When I visited South Korea in the spring of 2018, everybody was talking about the breakthrough with North Korea. A year later, everybody is talking about the economy. Small business owners, in particular, are worried about sluggish consumption and rising costs. People in large firms worry about job security and retirement. Most people believe that South Korea has fallen into a Japanese-style slump that will be difficult to overcome. Since the Korean economy began to grow in 1960s, citizens have

Traditionally, Koreans are known to enjoy singing and dancing tremendously. Perhaps singing and dancing was our ancestors’ daily ritual and thus runs in our blood.Watching K-pop singers dazzle on the stage, it seems Koreans’ superb performance skills are part of our DNA. Indeed, when it comes to singing and dancing, Koreans seem invincible. It is no wonder that the K-pop vocal group BTS is enchanting the world with their charming voices and stunning choreography. Foreigners say that drinking is

China may want to stand tough against Donald Trump’s trade threats. It’s going to have a hard time retaliating, though, and not only because it doesn’t import enough goods to match the US president tariff-for-tariff.One obvious target would be the $58.9 billion in services the US exports to China. These include everything from Hollywood blockbusters to tourism and education. In theory, Beijing could easily enough cut off the flow of American entertainment into China and Chinese students and tour

Donald Trump once thought foreign policy would be easy.“We would win if we would just sit down and negotiate -- but using our best people,” he wrote as a private citizen in 2008. “We have all the cards.”So as president he named himself negotiator-in-chief and tried to cajole North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to abandon nuclear weapons. He re-imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, betting he could force the ayatollahs to change their ways. He vowed to force China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union

In any tense military confrontation, diplomats start looking for an “off ramp” that could de-escalate tensions. But in the current standoff between the United States and Iran, it’s hard to find any such exit route. The US-Iran faceoff is one of those odd situations where both players appear eager to set off sparks, although neither seems to want a raging fire. They seem comfortable in a halfway zone of conflict, where nations use force in deniable ways across different domains, hoping they don’t

Donald Tusk’s term as president of the European Council will end Nov. 30, which is perfect timing for the Polish opposition. After the parliamentary election in late October, Poland will hold its presidential election in April 2020, and opposition voters already see Tusk as the only viable candidate. For the past year, Tusk has been dropping hints that he intends to return to Polish politics. “No one expects that after the conclusion of my term I will just be watching politics on

President Trump has styled himself in foreign policy as the Great Disrupter. And for a time, this unpredictable approach served him reasonably well. Leaders from China, North Korea and Iran found themselves off balance, and they sometimes made what looked like concessions. Trump’s problem is that, after two years, foreign nations seem to have figured him out. Rather than crafting quick deals that Trump could tout as wins, these adversaries have played a waiting game. They appear to sense in Trum

I spent much of my life in the US Navy, including nearly 11 years on the deep ocean day-to-day, out of sight of land. This really drove home the fact that oceans cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface -- all the world’s land would fit comfortably within the Pacific. Oceans produce much of the oxygen we breathe and a great deal of the protein we consume. They enable more than 90 percent of international trade and provide increasing amounts of oil and natural gas. Yet now, because of climate chan

Two years ago, the curtain rose on a new play. It was billed as a show never imagined before. The director said his play would depict a society without privileges and misconduct. He put up a sign that read, “Opportunities will be equal, the process fair and results righteous.” The title of the first act was “Elimination of Evils.” Only misconduct by conservatives and rightists was uncovered. Over 100 people who worked for the previous government were indicted, a

Recently, I saw an interesting diagram on the internet about the left and the right. The drawing indicates that as you go further to the right, you will get bad outcomes such as libertarianism, corrupt capitalism and then anarchy. On the contrary, if you go further to the left, you will end up with equally undesirable results such as fascism, socialism and communism. Then finally you will find totalitarianism and enslavement at the far end of the left. It is intriguing that the illustration puts

Last spring, driving on Olympic Highway along the Han River, I saw a young man caught by police for riding a motorcycle on the highway. To be sure, riding a motorbike on expressways or automobile-only highways is not permitted in Korea. In fact, Korea is one of the few countries (the only OECD member) where motorcycles are prohibited on those roads, mainly for safety reasons. This policy has been a trade hot potato for many years. Domestically, a group of Korean motorbikers have brought as many

A fortnight ago, markets were going great guns, with the S&P500 hitting a record high, even as there was increasing evidence that global trade and many economies were slowing. Last week the markets took a sharp turn as the White House tweeted that tariffs would once again be escalated for US-China trade. With North Korea again testing missiles, Iranian tensions rising and US politics becoming more divisive by the day, what is going on?People like to have simple stories to explain all this comple

Public attitudes toward US foreign policy are a mess of ambiguities and seeming contradictions. Americans don’t particularly like Donald Trump’s policies, but they share some of his ambivalence about the country’s vast global role. They are not retreating into isolationism, but neither are they persuaded by the traditional justifications for America’s efforts to shape the world.These are the principal takeaways from a recent opinion survey conducted by the progressive-leaning Center for American