The government has unveiled its economic management plan for the second half of the year amid turmoil in global financial markets following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.The focus of the plan is on creating and retaining jobs as job market conditions are expected to worsen due to the weakening economic recovery and the ongoing restructuring of ailing industries.The economy grew a mere 0.5 percent on quarter in the first three months of the year, slowing down from the 1.2 percent

Anger is clearly the buzzword of the 2016 presidential campaign, especially on the GOP side of the aisle. Google the word with Republican and, like me, you might get more than 24 million hits (vs. 606,000 when matched with Democrat).I have watched the angry storyline take hold. On roughly a dozen occasions during this campaign season, I was a CNN election-night panelist. If you watched, you may have seen my colleagues and me with our faces buried in laptops. Often we were analyzing exit surveys

Last night I fell asleep while reading Robert Harris’s alternative history novel “Fatherland.” It is set in a 1964 in which Hitler had won World War II and ruled Europe. The novel induced me to ponder, “What would have happened if Germany had won the Second World War?” Perhaps due to the influence of the bleak novel, I had a fitful night’s sleep. I dreamed I had woken up in 2018 to find Donald Trump in the White House and a Marxist president and his coterie in Cheong Wa Dae. My God, it was the m

How fitting. As the Brits cast a stunning vote to quit the European Union, Donald Trump was opening a luxury golf course in Scotland and crowing that Britain did “a great thing.”This historic victory for the British Brexiteers is part of a nationalist trend that is gripping Europe and has spread across the Atlantic. The leader of the “Leave” campaign, the blond, mop-haired Boris Johnson, is a bombastic Trump clone who defied his Conservative Party’s leader, Prime Minister David Cameron. Johnson

I wrote most of this column at the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin, the giant port city (population: 15 million) a half-hour bullet-train ride southeast of Beijing. It’s a sleek aircraft-hangar of a building that’s hosting the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, what the Chinese call “summer Davos.”　That all sounds pretty modern and global and connected, doesn’t it? Technologically sophisticated, too: I arrived too late this morning (lots of traffic i

Absolute panic is what it is. Four days after the British referendum, people are still struggling to piece together the puzzle that has poured out of London. What does this all mean? To those wary of globalization, the EU has been a beacon of hope and a navigator for an unbroken path. To us outside Europe, the EU is the proof that globalization (together with ensuing integration and liberalization) is the right direction for the global community at large. The outcome of the British referendum la

The graft scandals involving the union of GM Korea show how corrupt some of the nation’s large unions are. It should serve as a reminder that we cannot eradicate labor corruption without reining in unions’ power and interference with management decisions like staff recruitment. The latest case at the local unit of the U.S. carmaker General Motors started with an investigation into bribery allegations over the company’s purchase of gifts for employees on major holidays like Chuseok and Seollal an

National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-gyun took helm of a legislature which had lost public trust so severely that it was often rated as one of the least respected public institutions in opinion polls. The problem was serious in the 19th Assembly and many called it “the worst-ever parliament” due to severe partisan strife that often paralyzed legislative business and involved its members’ endless series of ethical lapses. The 20th Assembly started its four-year term early this month under strong p

The “Brexit” vote was a triple protest: against surging immigration, City of London bankers and European Union institutions, in that order. It will have major consequences. Donald Trump’s campaign for the U.S. presidency will receive a huge boost, as will other anti-immigrant populist politicians. Moreover, leaving the EU will wound the British economy, and could well push Scotland to leave the United Kingdom — to say nothing of Brexit’s ramifications for the future of European integration.Brexi

Raghuram Rajan’s decision not to seek a second term as governor of the Reserve Bank of India was met with shock from those of us who have been cheering on the Indian economy. While it is no secret that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had its problems with Rajan, few believed that the government would take a step that so clearly undermines India’s interests.The government never liked Rajan’s insistence on pursuing interest rate cuts gradually in order to promote price stability; instead

