South Korea currently ranks 12th in terms of economic power of nations. It ranks a little higher in international researchers’ comparison of military strength. The oft-quoted Global Fire Power website listed the Republic of Korea as seventh in the world in its 2019 report. Based on a total of 55 metrics -- including weapons diversity, total population, military manpower and financial capabilities -- the GFP index covering 137 countries put South Korea below the US, Russia, China, India, Fr

Korea has many problems in politics, economy and national security. In addition, the media world of this country is in crisis under a new environment created by the emergence of the internet. It is a global phenomenon, but Korea perhaps suffers more greatly because it is better wired than other places. Besides, ideological divisions here into the left, right and cynical center have rapidly lowered public trust in the mass media, which have mostly chosen to pursue a specific direction amid the to

As we approach the midpoint in the Moon Jae-in presidency, let us make a brief rundown of the leftist administration’s major policies. First is the denuclearization of North Korea. Moon has chosen a basically reconciliatory stance toward Pyongyang, favoring a step-by-step approach to peace that involves bartering with the North. This approach accepts the phased elimination of the North’s nuclear and rocket programs, rather than President Trump’s instant disarmament deal.Second

Let me ask our readers a question: Do you think it was appropriate for our minister of foreign affairs to go to Budapest, Hungary, to join rescue operations for Korean tourists missing when their boat sank in the Danube River? I expect a negative answer, but President Moon Jae-in and his aides thought it was necessary. These days, many are concerned that Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa is somewhat off the line of the denuclearization business against North Korea. Yet, she is responsible for the

Korea today has an abundant supply of photo artists, poets and historians. New smartphones are equipped with high-definition cameras of 12 to 16 megapixels, which can produce great pictures. But our amateur photographers, many of whom are old, need something different. They go about on city streets, mountains and seashores carrying branded cameras -- the digital version -- with long lenses and even tripods to take thousands of shots of anything within their sight. Poets, of course self-styled, m

Citizens in this republic were not quite impressed by the televised scenes of Japanese imperial abdication and enthronement last week that appeared more theatrical than real. However, poet-essayist Lee Sunshine (Seung-shin) said of former Emperor Akihito, who passed the throne to his son Naruhito on April 30, “I feel sorry that there were or will be no other Japanese monarch who thinks so much well of Korea as Emperor Akihito, before or after him. But we could wish (for the) improvement of our r

After nearly two years in power, people holding high posts in the Moon Jae-in administration must have by now realized that one of the hardest parts of the job is to prove they are ethically stronger than those they replaced. Kim Eui-gyum, presidential spokesman until last month, had famously said, “There is no civilian surveillance in the DNA of the Moon government.” He was trying to distinguish the current liberal administration from the previous conservative rules of Lee Myung-bak and Park Ge

Whether in published narratives or private talks, South Korean and Japanese journalists deplore the present status of relations between their two governments, which remain in an abyss of mutual distrust. They call for greater efforts to increase understanding in official as well as civil sectors across the Korea Strait. However, the mainstream media in both countries have little respect for each other, and that poses an additional stumbling block. Korean media people generally regard their Japan

It happened during the tough times of President Park Chung-hee’s “Yushin” rule of the 1970s. I open the door of Reuters Seoul bureau office at Ulchiro 1-ga one morning to find a piece of paper on the floor, apparently inserted through the crack by a secret messenger. The hand-written note informs us where and when an anti-government rally will be held that day. I go to Jangchungdan Park, or the Catholic Myeongdong Cathedral, at the given time and watch a leader read a statement and his colleague

Irony in former President Lee’s release on bailKim Myong-sikThe star-studded state penitentiaries in South Korea are now one former president less. Lee Myung-bak was freed on bail last week after more than 11 months in prison while appeal procedures are underway for a 15-year term and a huge amount of fines imposed on him for an assortment of charges that stemmed largely from his financial deeds more than a decade ago.Releasing a criminal defendant on bail is extremely rare in the Korean justice

The future framework of South Korea’s national security is being carved out by US President Donald Trump, the whimsical leader of our closest ally, and Kim Jong-un, the young dictator of an aggressive adversary, in a tete-a-tete in Hanoi, Vietnam. Frustrated over their position as powerless bystanders at this crucial moment, South Korean politicians are clashing over irrelevant matters. One of the top issues involves the government’s plan to destroy weirs built across major rivers 10 years ago.

