[Adam Minter] China’s brightest are the trade war’s latest casualties

It’s college graduation season in China and the timing couldn’t be much worse for the record-breaking 8.34 million students emerging from university this year. A slowing economy, hobbled further by the trade war, has produced the worst Chinese job market since at least 2015. Among the hardest hit will be the aspiring white-collar workers just now throwing off their caps and gowns. Applicants far outnumber jobs in big cities and salary expectations simply aren’t being met.In rec

May 26, 2019

[David Ignatius] Trump confronts China's tech threat

Huawei’s name is often translated in English as “Chinese excellence.” The Trump administration last week embarked on a campaign to rebrand the tech giant, in effect, as a “Chinese threat” and check its expansion in the West. The Huawei assault may be the Trump administration’s most important long-term strategic decision, because it confronts China’s technological challenge to America head on. The goal is to prevent Huawei from dominating 5G wireless comm

May 23, 2019

[Kim Myong-sik] Insatiable ‘historians,’ enough is enough

Korea today has an abundant supply of photo artists, poets and historians. New smartphones are equipped with high-definition cameras of 12 to 16 megapixels, which can produce great pictures. But our amateur photographers, many of whom are old, need something different. They go about on city streets, mountains and seashores carrying branded cameras -- the digital version -- with long lenses and even tripods to take thousands of shots of anything within their sight. Poets, of course self-styled, m

May 22, 2019

[Carl P. Leubsdorf] One constant to Trump’s foreign policy: failure

As a presidential candidate in 2016, Donald Trump promised to pursue an “unpredictable” foreign policy to keep the nation’s enemies off balance. But in recent weeks, his unpredictability seems to be keeping his own administration off balance.　 Whether the issue is Venezuela, Korea or Iran, his administration has displayed contradictory positions that have created doubt about its true intent, both abroad and at home. They’ve been marked by barely concealed public dissen

May 22, 2019

[Kwon Deok-cheol] A health care win-win for S. Korea, Kuwait

This year marks the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between South Korea and Kuwait. In celebration of the occasion, I visited Kuwait along with Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon to further strengthen bilateral relations in early May. I serve as the vice minister in charge of national medical and health system and public health in Korea. In that regard, I believe the visit led to specifying cooperative measures with Kuwait whose health care demand is on the rise. Kuwait, located in the northe

May 21, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] Changes in “street economy”

When I visited South Korea in the spring of 2018, everybody was talking about the breakthrough with North Korea. A year later, everybody is talking about the economy. Small business owners, in particular, are worried about sluggish consumption and rising costs. People in large firms worry about job security and retirement. Most people believe that South Korea has fallen into a Japanese-style slump that will be difficult to overcome. Since the Korean economy began to grow in 1960s, citizens have

May 21, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Korea and karaoke rooms

Traditionally, Koreans are known to enjoy singing and dancing tremendously. Perhaps singing and dancing was our ancestors’ daily ritual and thus runs in our blood.Watching K-pop singers dazzle on the stage, it seems Koreans’ superb performance skills are part of our DNA. Indeed, when it comes to singing and dancing, Koreans seem invincible. It is no wonder that the K-pop vocal group BTS is enchanting the world with their charming voices and stunning choreography. Foreigners say that drinking is

May 21, 2019

[Adam Minter] China’s trade warriors can’t hit Hollywood

China may want to stand tough against Donald Trump’s trade threats. It’s going to have a hard time retaliating, though, and not only because it doesn’t import enough goods to match the US president tariff-for-tariff.One obvious target would be the $58.9 billion in services the US exports to China. These include everything from Hollywood blockbusters to tourism and education. In theory, Beijing could easily enough cut off the flow of American entertainment into China and Chinese students and tour

May 20, 2019

[Doyle McManus] Strategy? It’s foreign to Trump

Donald Trump once thought foreign policy would be easy.“We would win if we would just sit down and negotiate -- but using our best people,” he wrote as a private citizen in 2008. “We have all the cards.”So as president he named himself negotiator-in-chief and tried to cajole North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to abandon nuclear weapons. He re-imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, betting he could force the ayatollahs to change their ways. He vowed to force China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union

May 20, 2019

[David Ignatius] What’s Trump’s plan for Iran?

