The Korea Herald

[Editorial] Progress at summit

South Korea, China and Japan held their first trilateral summit in over four years in Seoul on Monday amid expectations that the three countries would focus on exploring deeper cooperation in the economic and trade sectors. But the focus of the three-way summit expanded to cover the threats of North Korea, which announced it would launch a spy satellite just hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sat down for the nint

EditorialMay 28, 2024

[Arvind Subramanian] Sino-American trade war benefits China's rivals

US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in November’s presidential election, are competing to portray themselves as tough on trade and China. Biden has already imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles, and Trump has vowed to impose a 200 percent tariff on Chinese cars manufactured in Mexico, along with a range of other protectionist measures affecting steel, solar panels, semiconductors and batteries. The European Un

ViewpointsMay 27, 2024

[Arvind Subramanian] Sino-American trade war benefits China's rivals

[Yoo Choon-sik] Weak household income despite solid labor market

South Korea’s labor market remains strong even as the country’s economy went through one of the toughest years in history during 2023, according to official figures. It is fortunate, given that weak exports and depressed domestic demand have combined to bring gross domestic product growth down to the lowest in modern history last year except for crisis years. On a four-quarter moving average basis, the country’s employment rate for the whole population aged 15 years or older st

ViewpointsMay 27, 2024

[Yoo Choon-sik] Weak household income despite solid labor market

[Editorial] Time to end standoff

South Korea has finalized the first increase in its total medical school enrollment quota in 27 years, a move that the government hopes will help address the shortage of doctors in the coming years. But the outlook for a full normalization of the country’s medical services hit by the prolonged strikes of trainee doctors remains uncertain. The Korean Council for University Education, a group of university presidents, held its admission committee meeting Friday, where it approved the hike of

EditorialMay 27, 2024

[Editorial] Pension reform bill

With only a few days left until the 21st National Assembly’s term expires on May 29, rival parties have one thing they can achieve, if they have the will, which is passing the pension reform bill. As South Korea rapidly ages, the national pension fund is expected to be drained by 2055 if no structural changes are made. If the pension system isn’t revamped now, the National Pension Service might have to sell off its investment assets in six years to pay out pension benefits, according

EditorialMay 24, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Limits and chances from the limitless alliance

Last week, the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing was held amid global attention. The summit became famous because it could serve as the starting point for changing the current international order, namely the unipolar order with the United States as the hegemon, into a multipolar order with China and Russia sharing the same status and power as the United States. During the summit, the two leaders declared the beginning of a new era and sha

ViewpointsMay 23, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Limits and chances from the limitless alliance

[Jennifer Huddleston] AI, privacy rules meant for Big Tech

As lawmakers and regulators in the US consider policy born of their Big Tech concerns such as data privacy and artificial intelligence, they should carefully consider how such changes could end up trampling the small and midsize businesses that drive innovation and competition. While policymakers may have Google and Facebook in mind, the actual policies could unintentionally create new regulatory burdens that could deter investment in smaller businesses and prevent new companies from emerging. F

ViewpointsMay 23, 2024

[Jennifer Huddleston] AI, privacy rules meant for Big Tech

[Editorial] Minimum wage debate

The official review process to set the 2025 minimum wage started Tuesday, heralding a heated debate among the members of the tripartite commission due to conflicting views about how much minimum wage should be raised. This year, there are two primary issues: whether next year’s minimum wage per hour will exceed the threshold of 10,000 won ($7.34) for the first time and whether the differentiated application of minimum wages will be allowed, depending on the situations of industries. The ou

EditorialMay 23, 2024

[Richard K. Sherwin] King Trump on trial

The drama starring former US President Donald Trump that is now playing out in a New York City courtroom is more than just a criminal trial. It is a contest between competing conceptions of power: a liberal-democratic system of law versus an illiberal conception that locates the source of authority outside the current legal system. According to the conventional view, apart from the fact that for the first time in American history the defendant is a former president (and current presidential cand

ViewpointsMay 22, 2024

[Richard K. Sherwin] King Trump on trial

[Kim Seong-kon] If Edward Said still lived today

Recently, pro-Palestine protests have been erupting across American college campuses. Ever since Columbia University ignited the protest on April 18 by setting up an encampment and occupying Hamilton Hall, many other elite American universities have joined the protests. At the University of Michigan, protestors even waved Palestinian flags. The protestors demand the US government to withdraw its support of Israel in order to stop the genocide in Palestine. On Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestinian milita

