The Korea Herald

[Adam Minter] China’s war on foreign garbage

Jul 26, 2017

For more than 30 years, imports of recycled goods have fueled China’s manufacturing boom. On Wednesday, the government announced that it’d had enough. By the end of the year, it told the World Trade Organization, it would stop accepting most recycled plastics, paper, textiles and other products from overseas. The decision, it said, was part of a campaign against “foreign garbage” that harms public health and the environment.It’s a crowd-pleasing stand. But far from solving China’s environmental
[Lee Jae-min] Will minimum wage hike step up automation?

Jul 25, 2017

As heralded, the minimum wage is being increased substantially by the Minimum Wage Commission. The commission is raising the minimum wage from 6,470 won ($5.80) per hour this year to 7,530 won next year, a 16.4 percent increase and the largest increase since 2001. The rise will continue until the minimum payment reaches 10,000 won. As of now, Korea’s per hour minimum wage is roughly in the upper middle among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, when per capita gross n
[Kim Seong-kon] SJWs rampant in South Korea

Jul 25, 2017

Haruki Murakami lamented the lack of decency and common sense among the extreme right wing in Japan, in a recent email interview with his Korean publisher, Munhakdongne. He mentioned this while referring to a group of extremely conservative Japanese who had vehemently criticized his recent novel “Killing Commendatore,” which deals with the dark side of modern Japanese history, including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. “In this age of the internet,” said Murakami, “people still tend to see things only
[Li Junheng] China’s overextended consumers can’t stop adding debt

Jul 24, 2017

Macau has long been regarded as a barometer of China’s economic activities. This makes sense as long as much of China’s economy continues to be driven by construction and manufacturing. That’s because few “internet bosses” frequent casinos to entertain business associates. It’s the “coal bosses,” “steel bosses” and “real estate bosses” who readily throw down large sums of money in the VIP rooms with their guests to lubricate business deals. Keep in mind that Macau is not -- and likely will never
[Jon D. Michaels] Trump aides want to re-privatize military

Jul 24, 2017

Fearful of repeating the foreign policy mistakes of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, top Trump aides Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon have recently turned to Erik Prince and Stephen Feinberg for help. According to a report in the New York Times, Prince, the founder of Blackwater, and Feinberg, the CEO of the holding company that owns DynCorp, are championing private military alternatives to a recommitment of uniformed personnel in Afghanistan.There is a lot going on in this still
[David Ignatius] Is quiet persuasion more effective than shouting?

Jul 23, 2017

The Chinese government, subtle masters of propaganda, seem to have discovered a Sun Tzu formula for taming dissent on the internet: The best strategy may not be to confront critics directly, but to lull or distract them with a tide of good news.This intriguing argument is suggested by a recent article in the American Political Science Review titled “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument.” With complex data, it supports a simple t
[Daniel Moss] Japan’s struggles aren’t so unique

Jul 23, 2017

Victory in Japan’s battle with too-low inflation looks as elusive as ever. On Thursday, the Bank of Japan pushed back its estimate of when it’ll hit its 2 percent inflation target; the goal now won’t be reached until the year beginning April 2019, according to Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda. The delay would seem to confirm that Japan remains subject to a unique “deflationary mindset” that’s nearly impossible to eradicate.In fact, what’s interesting isn’t how singular Japan’s problems are, but how common.
[Martin Schram] Rethinking Donald Sr. and Jr. and the secrets they keep

Jul 21, 2017

After all of the negative Trump news that’s been pouring over us, it’s time somebody in my biz said a good word or two about Donald Trump. In fact, both Donalds — senior and junior.Because in one sense, I’m convinced they’ve got to be smarter than they appear. Of course, Donald Sr. and Donald Jr. are prone to say and do things that make them look goofy, inept, untruthful or maybe even worse to all of us outsiders. But I’m operating now on the assumption that, most of the time, they sure must hav
[Adam Minter] China’s cashless revolution

Jul 21, 2017

On a recent trip to Shenzhen, in southern China, I came across a subway busker with two tip jars. The first was a cardboard box filled with coins and bills; the second was a small QR code taped to the box that allowed passersby to leave a tip by smartphone. On one level, this was simply smart business: Chinese made around $5.5 trillion in e-payment transactions last year. But it also offered a glimpse of the future.Around the developing world, QR codes are beating out Apple Pay and other brand-n
[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] After the siege: the defeat of IS raises new questions about Mosul

Jul 20, 2017

The fall of Mosul to a coalition of forces led by government troops and supported by Americans brought to an end a nine-month attack on and siege of the ancient Iraqi city.Mosul had been held by the Islamic State, from which the IS had declared its caliphate, since June 2014. There remain unresolved issues surrounding Mosul. The issue for Americans at this point is the degree to which these questions engage the United States, which still has some 5,000 troops in Iraq. The first of these is futur
[Philip W. Yun] Why are we afraid of North Korea?

Jul 20, 2017

With North Korea’s successful intercontinental missile test this month, Americans again woke up to breathless alarm over possible military strikes and the specter of a North Korean nuclear attack — a virtual repeat of the hype in April when it looked as if a sixth North Korean nuclear test was imminent. Why are we so afraid of North Korea?The media and policymakers like to remind us that North Korea produces one bomb’s worth of nuclear material every eight weeks. By most accounts, if nothing cha
[Albert Eisenberg] Liberal America has a political violence problem

Jul 20, 2017

Hamburg, Germany, July. As world leaders gather for the G-20 summit, far-left “anti-fascist” (Antifa) rioters set fire to cars and property, terrorize residents and injure more than 200 police officers attempting to keep the peace. Did you miss it? CNN’s initial reports referred to the “protesters” as “eclectic” and “peaceful.”But you need not cross the shining seas to experience violence, destruction of property and a general dismantling of liberal values from the political left. You could simp
[Eli Lake] Trump just came very close to killing the Iran deal

Jul 20, 2017

Under President Barack Obama this kind of thing was routine. Since the Iran nuclear deal was reached in 2015, every few months the State Department would inform Congress that the Tehran government was in compliance.Then Donald Trump was elected president. He had campaigned against the agreement, and many of the top aides he brought into the White House believed the Obama administration had turned a blind eye to Iran’s regional predations to secure a bargain that in the end was harmful to US nati
[Letter to the editor] Why don’t we have the Sanggwaengi as a mascot of the Han River?

Jul 20, 2017

Yoo Duk-moon, whose family was displaced by the government from the Bamseom islet, recalls the Han River as it was. “When I was in my childhood,” Yoo reminisces, “the water was very clean and the river was our main source of entertainment. The Sanggwaengi often paid us a visit, swimming alongside us. But we cannot even imagine that scene today.”You may be wondering what on earth the Sanggwaengi is. It is a small-sized endemic finless porpoise with a perpetual smile. Even though the species is li
[Sean O’Malley] Moon’s NK policy should link aid to human rights

Jul 20, 2017

It did not take long for South Korean President Moon Jae-in to outline his approach for peace on the Korean Peninsula. There is no doubt the future road to peace will be complex with many unforeseen twists and turns, which makes it prudent to recognize that President Moon’s initial offerings are rich with irony and heavy with inconvenient truths.The irony of course is that President Moon is a former human rights lawyer, regarded by many here to have been put in power by candlelight protesters wi