For a successful summit The Moon Jae-in administration has one year left. It has not earned very good scores for diplomacy. Despite its many endeavors, practically no progress has been made on peace on the Korean Peninsula primarily because of two... 2021.5.5
A doomed reinvention On April 6, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un launched a crusade to “reform” his people at the 6th Conference of Cell Secretaries of the ruling Workers’ Party in Pyongyang. In a speech to the grassroots units of the party — the... 2021.4.28
Rebuild the trilateral cooperation (KOR) During the 2021 Virtual Munich Security Conference last Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden underscored the importance of democratic values. “Our partnerships have endured and grown through the years because they are rooted in the... 2021.2.21
Suddenly needing Japan The Moon Jae-in administration has destroyed the country’s diplomacy with an unreasonable foreign policy that goes against international relations’ fundamental principle of reciprocity. The worst state of Korea-Japan relations is... 2021.1.19
The 30-percent rule The Moon Jae-in administration prides itself in being born in the spirit of the candlelight vigils. Moon won 41 percent of the vote in the 2017 snap election. But it does not mean that four in 10 Koreans chose him for president.... 2020.12.23
Always picking sides As I trace the cause of the crises of the Moon Jae-in administration, I arrive at “dividing sides” without exception. The controversies over Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl and the lethargy of the Covid-19 response all... 2020.12.21
Thief in the night From 11:24 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2019 to 1:16 a.m. the following morning, an official of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy crouched over a desk deleting sensitive files on the Wolseong-1 reactor. He did overtime work after... 2020.12.3
Good intentions, bad results It was only a matter of time. The case of a mother who had adopted a child to offer her biological daughter a playmate made news headlines in Korea last month after the mother turned out to have abused the adoptee, who eventually... 2020.12.2
Learn from Kim Young-sam Two days after the fifth anniversary of former president Kim Young-sam’s passing on Nov. 22, I visited his residence in Sangdo-dong in southern Seoul. Some locals were chatting, so I talked to them. They remember the... 2020.11.26
In need of strategists In November 1991, Ashton Carter, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, published a paper with colleagues entitled, “Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear... 2020.11.25
