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The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Columnists

Park Jung-won

When the sheriff leaves town

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, in opposition, served as the world’s de facto police. Since then the U.S. has largely carried on that task alone. But in recent years, as the Russia-Ukraine and Hamas-Israel conflicts illustrate, the pessimistic view has gained ground that the fundamental framework of the international order is collapsing. The growing fear is that the world is becoming more lawless in the absence of U.S. assertiveness.

2023-12-07 16:29

The security risks of political division

“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. National Security Adviser, made these remarks while boasting of the success of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East at an event on Sept. 29. But his boast has since turned into a blunder. Only eight days later, the Islamist militant group Hamas launched surprise attacks on Israel at an unprecedented scale.

2023-11-02 16:30

The Trump conundrum

American politics never ceases to amaze as former President Donald Trump emerges as the strongest candidate to be the Republican Party’s nominee in the next U.S. presidential election. Despite all the criminal charges against him, he leads in every poll. His prospective re-election must be taken seriously and the reasons why he resonates so strongly with a large portion of the American people should be examined.

2023-10-05 16:30

South Korea's security quandary

The most serious security matter facing South Korea today is the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear missiles. Many politicians and experts in South Korea argue that China has no reason to stand behind its neighbor, North Korea, due to the latter's increasingly reckless nuclear posture, and thus China's mediation efforts in inter-Korean affairs should align with South Korea's security aims. While this argument may have been persuasive in the past, in the geopolitical context of the new Cold War, it is now a delusion. The essence of the new Cold War is China's challenge to the liberal order...

2023-09-07 16:30

The bumpy road toward unification

President Yoon Suk Yeol said that the Ministry of Unification's purpose should no longer be to provide aid to North Korea. Whatever Yoon's true intention, fundamental reform of the unification ministry seems to be inevitable.

2023-08-03 16:30

South Korea's US-China predicament

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's critical visit to China last month sparked a flurry of hasty analysis in South Korea concluding that U.S.-China relations were entering a thaw.

2023-07-06 17:41

Need for common ground in diplomacy, national security

At the core of President Yoon Suk Yeol's diplomatic strategy is a shift away from strategic ambiguity toward values-based diplomacy. This is an inevitable choice imposed on South Korea by the current security environment defined by the new Sino-American Cold War and the worsening nuclear threat of North Korea. A dual structure of trilateral alliances between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan on the one hand, and North Korea, China and Russia on the other, has emerged in Northeast Asia over the issues of the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan.

2023-06-01 16:50

South Korea's fateful nuclear choice

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden held a summit at the White House on April 26, announcing the Washington Declaration, which calls for strengthening the U.S. commitment to extended deterrence.

2023-05-01 16:35

Dictators' distortions of international law

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a summit on March 21 after which they reaffirmed their solidarity, strongly criticizing the hypocrisy of the current U.S.-led rules-based international order. They argued that the world order should be a multipolar system in which each country's sovereignty is respected under international law. Xi may have wanted to look like a neutral mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war to the world, but he had no intention of mediating from the outset.

2023-04-06 16:59

No shortcuts on road to reunification

“Reunification can happen suddenly, so only when we are prepared can we realize it,” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said while attending a policy briefing from the unification ministry on Jan. 27. His remarks caused a big stir for suggesting the possibility of the imminent collapse of the current North Korean regime.

2023-03-02 16:40

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