[Wang Son-taek] A year after an insurrection

Exactly a year ago, South Korea confronted a constitutional disaster. A sitting president attempted a self-coup that could have resulted in violent confrontation or authoritarian consolidation. Instead, South Korea overcame the crisis with extraordinary efficiency and civic maturity. Within 12 months, the country restored constitutional governance, elected a new president and stabilized national systems without falling into either bloodshed or total chaos. Such an achievement deserves recognitio

Dec. 4, 2025

[Boram Jang] A 6-hour lesson from Korea

Like every schoolchild in South Korea, I was taught about the days in May 1980 when our country’s soldiers killed civilians in the Gwangju Democratic Uprising. At least 166 protesters — mostly students — were shot dead, and at the time there were no consequences for those responsible. One year ago — on Dec. 3 last year, when South Korea’s then-President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and deployed troops to the National Assembly — that lesson helped save the country's constitutional order. In

Dec. 4, 2025

[Matt K. Lewis] Reasons Republicans bucking Trump

US President Donald Trump’s tight grip on the Republican Party, long assumed to be an inevitable feature of American life like gravity or the McRib’s seasonal return, has started to loosen. Republicans are now openly defying him. The man who once ruled the party like a casino boss can’t even strong-arm Indiana Republicans into gerrymandering themselves properly. This sort of resistance didn’t emerge overnight. It fermented like prison wine or bad ideas in a faculty lounge. First came the Iran bo

Dec. 3, 2025

[Kim Seong-kon] Korea as a symbol of our contemporary world

Does today’s Korea capture the essence of the current situation and problems that the world confronts? If so, could we say that Korea is an emblem of our times? Perceiving the similarities between Korea’s predicament and that of other countries, Indian writer Amitav Ghosh answered: “yes.” In his acceptance speech for the 2025 Park Kyongni Prize, Ghosh said, “The Korean Peninsula stands as a powerful symbol of our contemporary moment. In many ways, the great themes of your history — of resilience

Dec. 3, 2025

[Jeffrey Frankel] What will the US debt reckoning look like?

In the United States, public debt now stands at 99 percent of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office expects it to reach 107 percent of GDP by 2029 — surpassing the record set at the end of World War II — and to continue rising indefinitely. But until when? As Herbert Stein, who served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Richard Nixon, famously quipped, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” But what will that “stop” look like? A country can move off an unsusta

Dec. 2, 2025

[Allison Schrager] AI likely to cause labor shortage.

There are two big worries when it comes to the rapid advances in artificial intelligence. The first is that it will lead to robot overlords that will eradicate humanity. The second is that AI will eliminate many jobs. The more likely scenario is that it creates a labor shortage, or at least a dearth of skilled workers who can make the most of the new technology. I recently spoke to the head of the informatics program at a large university and asked her about training undergraduates for this futu

Dec. 2, 2025

[Man Ki Kim] Korea at a crossroads: Innovation, demographics and the global diaspora

In just six decades, Korea has risen from the devastation of war to become a global leader in industry, technology and culture. Today, the nation faces a new set of challenges: the fastest population decline in the OECD, widening income inequality, and youth unemployment, all of which threaten social cohesion. Yet, Korea’s 7.32 million-strong diaspora offers a powerful resource. Their creativity, professional networks and global influence can help drive innovation, strengthen soft power and ensu

Dec. 1, 2025

[Allison Schrager] US middle class shrinking

The good news is that Americans have never been richer. The bad news is that most of them don’t feel like it. There has been tremendous growth in income and wealth in the US in the last half century, even for poorer and middle-class households. But because of the nature of that growth, as well as the changing structure of the national economy, a lot of the people who have benefited also believe that the economy isn’t working for them. It is true the middle class is shrinking. In the 1960s the in

Dec. 1, 2025

[Robert J. Fouser] Korean learning boom falters

The past twenty years have seen a boom in people learning Korean. Hallyu and K-pop have put South Korean pop culture on the map, particularly in the evolving global Generation Z culture. Other factors, many of which have received little attention, have contributed to the boom. The first, and perhaps most important, is the expanding interaction with South Korea, which deepens contact with Koreans and inspires people to learn the language. Interaction with Koreans has expanded, both in South Korea

Nov. 28, 2025

[Aaron Brown] What if gambling used the ‘free price effect’?

The bedrock life principle, the house always wins, derives from the mathematical advantage casinos build into their games. But what if that wasn’t the price of admittance? On an American roulette wheel, a bet on the number 13 pays off at 35:1. If there were 36 slots on the wheel, both the house and the bettor would break even in the long run, but there are 38 slots (zero, double-zero and the numbers 1 to 36). The house doesn’t win every spin — 13 does come up — but in the long run bettors lose $

Nov. 27, 2025

[Vitit Muntarbhorn] Business' role in child protection

A key element of child protection is to amplify the participation of the business sector as a partner in the process. This is particularly challenging regarding the expanding mass of child sexual exploitation and abuse materials in a world of digitalization, algorithms and Artificial Intelligence. A recent report backed by the UN concerning the impact of AI on child sexual exploitation notes that Cyber Tipline reports on CSAM received some 36 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitatio

Nov. 27, 2025

[Mark Gongloff] Who believes in climate change?

There’s an old climate joke that goes, “You may not believe in climate change, but your insurance company does.” If you’re in the market for new environmental humor — and really, who isn’t? — you can now update this to say, “You may not believe in climate change, but the stock market does.” For much of this year, the S&P Global Clean Energy Index has outpaced the S&P 500 Index, the Nasdaq 100 Index and the MSCI World Index, Bloomberg News noted recently as part of a report about Jefferies analys

Nov. 26, 2025

[Kim Seong-kon] 'Ever Night': Standing between light and darkness

History teaches us valuable lessons. When we watch historical movies and dramas, we can look back upon the past, realize what went wrong at that time, and learn not to repeat the same mistakes our ancestors made. In that sense, history reflects the present and illuminates the right path to the future. The 2018 Chinese television series “Ever Night” enables us to perceive the nature of problems we are now facing by reference to historical events. Set in the Tang Dynasty, this award-winning drama

Nov. 26, 2025

[Lee Jae-min] US tariff end risks package deals

The United States Supreme Court seems to be on a fast track for its review and deliberation of the fentanyl and "reciprocal" tariff measures of the Donald Trump administration. During oral arguments on Nov. 5, some of the justices raised critical questions expressing skepticism about the legality of the tariffs. The core question is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 gives the president the authority to impose such sweeping tariffs. Of course, there is no telling wha

Nov. 25, 2025

[Lim Woong] Finding light in unkind digital world

It is not difficult to see that online platforms have become the primary spaces where our youth gather, talk, argue, chase trends and figure out how to live with others. For students, social media functions almost like a parallel reality they cannot ignore. We often say that libraries shape their habits of mind, yet it is social media where their sense of right and wrong is tested, where they learn, sometimes painfully, to read situations, protect themselves and form a sense of community and bel

Nov. 25, 2025