https://www.scmp.com/rss/10002/feed Donald Kirk is an author and journalist from Washington, D.C., and travels to South Korea, with stops in London, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines, among other places, writing on the confrontation of forces in the post-September 11 era. He was the Seoul correspondent for the International Herald Tribune from 1997 to 2003. Before gravitating to Northeast Asia, he covered much of the Vietnam War for the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Star. He has also... en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com They huddled in caves and tunnels. They died by the thousands as government forces battled to exterminate them as terrorists and terrorist sympathisers. Does all that sound like the war being waged by Israel to root out members of Hamas from their hideouts in Gaza? Maybe, but it also could sum up the slaughter that engulfed the South Korean island of Jeju, which is less than 100 kilometres south of the Korean peninsula, from April 1948 through the Korean war that ended five years later. Official... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3258234/us-refuses-see-it-has-blood-its-hands-gaza-jeju-massacres?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3258234/us-refuses-see-it-has-blood-its-hands-gaza-jeju-massacres?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Apr 2024 21:30:17 +0000 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s decision to fire an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan last Tuesday opens a new chapter in the confrontation that is spiralling upwards in Northeast Asia. The missile may have landed harmlessly in the northern Pacific after travelling around 4,600km, but it raised the spectre of a North Korean nuclear attack on US bases in Guam and Hawaii. A longer-range intercontinental ballistic missile could hit targets in North America. The United States and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/asia/article/3195040/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-must-be-talked-down-game-dare?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/asia/article/3195040/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-must-be-talked-down-game-dare?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Oct 2022 01:15:10 +0000 China is now challenging the United States for supremacy in the Pacific Ocean. The challenge is not yet at the stage of armed conflict, but the day may be coming when Chinese warships want to take on the American navy in the East China and South China seas and beyond. This challenge comes in the form of China’s emergence as a major naval power with the launch of its aircraft carrier, the Fujian. Significantly, it is named after the Chinese province closest to Taiwan. The real importance of the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3182818/chinas-naval-might-grows-south-korea-must-shore-its-defences?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3182818/chinas-naval-might-grows-south-korea-must-shore-its-defences?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Jun 2022 16:30:09 +0000 The spectre of armies shifting positions and moving into place on distant sides of the world, and of diplomats crafting statements and shuttling about, invokes images from the last century. The idea of Europe in flames, Asia in danger and the Middle East seething suggests a perpetual state of global crisis while the players contemplate their next moves. Russian forces gnawing at Ukraine on land, at sea and in the air give the appearance of wild animals hovering over their prey. And the forces... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3168053/ukraine-crisis-great-game-bluff-how-likely-full-scale-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3168053/ukraine-crisis-great-game-bluff-how-likely-full-scale-war?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:30:18 +0000 The prospect of nuclear war is frightening beyond imagination. We talk in the abstract about the millions who would die but are reluctant to accept the reality that the worst might someday come true. Such talk echoes through the media whenever the question arises of who might strike first. We’re accustomed to hearing aggrieved expressions of doubt and sensitivities. Such talk assumes urgency as the US considers whether to adopt a policy of “no first use”, meaning it would not initiate a nuclear... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3154860/world-needs-talk-about-more-dangerous-problem-climate-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3154860/world-needs-talk-about-more-dangerous-problem-climate-change?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Nov 2021 19:30:18 +0000 The end of the US adventure in Afghanistan leads right away to consideration of the much longer US involvement in Korea. A legion of critics of the American “empire”, as they sometimes call the global network of US bases and treaty arrangements, like to say the United States is still waging war on the Korean peninsula – even if no one is firing any of the thousands of weapons poised on both sides of the demilitarised zone that has divided North and South Korea since the signing of the Korean war... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3147877/korean-peace-treaty-advocates-are-chasing-absurd-destructive-dream?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3147877/korean-peace-treaty-advocates-are-chasing-absurd-destructive-dream?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Sep 2021 19:30:10 +0000 Conservative protest is now a global phenomenon. The resounding success of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the latest elections for the House of Commons shows the overwhelming support of a significant majority of Britons for Britain’s exit from the European Union. Also, less widely understood, the vote revealed popular revulsion over the policies and outlook of the doctrinaire leftism of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Conservatives won 365 of the 650 seats in the Commons, giving them an... