[Doyle McManus] The cost of China’s harsh ‘zero COVID’ policy

The stories from Shanghai, a city of 25 million entering its fourth week of COVID-19 lockdown, have been harrowing. Millions have been confined to their homes, their movements monitored by pandemic police in white hazmat suits. Almost 300,000 people who’ve tested positive or had contact with someone positive have been forcibly moved to spartan quarantine centers. Videos on social media have shown people fighting over food or screaming for help from their apartment windows: “Save us

April 25, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] The steady greening of Seoul

Preparing for my first visit to South Korea since fall 2019 has been a pleasure. I look forward to meeting friends who I’ve only been able to meet on social media or Zoom. And I look forward to visiting favorite places and exploring new ones. Preparing for a long visit to Korea means looking at maps, lots of them. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I looked at maps efficiently, but this time, I spend a lot of time wandering and clicking around. Following up on things of interest has led to long

April 22, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] South Koreans don’t care much about Ukraine war?

Are South Koreans generally impassive on the war in Ukraine? No way. But when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his video address appealing for South Korean help last week, a small audience turned up at the auditorium of the National Assembly library to reveal an apparent lack of interest among the representatives of this free democratic country in the bloody war started by Russia’s unprovoked invasion. Present were less than 60 members of the 300-seat legislature, who clapped their ha

April 21, 2022

[Martin Schram] A Nobel solution to Putin’s Ukraine horror

Day and night, images that are unwatchable yet unforgettable pour out of the great news funnels all around the planet. The images bring a flood of anguish into the lives of people who cannot bear looking at the horrific slaughter and inhumane cruelty that a superpower is inflicting upon its much smaller neighbor. But these same people also cannot bear looking away. So they watch the blatant and undeniable war crimes that Russia’s military is inflicting upon Ukrainian innocents. They witn

April 20, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Finding our way ‘back to the Republic of Korea’

The inauguration slogan of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration is “Back to the Republic of Korea.” It resonates with the Biden administration’s slogan, “America is back.” Indeed, both slogans suggest, “Back to normal” or “Back to those good old days.” Many people in Korea thought that something was not quite right for the past five years. Among other things, our political leaders seemed to be indifferent or even unaware of what is actually g

April 20, 2022

[Preston Brashers] Every day is tax day

The deadline for filing federal income taxes is later than usual this year. Tax Day has been pushed back to April 18 to avoid coinciding with the District of Columbia’s Emancipation Day holiday. However, Americans don’t just pay taxes one day out of the year. Taxes are a part of our everyday lives, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Many politicians prefer that we don’t notice how much we’re taxed. And, so, taxes are often buried in the cost of products or subtl

April 19, 2022

[Abe Shinzo] US strategic ambiguity over Taiwan must end

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded many people of the fraught relationship between China and Taiwan. But while there are three similarities between the situation in Ukraine and Taiwan, there are also significant differences. The first similarity is that there is a very large military power gap between Taiwan and China, just as there was between Ukraine and Russia. Moreover, that gap is growing larger every year. Second, neither Ukraine nor Taiwan has formal military allies. Both c

April 19, 2022

[Ana Palacio] How to sanction a nuclear foe

The gruesome scenes left behind after Russia’s withdrawal from Bucha, where Ukraine accuses Russian troops of torturing and slaughtering civilians, have intensified pressure on the West to provide more offensive weapons to Ukraine and for Europe to ban Russian energy imports. But beyond the legitimate question of Europe’s willingness to pay such a high price on Ukraine’s behalf lies the stark reality that sanctions are hardly a silver bullet. Calls for sanctions began well bef

April 15, 2022

Tackling pandemic of inequality in Asia and the Pacific

After two years of human devastation, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 while trying to balance the protection of public health and livelihoods. For countries in Asia and the Pacific, this is challenging not only because national coffers are heavily strained by record public spending to mitigate pandemic suffering, but also due to deeper structural economic issues. COVID-19 has exposed a pandemic of inequality in a region which has the world’s most dynamic economies, but also

April 14, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] Chanel jacket, bloated resume -- what else?