For the first time in about two years, former President Park Geun-hye has taken a political gambit from inside a suburban Seoul prison. She did not directly challenge the holders of power or the law enforcement authorities who imposed a jail term of 33 years on the 67-year-old on charges of power abuse and corruption. Speaking through her lawyer, she assailed the top contender in the current leadership race at the Liberty Korea Party, her political home. Attorney Lee Young-ha picked at rather tr

Nowadays, Aesop’s Fables are quoted not as frequently as in the past, perhaps because things taking place in reality are more fabulous than the episodes illustrated by the ancient wise man who once was a slave. But some recent acts of politicians, especially those of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and President Moon Jae-in, keep summoning the Greek sage’s particular tale of “The Man, the Boy and the Donkey” to my frustrated brain. 　A man and his son were going with their donkey to the market. As they

I used to feel lucky to have spent most of my working years within walking distance of Gwanghwamun, the geographical and political center of South Korea. That satisfaction fades when I pass by the main square of Seoul these days, as it turns from a forum for democracy into a political junkyard.The route from City Hall Plaza and Deoksu Palace to Insa-dong via Gwanghwamun Square had been my favorite walking route. On any fine day, I would walk northeast with the gentle backdrop of Samgaksan embrac

As the year’s end draws near, people tend to be more contemplative, looking back on and appraising what happened in 2018, the second year of President Moon Jae-in’s leftist rule. In my own journalistic perception, there was a rapid buildup of disappointment with the president and his staff during the year mainly in reaction to the two major directions of policy thrusts, one designed to improve workers’ lives and the other to settle wrongdoings by past powers. Key economic measures misfired, and

North and South Korea completed the destruction of 10 guard posts on either side of the Demilitarized Zone and removed personnel from those positions last week to make a portion of the heavily fortified border a real no man’s land. The two Koreas have thus accomplished one symbolic task in the list of tension-reduction measures signed by their top leaders in their summit in Pyongyang in September. Work details from the South and North Korean armies have also finished clearing mines in the centra

The end of the line for Park Geun-hye, the first and only woman president of South Korea, was feared to have a restraining effect on female politics for some time. Yet, new possibilities are seen for a surge of female politicians, with some new faces drawing the spotlight in the administration and legislature with remarkable individual talent and prowess.Female voices rise in our society amid the increasingly combative atmosphere of the #MeToo movement. Or conversely, women’s growing self-confid

When times are bad, people tend to become amateur historians. We search for a point in history that resembles the present and ponder its consequences in order to foresee where we are going, although we know history does not always repeat itself. Because people in power today talk much about “revolution,” I checked my mental archive to find when we last had a revolution. Korea had two “revolutions” in a little more than a year in the 1960s -- a student revolution in April 1960 and a military revo

Fall is the cruelest season for South Korean diplomats and Cheong Wa Dae staff for foreign affairs. From the middle of September through late November, the South Korean president in any administration makes at least five rounds of overseas tours each year, driving officials crazy in making preparations of all sorts. Most important in the preparatory works of course is setting up and confirming the schedule for the president’s meetings with various VIPs of the receiving countries. Yet, the follow

“How do you think the current North Korean denuclearization deal will be wrapped up?” A Chinese-American friend of mine asked me when we sat in a Korean restaurant at Incheon Airport last week. A research fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, she was returning to California after a seminar with members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. She was curious about what average South Korean intellectuals expect from China in the current campaign to end the North’s