[Gregory A. Maniatis] Don’t scapegoat migrants for the pandemic

Let’s be clear: COVID-19 initially spread around the world as a result of well-heeled travelers returning home from cruises, foreign skiing holidays, and international conferences. But many wrongly prefer to blame migrants instead -- often with appalling consequences. For example, Yemeni militias this spring attacked thousands of Ethiopian migrants whom they claimed had brought the coronavirus. Saudi Arabia expelled African migrants en masse, and Chinese landlords evicted Africans from th

July 14, 2020

[Ram Garikipati] Indo-Sino conflict in context of S. Korea’s problems

China recently blocked Indian websites and e-commerce platforms in retaliation for India’s move to ban 59 Chinese apps and prevent Chinese companies from participating in infrastructure projects. It is laughable, given that Facebook, Google and LinkedIn have been blocked in the mainland for years -- my friends there throw their hands up in exasperation as they have to only use local social media platforms -- and the country is now also blocking virtual private networks. The Cold War be

July 13, 2020

[Trudy Rubin] Crackdown on HK dangerous for world

When China imposed a draconian new security law on Hong Kong last week, I grabbed my phone to call some young pro-democracy activists I’d met there in November. Then I put the phone down because I realized that the old Hong Kong, where free speech and rule of law were allowed despite it being part of China, was over. It was ended by a new security law imposed by Beijing that destroys the rights Hong Kongers were promised by international treaty. Those high school students, who passionat

July 13, 2020

[Digital Simplicity] The smartphone not taken: Apple iOS vs. Android system

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is deeply profound and almost prophetic even when we read just the first two lines: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both.” Let’s not dig deeper into the entire poem since it will take days, if not months, to talk about various literary interpretations and related ideas. Instead, I will focus on the difficulty in choosing between the two choices, and hopefully a workable solution that ca

July 10, 2020

[Conor Sen] US can’t wait for jobs recovery

With the US Congress set to tackle the next phase of economic relief this month, Thursday’s jobs report provided more evidence of how much permanent damage is being done to the labor market by the coronavirus pandemic. The number of workers being permanently laid off continues to grow even as millions of Americans who were furloughed have gone back to work. Expectations for how long it will take to get the labor market back to where it was at the beginning of the year are fluid, but some,

July 10, 2020

[Noah Smith] The wealthy and privileged can revolt, too

Plenty of people will tell you that the unrest spreading through the US is rooted in inequality -- in the dissatisfaction of the 99 percent. But what if it’s not that simple? What if there’s also an important battle going on within the 1 percent? For the sake of the nation’s survival, it’s worth considering. No doubt, people are angry. According to a recent Pew survey, 87 percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. Pa

July 9, 2020

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Why Europe’s in better shape than the US

After the Great Recession, the American economy rebounded faster and stronger than the eurozone, raising doubts over the effectiveness of the “European social model.” As Europe emerges from the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in better shape than the US, its combination of welfare states and strong public health systems suddenly seems appealing again. The US is still struggling to contain outbreaks in several states from Texas to Florida, whose health care systems are being push

July 9, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Remembering those who laid down their lives for us

Recently, a friend sent me a succinct but powerful essay written by Lee Jung-woong, a former TBC producer, on the topic, “What is America to us?” The friend who thoughtfully sent me this essay wrote that she read it many times and every time she read it, she felt ashamed of not being grateful enough to the American soldiers who died for us during the Korean War. While reading the heart-rending essay, I, too, felt ashamed. Based on the testimony of the late Gen. Chae Mying-shin, Lee

July 8, 2020

[Tyler Cowen] American lockdown exceptionalism

As the number of COVID-19 cases starts to rise again in many states, the question is whether residents of those states will tolerate another lockdown. I used to think so, but it is increasingly clear that Americans have become comfortable with a remarkably high number of casualties. There is a mechanism of social conformity at work here. Most people will not tolerate a small risk to their lives to dine out, for instance -- but they might if all their friends are doing the same. The appeal of a

July 7, 2020

[Andreas Kluth] Nord Stream 2 could sever trans-Atlantic ties

US President Donald Trump is furious at Germany for many reasons, not all of them fathomable. In phone conversations with Angela Merkel, he’s allegedly called the German chancellor “stupid” and denigrated her in “near-sadistic” tones. Though this be madness, there is -- on rare occasions -- method in it. One such case is Nord Stream 2. It is an almost-finished gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany, running next to the original Nord Stream. &l

July 7, 2020

[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Priorities for COVID-19 economy

