Chinese President Xi Jinping has expounded on his “China Dream” in the hope of perpetuating the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.In his inaugural speech on March 17 after assuming the presidency, he devoted much time to elaborating on the China Dream, a notion he first mooted last December shortly after becoming the party’s general secretary.He defined the China Dream as the aspiration of the Chinese people for a great national revival. Although he did not spell out in specific terms what tha

President Obama’s makeup visit to Israel was a great success, by most measures, but don’t expect peace between Israelis and Palestinians anytime soon ― despite Obama’s ringing call for it.Relations between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been prickly, at best, since Obama first took office in 2009. During last year’s presidential election Netanyahu tacitly campaigned for Mitt Romney, certainly angering Obama.But now that Obama has begun his second term, he realized that

The resignation on Monday of Han Man-soo, President Park Geun-hye’s nominee to head the Fair Trade Commission, triggered an outpouring of criticism of the president’s appointment style and calls for punishment of her secretaries responsible for making background checks on her nominees.Even leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party now say enough is enough. They have joined the main opposition Democratic United Party in blasting Park’s unique style of making personnel appointments. The DUP went further

This year promises to be a tough year for Kim Duk-joong, the new head of the National Tax Service, as he is charged with collecting more taxes than before at a time when the economic slowdown is making a dent in government revenue.Kim also faces the task of rooting out corruption among tax officials. The need for house cleaning is all the greater as he is set to step up crackdowns on tax cheats to attain the tax revenue target. During a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Kim raised the alarm by di

Peng Liyuan, celebrity folksinger and wife of President Xi Jinping has a chic, elegant and decidedly local look. Since March 22, when she appeared at a Moscow airport, arm in arm with her smiling husband on the opening leg of his first international trip as China’s new head of state, talk of her has spread across newspapers, blogs and microblogs. “Peng Liyuan’s debut trip is remarkable. For a very long time, party leaders, and especially their wives, left dowdy impressions,” tweeted a retired ac

Last week, when Hillary Clinton released a video announcing her support for gay marriage, Twitter went wild. It was totally expected ― her husband and daughter took the same position months earlier ― and didn’t have as much political import as Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman’s announcement this month that he now favors same-sex marriage. The rules are different for Hillary Clinton. No non-incumbent in the history of contemporary U.S. presidential politics ever looked so formidable three year

Philippine President Benigno Aquino faces a huge roadblock in his push to end the poverty weighing on his 106 million people: the Catholic Church. I was in the predominantly Catholic nation earlier this month when the Vatican named the first non-European as pope in more than 1,200 years. Filipinos rejoiced in the choice of a Latin American pontiff with a passion for helping the poor. One- fifth of Filipinos live in slum conditions even as the economy grows 6.8 percent. News of Pope Francis’s ele

The Supreme Court of South Korea opened up its courtroom to live television for the first time Thursday. Considering the murky image that many South Koreans have of their judiciary and the positive effect live courtroom television has for transparency and fairness, this is an encouraging development for democracy and for judicial legitimacy in South Korea.Unfortunately rather than airing one of the many cases of corruption between politicians and the chaebol or any one of hundreds of cases invol

I’m certain Sarah Palin spoke for many when she tweeted upon hearing the news that a New York judge had prevented implementation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to regulate sugary drinks:“Victory in NYC for liberty-loving soda drinkers. To politicians with too much time on their hands we say: Govt, stay out of my refrigerator!”No doubt those “liberty lovers” view dietary habits as a matter of free will and personal responsibility. If only things were so simple. There’s no question that most

President Obama gave a great speech in Jerusalem last week.He promised again to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, and pledged undying moral and military support for the Jewish state. Only then did he urge Israelis not to forsake efforts to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. His rhetoric was so powerful that it elicited repeated cheers from about 1,000 Israeli students in the audience.So, now what?One can’t help but recall that Obama also gave a great speech to students in Cairo in 2009, aimed at