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3042489/south-koreas-conservative-protesters-britains-brexiteers-reject?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3042489/south-koreas-conservative-protesters-britains-brexiteers-reject?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Dec 2019 14:00:04 +0000 So much has been said and written about North Korea’s missile tests that it’s possible to forget they are hardly the most dangerous threats posed by flying projectiles. That’s not to minimise their importance, or to agree with the assessment of US President Donald Trump, who last Friday downplayed Pyongyang’s recent missile tests as “short-range”, not in violation of anything, and praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for apologising for the tests in another beautiful letter. Hours later,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3022792/missile-threat-world-needs-worry-about-not-north-korea-russia-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3022792/missile-threat-world-needs-worry-about-not-north-korea-russia-and?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Aug 2019 08:00:06 +0000 Korean and Japanese relations have plunged to their lowest depths since the Korean war, and there’s apparently no reconciliation in sight. The governments in Seoul and Tokyo are engaged in a game of dare and double-dare in which they both want to out-threaten the other with hurtful measures. The Japanese clearly think they have the South Koreans where it hurts, banning the export of key chemical ingredients for semiconductors manufactured by Korean electronics giants led by Samsung. Tokyo is... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3018927/north-korea-only-winner-when-south-korea-and-japan-spar-over?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3018927/north-korea-only-winner-when-south-korea-and-japan-spar-over?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 17 Jul 2019 09:00:08 +0000 The controversy in Seoul over establishing a special unit to investigate corruption deepens South Korea’s left-right divide in a struggle sure to test the country’s democratic system. In his zeal to carry out his campaign pledges and sweeping reforms, President Moon Jae-in wants broader powers to solidify his regime and sublimate conservative voices. The drive to enhance the president’s powers marks another step in a process reminiscent of how authoritarian leaders seek to solidify their... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008572/south-koreas-proposed-anti-corruption-unit-thinly-disguised?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3008572/south-koreas-proposed-anti-corruption-unit-thinly-disguised?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 May 2019 04:00:13 +0000 South Korea's President Moon Jae-in faces a problem of enormous proportions. He is committed to reconciliation and dialogue with North Korea but is in no position to destroy the historic alliance with the United States. Rather, he sees himself as a go-between, an intermediary, bringing the US into an era of peace and friendship with North Korea, even though Kim Jong-un shows no willingness to give up his nuclear warheads and the missiles for firing them at distant targets. In his eagerness to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3006489/moon-jae-ins-problem-his-mode-north-korean-diplomacy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3006489/moon-jae-ins-problem-his-mode-north-korean-diplomacy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Apr 2019 02:00:14 +0000 The collapse of the second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un throws into doubt and turmoil the already difficult path to reconciliation between the US and North Korea. After all the speculation about trade-offs and concessions, Trump and Kim wound up in the same disagreement that has bedevilled dialogue for years. North Korea insists the US – and United Nations – give up many of the sanctions they have imposed as punishment for the North’s tests of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2188177/south-koreas-moon-jae-may-be-biggest-loser?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2188177/south-koreas-moon-jae-may-be-biggest-loser?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Mar 2019 04:41:43 +0000 As everybody knows, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a lot to learn from the capitalist success of nearby communist countries. No example is better than that of China, whose leaders have urged him to walk the capitalist road to success. His late father, Kim Jong-il, was photographed during trips to China traipsing around one project or another as living evidence that communism and capitalism could survive together, to everyone’s benefit, at no risk to his grip on power.  Now Kim Jong-un has... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2186117/if-communist-vietnam-can-thrive-capitalist?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2186117/if-communist-vietnam-can-thrive-capitalist?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Feb 2019 02:45:45 +0000 Here’s a triangulation that’s rapidly getting more acute: China, North Korea and the United States. It’s not just that China is North Korea’s only real ally, its bulwark of defence since the Korean war. It’s also that China’s differences with the US are deepening with the indictment of its biggest smartphone maker for theft of US trade secrets, industrial espionage and money laundering. And it’s also that the US is looking for ways to make a deal with North Korea that would tone down the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2184698/china-feuds-us-dont-expect-it-encourage-better?