[Kent Harrington] The return of US intelligence

Tradition has it that when less-than-beloved CIA station chiefs are transferred from their posts abroad, their long-suffering staff celebrate with a wheels-up party. If tradition still holds, champagne corks were popping at CIA headquarters when Donald Trump lost his presidential re-election bid to Joe Biden. It is no secret that America’s intelligence services have been in the crosshairs of one of the most ignorant, paranoid, and antagonistic presidents ever to have held the office. Trump

Jan. 12, 2021

[Gang Eun Ho] Future of SK’s defense industry and challenges of KF-X

South Korea has established itself as the world’s 11th-largest exporter in the field of defense, with its exponential development centered on firepower, aviation, maneuvers, and shipbuilding. Its global competitiveness has reached 85 to 89 percent of those of the advanced countries, allowing Korea’s defense industry to steadily raise its stature worldwide. Despite such achievements, the defense industry has seen a fall in sales recently, and to fan the flames, COVID-19 is aggravati

Jan. 12, 2021

[Angela Zhang] In China, behave or face a campaign

With the debacle of Ant Group’s initial public offering, we’ve witnessed a flurry of legislative and enforcement activities aimed at tightening antitrust regulation within the Chinese tech sector. This massive campaign, however, is hardly a new phenomenon in Chinese law. The roots of campaign-style law enforcement can be traced back to the revolutionary period of the Chinese Communist Party, which often needed to rely on mass movements in the absence of state institutions. Contempor

Jan. 11, 2021

[J. Bradford DeLong] What next for the MAGA insurrection?

When people stormed the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, their purpose was to free inmates whom they saw as political prisoners of the monarchy. And when Frenchwomen marched from Paris to Versailles that October, their goal was to force the king to return with them and live among the people. What goal did Donald Trump’s supporters have in mind when they stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6? To understand why they were there in the first place, we need to roll back the tape. Just before t

Jan. 11, 2021

[Digital Simplicity] A turning point for news media in Korea

In recent years, newspapers in South Korea have struggled to stay relevant for mainstream readers, many of whom consume news on major portals instead of media websites. The dominance of portals in the news market, mostly led by two heavyweights Naver and Kakao, is unlikely to change in 2021. Rather, they are very likely to strengthen their influence further, an outlook that poses more questions for the embattled print newspaper companies. In an ideal situation, an individual newspaper runs it

Jan. 9, 2021

[Shuli Ren] Why China Is sentencing a tycoon to death

The bigamy conviction got a lot of the attention but Lai Xiaomin received a death sentence on Tuesday over a much more serious issue troubling China. Lai oversaw China Huarong Asset Management from 2012 until he ran into trouble in 2018. He was found guilty of receiving 1.79 billion yuan ($277.3 million) in bribes, with bigamy thrown in for good measure. Still, capital punishment for this kind of white-collar crime is unusual, legal experts say. Wu Xiaohui, former chairman of Anbang Insurance G

Jan. 8, 2021

[Daniel Moss] South Korea needs more babies and immigrants

South Korea greeted the new year by recording its first annual population decline. Unfortunately, the go-to solutions are meeting some practical challenges in the COVID-19 era. Headcount dwindled slightly to 51.8 million last year, the Ministry of Interior and Safety said Sunday. The retreat was the product of a 10.6 percent slide in births, coupled with a 3.1 percent increase in deaths. South Korea now joins neighboring Japan in suffering an actual fall in population, as opposed to the diminis

Jan. 7, 2021

[Lee Kyong-hee] ’Winter Scene’ sparked cultural exchanges

During the subdued Christmas and New Year holiday period, a very special painting commanded a gallery of the National Museum of Korea shrouded in darkness. The museum made commendable efforts to arrange a rare, enticing exhibition, hoping that it could give hearts and minds a respite from the COVID-19 pandemic. But a resurgence of infections heightened precautions against public gatherings and the exhibit closed after just two weeks. Its fate is unclear. The exhibition celebrates magnanimous do

Jan. 7, 2021

[Clara Ferreira Marques] Ant, Yukos and warning to rebel tycoons

In the thick of it, back in Moscow in 2003, it never seemed possible that the onslaught would go as far as it did. In the end, it took only months for Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to find his empire under siege, and not much longer for the edifice to crumble. The parallel between the Yukos Oil debacle almost two decades ago and the crackdown on Alibaba Group Holding and affiliate Ant Group over the past weeks will seem at best inexact. And, to be clear, it is. Jack Ma didn’t be

Jan. 6, 2021

[Kim Seong-kon] Greeting 2021, the Year of the Ox

The year 2021 is the Year of the Ox. According to the Chinese horoscope, people born in the Year of the Ox have a strong sense of duty and responsibility. It states: “People born in the Ox year are reliable and trustworthy. They put their entire heart into everything they do. They feel great responsibility toward their family as well.” They are also strenuous, conscientious workers whom you can trust fully. In 2021, South Korea should prove that she is as dependable and trustworth

Jan. 6, 2021

[Martin Schram] Which is Wannabe Working Class Party?

