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Mon, October 15, 2018 | 20:21

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Talking in circles at Jeju

JEJU - Gary Samore of the Belfer Center at Harvard, formerly with the Obama administration, suggested at the annual Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity that resolution of North Korea’s nukes-and-missiles program may be insoluble. That sense weighs heavily on policy-makers in Seoul and Washington. How can Koreans and Americans agree on a common approach, and where is South Korea going in its alliance with the U.S.? Americans and Koreans alike wondered how long the special U.S.-Korea relationship can endure despite the claims of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and ...

Donald Kirk | 2017-06-08 17:52

Hangover after the honeymoon

It's tempting for punsters to play on the surname Moon. There’s “honeymoon,” of course, and “moonshine” - the latter for whiskey distilled in the mountains of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee by the light of the moon. How long, then, will the honeymoon last for President Moon Jae-in while North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un orders weekly missile shots? The question assumes critical relevance after the North’s latest test of a Scud missile that flew nearly 300 miles before landing in waters inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone. The tests have definitely diluted the thrills of a honeymoon in wh...

Donald Kirk | 2017-06-01 17:16

Trump tower over Pyongyang?

Everybody’s talking about overtures to Pyongyang. Informal talks, secret talks, talks about talks - then, somewhere in everyone’s pet solution, comes the killer line: Pyongyang has to “freeze” its missile-and-nuclear program before real talking begins. It’s unlikely Kim Jong-un will “freeze” anything, but here’s an idea. Remember that enormous triangular-shaped building that dominates the Pyongyang skyline? That’s right, the Ryugyong Hotel, 105 stories, 330 meters high, never opened, a monument to failure. The Ryugyong is celebrating an anniversary of sorts. Well, maybe not a celebration, ju...

Donald Kirk | 2017-05-25 17:28

Testing the alliance

Would Kim Jong-un mind giving Moon Jae-in a break? More than any other South Korean leader in years, Moon would like nothing better than to be the one to bring about North-South reconciliation. Wouldn’t it be great, Moon’s newly appointed former activists must be saying, if Kim Jong-un invited Moon to Pyongyang instead of awaiting “the right conditions.” It would be so easy for Kim to outfox the Americans, who clearly think Moon will settle down, mute his pronouncements about talks with the North and cooperate as did his predecessors. But no, right away, Kim Jong-un opted to turn Moon’s drea...

Donald Kirk | 2017-05-18 17:34

Korea's minority president

The drama of South Korean history opens a tumultuous new act with the election of a liberal labor lawyer who has promised both to bring about detente with North Korea and satisfy the demands of restive masses fed up with rightist abuses.

Donald Kirk | 2017-05-11 17:57

Japan against its enemies

TOKYO - The shadows of war lengthen over Japanese society in thrall to Article 9 of a “peace constitution" foisted under the “occupation” led by the victorious World War II Pacific commander, General Douglas MacArthur. Much as the “rightist” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might want to do away with it, Article 9 still bans Japan’s euphemistically named “self-defense forces” from waging war. Or, to be precise, under Article 9 “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” Abe would like dea...

Donald Kirk | 2017-05-04 17:14

Searching for peace

An interviewer for a radio station in Boston, winding up one of those Q&A’s to which journalists are subjected, asked, What would you do to resolve the North Korean “problem?” I answered, “I have no solution, no idea, no clue.” While that response might seem like an abject display of ignorance or non-concern, I have yet to read any column or analysis by anyone else who’s got the answer either.

Donald Kirk | 2017-04-27 18:09

Trade-off for the trade gap

All the talk over what to do with North Korea overlooks one problem to which people are not paying that much attention. That’s the yawning gap in trade between the U.S. and all its leading trade partners. It’s a lot easier to grasp the significance of a North Korean nuclear warhead attached to a long-range missile than to care whether China’s exports to the U.S. last year exceeded its imports from the U.S. by a cool $347 billion. The imbalance with China is by far the most distended of any trade gap in the history of commerce between nations, and it’s a bargaining ploy in the Great Game over...

Donald Kirk | 2017-04-20 17:33

To strike or not to strike

POHANG - An array of heavy-duty, sophisticated gear spread over the beaches here shows the incredible military might of the U.S. and South Korea. Far offshore, way beyond the horizon, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson leads a “strike force” of warships. Watching the display of U.S. strength on the beach in a wargame called Pacific Reach, one realizes how easy it would be to decimate the North Koreans.

Donald Kirk | 2017-04-13 17:17

THAAD's return on cost

From the outset, the idea of implanting a Star Wars weapon capable of zapping an enemy missile 150 kilometers above the earth’s surface had to be controversial. The real problem from the South Korean viewpoint initially was, what for - what we really need are short and mid-range missiles for not only countering whatever North Korea is throwing at us but also delivering body blows to targets on North Korea soil. South Koreans hemmed and hawed with visiting American potentates, from cabinet-level personages to military officers to corporate types and engineers, and even a physicist or two, all...

Donald Kirk | 2017-04-06 17:19

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