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2. John Burton

Park Chung-hee's place in history

One of the assumptions explaining why President Park Geun-hye and her conservative supporters are so intent on introducing a single government-authored history textbook for middle and high schools is that they want to correct distorted views of the president's father, Park Chung-hee. They claim that the current textbooks primarily portray Park Chung-hee as a pro-Japanese dictator who abused democratic and human rights while they largely ignore his contributions to making Korea an industrial powerhouse.

2015-11-04 16:14

Seoul's terrible new slogan

Seoul is becoming hip. A city that when I first arrived nearly 25 years ago had all the greyness and charisma of an East European Communist capital is now seen as cutting-edge. It is the epicenter of Asian pop culture with K-Pop bands, television soap operas, films and video game tournaments, while the city's citizens enjoy some of the fastest Internet speeds on earth. In short, Seoul has glamour and high-tech style.

2015-10-21 16:37

'The Sorrow and the Pity'

In 1969, the French documentary maker, Marcel Ophuls, produced a film on the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, called the "The Sorrow and the Pity." It examined collaboration and resistance to Nazi rule by focusing on one city, Clermont-Ferrand in central France.

2015-10-07 16:59

Korea and the innovator's dilemma

Clayton M. Christensen is one of the most famous management gurus today. He is considered the prime theorist behind the concept of the disruptive economy, where innovative start-ups successfully challenge industrial giants and even make whole business sectors obsolete. Think as an example of the taxi app Uber threatening the traditional taxi industry by making rides more efficient and at lower cost.

2015-09-23 16:16

Park's diplomatic 'reset'

President Park Geun-hye’s trip to China last week marked the start of a period of frantic diplomatic activity over the next couples of months that could prove to be a turning point for her beleaguered administration. For what her government is trying to achieve is to bring South Korea's relations back into a more harmonious balance with China, North Korea, Japan and the U.S. and boost Seoul's regional influence as a result.

2015-09-09 16:47

Banking on the future

The scheduled merger of Hana Bank and Korea Exchange Bank on September 1 is an effort to bolster the nation’s banking sector ahead of what could prove to a rough period in the global economy. Memories of how the 1997 Asian financial crisis devastated the Korean banking system are still strong. The new KEB Hana Bank, which will be nation's largest bank by assets, can trace its roots to that crisis when KEB was taken over by Lone Star before the U.S. equity fund sold its majority stake to Hana in 2012.

2015-08-26 16:57

'Pyongyang time'

The international media last week gleefully reported the decision by North Korea to switch to “Pyongyang time,” a half hour behind that of Seoul and Tokyo, as another example of the bizarreness of the Kim Jung-un regime. But the move was not as crazy as some may think.

2015-08-12 17:03

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked,” is a famous quote by Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, about how receding economic currents can reveal the vulnerabilities of those who previously appeared to be floating on success. With Korea's export machine sputtering, is the country about to be exposed as naked?

2015-07-29 16:45

President's Pyrrhic victory

This newspaper published a story earlier this month with the headline, “Ruling camp feud puzzles foreign diplomats,” referring to the clash between President Park Geun-hye and YooSeong-min, the now former ruling party parliamentary floor leader. The article suggested that some foreign diplomats basically didn't have a clue why Park and Yoo were fighting because they assumed that since the two leading politicians were from the same party, they would naturally cooperate on pursuing the same government policies.

2015-07-15 16:41

Is the Korean media toothless?

A colleague asked me the other day an interesting question: How much impact does the Korean media have on government policy? It is frankly a difficult question to answer. To most Anglo-American observers, the Korean news media appears to be beholden to the country’s political and business elite and does not play the same role as the fourth estate in the U.S. or U.K. as an independent referee.

2015-07-01 16:24

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