The Korea Herald

[Brendan Kelly] China’s richer than it thinks

Almost any foreign official, businessman or journalist visiting Beijing has heard the mantra that China can’t be expected to open up its markets or meet more stringent international standards because it’s still a developing economy. Maybe that argument was valid 20 years ago. Now it’s increasingly tenuous. More importantly, it’s damaging to China and the world.Pleading poverty ignores the tremendous economic progress China has made in the last few decades. When China joined the World Trade Organ

June 12, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] Jeju a testing ground for refugee policy

Jeju Island has become a hot potato inside the Korean government. On the same day the Ministry of Justice listed Yemen as a state whose nationals are not permitted to enter the sub-tropical island without a visa, the National Human Rights Commission issued a strong statement urging agencies in charge to take more active measures to protect the basic rights of the refugees from Yemen staying on the island. Both happened on June 1.It all started with a recent surge of Yemeni refugees entering the

June 12, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] Jeju a testing ground for refugee policy

[Letter to the Editor] Request to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un from a common citizen

Sir, the eyes of the world are on you this week.Please be gracious enough to do away with your nuclear weapons and let the world breathe in peace. You have made your point, that even a small country can stand up to the super powers and hold its own. Now, it’s time to bury the hatchets of the past and move to a new future. It is time for you to focus on the welfare of your own citizens. Let them have the best foods, housing, education, music, movies, books and technology. Let them live wonderful

June 12, 2018

[Tobin Harshaw] The best - and worst - that can happen in Singapore

The substance of the Singapore summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is a complete mystery. Will they discuss little more than agreeing to more discussions? Will Kim make a dramatic concession on his nuclear arsenal? Will Trump respond with a drawdown of US troops on the peninsula? Will they finally end the Korean War?　To answer some of these questions, I talked to someone who has dealt with the North Koreans before: Victor Cha. Now a professor at Georgetown and chair of the Korea program

June 11, 2018

[Tobin Harshaw] The best - and worst - that can happen in Singapore

[James Stavridis] China’s long game for the Singapore summit

As we approach the Singapore Summit between Kim Jung-un and Donald Trump -- two volatile leaders drawn inexorably to the flame of international publicity without a clear idea of how the talks will come out -- there is a larger agenda at play that is far less visible to the public.　While North Korea and the US play a simple game of checkers, with characteristic stops and starts, the Chinese have an entirely different board game open in front of them -- the ancient game of Go.What is China up to?

June 11, 2018

[James Stavridis] China’s long game for the Singapore summit

[Jonathan Bernstein] POTUS rules the trade wars. Thank You, Congress.

Once upon a time, Congress had the lead role in trade policy. Think back to the “tariff of abominations” of the 19th century or Smoot-Hawley of the 20th in your high school history class. So how did the presidency come to take charge of trade to the extent that it’s news when a bipartisan group in the Senate and some House Republicans move to reclaim that power? And why is that objective probably unachievable?　Jennifer Delton, at Made by History, describes how trade-supporting liberals, beginnin

June 11, 2018

[Mark Bruzonsky] US, NK both must change policies

On May 31 I published an op-ed together with Bandy X. Lee that ended asking: “Will we not only finally end the Korean War but peacefully reconfigure international relations in the greater Pacific region?” We added (with slight updating): “The current situation in Asia is a major threat to world peace, not just a matter involving the US. Therefore, an expanded summit now needs to be arranged and should include China, South Korea and the United Nations and maybe Japan and Russia as well.”The day a

June 11, 2018

[Wolfgang J. Hummel] Trump-Kim summit: Lessons learned from the East-West German negotiations of the 70s and 80s

Many conflicts are not based on facts or actual conflicts of interest. Quite a few international disagreements are caused by misperceptions, misunderstandings and errors in thinking. Communication at the very least may help reveal misconceptions, which sometimes leads to reassessments or corrections.The same can be applied to the current round of talks between South and North Korea and the USA. History never repeats itself, though the North-South Korean conflict is part of an ongoing greater Eas

June 11, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] Is Europe in an existential crisis’

Yes, according to George Soros speaking at the European Council on Foreign Relations last week. Five days later, I heard him elaborate on this view at the Trento Economics Festival in Northern Italy. For an Italian city to celebrate economics as a science is remarkable at a time when the economics profession has lost considerable credibility and trust. This was more so when the Italians finally managed to form a government two months after the elections last March.　This is a government formed fr

June 10, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] Is Europe in an existential crisis’

[Trudy Rubin] Trump-Kim summit: What to watch for in Singapore

The Singapore summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un will be the most riveting reality show of the Trump presidency.　It’s not just the optics of two leaders who are consummate showmen with daunting hairdos trying to upstage each other in front of a zillion cameras. And it’s not just the unpredictability -- as the secretive but shrewd North Korean faces a US leader who hates briefings and loves to deviate from his script.　This is about real stuff, about whether a North Korea that is a ful

June 10, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Trump-Kim summit: What to watch for in Singapore

