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Opinion

Columnists

Tue, September 17, 2019 | 01:35

Downgrading Korea-Japan cooperation is not winning strategy

President Moon Jae-in suggested Aug. 5 that South Korean economic growth based on expanded North-South development could help overcome new trade restrictions by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

2019-08-14 17:22

New 3-way initiative is timely, urgent

Statements emerging from a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the presidential office Monday indicated that the government is thinking in detail about how to lead the parties back to a productive deal after the anticlimactic Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. This is timely and very promising news.

2019-03-06 17:53

Little at stake in Hanoi summit

The stakes at the summit in Hanoi between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are not very big. This is largely because the possible downsides from the meeting are negligible, and greatly overstated. The upsides are potentially great, and are practically achievable, but National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and members of the U.S. Congress are in almost unanimous opposition to elements that would constitute a practical, win-win deal.

2019-02-25 17:44

NSC adviser: 'Mr. Invisible' no more

National security adviser Chung Eui-yong has emerged from obscurity, and he has offered three ideas for us to think about as we review developments on Korea during this past year. Of course, Chung has not been completely obscure during the 19 months of the Moon Jae-in presidency.

2018-12-30 17:33

Moon and Trump at the UN

In Seoul this month I talked with government officials, politicians, civic leaders, journalists and infrastructure professionals. My main impression is that the policy environment in the Korean capital feels different from that of previous years. I've been coming here since 1990, so my contacts form a broad cast of characters. With all that is going on, it's a good time to ask: What's the same; what's different?

2018-09-26 17:16

Two Koreas on their own

There is no reason why the two Koreas should have to push ahead with an end to the Korean War and the beginnings of a peace regime on the peninsula all by themselves. North Korea's phased abandonment of nuclear capabilities would have to proceed in parallel with those projects, and such a scenario seems within reach.

2018-09-04 16:56

'The Spy Gone North'

“The Spy Gone North,” the new movie by director Yoon Jong-bin, is slow-moving and lacks the shock and awe of almost any other film of this type. It is absolutely riveting, however, if one lived through the 1990s connected in any way to the politics and policies of South Korea.

2018-08-17 17:09

Moon's gamble on Trump

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley spoke with Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and with reporters at the U.N. this week. As a result, we now know much more about the U.S. position on North Korea, seven weeks after the Singapore summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

2018-08-02 16:49

Pompeo can practice diplomacy or fantasy - but not both

The fundamental concepts at the heart of U.S. policy toward North Korea have been wrong for 17 years, and clearly so. Now President Trump will either make new U.S.-DPRK agreements using older, more realistic concepts or he will surrender to the Bush/Obama failed playbook. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's talks in Pyongyang last week suggest the choice between these two is becoming more urgent.

2018-07-11 17:21

Will US get out of the way?

The unlikely spectacle unfolding in Singapore this month, with the leaders of North Korea and the U.S. meeting in an attempt to bridge differences that have persisted for over 60 years, provokes great confusion.

Park Yoon-bae2018-06-12 09:42

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