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2184698/china-feuds-us-dont-expect-it-encourage-better?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 Feb 2019 19:00:00 +0000 In Washington, Seoul and maybe even Pyongyang, summitry is in the air. Excitement and speculation are rife. Everyone is talking about talking. How about talks between the leaders of the two Koreas, between each of them and the US president, or maybe a meeting of all three together?  South Korea's President Moon Jae-in sat down with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 gathering in Buenos Aires, and they came out bursting with optimism about more summits. Trump is talking about... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2176690/second-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-summit-they-dont-even?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2176690/second-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-summit-they-dont-even?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Dec 2018 20:00:45 +0000 The bait of reunions of members of families divided by the Korean war has got to be about the most cynical ploy devised by the North Koreans to exploit human suffering for no reason other than to inflict cruel punishment on defenceless people. We all have heard many times why the North Koreans built up their nuclear strength. For “self-defence,” they say, to the applause of pro-northers and other useful idiots who think, sure, devices for wiping out millions are just the thing to ward off an... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2161358/north-korea-plays-cruellest-game-family-reunions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2161358/north-korea-plays-cruellest-game-family-reunions?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Aug 2018 14:30:00 +0000 The North Koreans are reluctant to talk about “denuclearisation” but are winning easy points exploiting the bones of about 5,300 American soldiers missing from the Korean war.  At every stage of discussion on the return of their remains, Pyongyang promotes a peace declaration also endorsed by South Korea's President Moon Jae-in. What could be a better time to get across the message than next week’s 65th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the war? Wouldn’t that be the moment... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2155992/will-north-koreas-return-soldiers-remains-buy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2155992/will-north-koreas-return-soldiers-remains-buy?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Jul 2018 02:00:45 +0000 The global trade war is sweeping the world, and US President Donald Trump intends to keep fighting. The question, though, is how and when it will end and what damage it will leave in its wake. The US contends that, eventually, some of the United States’ trading partners will realise they need to slash their barriers to imports and also make life easier for American companies doing business on their soil. Everyone else, however, blames Trump for upsetting global trading patterns and bringing on... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2154568/trade-war-third-world-war-korea-south-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2154568/trade-war-third-world-war-korea-south-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Jul 2018 20:00:00 +0000 US President Donald Trump may admire Kim Jong-un more than he does the leaders of America’s allies. When Kim speaks, “his people sit up at attention,” said the American president. “I want my people to do the same.” Trump was no doubt joking, sort of, but the message was clear. He admires and trusts Kim and wishes he as president could exercise the same authority.  As it is, the White House is emitting mixed messages, sowing confusion among friends and foes alike, raising questions among... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2152736/how-donald-trump-sold-out-south-korea-while?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2152736/how-donald-trump-sold-out-south-korea-while?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Jun 2018 08:00:45 +0000 The Chinese were clearly the big winners in the “summit of the century”, the meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the island city state of Singapore, through which about a third of the world’s shipping moves to and from ports in Japan, South Korea, China – Hong Kong, too. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, was overjoyed about the results, in which Trump said the United States might eventually withdraw its troops from South Korea and called off annual... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2150841/trump-hands-xi-jinping-win-singapore-and-may?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2150841/trump-hands-xi-jinping-win-singapore-and-may?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jun 2018 09:00:15 +0000 US and North Korean contacts, in secret talks about the time and place of a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, are at odds on at least one critical question. The North Koreans, in unpublicised meetings with the Americans, are saying they want Trump to see Kim in Pyongyang. The Americans, of course, do not want Trump visiting North Korea, where Kim would be in the role of a head of state receiving the American guest as a supplicant seeking his approval. Instead,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2141030/us-north-korea-talks-have-many-obstacles-overcome-starting?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2141030/us-north-korea-talks-have-many-obstacles-overcome-starting?