In any tense military confrontation, diplomats start looking for an “off ramp” that could de-escalate tensions. But in the current standoff between the United States and Iran, it’s hard to find any such exit route. The US-Iran faceoff is one of those odd situations where both players appear eager to set off sparks, although neither seems to want a raging fire. They seem comfortable in a halfway zone of conflict, where nations use force in deniable ways across different domains, hoping they don’t

May 19, 2019

[Slawomir Sierakowski] Can Donald Tusk go home again?

Donald Tusk’s term as president of the European Council will end Nov. 30, which is perfect timing for the Polish opposition. After the parliamentary election in late October, Poland will hold its presidential election in April 2020, and opposition voters already see Tusk as the only viable candidate. For the past year, Tusk has been dropping hints that he intends to return to Polish politics. “No one expects that after the conclusion of my term I will just be watching politics on

May 19, 2019

[David Ignatius] Trump’s style has diminishing returns

President Trump has styled himself in foreign policy as the Great Disrupter. And for a time, this unpredictable approach served him reasonably well. Leaders from China, North Korea and Iran found themselves off balance, and they sometimes made what looked like concessions. Trump’s problem is that, after two years, foreign nations seem to have figured him out. Rather than crafting quick deals that Trump could tout as wins, these adversaries have played a waiting game. They appear to sense in Trum

May 16, 2019

[James Stavridis] National security risks are rising with sea levels

I spent much of my life in the US Navy, including nearly 11 years on the deep ocean day-to-day, out of sight of land. This really drove home the fact that oceans cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface -- all the world’s land would fit comfortably within the Pacific. Oceans produce much of the oxygen we breathe and a great deal of the protein we consume. They enable more than 90 percent of international trade and provide increasing amounts of oil and natural gas. Yet now, because of climate chan

May 15, 2019

[Chun Sung-woo] A play never imagined before

Two years ago, the curtain rose on a new play. It was billed as a show never imagined before. The director said his play would depict a society without privileges and misconduct. He put up a sign that read, “Opportunities will be equal, the process fair and results righteous.” The title of the first act was “Elimination of Evils.” Only misconduct by conservatives and rightists was uncovered. Over 100 people who worked for the previous government were indicted, a

May 15, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Why Borges became apolitical

Recently, I saw an interesting diagram on the internet about the left and the right. The drawing indicates that as you go further to the right, you will get bad outcomes such as libertarianism, corrupt capitalism and then anarchy. On the contrary, if you go further to the left, you will end up with equally undesirable results such as fascism, socialism and communism. Then finally you will find totalitarianism and enslavement at the far end of the left. It is intriguing that the illustration puts

May 14, 2019

[Lee Jae-min] Zigzags, cut-ins and sudden dashes

Last spring, driving on Olympic Highway along the Han River, I saw a young man caught by police for riding a motorcycle on the highway. To be sure, riding a motorbike on expressways or automobile-only highways is not permitted in Korea. In fact, Korea is one of the few countries (the only OECD member) where motorcycles are prohibited on those roads, mainly for safety reasons. This policy has been a trade hot potato for many years. Domestically, a group of Korean motorbikers have brought as many

May 14, 2019

[Andrew Sheng] Is democracy in retreat?

A fortnight ago, markets were going great guns, with the S&P500 hitting a record high, even as there was increasing evidence that global trade and many economies were slowing. Last week the markets took a sharp turn as the White House tweeted that tariffs would once again be escalated for US-China trade. With North Korea again testing missiles, Iranian tensions rising and US politics becoming more divisive by the day, what is going on?People like to have simple stories to explain all this comple

May 13, 2019

[Hal Brands] Are Americans turning isolationist?

Public attitudes toward US foreign policy are a mess of ambiguities and seeming contradictions. Americans don’t particularly like Donald Trump’s policies, but they share some of his ambivalence about the country’s vast global role. They are not retreating into isolationism, but neither are they persuaded by the traditional justifications for America’s efforts to shape the world.These are the principal takeaways from a recent opinion survey conducted by the progressive-leaning Center for American

May 13, 2019