“So when our Sickness, and our Poverty Had greater wants than we could well supply; Strict Orders did but more enrage our grief, And hinder in accomplishing relief.” That’s how the British poet George Wither explained a spreading rebellion against social-distancing rules. Seeing quarantines and lockdowns as unfair and tyrannical punishments, people were taking to the streets. The year was 1625, the place was London, the disease was plague. The same psychology brought some 20

Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States has seriously weakened authoritarian and populist governments around the world. For independent global powers like Russia, Brazil and Turkey, Donald Trump’s departure need not amount to a complete tragedy. But for the current governments of Poland, Hungary and Serbia -- and perhaps Boris Johnson’s United Kingdom, too -- it is a veritable disaster. Not surprisingly, each of these smaller players has greeted Biden’s el

America’s allies should be forgiven if they are confused about where American foreign policy is headed. Who isn’t, given the go-it-alone recklessness of Donald Trump’s presidency? Over the past three years, Trump has sowed strategic chaos, and his foreign policy, if one can call it that, brought new meaning to incoherence. President-elect Joe Biden will be better almost by default. But has Trump changed America so much that the world cannot count on it ever being normal again?

The grinding recovery from the epic global recession has generated a deep divide within Asia: Economies in the north are ascendant and their once faster-growing southern neighbors are mired in a deep funk. The chasm can be seen in recent gross domestic product numbers. China’s recovery hastened, and Taiwan returned to growth last quarter. South Korea’s better-than-forecast results suggest it’s not far behind. The contrast with once flashy emerging markets is stark. Far from f

The first time I met Kevin L. O’Rourke the Columban priest had just won a prize for his translation of “The Poetry of John” by Chang Yong-hak, a short story depicting postwar existentialism in South Korean society. That was in November 1971, the second year of the Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards given by the Korea Times, the only such honors at that time. By then, awareness had ripened that exemplary translations of Korean literary works should be recognized. Yasu

To look at the politics of it, you might think that four years of President Donald Trump’s trade war on China were just starting to bear fruit as he prepares to leave office. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga used his first foreign tour since taking office to visit Vietnam and Indonesia, notably China-skeptical allies, and push for a strengthening of bilateral supply chains that would avoid the region’s 800-pound gorilla. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who has been purs

Joe Biden has been elected to be the next president of the United States. Now he’ll have to get creative. When the president-elect takes office, he’ll confront the country’s two most acute challenges: an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the economic damage it’s wrought. But he’ll have an uphill battle to enact the sort of bold policy agenda that many supporters were hoping for. Barring a January surprise in Georgia’s runoff election, Republicans are likely to r

One of the distinctive characteristics of Korean culture is “sinbaram.” In Korean, “sin” (pronounced “shin”) means God or spirits and “baram” means wind. When someone is excited, Koreans say, “sinbaram blows to him,” or “He is sinnada,” meaning “He is in high spirits” or “He is elated.” When sinbaram blows collectively, Koreans easily become ecstatic and accomplish astonishing things together. The w

In 2015, the year before Donald Trump became president of the US, a similar power shift occurred in Eastern Europe, albeit on a smaller scale. Like America soon after, Poland veered hard-right toward an anti-elitist populism built on the politics of grievance and resentment. What’s Poland like today? Bitterly divided. “This is war,” read some of the banners carried by hundreds of thousands of Poles, mainly women, who took to the streets in recent days. They’re marching

Among Democrats and many Republicans, there is a great temptation to dismiss US President Donald Trump’s administration as a bizarre aberration. Just as Republicans may try to blame the many transgressions of the past four years on Trump, hoping that their enabling role is quickly forgotten, Democrats might want to make a show of observing democratic norms, by graciously refraining from litigating the past. If so, upon the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, Trump and his administr

Joe Biden has survived a grueling election campaign and a cliff-hanger election. Next, he must fend off legal challenges from US President Donald Trump’s campaign. While he will most likely enter the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, he will wonder when he gets there whether the prize he sought for so long is a poisoned chalice. A President Biden will enter office confronting widespread economic distress, the seasonal escalation of a deadly pandemic, and a brutal international environment. T

As I write this, Thursday afternoon in Seoul, more than a full day after the 2020 United States presidential election came to a close, it remains unclear who is the winner. The Democrats, who had largely expected a “Blue Wave” and even a landslide victory, are expressing dismay while political pundits pronounce a nation deeply divided. When President Donald Trump won the election in 2016, despite having lost the popular vote to his rival Hillary Clinton, many were ready to see it

More than anything else, the face mask has come to symbolize the COVID-19 pandemic. It stirs strong emotions and deep prejudices. It has been at the center of public health debates and the turbulent US presidential election campaign. Since COVID-19 first began its spread from China, much has been written about differences in face mask use in the “East” and “West.” Examples from the “East” come primarily from South Korea, Japan and China, while the “West

Regardless of what happens in the vote counting, President Donald Trump has said he is going to the Supreme Court to ask for … something or other. When he does, he will have to overcome a hurdle of his own making: his claim to have “already” won the election, made during his rambling speech at 2:30 a.m. The justices -- including the crucial conservatives like Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett -- will not like the speech, which puts them in the position of being as

Former president Lee Myung-bak was back in the Dongbu Prison on the eastern outskirts of Seoul last Monday with the Supreme Court’s final sentence of 17 years. He was ordered to pay 18.78 billion won ($16.5 million) to the state in “fines” and “forfeiture,” though I don’t know exactly how they are different from each other. By the time he finishes his prison term in 2036, Lee will be 95 years old, if he is blessed with a life that long. He was arrested in Ma