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Apr 2018 09:15:00 +0000 There is a certain inevitability about China’s need for North Korea and the North’s need for China. The two may intuitively hate each other, but they can’t stay apart in the regional tug of war. It’s been that way ever since Chinese forces poured into North Korea several months after the North Koreans invaded South Korea in June 1950, to stave off the Americans who had reached the Yalu River that flows between North Korea and China.  Now, as the Chinese and Americans again face one another in a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139238/real-reasons-behind-xi-jinpings-meeting-north-korean-leader?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139238/real-reasons-behind-xi-jinpings-meeting-north-korean-leader?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Mar 2018 06:00:00 +0000 South Korea pushed itself to its outer limit in agreeing to its athletes marching with the North Koreans under the one-Korea flag at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. That’s because South Korean President Moon Jae-in sees these Olympics as an opportunity to advance his agenda of reconciliation and dialogue with North Korea. He prioritised that goal over showing off the Games as a celebration of the South as a modern nation and society. The result of this... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2133951/why-south-koreas-olympic-overtures-kim-jong-un-will-misfire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2133951/why-south-koreas-olympic-overtures-kim-jong-un-will-misfire?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Feb 2018 03:50:43 +0000 Midwinter is not exactly the best time for mass demonstrations in South Korea. Protesters prefer to wait for spring, but the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics leaves them no choice. Flag-wavers are out there for the coldest ever Olympics, the rightists waving Korean and American flags, leftists and liberals those one-Korea flags with the Korean peninsula in blue on a white field. The outburst of Korean-style protests evokes memories of the violence that accompanied the Summer Olympics of 1988 when... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2132412/olympics-returns-south-korea-30-years-and-so-do-protests?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2132412/olympics-returns-south-korea-30-years-and-so-do-protests?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 07 Feb 2018 09:00:30 +0000 The timing of the Winter Olympics, in the South Korean mountain district of Pyeongchang in February, could not be better – or worse. By hinting at sending a team, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un is exploiting the desire of President Moon ­­Jae-in to turn the Games into a chance for reconciliation. But Kim is sure to drive a hard bargain. At the very least, he’s likely to demand the cancellation of annual military exercises by the US and South Korea. American military people are not sure how to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2126464/what-south-korea-risking-winter-olympics-diplomacy-nuclear?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2126464/what-south-korea-risking-winter-olympics-diplomacy-nuclear?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Jan 2018 05:00:00 +0000 US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson just can’t seem to get their stories straight when it comes to North Korea. One minute Tillerson is saying the US is ready to talk to North Korea any time, no “preconditions” needed; the next, the White House is issuing a statement saying, forget it, “now is not the time for talks”. So what’s going on? Tillerson’s remarks seemed to open the door to dialogue, but analysts say they were mainly for show. He had to have known, when he... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2124434/trump-and-tillerson-play-word-games-talks-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2124434/trump-and-tillerson-play-word-games-talks-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:30:15 +0000 To sanction or not to sanction North Korea? Pro-sanction people are saying the latest round of US measures against the North may indeed bring enough pressure on Kim Jong-un to agree to talks about giving up his nuclear programme and missiles. The anti-sanctionists say such pressure never works, and may tempt Kim instead to test still more missiles, just to prove what a great and independent leader he is. We’re never going to hear the end of this debate. Nor will we ever get any definitive... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121727/what-next-kim-jong-un-trump-piles-pressure-over-north-koreas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121727/what-next-kim-jong-un-trump-piles-pressure-over-north-koreas?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Nov 2017 02:54:44 +0000 US President Donald Trump faces a diplomatic challenge that would be daunting enough for any national leader, let alone one who is noted for blunt, non-diplomatic language. Beginning Sunday in Tokyo, he’ll be hopscotching among capitals of East Asian countries with long histories of hostility, each wary of the others even when they’re not fighting wars. It’s appropriate, after going on to Seoul, that he will be in Beijing, where he can tell President Xi Jinping all he’s taking away from meetings... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2118074/donald-trumps-asia-trek-through-japan-south-korea-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2118074/donald-trumps-asia-trek-through-japan-south-korea-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Nov 2017 00:01:58 +0000 North Korea has been crying wolf so often, it’s hard to get too excited by the “declaration of war” this week by Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho. Did not the North Koreans declare war after the release of The Interview three years ago? Did we not hear war declarations while North and South Korean troops had a near shoot-out across the demilitarised zone two years ago? And those outbursts paled beside the “declaration of nuclear war” a year after US president George W. Bush included the North in an... