The Korea Herald

[Xavier Vives] Banking disunion threatens euro

BARCELONA ― The line of credit to Spain from fellow eurozone governments may help to stabilize a fragile banking system, at least in the short term, but it is a missed opportunity. Spain’s banking crisis provides a perfect opening to move towards a European banking union.In the medium term, help to Spain will merely reinforce the link between the sovereign and the banks’ problems, causing even greater fragmentation in the European banking market and pushing Spain closer to potential insolvency b

Viewpoints July 1, 2012

[Xavier Vives] Banking disunion threatens euro

Choice of ‘Asian values’ or universal human rights?

In the “caring and sharing community” that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations aims to be, hundreds of thousands of the Rohingya minority are stateless. Resisting deportation back to Myanmar, their “boatpeople” shuttle dangerously back and forth across the seas. Meanwhile, Indonesians protest the treatment of undocumented migrants in Malaysia, while Thailand’s neighbors fear spillover of that nation’s armed conflict in the south. At home, Papuans still report fears of extrajudicial killin

Viewpoints July 1, 2012

[J. Bradford DeLong] The perils of making predictions

BERKELEY ― We economists who are steeped in economic and financial history ― and aware of the history of economic thought concerning financial crises and their effects ― have reason to be proud of our analyses over the past five years. We understood where we were heading, because we knew where we had been.In particular, we understood that the rapid run-up of house prices, coupled with the extension of leverage, posed macroeconomic dangers. We recognized that large bubble-driven losses in assets

Viewpoints July 1, 2012

[J. Bradford DeLong] The perils of making predictions

[Editorial] Boosting marine R&D

On June 24, China made a large stride in space exploration by successfully conducting a manual docking between a manned spacecraft and an experimental orbiting lab module. The feat, carried out by three Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, took China one step closer to its dream of building a space station by 2020. On the same day, China made another technological breakthrough under the sea, which carried just as much, if not more, significance than the space docking exercise. It

Editorial June 29, 2012

[Editorial] Guarding against theft

It is shocking that the state-of-the-art display technology of Samsung Mobile Display and LG Display has been leaked abroad, probably to some of their foreign rivals. According to prosecutors, circumstantial evidence suggests that circuit diagrams of the two companies’ active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, or Amoled, display technology have been leaked to their rivals in China and Taiwan, including the BOE Technology Group in China, and AU Optronics Corp. in Taiwan.Prosecutors say the susp

Editorial June 29, 2012

[David Ignatius] Greece on its sickbed without cure

KIFISIA, Greece ― This upscale suburb of Athens offers a snapshot of a country sliding toward bankruptcy. It’s an ugly picture, as expectations of prosperity and stability vanish, and fear begins to take over. The trendy shops in the town center looked empty during a visit this week; many stylish restaurants were said to be closed or open only on weekends; banks here, as everywhere in Greece, have been depleted over the past month by a riptide of withdrawals. I’m here visiting Yannos Papantoniou

Viewpoints June 29, 2012

[David Ignatius] Greece on its sickbed without cure

[Marten Schultz] Justice for Sweden and Assange

STOCKHOLM ― Julian Assange’s bizarre bid for political asylum in Ecuador’s embassy in London has claimed headlines everywhere, but it has obscured an important truth: last month’s decision by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual crimes was the only possible outcome. The alternative ― to reject the European arrest warrant issued by Swedish authorities ― would have signaled distrust of Sweden’s legal system, which would have b

Viewpoints June 28, 2012

[Marten Schultz] Justice for Sweden and Assange

[Dominique Moisi] Emerging markets’ EU problem

PARIS ― From Hong Kong to Sao Paulo, and all points between, one word dominates all others among big investors: Greece. Will the Greeks remain in the eurozone? What will happen to the European Union and the global economy if they do not?Until recently, Europe was a sort of mirror that confirmed for the major emerging economies the spectacular nature of their own success. They could contrast their high growth rates with Europe’s high levels of debt. They could oppose their “positive energy” with

Viewpoints June 28, 2012

[Dominique Moisi] Emerging markets’ EU problem

[David Ignatius] A cautious backgrounder on leaks

WASHINGTON ― It’s hard for a journalist to be objective on the subject of leaks, a bit like asking a lawyer if he thinks litigation is a good method for resolving disputes. People in the news business always have a bias toward more information, even on sensitive subjects involving intelligence policy. So the reader should discount for my inherent bias in favor of informing the public, and of the process that leads to disclosure ― namely, leaks. We are in a new debate about leaks, flowing mainly

Viewpoints June 27, 2012

[David Ignatius] A cautious backgrounder on leaks

Court order serves democracy in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD ― On June 19, in what it called a “short order,” Pakistan’s Supreme Court removed Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani as the country’s prime minister, a post that he had held for more than four years ― longer than any of his 16 predecessors. For those who favor democracy in Pakistan, the court’s decision is cause, not for concern, but for celebration.Gilani had been convicted weeks earlier of contempt of court, after he refused to comply with a court order directing him to write to Swiss authoriti

Viewpoints June 27, 2012

Somali piracy: A threat and an opportunity for major rival powers

The coasts of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden have been home for some of the worst acts of piracy for years, costing lives and billions of dollars in damage every year and threatening Indian Ocean trade and shipment in one of the most vital trade routes in the world. But this part of the world is also emerging as an area of cooperation between (sometimes rival) countries and an opportunity to project power for others. Whether it is the U.S. Navy rescuing Iranian fishermen, or Iranian naval forces r

Viewpoints June 27, 2012

[Editorial] Economic challenges

The government is to unveil its economic management plan for the second half tomorrow. Policymakers must have had difficulty drawing up the plan as they have to meet a raft of short- and long-term challenges facing the economy with a limited set of policy options. In the short term, their primary challenge is to keep the economy on a steady growth path despite worsening economic conditions at home and abroad.Recently, foreign and domestic economic research institutes lowered their growth estimat

Editorial June 26, 2012

[Editorial] Strike fever

The Korea Cargo Transport Workers Union went on a nationwide strike Monday, threatening to disrupt the nation’s export and import cargo transportation system. According to reports, the strike disrupted operations at the ports in Busan and Ulsan on the southeastern coast and at the inland container depot in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province.But disruptions were reportedly only minor at other ports and ICDs. The initial damage is limited because many of the union’s 4,000 members as well as most n

Editorial June 26, 2012

Redefining sustainable development for megacities

One of the most striking changes at Rio+20, compared to the original 1992 Earth Summit, is the extensive discussion of population issues. In part, this is driven by the fact that many developing countries, including the BRICs, are seeking to redefine what sustainability means with their generally rapid annual growth rates, and high population growth which is estimated to see world population rise from around 7 billion today, to between 8 billion and 11 billion by 2050.This reminds us of the mass

Viewpoints June 26, 2012

State, market and money

Joseph Yam’s paper on “The Future of the Monetary System in Hong Kong” caused quite a stir this month. Irrespective of what happens to the Hong Kong dollar peg, the fundamental thrust of Joseph’s argument is irrefutable ― that no fixed exchange rate system is consistent with sustainable budgetary deficits. This is the major lesson learned from the current European crisis and was bitterly learned in the last Asian financial crisis. Hence, I interprete Joseph’s remarkable essay as a reminder that

Viewpoints June 26, 2012

Articles by Yu Kun-ha