengerOffPlane was receiving 20 million views per hour on the Sina Weibo social network. Such fury is more typically reserved for geopolitical spats with the likes of Japan and South Korea. It’s little wonder that the outrage earned the attention of United Continental Holdings Inc. shareholders, who drove the company’s stock down 4 percent while the hashtag was still atop the ran

April 14, 2017

[David Ignatius] Trump got Syria and China right last week. That’s a start.

The Trump administration’s foreign policy has been a dizzying spectacle of mixed messages and policy reversals during its first three months. But in last week’s crucial tests, President Trump made good decisions about Syria, Russia and China — moving his erratic administration a bit closer toward the pillars of traditional US policy. The decision to strike a Syrian air base was a confidence builder for an inexperienced and sometimes fractious White House, a senior official said. Trump couldn’t b

April 13, 2017

[David Ignatius] Trump got Syria and China right last week. That’s a start.

[Chicago Tribune] United took worst route in overbooked flight incident

United Airlines sure had a twisted way of showing customer appreciation during a Sunday flight out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. A video that has now gone viral shows security officers forcibly yanking a man out of his seat on a United Express flight and dragging him down the aisle by his wrists. Horrified passengers watched — and recorded.The incident occurred because United had overbooked the flight from Chicago to Louisville. The airline sought volunteers to give up their seats.

April 13, 2017