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2113005/200-reasons-why-north-korea-declaring-war-nothing-new?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2113005/200-reasons-why-north-korea-declaring-war-nothing-new?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Sep 2017 03:14:47 +0000 It wasn’t exactly a declaration of war, but it did come close. What else to make of US President Donald Trump’s remark that the US might “totally destroy North Korea?” It was one thing to belittle Kim Jong-un as “rocket man” but quite another to threaten annihilation of a country torn apart by US warplanes in the first Korean war. If nothing else, Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly will be remembered as one of those classic moments at which a head of state spoke for shock effect to a more... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2112013/trumps-threats-un-totally-destroy-north-korea-demonstrate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2112013/trumps-threats-un-totally-destroy-north-korea-demonstrate?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 Sep 2017 02:30:59 +0000 It’s easy to feel sorry for Samsung’s Lee Jae-yong, led out of the Seoul district courtroom, found guilty of embezzlement and bribery, arms bound in ropes, clasped by guards on either side. He does not fit the picture of the scheming chieftain of Korea’s largest chaebol, or conglomerate. Seen on the street, he might be mistaken for a diligent salaryman: quiet, serious, neither flamboyant nor particularly tough. The visual image is enough to convey the impression that Lee is the victim of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2108725/why-samsung-heirs-jailing-will-do-little-dent-its-smartphone?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2108725/why-samsung-heirs-jailing-will-do-little-dent-its-smartphone?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 29 Aug 2017 06:03:31 +0000 South Korean President Moon Jae-in must be a severe disappointment to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Far from fulfilling the dreams of some of the extremists who supported him in the snap election in May, which ended nearly a decade of conservative rule, he prefers to show serious resolve in the face of the North’s refusal to back down from escalating threats. North Korea’s propaganda machine has not yet begun cascading personal insults on Moon, as it did on his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, now... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2106220/can-south-koreas-moon-jae-find-path-reconciliation-north?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2106220/can-south-koreas-moon-jae-find-path-reconciliation-north?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Aug 2017 02:08:42 +0000 Americans like to believe their experiment in democracy is a global trend-setter. If there’s one particular sin they love to point out, it’s that of nepotism. Look at all these terrible dictators appointing their relatives to high positions, they say with righteous indignation. Why can’t they be more like us – democratic, fair-minded, egalitarian, fair and just? No powerful global leader, however, is guiltier of the sin of nepotism than Donald Trump. He seems to think his son-in-law, Jared... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2103235/can-america-survive-era-trump-family-values?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2103235/can-america-survive-era-trump-family-values?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Jul 2017 05:30:30 +0000 The tyranny of the dynasty that has governed North Korea since 1948 has never been so obvious as this year while Kim Jong-un, grandson of dynasty founder Kim Il-sung, orders tests of missiles that will someday be capable of carrying warheads to distant targets. How many of us, however, know about the suffering of the millions who have died in a gulag system that dates to the earliest days of the dynasty, was expanded under Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, and today remains the final repository... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2099562/otto-warmbiers-death-brings-light-brutality-north-korean?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2099562/otto-warmbiers-death-brings-light-brutality-north-korean?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Jun 2017 03:58:14 +0000 The annual Forum for Peace and Prosperity, on the South Korean island province of Jeju, left the distinct impression that the North Korean nuclear issue is further than ever from resolution. Gary Samore, of the Belfer Centre at Harvard and formerly with the Obama administration, suggested in a wide-ranging debate on “the future of geopolitics in East Asia” that the problem may be insoluble. That sense weighs heavily on policymakers in Seoul as well as Washington. How can the two agree on a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2096976/how-north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-are-testing-seouls-special?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2096976/how-north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-are-testing-seouls-special?