[Ted Gover] US spear needed in Asia regardless of Trump-Kim summit outcome

In his upcoming summit with Kim, Trump must hold firm and maintain the US military presence in East Asia -- regardless of whether or not denuclearization is achieved.　North Korea’s six decades of hostility toward Seoul, Tokyo and Washington has for the most part been conducted as a non-nuclear power. Yet, notwithstanding its new nuclear weapons program, the Kim regime’s nature and conventional forces alone justify Washington’s military alliances with Seoul and Tokyo.　North Korea’s founder, Kim I

June 10, 2018

[Lee Jae-kyung] Our children are watching: Beware Faustian deal with North Korea

While nuclear missile threats and military tensions have been nothing new on the Korea Peninsula, I could not help experiencing deja vu of the hide-and-seek games due to repeated failed attempts for denuclearization over the past decade or so. When North Korea recently blew up its age-old nuclear bomb test site without allowing for experts’ verification, it reminded me of their past show of a nuclear plant cooling tower demolition. The North Korea regime has cheated all the time as far as nukes

June 10, 2018

[Yoon Young-kwan] Getting to yes with Kim Jong-un

Has North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, made a strategic decision to trade away his nuclear program, or is he just engaged in another round of deceptive diplomacy, pretending he will denuclearize in exchange for material benefits for his impoverished country?This is, perhaps, the key question in the run-up to the summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore on Tuesday. Until then, no one will know the answer, perhaps not even Kim himself.Optimists tend to believe that Kim’s declar

June 10, 2018

[Yoon Young-kwan] Getting to yes with Kim Jong-un

[Piet Klert and Robert Floyd] A verifiable path to nuclear disarmament

As officials from the United States and North Korea prepare for the June 12 summit meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, nuclear experts must come to terms with a significant question: If Kim commits to dismantling his nuclear stockpile, how can the world be sure that he is following through?There is no question that North Korea poses a unique challenge to the nuclear nonproliferation regime; the political context for advancing disarmament globally is very different. Still, the technical

June 8, 2018

[Piet Klert and Robert Floyd] A verifiable path to nuclear disarmament

[David Ignatius] Democrats need to find their voice on tariffs

Is President Trump’s pitch to disgruntled manufacturing workers a leading political indicator, portending future trends, or a lagging one, appealing to a small and declining segment of the public? We may be about to find out, thanks to Trump’s controversial tariff plan. Trump’s decision last week to levy duties on steel and aluminum imports from Europe, Canada and Mexico seems, oddly enough, to have become the choke point for many Republicans who had stomached far more outrageous Trump proposals

June 8, 2018

[Park Sang-seek] Changing tripartite relationships among Koreas, US

Lately the North Korean nuclear issue has affected the tripartite relationships among the two Koreas and the US: North Korea and the US have become the direct parties for the nuclear negotiations with South Korea as a third party providing good offices or playing the role of a mediator. It is very difficult to understand why the country which will become the primary target of North Korea in case of military conflicts on the Korean Peninsula is not the main party to nuclear negotiations. Some arg

June 7, 2018

[Park Sang-seek] Changing tripartite relationships among Koreas, US

[Adam Minter] China’s costly ban on foreign trash

Giant bales of recycled paper and plastic are piling up across the US. Six months ago, most of them would’ve been bound for China, the world’s leading importer of recyclables. But earlier this year, China started restricting and even banning some of those imports on environmental grounds. It’s a crowd-pleasing policy for the Chinese government, but the real beneficiaries are up-and-coming Southeast Asian economies keen to relocate China’s “workshop to the world” to their own industrial parks.　 O

June 7, 2018

[Adam Minter] China’s costly ban on foreign trash

[Costas Georgiades, Luca Bucken] The inhumanity of Europe’s refugee policy

For the asylum seekers in the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, the word “almost” has become a source of devastation. They almost made it. They are almost at the end of their brutal journey. As Aarash, a 27-year-old father of a young daughter and an MBA graduate from Kabul, Afghanistan, put it, “When all is said and done, we are only almost human.” And Europe only almost welcomes them."Almost" causes unbearable despair to the asylum-seekers trapped on Lesbos and Samos. According to a report

June 7, 2018

[Conor Sen] Companies really can ‘do more with less’

With the unemployment rate at generational lows, companies are increasingly trying to squeeze more economic growth out of their current workforces, rather than hiring. That may prove counterproductive, as shown in labor trends in fields where performance is closely monitored. While more difficult culturally, a better change would be to have more workers laboring for fewer hours each.　 "Do more with less" is the typical corporate response whenever labor is scarce or revenue is pinched. If an empl

June 7, 2018

[Cathy Young] Why feminists must read Jordan Peterson

One of the most controversial public intellectuals today is an eccentric, primly dressed professor who writes about esoteric mythology, dispenses old-fashioned wisdom such as “clean your room” and champions embattled ideals of manhood.　Jordan Peterson, University of Toronto professor, psychologist, bestselling author and YouTube star, has been hailed by some as a messenger of hope for young men perplexed by cultural upheaval, and denounced by others as a charlatan preaching patriarchy and fascis

June 7, 2018