South Korea posted a sixth consecutive month of growth in exports during March over a year earlier, official data showed last week, led by a surge in sales abroad of big-ticket items such as semiconductors and ships. This fueled the projection that the country’s economic growth would pick up this year after suffering a below-trend reading last year. Exports in March rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier to $56.5 billion, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry an

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s nearly weeklong visit to China, now underway, will most likely focus on US concerns about Chinese subsidies to producers of electric vehicles and other clean-tech goods. While the availability of cheap EVs is good news for the planet and for consumers everywhere, it is bad news for shareholders and employees of Western car companies, and both the United States and the European Union are considering imposing import tariffs on Chinese EVs. But tariffs are

Happiness popped back in the news recently with the release of the “2024 World Happiness Report.” The report made waves in the US because of a sharp drop in happiness, particularly among people under the age of 30, which fell to 62nd. The country ranked 23rd, marking the first time that the US dropped out of the top 20, out of 143 countries surveyed. The report made fewer waves in South Korea because it confirmed the established media narrative, both domestic and international, that

Korean Ambassador to Australia Lee Jong-sup resigned only 25 days after his appointment. Chung Jae-ho, the ambassador to China, is under investigation after an embassy staffer reported the abuse of power. It might be better to avoid such shameful stories, but the stories of the two ambassadors dramatically show the critical vulnerabilities of Korean diplomacy. It might be worth a detailed review in that they undermine -- not maximize -- the national interests of Korea. Ex-Ambassador Lee Jong-sup

Once the “sick man of Europe,” Germany seems to be under the weather once again. That might be putting it mildly: much as it did in the late 1990s, Germany is staring down the barrel of “stagflation” -- high inflation and unemployment combined with stagnant demand and low growth. A lack of effective political leadership further darkens the outlook for Germany -- and for the European Union that depends on it. France might be the EU’s second-largest economy, a nuclear

While I was watching the 2018 American superhero films, “Aquaman” and its 2023 sequel, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” I realized that South Korea desperately needed political leaders like Aquaman. In the movie, Aquaman bridges two radically different worlds: the land and the sea. Aquaman can thus be seen as a symbol of the ideal political leader: one who can quench our thirst for peace and harmony by mediating other binary oppositions, such as progressivism and conservat

On April 1, 1924, Adolf Hitler should have been terrified. Four and a half months earlier, the Nazi leader had led a failed coup d’etat in Munich, the Bavarian capital. Inspired by the Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini, Hitler had planned to march his supporters on to Berlin, where they would destroy the democratic Weimar Republic. The insurrection began just after 8 p.m. on Nov. 8, 1923, when Hitler and his followers burst into a political rally and held the crowd hostage. During the drunk

Abortion is back at the Supreme Court. The case contests decisions by the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug mifepristone available by mail and via telemedicine. But at oral argument on Monday, the court that overturned Roe v. Wade seemed poised to reject the arguments of the pro-life Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. No, the conservative justices haven’t suddenly discovered a new sympathy for the right to choose. Rather, several of the conservatives, alongside the court’

By claiming that it has the power to enforce its own immigration policy, even when that policy conflicts with federal law, Texas has reignited a debate about federalism that is as old as the United States itself. But with so many commentators invoking the past to justify their positions, it is crucial to get the history right. Many cite the Civil War as an analogy to -- and a cautionary tale for -- the current moment. But the more accurate benchmark is not the war itself; it is the five decades