It was regrettable that Vice Defense Minister Lee Joo-suk had to represent the Korean government in the significant ceremony last week marking the opening of the new headquarters of the US Forces in Korea in Pyeongtaek because of domestic political complications. President Moon Jae-in had just returned home from attending the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the day before, and newly appointed Defense Minister Song Young-moo had yet to receive his letter of appointment at the Blue House because

South Korean media are pinning their survival hopes on transforming their print-oriented business models into digital-centered alternatives in the coming years. The monopoly of Naver in the news media sector, however, threatens to derail the plan. In fact, Naver dominates not only South Korea’s news media market but also virtually all major digital business sectors, ranging from keyword search ads to webtoons to blogging to online communities to video to entertainment. While Samsung Group, the c

Shortly before leaving Korea in late June, I met some people who wanted to hear my ideas about globalizing kimchi. I enjoyed the talk, but, as always, argued that cultural transmission is more complex than policymakers assume.I thought about the meeting and, more importantly, Korean food on the long plane ride home. Korean food and I go back a long time. I first ate bibimbap at a counter-top restaurant called Steve’s Lunch in Ann Arbor in the early 1980s. A Korean friend showed me how to stir it

If you ask a scientist, “What is a star?” he will probably answer, “It is a gigantic mass of dust located in the universe far away from Earth.” How unromantic! Yet it is the undeniable truth. In the eyes of a scientist a star is nothing but a round shaped mass of dust, earth and rocks orbiting in the universe in the dark. However, if you asked the same question to a poet or a student of literature or the humanities, the answer would be totally different. He will describe a star as the most gorge

When a peaceful transition of power from the Park Geun-hye government to the Moon Jae-In government was successfully completed, following Park’s impeachment and the presidential election within a short period without any violent confrontation between the pro-Park conservative forces and the anti-Park liberal forces, the world, particularly the Western democratic world, was quite impressed. This was mainly because a divided and newly independent non-Western state had not only successfully overcom

Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in a standoff in Doka La -- where the borders of Bhutan, China and India meet -- for almost a month now, the longest such impasse between the two armies since 1962. In a not-so-subtle reference to that last conflict, in which India suffered a disastrous defeat, Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Col. Wu Qian warned India to “learn from historical lessons.” But the lessons of history have a peculiar tendency to adapt to the perspective of those ci