Asian nationalism at sea
CAMBRIDGE – Will war break out in the seas of East Asia? After Chinese and Japanese nationalists staged competing occupations of the barren landmasses that China refers to as the Diaoyu Islands and Japan calls the Senkaku Islands, angry demonstrators in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu chanted, “We must kill all Japanese.” Likewise, a […]
A scene from our newsroom
It’s 4:30 on a weekday afternoon, 30 minutes before our newspaper’s first edition of the day goes to press. The newsroom is at its liveliest, in a last-minute rush to get the paper out. In one corner, the deputy political editor, sitting in for her boss while he’s on vacation, discusses something with a reporter, […]
Facility for nuclear waste
Nation can’t afford to postpone selecting site A government advisory panel has proposed building an intermediate storage facility for spent nuclear fuel by 2024. Upon the request, the government will determine its basic policy on this matter by the end of the year after pooling opinions from various walks of life. The proposal is a […]
Red tape
Restrictions on big retailers need elaborate plan In the past, easing regulations was the norm because of a popular belief that if civil servants meddled in private business, it would not benefit the economy. For this reason, presidential contenders often engaged in a competition of making pledges aimed at dismantling administrative red tape. However, with […]
Dokdo: distraction and diversion
The North Koreans have got to love this one. The ruckus over Dokdo/Takeshima gets so much play in Korea and Japan that Koreans and Japanese tend to forget they’ve got a real enemy lurking somewhere over the 38th parallel. That would be North Korea, whose strategists may not know how to run their economy but […]
India and ASEAN
ASEAN is facing the most serious crisis of its existence since its foundation some 45 years ago. Recently, for the first time since its inception, it failed to issue a joint statement on the concluding day of a summit meeting. As a result its plans to become one sprawling economic zone encompassing Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, […]
Rating upgrade and Japan
Maintaining fiscal soundness should be prioritized Moody’s Investors Service has raised its sovereign rating on Korea by one notch from A1 to Aa3. As reasons for its rating upgrade, the global credit appraiser cited the country’s strong fiscal fundamentals, resilience to external economic shocks and the continued status quo of geopolitical risks from North Korea. […]
Noda & Lee, Apple & Samsung
A foreign correspondent I once knew observed at the end of his Korean stint, “Korea is a heaven for journalists.” Few in our line of work would disagree because this country offers an unlimited supply of news both on domestic front and from overseas. Noda Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda upped the ante with more […]
Rationing system in N. Korea
It was reported recently, that ― obviously, following a reformist drive, the North Korean leaders decided to scale down the rationing system. In order to understand the significance of this change, we must keep in mind that for a few decades North Korea was a society where rationing was taken to a logical extreme. From […]
Faithfulness, affection and reasonableness
Recently, one of my college alumni explained how a Chinese scholar categorically observed the traits and characters of the people of three Northeast Asian nations. According to the Chinese scholar, with regard to interpersonal relationships the Chinese value “faithfulness,’’ while the Koreans tend to emphasize “affection,’’ and the Japanese respect “reasonableness’’ in handling matters. Another […]
Media in Tie-up with The AsiaN 
Trump, Kim, and the Three P’s of Summit Diplomacy: 