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Jun 2017 03:18:21 +0000 The drama of South Korean history opens a tumultuous new act with the election of a liberal labour lawyer who has promised to both bring about détente with North Korea and satisfy the demands of the restive masses fed up with rightist abuses. Whether Moon Jae-in will be able to live up to his campaign pledges is about as problematic as Donald Trump keeping his word to “make America great again”. Like the US president, Moon is likely to find taking charge of government and getting people to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2093716/can-south-koreas-new-president-moon-jae-find-right-balance-n?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2093716/can-south-koreas-new-president-moon-jae-find-right-balance-n?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 May 2017 04:15:45 +0000 Under Article 9 of their pacifist constitution, “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes”. Much as “rightist” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might want to revise or rescind this, he just cannot get away with it, despite shrill anti-Japanese invective from North Korea and concerns about the rising power of China, as seen in challenges to the Senkaku Islands, or Diaoyu Islands to the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2092590/why-pacifist-japan-standing-its-old-friend-america-naval?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2092590/why-pacifist-japan-standing-its-old-friend-america-naval?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 May 2017 05:44:08 +0000 All the talk over what to do with North Korea overlooks one problem, to which people are not paying much attention. That is, the yawning trade gap between the US 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 US last year exceeded its imports from there by US$347 billion. The imbalance with China is by far the most distended of any trade gap in the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2089498/why-us-trade-deficit-china-south-korea-and-japan-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2089498/why-us-trade-deficit-china-south-korea-and-japan-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Apr 2017 05:02:26 +0000 Park Geun-hye, impeached as South Korea’s president in a wide-ranging corruption scandal, has a unique distinction. Aside from having been Korea’s only female president, she’s also the first to be ousted under the “democracy constitution” promulgated amid massive demonstrations 30 years ago. Park’s fall from grace, however, does not make her the worst of the six South Koreans elected since 1987. Rather, the scandal in which she’s been accused of bribery and corruption linked to South Korean... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2085451/south-korea-could-park-geun-hyes-downfall-be-one-scandal-too?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2085451/south-korea-could-park-geun-hyes-downfall-be-one-scandal-too?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Apr 2017 04:21:16 +0000 South Korea enters an uncertain new era with the ouster of Park Geun-hye as president. As the “candlelight protests” by her foes in central Seoul fade into history, Koreans can pride themselves on a legal process that began with the arrest of her close friend, and then her impeachment by the National Assembly, as approved by the constitutional court. Korean democracy, however, faces many more tests. The election of a new president has to be held within two months of the court decision. Passions... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2079005/park-geun-hyes-exit-jockeying-begins-power-over-fate-korean?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2079005/park-geun-hyes-exit-jockeying-begins-power-over-fate-korean?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Mar 2017 03:07:40 +0000 The poisoning of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has one salutary effect. It makes us painfully aware of a category of weapons of mass destruction that has been largely overlooked in the focus on nuclear devices. In all the talk about the North Korean menace, little has been said about its capacity for developing chemical and biological weapons. How advanced is it? Some believe it has developed dozens of types, ranging from anthrax to ricin. Certainly, it would seem, it is... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2075140/kim-jong-nams-killing-north-korea-shows-world-its-deadly?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2075140/kim-jong-nams-killing-north-korea-shows-world-its-deadly?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:08:54 +0000 The picture of a woman wearing a T-shirt inscribed with “LOL” surely offers an enduring memory of the murder of the older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. That T-shirt has mesmerised internet surfers, to whom the demise of a lone North Korean might otherwise remain a little noted “act of terrorism” in a distant land. The acronym LOL, or “laugh out loud”, now symbolises the killing of 45-year-old Kim Jong-nam for which the North Koreans are... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2072365/china-turns-screw-north-korea-its-coal-ban-will-tough?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2072365/china-turns-screw-north-korea-its-coal-ban-will-tough?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Feb 2017 10:21:51 +0000 US President Donald Trump’s most fearsome offensive on the world stage has nothing to do with immigration reform, building a border wall with Mexico – or even defence or treaty alliances. It’s all about US trade relations with the rest of the world. All that other stuff isn’t going to affect most Americans directly. The hassle over refugees doesn’t faze people too much on a personal level, nor do Americans worry a lot about US treaty alliances that shield them from their enemies. Trump trade... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2069404/why-world-has-reason-fear-donald-trumps-trade-tantrums?