In refusing to strike down a race-conscious admissions plan at the University of Texas at Austin on Thursday, the Supreme Court did more than uphold an affirmative action program. Just as important, it struck a much-needed blow for judicial modesty.The justices showed an awareness that others might know better than they do. We could use a lot more of that.The crucial part of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion came toward the end. “Considerable deference is owed to a university,” he wrote

The United Kingdom’s Brexit vote is arguably the greatest disaster ever to hit the European Union. Now, the EU must act fast -- not least by ending the postreferendum market turmoil -- if it is to survive.British Prime Minister David Cameron, having lost the referendum, did the obvious thing by resigning. But the other loser is the European Commission, whose president, Jean-Claude Juncker, did little to change the outcome of the Brexit vote. Not since Jacques Delors was president of the Commissi

The contempt that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump express for each other will continue to play out in vitriolic sound bites. But their profound differences on what to do about the economy and the struggling middle class are far more important.“This election will be won by whichever candidate convinces middle-class voters they are better for their jobs and future prospects,” says Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist and Trump adviser.“This is about whether economic forces hollow out th

South Korea’s financial market has faced widening uncertainty from Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Its stocks and currency, which suffered a sharp drop in value on Friday, are likely to show extraordinary volatility over the next few trading sessions.There is a possibility that the two main indexes will be further hit by Britons’ majority vote for Brexit.However, simultaneously, chances are the benchmark KOSPI will bounce back rapidly in the coming weeks. Despite the big external

Britain has Brexited, choosing populism and over pragmatism, insularity over inclusion -- and leaving the world transformed and deeply worried.The rising tide against immigration has Trumped integration (pun intended, of course). It’s a script that Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, easily could have penned, were it not for the U.K.’s own version of nationalistic bombast and one of the standard bearers for Brexit -- former London Mayor Boris Johnson. Johnson and other Brexit leade

I didn’t think it would actually happen.Sitting in an airport with middle-class Britons last week, I heard far more support for leaving the European Union than for staying in. But heading into Thursday’s voting, I couldn’t quite believe it.I didn’t think it would happen simply because things like this usually don’t. The status quo is a powerful totem. People don’t like jumping off into the unknown. As polls moved toward Remain in the waning days of the campaign, I assumed that we were seeing the

If Donald Trump continues to implode, Hillary Clinton will win simply by being the presidential candidate who isn’t Trump.But the prospect of a President Trump is so terrifying that Clinton shouldn’t take any chances. The latest matchup polls show her about six points ahead — a comfortable but not surefire margin.What else can Clinton offer other than that she’s also experienced and would be the first woman to hold the job? So far, she’s put forth a bunch of respectable policy ideas. But they’re

The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union is creating a lot of losers: London’s finance industry. British Prime Minister David Cameron. The pound. The grand cause of European integration. But out of all of the market turmoil and uncertainty will emerge at least one big winner: China. In the short term, of course, China’s struggling economy may take a hit from the chaos in the EU, its second-largest trading partner. A smaller, less-stable European market and more cash-strapped consumers a

I ate dog just once, and it was an accident. A Chinese scrap metal dealer with whom I’m friendly invited me to a fancy hot pot restaurant in Chongqing. As the waitress delivered bowl after bowl of dunkable vegetables and raw meats for cooking at our table, I pointed to one and asked: “What’s this?” My friend’s answer, in heavily accented English, sounded like “duck.” It tasted like a meaty hair ball.As the magnitude of my mistake sank in, I thought of Yulin, the southern Chinese town infamous fo

North Korea test-fired what appeared to be two mid-range ballistic missiles Wednesday. The communist country managed to fly its intermediate-range ballistic missile for some hundred kilometers for the first time.While the first launch was deemed to be a failure, the second projectile’s flight, while well short of the 500 kilometer suspected minimum flight range of the Musudan, was assessed to have managed to sustain flight for a significant range.As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has clarified,