Sept. 28 marks the 2,563rd anniversary of the birth of Confucius.Few people realize that the Bible discourages people from studying foreign languages. The story of the tower of Babel informs us that there is one humanity (God’s), only that “our languages are confused.” From a European historical perspective, that has always meant that, say, any German philosopher could know exactly what the Chinese people were thinking, only that he couldn’t understand them. So instead of learning the foreign la

What does it say about China when the man seen as the next president disappears for 13 days and leadership circles pretend nothing is amiss? The answer is that officials in Beijing still cling to their Kremlin-like ways. It is one thing for Ethiopia, with $32 billion of output, to be mired in similar intrigue (Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was confirmed dead last month after weeks of rumors and conspiracy theories). It is quite another when it takes place in a country whose economy might surpass t

WASHINGTON, D.C. ― Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have again hit a wall, but the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears unconcerned. Indeed, Khamenei seems convinced that neither the United States nor Israel will attack its nuclear facilities ― at least not before the U.S. presidential election in November. Ironically, while Khamenei is no fan of democracy, he relies on the fact that his principal enemies are bound by democratic constraints. Khamenei controls Iran’s

Presidential campaigns sometimes turn on big moments that help voters ponder the central question they have about every challenger: What would this person actually be like as president? These aren’t the same as gaffes, which are slips of the tongue that may be politically damaging but say little about the candidates except that they misspoke. I’m talking instead about critical moments of miscalculation ― often made in desperation ― that illuminate important truths about a politician. In 1964, Ba

Imagine a town which has outlawed the most conventional form of criminal punishment, imprisonment. It believes that incarcerating a human being in a jail cell for five, 10 or 20 years is cruel and outdated. Instead, it reintegrates “criminals” back into the community with counseling and encouragement. It has concluded that locking up a human being, whatever his crime, is an infringement of his human right to freedom and liberty. The aforementioned example is a paradisiacal community. When one co

NEW DELHI ― The ongoing disruption of the “monsoon session” of the Indian parliament has showcased both the resilience of India’s democracy and the irresponsibility with which its custodians treat it.Demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the allegedly improper allocation of coal-mining blocks to private companies, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has stalled parliament’s work for three of the session’s four weeks. The repeated paralysis of parliament by slogan-shou

PARIS ― With every passing week, the Syrian conflict increasingly resembles the Spanish Civil War. The images of warplanes bombing civilians and destroying cities have turned Aleppo into a latter-day version of Guernica, immortalized in Picasso’s masterpiece. But the real similarities between the two conflicts are to be found in the behavior of the international community’s main actors, which have again taken opposite sides. On one side stand Russia and Iran, cynically determined to buttress Pre

When it comes to Japan’s spirit of the development, Japanese believe in Iitokodori ― getting good things from others regardless of historical relations or cultural differences, only if they are beneficial to Japan. That suits an island country with few natural resources, and there is no doubt that Japan’s flourishing development is thanks partly to the inherent characteristics of Iitokodori.The problem is, though, Tokyo has never been reluctant to take any actions against other neighboring count

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s autobiography “Living to Tell the Tale” (2002) begins with an anecdote from his youth. One day his mother asks him to assist her on a journey back to the world of his grandparents, Aracataca, the place where Garcia Marquez grew up. The grandparents have passed away, and their house is about to be sold. The house, however, turns out to be worthless, too old and damaged.In fact, the whole town has turned into a withering memory of bygone days, a place living in the past ra

It would seem that we’re now at the stage of global economic lunacy where the worldwide socialist slide is so far gone that the president of Russia is lecturing the world, and particularly Europe, about the risks of socialism.Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Vladivostok, Russia, Vladimir Putin promoted the merits of free-market economics. He said that by pulling the former Soviet satellite states into its sphere after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Europe chose to t

The question at the core of America’s upcoming presidential election isn’t merely whose story most voting Americans believe to be true ― Mitt Romney’s claim that the economy is in a stall and Obama’s policies haven’t worked, or Barack Obama’s claim that it’s slowly mending and his approach is working.If that were all there was to it, last Friday’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the economy added only 96,000 jobs in August ― below what’s needed merely to keep up with the growt

WASHINGTON ― As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his almost daily demands that the U.S. announce its “red line” for going to war with Iran, the question puzzling the White House is what the Israeli leader wants beyond what President Obama has already stated. Obama believes he has drawn the U.S. red line as clearly as a superpower ever should, given that some ambiguity is useful in deterring an adversary. For the record, Obama said in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic

Economic democratization is one of the three campaign keywords for Park Geun-hye, the presidential candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party. But the party still remains sharply divided over how to implement the elusive concept.Thus far, the party’s task force on economic democratization has put forward four bills to curb chaebol’s abuse of their economic power.The first proposal zeroes in on the court practice of granting suspended sentences to chaebol chairmen who have committed crimes, while the

Korea is widely recognized as a powerhouse in many high-tech manufacturing fields, including IT, automobiles and shipbuilding. Each year, Korea posts a large surplus in manufacturing trade. Yet a recent OECD report has given Korea a painful reality check about its technological competitiveness. In 2010, Korea earned $3.35 billion through technology exports. But its technology import bill was three times larger than that ― $10.2 billion. As a result, Korea posted a deficit of $6.9 billion in tech

PRINCETON ― In contrasting decisions last month, a United States Court of Appeals struck down a U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirement that cigarettes be sold in packs with graphic health warnings, while Australia’s highest court upheld a law that goes much further. The Australian law requires not only health warnings and images of the physical damage that smoking causes, but also that the packs themselves be plain, with brand names in small generic type, no logos, and no color other than

NEW DELHI ― America’s strategy in Asia for more than a century has sought a stable balance of power to prevent the rise of any hegemon. Yet the United States, according to its official National Security Strategy, is also committed to accommodating “the emergence of a China that is peaceful and prosperous and that cooperates with us to address common challenges and mutual interests.” So America’s Asia policy has in some ways been at war with itself.In fact, the U.S. has played a key role in China

In an effort to appeal to popular public feelings, politicians in South Korea often make asinine proposals. The latest such proposal is the bill submitted to the National Assembly last week providing for court ordered physical castration of convicted sex offenders. Initially this proposal appears to be a focused solution to a previously insolvable problem ― that of recidivism among sex offenders ― however the proposed law not only violates a number of South Korea’s international commitments to h

“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” says Neil Newhouse, a Romney pollster.A half-dozen fact-checking organizations and websites have refuted Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s claims that President Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law and will cut Medicare benefits by $716 billion. The New York Times even reported that Romney has been “falsely charging” President Obama with removing the work requirement.USA Today calls the Romney campaign’s claim that

NEW YORK ― The memories are still fresh at the National September 11 Memorial, where the names of the victims ― including some 150 from Asia and the Pacific ― are inscribed into bronze parapets surrounding twin memorial pools, located in the footprints of the Twin Towers of the destroyed World Trade Center.Eleven years ago this month, more than two dozen Koreans were among the nearly 3,000 people killed in the United States by terrorist attacks on a date now immortalized as “9-11.” That day, and

NEWPORT BEACH ― What if members of the United States Congress, now returning from their summer recess, were to receive a “back to school” letter from concerned citizens? Here is what a first draft might look like.Dear Member of Congress:Welcome back to the Capitol. We hope that you had a good summer break, and that you return to Washington not just rested, but also energized to take on our country’s mounting economic challenges.The news has been mixed during your absence. We have seen some impro