When President Kim Dae-jung was in office, he was asked if he had heard a joke about Bill and Hillary Clinton: At a gas station, Hillary recognizes a high school boyfriend and later, Bill smugly says, “See, if you’d married him, you’d be working at a gas station.” Hillary replies, “If I’d married him, he’d be president.” Hearing the joke, President Kim laughed heartily. He apparently understood it was related to his wife, Lee Hee-ho, whom he cher

April 14, 2022

[Nicholas Goldberg] Why I won’t cheer as Germany ends its anti-war experiment

In the first half of the 20th century, Germany was aggressive, expansionist and dangerous. Its legacy includes millions of needless war deaths and the unspeakable crimes of the Nazi regime. After 1945, however, the country changed. Chastened, defeated and shamed, Germany demilitarized at the insistence of the victorious Allies and soon adopted a constitution banning “wars of aggression.” Germans, to their credit, looked in the mirror, wrestled with their dark history and rejected vi

April 14, 2022

[Elizabeth Shackelford] The EU’s awkward Hungary issue

On April 3, Hungary’s anti-liberal, ultranationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, won a fourth term. While the West remains fixated on the war next door in Ukraine, the threat of Hungary’s continued march away from liberal democracy is coming from inside the Western house. Orban remains popular at home, but his election was not exactly free and fair. In classic authoritarian fashion, Orban has used his years in power and control over levers of the state to stack the cards dramatic

April 13, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Challenges to the Yoon administration

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is known as a political novice. Indeed, Yoon was elected president without any prior political career. Although he was prosecutor general, Yoon was not a professional politician, but a public prosecutor under the supervision of the minister of justice. However, such a background can be an advantage for him. Unlike professional politicians who have to consider many factors, Yoon can make a fresh start by boldly changing things. For example, declining to enter Cheon

April 13, 2022

[Martin Schram] A crisis we still can fix

We’re in Mexicantown, a neighborhood in the 27th-largest city in the USA. We’ve just had a bite to eat at Los Galanes, the restaurant we chose over Xochimilco, which is nearby. Now our car is heading south, on this fine February day, so we can drive over the bridge and across the border. Uh-oh -- we’re in a helluva traffic jam. Lots of huge trucks. Tiny cars trapped in between. No one is moving. Across the bridge, we can see the country we’re trying to drive to. Just can

April 12, 2022

[Doug Badger, Kevin Dayaratna] Time to end the COVID emergency

Much has changed since President Donald Trump invoked emergency powers to combat the spread of COVID-19. Immunity, whether natural or acquired through vaccines, is much more widespread, and breakthrough treatments are available. While the disease may never be completely eradicated, it’s time to return to a public health policy that prizes individual liberty over government authority. Unfortunately, President Joe Biden remains unwilling to relinquish the emergency powers he has wielded sin

April 11, 2022

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Shock therapy for neoliberals

The fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded us of the unforeseeable disruptions constantly confronting the global economy. We have been taught this lesson many times. No one could have predicted the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and few anticipated the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, or Donald Trump’s election, which resulted in the United States turning toward protectionism and nationalism. Even those who did anticipate these crises could not have

April 11, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] Structural changes needed in STEM research

One of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s campaign promises is to transform South Korea into a leader in STEM research. The promise follows decades of presidential efforts to promote science and technology as part of the broader economic and social development plans. Presidents have come and gone, but each effort has built on the other, leaving the country in a strong position to achieve the president-elect’s promise. The quantification of academic activity has produced various indices

April 8, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] Bumpy road ahead in Korea’s change of power

About a month has passed since the March 9 presidential election in South Korea, in which a former prosecutor-general who joined the main opposition party at the last minute won with a razor-thin margin. Right-wing President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol picked a former prime minister under a past leftist government to lead his first Cabinet. Han Duck-soo was chosen for his rich experience as an economic administrator and in hopes of an easier endorsement by the National Assembly, now dominated by the i

April 7, 2022

[Peter Singer, Oleksandr Todorchuk] The nonhuman victims of Putin’s war

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has had, and is continuing to have, catastrophic consequences for many people. But Ukraine’s people are not the war’s only victims -- and many Ukrainians refuse to ignore that fact. The thousands of human casualties include more than 1,200 Ukrainian civilians killed, and many more injured. These numbers are growing each day, and the Russian retreat from around Kyiv has brought to light new evidence of war crimes. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed i

April 7, 2022

[Chang-Tai Hsieh] Taiwan’s fatal attractions

In the same week that Taiwanese took to the streets to repudiate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Taiwan’s leaders rolled out the red carpet for a visit by former US President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. This is the same man who, together with Trump, withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure its government to initiate a bogus investigation into Joe Biden’s son, and who then fired the US ambassador to Ukraine when she refused to go along with the exto

April 6, 2022