Boston Globe (May 8)
Trump is making a tense situation on the Korean Peninsula perilous. His “sole success is adding himself to the things South Koreans most fear. Indeed, his erratic behavior has affected South Korea’s presidential election Tuesday, helping elevate the candidate least favorable to the United States. As Trump oscillates, risks burgeon.”
Tags: Election, Erratic, North Korea, Risks, South Korea, Success, Trump, U.S.
Bloomberg (March 21)
The so-called skyscraper curse has claimed another victim. “After almost seven years of planning and 4 trillion won ($3.6 billion) in spending, the conglomerate is preparing to unwrap its Lotte World Tower to the public.” Like other skyscrapers planned in the best of times, this unveiling is taking place amid challenging times as South Korea “is being pummeled by concurrent political and economic crises.” Morevoer, “the debut couldn’t come at a worse time for Lotte…. The empire’s 94-year-old founder and three of his children face corruption charges, and its stores are at the epicenter of Chinese consumer retaliation for a U.S. missile-defense system being installed on land it provided.” Making things even worse, an elevator glitch has delayed the grand opening by two weeks.
Tags: China, Corruption, Crises, Delay, Elevator, Founder, Lotte World Tower, Missile defense, Planning, Retaliation, Skyscraper curse, South Korea, U.S., Victim
Bloomberg (December 11)
“Even for a country with a modern history as tumultuous as South Korea, 2016 has been an eventful year. This was the year that a confluence of business failures, political scandal and economic malaise brought the strongest signs yet that the system that made South Korea a global industrial powerhouse may be about to change.”
Tags: 2016, Business failures, Economic malaise, Eventful, History, Political scandal, Powerhouse, South Korea, Tumultuous
Wall Street Journal (November 20)
“South Korea would benefit most from a thorough investigation that prompts political reform rather than a rush to impeachment.” Furthermore, securing President Park’s resignation or impeachment “could reverse many hard-fought decisions that the Korean electorate gave her a mandate to make,” like closing down the Kaesong Industrial Complex, deploying a U.S. missile-defense system and sharing intelligence with Japan to counter the North Korean threat.
Tags: Impeachment, Intelligence, Investigation, Japan, Kaesong Industrial Complex, North Korean, Political reform, Resignation, South Korea, U.S. missile defense
The Economist (June 11)
Like Japan, South Korea is also facing a major demographics challenge, especially if they can’t succeed in upping the percentage of working women. “With a fertility rate of around 1.2 babies per woman, South Korea’s labour force is set to shrink dramatically. If the country fails to make use of half its talent pool, stagnation looms. An OECD study estimated that if the labour-force participation rate for men and women was the same by 2030, GDP growth would increase by 0.9 percentage points annually. Since 2010 growth has fallen from 6.5% to 2.6%.”
Tags: Babies, Demographics, Fertility, GDP, Growth, Japan, South Korea, Stagnation, Working women
Washington Post (May 22)
“With the Asian economic juggernaut coming to an end, due to lower growth in China, an aging Japan and South Korea, and India’s ongoing problems with corruption and a bureaucracy that impedes structural reform, the continent must be viewed from another angle: as a department store of many of the world’s gargantuan political and military challenges. Indeed, unless Asia’s strategically consequential states can significantly mitigate, if not resolve, the region’s political and military deficits, Asia’s rise will never be completed.”
Tags: Aging, Asia, Bureaucracy, Challenges, China, Corruption, Economic juggernaut, Growth, India, Japan, South Korea, Structural reform
Wall Street Journal (May 19)
“If the U.S. had not come to the aid of the Korean people, or if we in the South had lost the war, I would not be standing here.” Kwon Oh-joon, CEO of steel manufacturer Posco, made this comment when he received the Korea Society’s Van Fleet Award in New York.
Tags: CEO, Kwon Oh-joon, New York, Posco, South Korea, Steel, U.S., War
The Economist (February 20)
“The path to a 5G wireless paradise will not be smooth” and the ultimate network specs remain to be determined. Still, “the momentum is real. South Korea and Japan are front-runners in wired broadband, and Olympic games are an opportunity to show the world that they intend also to stay ahead in wireless, even if that may mean having to upgrade their 5G networks to comply with a global standard once it is agreed.”
Tags: 5G, Broadband, Global standard, Japan, Network, Olympics, South Korea, Specs, Upgrade, Wireless
Wall Street Journal (February 16)
“North Korea’s recent nuclear and missile tests are driving some welcome changes in South Korean strategy.” Namely, Seoul will install a U.S. built missile defense system and close the Kaesong industrial zone. Ending the denial that allowed the Sunshine policy to limp along is essential. “Burying the Sunshine Policy requires a willingness to confront Pyongyang’s horrors—and removing its nuclear threat requires burying the Sunshine Policy.”
Tags: Defense system, Denial, Kaesong, Missile test, North Korea, Nuclear, Pyongyang, South Korea, Sunshine policy, U.S.
Financial Times (December 30)
“Faced with the choice between the romantic nationalism close to his heart, and the recognition that only bold economic and diplomatic measures can restore his country to prosperity, Mr Abe appears to have listened to his head and chosen the latter.”In reaching a final “comfort women” agreement, “both South Korea and Japan have showed courage, pragmatism and the willingness to risk a domestic backlash. The benefits of this rapprochement should not be underestimated, at a moment when east Asia confronts both opportunity and peril.”
Tags: Abe, Bold measures, Comfort women, Courage, Domestic backlash, Japan, Nationalism, Pragmatism, Prosperity, Rapprochement, Recognition, South Korea