ViewpointsMay 22, 2024

[Kim Seong-kon] If Edward Said still lived today

[Editorial] Special counsel bill

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday vetoed a special counsel bill to investigate allegations that his office or others exerted undue influence on an inquiry into the death of a Marine last year. "The special prosecutor system is an exceptional measure that can only be introduced supplementarily when the investigation by law enforcement agencies is inadequate or when the fairness or objectivity of the investigation is in doubt, but investigations by police and the CIO are currently underway,&

EditorialMay 22, 2024

[Editorial] Cross-border trade

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s embarrassing backtracking of its hastily formulated policy plan to block consumers from directly buying cross-border items -- mostly from China -- has sparked a wave of criticism, raising questions about its administrative capabilities, as well as its ulterior motives regarding the country’s safety certification system, which is saddled with some critical issues. On Sunday, Lee Jeong-won, second vice minister of the Office for Government Policy Coor

EditorialMay 21, 2024

[Takatoshi Ito] The innocent bystanders of college protests

In 1968, protests against the Vietnam War swept through American college campuses and, in some cases, turned violent. At Columbia University, student protesters were angry about several issues, as James Simon Kunen chronicled in “The Strawberry Statement,” a series that first ran in New York magazine and was later published as a book. The protesting students opposed Columbia’s ties with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank researching war strategy, and the universit

ViewpointsMay 21, 2024

[Takatoshi Ito] The innocent bystanders of college protests

[Sandeep Vaheesan] The gig economy vs. America's workers

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and other gig corporations are once again seeking the law’s blessing in the United States for their unscrupulous employment practices. Ahead of November’s election, these firms have proposed several ballot initiatives in Massachusetts that would empower them to classify drivers and delivery people as independent contractors rather than employees. (The Open Markets Institute, where I work, filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to the constitutio

ViewpointsMay 21, 2024

[Sandeep Vaheesan] The gig economy vs. America's workers

[Yoo Choon-sik] KDI’s warning against Fed-tied policy

The Korea Development Institute’s revised economic forecasts and comments, released last week, contained sources of confusion for investors regarding the central bank’s monetary policy direction for the rest of the year because it warned against tying the country’s interest rate policy too closely to that in advanced economies. In its biannual event, South Korea’s most influential research institute upgraded this year’s economic growth forecast to 2.6 percent from 2

ViewpointsMay 20, 2024

[Yoo Choon-sik] KDI’s warning against Fed-tied policy

[Editorial] Doctors' self-isolation

The Seoul High Court on Thursday rejected a request from trainee doctors, medical professors and medical students to stop the government from increasing the medical school enrollment by 2,000 starting next year from the current cap of 3,058. While the planned increase could infringe on medical students’ right to learn, suspending it could have a severe impact on the public welfare promoted by the medical reform, the court said in its ruling. The court judged that the latter was more import

EditorialMay 20, 2024

[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency

Defining proficiency in a second language is one of the most controversial topics in second-language education. In the past, near-native proficiency was considered the ideal, but that has changed with the spread of communicative language teaching beginning in the 1980s. CLT focuses on individual learner needs rather than a definition that can be applied across groups of learners. Second-language teachers understand this, but society at large often has complex and conflicting ideas about second-l

ViewpointsMay 17, 2024

[Robert J. Fouser] Social attitudes toward language proficiency

[Editorial] Start working on AI bill

OpenAI, a frontrunner in generative AI technology, unveiled ChatGPT-4o, a faster and more powerful iteration of its popular chatbot, on Monday, heralding a new chapter in the fast-evolving sector that is reshaping the way people work, study and communicate. Unfortunately, South Korea is lagging behind in the rapidly shifting global AI trend, with government officials and lawmakers stuck in a wasteful stalemate. The updated model of OpenAI is not only “much faster” but also capable of

EditorialMay 17, 2024

[Editorial] Korea-China relations

South Korea and China expressed a wish to improve ties in their first foreign ministerial talks in seven months. Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Monday, marking the first visit by South Korea’s top diplomat to the Chinese capital in more than six years. It is not without meaning that the two top diplomats expressed their goodwill to improve the countries’ strategic cooperative partnership. Bilateral ties had soured after South Korea

EditorialMay 16, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Nuclear proliferation and the US national interest

It is shocking to see the claims raised by former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby in recent interviews with Korean media. In particular, the argument that South Korea should consider its nuclear armament is very disappointing. Although such claims have been made intermittently, this time is uncomfortable and scary because he is known to be one of the best elites in the United States who studied at Harvard College and Yale University, and one of the strong candidates for a

ViewpointsMay 16, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Nuclear proliferation and the US national interest