[Editorial] Lingering suspicions

The presidential office accepted Kim Nam-kook's resignation as presidential secretary for digital communication on Thursday. Kim had offered to resign apparently to lessen the political burden he put on the presidential office by causing suspicions about cronyism and the power behind the throne. However, it is questionable if such suspicions are confined to the issue that led to his resignation. On Tuesday during a plenary session in the main chamber of the National Assembly, Moon Jin-seog, depu

Dec. 9, 2025

[Editorial] Judicial warning

South Korea’s judiciary has endured political storms, but few match the speed and force of this month’s legislative push. On Wednesday, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea pushed two judicial reform bills through the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee, including a special act that would establish a tribunal for the 2024 martial law case. On Friday, the country’s most senior judges convened at the Supreme Court. Their unusually unified warning signaled not only legal concern

Dec. 8, 2025

[Editorial] Fragile growth

South Korea’s economy expanded by 1.3 percent in the third quarter, the fastest pace since late 2021. The rebound briefly stirred hopes that the country had begun to exit its long spell of sluggishness. Yet a closer reading suggests something more modest. The economy can still respond when prompted, but its momentum remains narrow and the forces pulling against it are neither cyclical nor mild. The headline numbers offer some reassurance. Private consumption rose by 1.3 percent, the strongest in

Dec. 5, 2025

[Editorial] Change needed

Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a proposition that would have introduced a high inheritance and gift tax on the super-rich. The youth wing of the Social Democrats put forward the "Initiative for the Future" to impose a 50 percent inheritance and gift tax on estates valued over 50 million Swiss francs ($62.1 million). The initiative proposed using the tax revenue to fund climate-related policies and address wealth inequality. But the initiative was voted down by 78.3 percent of the ele

Dec. 4, 2025

[Editorial] Unlearned lessons

One year after the Dec. 3 martial law crisis upended Korea’s constitutional order, the country confronts an uncomfortable truth: The institutions that resisted a president’s unlawful deployment of troops proved sturdier than many feared, yet the political class that presided over the collapse has learned almost nothing from it. The broad facts appear largely settled. Courts now handle the trials of former President Yoon Suk Yeol and senior security officials. Major elements of the alleged chain

Dec. 3, 2025

[Editorial] Lax security

The massive data breach at Coupang, South Korea's e-commerce giant — now confirmed to have exposed personal data for about 33.7 million customer accounts — is more than just a technical glitch. It is a serious failure of corporate stewardship and a fundamental breach of consumer trust — a betrayal of numerous users who entrusted their personal information to a private company, expecting it to guard that data responsibly. That the leak went undetected for five months after unauthorized access rep

Dec. 2, 2025

[Editorial] Monetary policy limits

The quietest moment in monetary policy often reveals the loudest warning. The Bank of Korea’s decision on Nov. 27 to keep the policy rate at 2.5 percent for the fourth consecutive meeting looked, at first glance, like another routine attempt to buy time. In reality, the central bank signaled the limits of what monetary policy alone can now accomplish. A currency hovering around the 1,470 won level against the US dollar, a housing market that refuses to cool, and an uneven recovery built on a nar

Dec. 1, 2025

[Editorial] Gemini shock

The global race in artificial intelligence has largely centered on the combination of OpenAI’s algorithms and Nvidia’s silicon. With the unveiling of "Gemini 3.0" last week, however, Google upended the industry’s strategic chessboard. By demonstrating that state-of-the-art models can outperform incumbents using proprietary Ironwood tensor processing units rather than Nvidia’s flagship chips, Google has signaled the end of a unipolar AI order. For South Korea, standing at the periphery of this te

Nov. 28, 2025

[Editorial] Negotiation chaos

The Ministry of Employment and Labor on Monday disclosed an amendment to the enforcement ordinances of the "Yellow Envelope" law that refer to revised Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act. The amended ordinances will be open until Jan. 5 for public review and opinion collection. The Yellow Envelope bill stirred strong backlash from businesses, but the pro-labor ruling party pushed it through in August with its significant parliamentary majority. The law is sched

Nov. 27, 2025

[Editorial] Crisis in care

The image is grim but familiar: an ambulance idling outside a Busan hospital, its siren silent, its crew on the phone. Inside lies a teenager in seizures, a patient the system classifies as pediatric and refuses to treat. What happened on Oct. 20 was not an aberration. It was the predictable outcome of a structure long signaling distress. Though the doctors’ strike has ended and trainees have returned, the "emergency room loop" in which crews call up hospital after hospital seeking an open door

Nov. 26, 2025

[Editorial] Populist choice

The government said Friday that it plans to reopen bidding within this year for a project to build a new international airport on the Busan island of Gadeokdo. The decision to resume bidding was made after the government extended its assessed construction period from 84 months to 106 months. Bidding had failed four times before a consortium led by Hyundai E&C was selected as a preferred bidder in October last year. But in May, Hyundai E&C demanded the government increase the construction period

Nov. 25, 2025

[Editorial] Dangerous drift

The most striking image of Northeast Asia’s current instability is not a fleet of warships, but a single remark in a Japanese parliamentary chamber. On Nov. 7, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned that a Chinese move against Taiwan could create a situation that “threatened the survival” of Japan. Her phrasing, drawn from Japan’s 2015 security legislation, immediately escalated the political temperature. Beijing responded swiftly. Chinese officials demanded a full retraction and issued statements

Nov. 24, 2025

[Editorial] Korea’s dollar drain

The Korean won’s persistent decline against the US dollar has moved beyond ordinary volatility and now signals a deeper imbalance that Seoul’s policymakers can no longer overlook. With the won trading persistently near the 1,470 won mark, markets now openly discuss 1,500 as plausible. What is striking is that this does not reflect a shortage of dollars from trade. It reflects a structural reshaping of the foreign exchange equilibrium that threatens to erode hard-won stability, trigger cost-push

Nov. 21, 2025

[Editorial] Signals of crisis

South Korean companies forecast that Korea could be overtaken by China across all of its top 10 export industries within the next five years, according to a survey of domestic firms conducted by the Federation of Korean Industries. Korea has already been overtaken by China in half of its top 10 export sectors — steel, general machinery, secondary batteries, displays and automobiles and auto parts — and is expected to fall behind China in semiconductors, electrical and electronics, shipbuilding,

Nov. 20, 2025

[Editorial] Grounded by haste

River cities like to say that water reveals more than it hides. Seoul’s latest commuter experiment has learned this in the most public way. A vessel on the Hangang Bus service, promoted as a sleek escape from congested roads, hit a sand bar near Jamsil on Saturday, leaving 82 passengers stranded for nearly an hour. It was the second suspension of the service in as many months, a reminder that civic ambition without preparation quickly runs aground. Introduced in September as one of Mayor Oh Se-h

Nov. 19, 2025