Although it seems like ancient history, it hasn’t been that long since economies around the world began to close down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Early in the crisis, most people anticipated a quick V-shaped recovery, on the assumption that the economy merely needed a short timeout. After two months of tender loving care and heaps of money, it would pick up where it left off. It was an appealing idea. But now it is July, and a V-shaped recovery is probably a fantasy. The post-p

July 6, 2020

[Mac Margolis] Coronavirus’ toll will rewrite Latin America’s future

As much as guns and gadgets, pathogens have written history in the Americas. Smallpox cut through the Aztecs long before Hernan Cortes’s troops marched into Tenochtitlan. Yellow fever stopped Napoleon in Haiti, laying the way for the island’s independence. Epidemiologist Arnoldo Gabaldon liberated more than half of Venezuelan territory from malaria, launching the pestilent nation into the 20th century. So what will be the legacy of coronavirus in the latitudes where it has found suc

July 6, 2020

[Serendipity] Think of the consequences

The novel coronavirus that began its insidious spread at the beginning of the year continues to wreak havoc around the world, claiming lives, slowing down economies and changing the way we live. South Korea, which was initially hit hard by a large cluster of COVID-19 cases in Daegu involving a cultish religious group, continues to be plagued by low-level spreads. On Thursday, the government announced 54 new cases, 44 of them local infections and 10 from abroad. Although the number of new case

July 3, 2020

[Robert J. Fouser] South Korean leadership for openness

North Korea’s recent demolition of the South Korean liaison office in Kaesong is a sharp reminder that tension remains the norm on the Korean Peninsula. More recently, Prime Minister Abe of Japan came out against the idea of including South Korea in an expanded G-7 meeting. These events are reminders that tension remains the norm in relations between South Korea and Japan. China has been quiet recently but attempts in 2017 to bully South Korea into rejecting the US Terminal High-Altitude A

July 3, 2020

[Kim Myong-sik] Pandemic to silence noise from April general elections

Two-and-a-half months have passed since the last parliamentary election threw South Koreans into a big surprise at the stunning leftist victory. During this period, suspicions of a rigged election persisted in diverse corners, on YouTube screens, social media dialogues and beer tables. The nation is now bracing for possible resurgence of the pandemic after the number of daily infections grew again from single digits to several tens through May and June. So it is about time to focus national ef

July 2, 2020

[Noah Smith] Coronavirus brings US decline out in the open

The US’ decline started with little things that people got used to. Americans drove past empty construction sites and didn’t even think about why the workers weren’t working, then wondered why roads and buildings took so long to finish. They got used to avoiding hospitals because of the unpredictable and enormous bills they’d receive. They paid 6 percent real-estate commissions, never realizing that Australians were paying 2 percent. They grumbled about high taxes and hig

July 2, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Salute to the fallen soldiers of our country

The other day, I came across the 2009 HBO film, “Taking Chance.” Watching the movie based on a true story, I spent a riveting hour and 17 minutes, deeply moved by the way how Americans treat their fallen soldiers in war. It occurred to me that we should learn from the movie how to honor our soldiers killed in action. The movie unfolds the story of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a US Marine Corps officer who volunteers to escort the body of PFC Chance Phelps, who died in the Iraq War, bac

July 1, 2020

[Anjani Trivedi] China’s financial system running out of room

Despite deleveraging rhetoric, risks lurking in China’s financial system are coming to the fore and starting to hurt a highly sensitive group: repressed savers. Eroding investor confidence and blockages in the allocation of money could become far more dangerous than previously. Beijing has few options but to backpedal on rules meant to clamp down on the unruly underbelly of its banking system. The problems range from hotspots in the nearly $3 trillion shadow lending industry to wealth man

July 1, 2020

[Andy Mukherjee] It’s hard to be next China

Is the global monetary order ready for another reboot? In the 1960s, Japan and Europe exported their way to post-World War II prosperity under the fixed exchange rates of the Bretton Woods agreement. The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but the established way of doing things didn’t collapse. Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being the world economy’s periphery and selling cheap widgets to a revamped core -- the West and Japan -- with the help of an undervalued ex

June 30, 2020

[Andreas Kluth] The future of Europe could be decided in Poland

The European Union has many problems, but the most fundamental may be the rift between northern and southern member states and the even deeper fault line running between west and east. That latter fissure is especially dangerous because, unlike the largely economic one between north and south, it tears at the EU’s core values, including democracy, freedom of the press and the rule of law. For the past decade, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been flouting these principles

June 30, 2020