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2069404/why-world-has-reason-fear-donald-trumps-trade-tantrums?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Feb 2017 05:53:34 +0000 Donald Trump faces a crisis in northeast Asia that’s likely to test his willpower far beyond the rhetoric that he’s been spewing for months. Quite soon we may learn how much he can really do to stymie the threat of North Korean posturing, and deal with America’s yawning trade deficit with China. That’s a tall order, involving two seemingly different but closely related issues. The US president-elect may soon discover that he can’t have it both ways. If North Korean leader Kim Jong-un orders a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2060787/trump-will-need-more-rhetoric-deal-north-korea-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2060787/trump-will-need-more-rhetoric-deal-north-korea-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Jan 2017 06:01:23 +0000 China faces a challenge in enforcing new North Korean sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. With the council’s 15 members unanimously approving the tougher sanctions after hard-fought negotiations in the wake of the North’s fifth nuclear test, US negotiators would like to believe that China will really crack down on dealings with its North Korean protectorate. Whether the Chinese can or will abide by the sanctions as promised, however, is problematical. The latest sanctions mean that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2050784/will-china-enforce-un-sanctions-north-korea-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2050784/will-china-enforce-un-sanctions-north-korea-time?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Dec 2016 05:32:35 +0000 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has confounded strategists in Washington by appearing to disavow the historic Philippine-American alliance, aligning with China while tossing out agreements with the United States. If his declarations are puzzling, however, they should not be all that hard to understand. Beneath the show of nationalist pride that Duterte is expressing lies a certain common sense. After all, is the US, despite its much publicised “pivot” to Asia, willing to risk an armed clash... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2039823/just-how-far-can-new-friendship-between-china-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2039823/just-how-far-can-new-friendship-between-china-and?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 26 Oct 2016 03:38:55 +0000 The dream of American diplomacy is for a trilateral alliance joining the US in common cause with its two northeast Asian allies, South Korea and Japan. The great obstacle to this alliance has always been the bitterness between Korea and Japan. US diplomats have often called for the two nations to get over the legacy of bitterness and look ahead by cooperating in defence against North Korea. Such pleas have often been met with rebukes, with claims that Americans fail to understand the depths and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2023992/us-seoul-tokyo-alliance-more-crucial-ever-kim-chases-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2023992/us-seoul-tokyo-alliance-more-crucial-ever-kim-chases-his?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Oct 2016 00:02:33 +0000 The Chinese remain the great enigma when it comes to figuring out whether they’re friend or foe, honourable adversaries or dangerous rivals for power and influence from the Korean peninsula to the South China Sea and beyond. North Korea’s 5th nuclear test prompts US call for more sanctions Nobody believes they’re doing much to discourage North Korea’s nuclear ambitions but, then again, nobody thinks they’re encouraging the North Koreans either. When they express their displeasure to the North... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2019314/kim-jong-uns-nuclear-trajectory-only-increases-sino-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2019314/kim-jong-uns-nuclear-trajectory-only-increases-sino-us?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Sep 2016 09:02:43 +0000 China is no longer enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea while reviving often tense relations with the regime of leader Kim Jong-un. That view seems inescapable, given the record of Chinese imports from North Korea, notably coal, and cross-border trade, mainly from the Yalu River port of Dandong (丹東) to Sinuiju, one of the North’s primary economic zones. The driving force behind China’s rush to embrace its long-time ally has to be outrage over South Korea succumbing to US pressure and agreeing... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2008238/how-chinese-imports-are-propping-north-koreas-nuclear-goals?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2008238/how-chinese-imports-are-propping-north-koreas-nuclear-goals?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Aug 2016 03:53:32 +0000 The operative word for the foreign media covering the seventh Workers’ Party congress in North Korea, held over one long four-day weekend in Pyongyang, was “rare”. North Korea had not had such a conflab since 1980 when the late “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung, founder of the dynasty, convened the sixth congress. The idea then was to fortify the succession of his son, Kim Jong-il, as rightful heir to the kingdom, making certain he had vital military posts. Secretive North Korea hails nuclear programme... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1944584/north-koreas-rare-party-congress-only-shows-country?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1944584/north-koreas-rare-party-congress-only-shows-country?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 May 2016 03:01:51 +0000