English speakers have a humorous warning for those who love donuts, candy, and various other sweets: “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”The maxim serves as a reminder to all those with a sweet tooth that the pleasure of a donut is evanescent, but its effect on one’s waistline will be long lasting. In Korea, we have a similar proverb that says, “It may be sweet on the mouth, but bitter in your stomach.” Another maxim claims, “All good medicines are bitter on the mouth.” These maxims w

President Park Geun-hye has started the process of building trust with North Korea by allowing a private organization to provide a humanitarian aid package to the isolated country. Last Friday, the Ministry of Unification permitted the Eugene Bell Foundation, an aid organization that has long provided humanitarian services to the North, to ship some 680 million won worth of medicine for treatment of tuberculosis patients in the North.The approval was the first granted by the Seoul government sin

One of the political reform pledges made by both the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic United Party during the presidential election campaign was to stop nominating candidates for elections in the basic units of local government ― provincial cities, counties and districts of metropolitan cities. Now they face an early test of their commitment to political reform as by-elections are to be held in five constituencies on April 24 to elect new local government heads or fill vac

I hope President Obama won’t take it personally, but during his visit in my country I had important business in New York and Los Angeles. Had I known that his visit would finally bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians, I would have canceled my trip and stayed in Israel to be witness to history in the making.The fact that I decided to go anyway doesn’t mean that I wasn’t watching the visit closely. After all, the future of my children and my grandchildren is at stake here. I followed the v

BAGHDAD ― Ten years have passed since Saddam Hussein was removed from power, following more than three decades of tyrannical rule. The dream of Iraqis after Saddam’s fall was to build a new, prosperous, and democratic Iraq. A country at peace with itself and its neighbors, with a constitution upholding basic human rights and the rule of law, was the desire of almost everyone.But the United States and its allies, lacking a coherent vision of Iraq’s future, much less a sound policy for the post-Sa

The horse-meat storm that broke over Europe two months ago has been in one respect a tempest in a horseshoe, because it posed no threat to human health. That’s not a minor caveat in an industry where, in the U.S. alone, tainted food kills 3,000 people each year and sickens 48 million. The horse-meat substitution has struck a nerve, however, as people wonder what else they’re eating that isn’t what they think it is. It could be almost anything. The list of counterfeit foods Interpol found in worl

Start thinking the unthinkable. We as a nation have to start talking about the prospects for nuclear war. President Barack Obama says Iran might have a bomb in a year. To hold back the day, the U.S. and Israel have conducted cyberwar, and Israel has apparently assassinated Iranian scientists. But even if Israel attacks to stop Iran’s bomb making now, the day will dawn. What will we do if Israel threatens Tehran with nuclear obliteration? What if North Korea aims a warhead at Seoul? And what if t

BARCELONA ― In recent months, the dichotomy between booming financial markets, on the one hand, and sluggish economies and dysfunctional politics, on the other, has loomed large. Yet insufficient attention is being devoted to a critical factor ― time, and who controls it ― that could well mean the difference between an orderly global resolution of today’s growing inconsistencies and a return to a more troubled phase.Markets have been understandably buoyant in the first quarter of 2013. Most econ

Europe’s handling of a bailout for Cyprus is looking more chaotic by the minute. Negotiations have descended into a three-way game of chicken among the island nation, Russia and the euro area’s leaders. The initial plan to make insured depositors pay for part of the bailout was terrible. The Cypriot parliament rejected it, and now the European Central Bank has set a deadline of March 25, warning that unless a new deal is reached it will pull the plug on the funding that’s keeping Cyprus’s bankin

WASHINGTON ― Sen. John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” has been in the repair shop for a while, but it sure was rolling last week during an interview. The main theme was that Republicans should end their self-isolation and “start working for the American people.” Journalists have always had a soft spot for McCain when he’s in the mode of bipartisan conciliator. And I don’t want to overstate the evidence of an hour-long conversation the other day in McCain’s Senate office. He remains a complex a