As America prepares to inaugurate Scranton Joe Biden as our 46th president, we interrupt Washington’s backslapping Democratic elites to inject a dose of realpolitik into a party that still calls itself the real champions of America’s working class. While Biden indeed deserves great credit for having defeated his incumbent Republican presidential opponent, it is also true that Biden had a unique ally who greatly aided his effort: President Donald Trump. Trump was the most blatantly

Jan. 5, 2021

[Sam Fazeli] How to stay ahead of a mutating coronavirus

Count 2020 as a lucky year. This may sound odd given that the world grappled with a pandemic that has killed close to 1.8 million people and crippled many countries’ economies. The “luck” relates to the more than 90 percent efficacy of the two vaccines -- Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot and Moderna’s candidate. Enormous leaps in science and technology helped make this happen and could well speed the end of the pandemic. And more vaccines are on the way. Unfortunately, there

Jan. 5, 2021

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] How Biden can restore multilateralism unilaterally

There is so much to celebrate with the new year. The arrival of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines means that there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel (though the next few months will be horrific). Equally important, America’s mendacious, incompetent, mean-spirited president will be replaced by his polar opposite: a man of decency, honesty and professionalism. But we should harbor no illusions about what President-elect Joe Biden will face in office. There will be deep scars left f

Jan. 4, 2021

[Lara Wodtke] Doing democracy during the pandemic

When COVID-19 emerged exactly one year ago, liberal democracy was in crisis. For the first time since 2001, there were more autocracies than democracies in the world. Right-wing populists were gaining traction. Moreover, the norm of universal and inalienable human rights was under pressure from the governments of China, Russia, and even the United States under President Donald Trump. The repression of civil society and threats to the rule of law, the free press, and human rights continued unab

Jan. 4, 2021

[Robert J. Fouser] South Korea’s post-pandemic future

The world begins 2021 with hope amid continuing despair. The roll out of vaccines in wealthy countries offers hope that the COVID-19 pandemic will wind down as the year moves along. This hope contrasts with the reality of rising cases that are pushing healthcare systems to their limit. More cases mean more deaths and social dislocation. The light at the end of the tunnel is bright, but distant. Pondering the future offers a brief respite from the disquiet of the pandemic winter. At heart is the

Jan. 1, 2021

[Kim Myong-sik] Yoon Seok-youl looms large in 2021 Korean politics

We are sadly sending off “Twenty-Twenty” and entering 2021 with very little hope for a better year. In the New Year, people will continue to live with the inconvenience of wearing face masks and in fear of inhaling the often lethal coronavirus, until community immunity has been established with universal vaccination, which still looks remote. Enviously watching TV footage of vaccines being given in the United States, Europe and some countries in Asia, 50 million South Koreans, once

Dec. 31, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Reminiscing about 2020 with woe and remorse

Undoubtedly, history will remember 2020 as the Year of the Global Pandemic. For the first time since the Spanish flu hit the world in the early 20th century, a worldwide disease caused society to change drastically on a vast scale. Throughout the year the coronavirus panicked and paralyzed society by indiscriminately attacking people, forcing businesses to shut down and devastating the economy. Aside from the countless people who lost their lives, many others lost their jobs and suffered grief a

Dec. 30, 2020

[Shuli Ren] China shows Ma what an activist can do

The rare activist moment at China’s central bank was too late and too crude. For years, when it came to innovative business ideas, Beijing’s stance has been to let them flourish -- there’s always room to regulate and rein in later. And thus gig economy superstars have blossomed. China’s versions of Uber Technologies, DoorDash and PayPal Holdings are more ubiquitous than their US counterparts at home. The other side of the coin is that billions of dollars in paper gains

Dec. 30, 2020

[J. Bradford DeLong] What lifted Trump could sink Biden

Very few of the people who voted for US President Donald Trump in the 2020 election are plutocrats who benefited from his and congressional Republicans’ tax cut, or even wannabe plutocrats who can hope to benefit from it in the future. Some Trump voters doubtless are very focused on the installation of right-wing judges on the federal bench. But many among the 74 million who voted for Trump did so for other reasons. The one reason most of them share, however, is that Trump presided during

Dec. 29, 2020

[Therese Raphael] Now we know how Boris Johnson’s movie ends

Now we know how this movie ends. “Brexit means Brexit,” Theresa May declared in those electric but mystifying opening scenes after the referendum back in 2016. It wasn’t clear then or for a long while after what Brexit meant. Nearly five years and two prime ministerial resignations later, Boris Johnson has finally defined it. Set against the perils of breaking up with no trade deal, having an agreement at all merits celebration. Apart from the economic costs and reputational d

Dec. 29, 2020