The recent East Asia summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, once again highlighted underlying regional tensions. We will come to that later. But first let us look at the background to all this. It basically stems from concerns about China’s rise, particularly whether or not it will be managed peacefully. Beijing certainly regards it as a peaceful development to correct the historical aberration of China’s humiliation by the colonial powers and Japan during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. T

The people of Honam, comprising North and South Jeolla Provinces, have always had a sense of ostracism to varying degrees depending on individual sensibilities and circumstances. No one can clearly explain why; some attribute it to ancient monarchs’ distrust in the people of remote regions while many find more recent causes such as military rulers’ abhorrence about them as threats to their power.This latter reasoning is related to Kim Dae-jung’s challenge against President Park Chung-hee when he

There are real-world authors, and there are implied authors. Real-world authors are actual human beings, with their own distinctive characteristics, on display as they move through the world. Implied authors are the imaginary people whom authors create as they put words on a page. Implied authors have their own personalities ― their own sensibilities, characters, emotions, perspectives and concerns. Implied authors may or may not be like their real-world counterparts. A novelist may be cruel and

Medical expenses for senior citizens continue to rise at a fast pace, putting an ever growing strain on the balance sheets of the National Health Insurance Corp., the administrator of the nation’s compulsory health insurance program.In 2011, the medical bills the state insurer paid totaled 46.2 trillion won, up 6 percent from 2010. Of the total, elderly people aged 65 or more accounted for 15.4 trillion won, up 8.9 percent from a year ago.Last year was the only one in more than a dozen years tha

The three main presidential candidates held their crucial second face-to-face showdown on Monday night. The topics of the 120-minute TV debate were all related to the economy ― economic growth, economic democracy, job creation and welfare expansion.The second debate was more informative and livelier than the first one on Dec. 4, which focused on diplomacy and national security. It brought into relief differences in economic policies among the three candidates ― Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenur

We are witnessing the most extraordinary moment in the Middle East since I began following events there 25 years ago. Every day brings a new ground-breaking development ― things that would lead newspapers all by themselves, anytime, anywhere.The United Nations General Assembly vote on “Palestine” was perhaps the most amazing event. Only nine of 193 nations voted against the motion.Of course they included the United States and Israel. Add to that Canada, the Czech Republic and Panama. The rest we

WASHINGTON ― How did Washington become the best friend of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, even as President Mohamed Morsi was asserting dictatorial powers and his followers were beating up secular liberals in the streets of Cairo? It’s a question many Arabs are asking these days and it deserves an answer. Morsi and his Brotherhood followers are on a power trip after decades of isolation and persecution. You could see that newfound status when Morsi visited the United Nations in September, and e

The fears that big money would corrupt the political process in 2012 weren’t realized, the conventional wisdom says. The fat cats, unshackled by U.S. Supreme Court and lower court decisions, weren’t able to buy the presidency or the Senate. True. It also misses the point. About $6 billion was spent on the campaign, and outside groups poured $1.3 billion into political races, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics. Supporters of the Citizens

Wasn’t the U.S. defense budget supposed to be in for some belt-tightening by now? Whereas President Barack Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, waged war the old-fashioned way, with troops and tanks, Obama has been busy outsourcing the dirty work of protecting and furthering America’s interests to CIA drones, private contractors, local mobs with ties to terrorists, and even the French.It was looking as if the Department of Defense could pack up, because the administration didn’t leave it with mu

I wish President Obama would explain to the nation that the federal budget deficit isn’t the nation’s major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn’t be our major goal.Our biggest problem is lack of good jobs and sufficient growth. And our goal must be to revive both.Deficit reduction leads us in the opposite direction ― away from jobs and growth.The reason the “fiscal cliff” is dangerous (and it’s not really a “cliff” but more like a hill, because we won’t fall off it immediately on Jan.

NEWPORT BEACH ― I was nine years old when Egypt entered what became known as its “war of attrition” with Israel. During this period of “no war and no peace,” underlying tensions festered, and a fragile tranquility was periodically interrupted by armed skirmishes. The war of attrition followed the June 1967 war, in which Egypt ― to the immense surprise of most of its citizens and the outside world ― was soundly defeated. Its air force was crippled and its army was virtually overrun, with Israel c

The evidence has been in for some time. Scheduling births may be convenient for physicians, hospitals and expectant parents, but it generally isn’t good for the health of mothers and children. It’s expensive to boot. To get a baby to arrive on schedule, doctors often perform a cesarean section, the most common surgery in the U.S. Since 1996, C-section rates have risen every year to 33 percent of all births in 2009. According to the World Health Organization, the right figure for any country is a

Auguste and Louis Lumière’s 50-second silent picture “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” from 1895 ― one of the earliest films ever made ― follows a train gradually approaching the camera until it passes at close range. The story goes that when the film was shown for the first time, a panicking audience thought the train would crash through the screen and crush everyone in the cinema. It is a pivotal moment in the history of cinema, one that brings together extreme fictional realism, s

New York’s brush with developing-nation status is an even bigger warning for Asia than it is for the U.S. The city could be excused for wondering if it had suddenly been transported to Bangladesh in October. The deadly floods and crippling power outages following Hurricane Sandy made for more than graphic television. They made a mockery of the climate-change deniers. Just ask residents of lower Manhattan as they referred to neighborhoods such as pricey Tribeca as “Little North Korea.” The Asia r

I’ve finally figured out why we spend so much time treating our political opponents as implacably evil. It’s because Hollywood, which used to offer us villains we could love reviling, seems to have forgotten how to make its bad guys bad. The other night on “Homeland,” the uber-terrorist the good guys have been chasing for a season and a half finally got to tell his side of the story. As it turns out, he’s not evil. It’s just that his family was blown to bits at the dinner table by a U.S. drone s

For most of the past six decades, the U.S. government has taken a lenient approach toward taxing financial wealth. Dividends from stocks and gains on long-term investments are currently taxed at 15 percent, compared with rates on ordinary income as high as 35 percent. The differential treatment has resulted in such attention-grabbing distortions as Warren Buffett paying a smaller share of his income in taxes than his secretary, and Mitt Romney paying an effective federal rate of only 14.1 percen

BERLIN ― At a recent meeting of German business and foreign-policy leaders, one participant summed up an anxiety that’s almost palpable here: “Europeans have a sense of being left alone. You Americans don’t understand how much we need you.” Europeans seem relieved that Barack Obama won re-election. (One German official wrote in an informal paper that his victory was “the best thing that could have happened to the U.S.”) But Europeans remain worried that the Obama administration’s famous “pivot”

As a cold snap grips the nation, power consumption is increasing rapidly, fueling worries about possible power shortages. On Wednesday, power demand reached 73.02 million kilowatts, leaving only 4.45 million kW in reserve. The previous day, reserve electricity dropped to 4.11 million kW, barely staying above the 4 million kW mark that triggers emergency measures. The government’s emergency response manual identifies four stages in emergency management. It enters emergency mode when backup power

The Senate needs to go back to the future on filibuster reform. Senators should have to stand their ground and raise their voices on the Senate floor, around the clock if necessary, a la Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” to keep legislation from coming to a vote.Back in the day, a minority senator had to have strong personal convictions against legislation to undertake the onerous, sleep-depriving filibuster, talking and talking and talking to block action. Today, a senator, or a

CAIRO ― Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first-ever elected civilian president, recently granted himself sweeping temporary powers in order, he claims, to attain the objectives of the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. But the decrees incited strong opposition from many of the revolutionary forces that helped to overthrow Mubarak (as well as from forces loyal to him), with protests erupting anew in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.Morsi has thus been put in the odd position of having to defend h