[Lee Byung-jong] APEC summit and free trade

The APEC summit held last week in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, brought South Korea several diplomatic gifts. Through his summit with US President Donald Trump, President Lee Jae-myung secured concessions regarding US tariffs and investment issues, while his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping resulted in what both sides called a “full restoration of bilateral relations.” Lee also met Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, reaffirming their commitment to maintaining friendly tie

Nov. 7, 2025

[Editorial] Fiscal fault line

South Korea’s 2026 budget has been sold as the blueprint for an AI-powered future. In his budget speech Tuesday, President Lee Jae Myung called it “the nation’s first budget of the AI era,” a financial map to transform the economy through computing power, digital infrastructure and human capital. Yet the same map also exposes a growing fault line in Korea’s public finances. For all the rhetoric about innovation, the deeper question is whether the government can afford its ambition. The proposed

Nov. 7, 2025

[Wang Son-taek] 5 moments in Gyeongju that may change the world

The recently concluded APEC summit in Gyeongju, Korea, offered more than a ceremonial diplomatic gathering. It delivered scenes so symbolic and revealing that they may well be remembered as inflection points when the world caught a glimpse of future directions. Among countless interactions and formal declarations, five moments stood out for their power to reframe thinking and reshape global dynamics. First, it was a tech titan who stole the show: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. In Seoul, Huang sat shou

Nov. 6, 2025

[Robin Berjon] Europe needs fewer cloud scares

We tend to take for granted the infrastructure on which our economies and societies run — until something goes wrong. Just ask residents of Spain and Portugal, who were suddenly faced with a total blackout last April, when a series of cascading voltage surges shut down their electricity grids. Both Spain and Portugal are now pursuing massive investments in strengthening their grids’ resilience. But citizens should not have to wait until after disaster strikes for their leaders to commit to inves

Nov. 6, 2025

[Editorial] Develop capability first

President Lee Jae Myung said Tuesday that South Korea's plan to retake wartime operational control, or OPCON, from the United States "within his term" would serve as a major opportunity to upgrade the bilateral alliance. Lee made the remarks during a meeting at his office with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. His five-year term ends in 2030. Earlier in the day, after annual security talks with South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back in Seoul, Hegseth told reporters that the two agreed that

Nov. 6, 2025

[Kim Seong-kon] Living in a house of dynamite

APEC Korea 2025 drew to a close with a grand finale. The Korean press reported that the event turned out to be a success, especially for this country. For example, Korea and the US finally agreed on the details of their trade deal at the summit in Gyeongju. Korea also secured approval from US President Donald Trump to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. These two fruitful outcomes will undoubtedly stabilize our economy and national security, at least for now. In the long run, however, we are sti

Nov. 5, 2025

[Rummnan Chowdhury] A comparison of small and large language models.

For the past several years, artificial intelligence has been defined by its obsession with scale. The prevailing narrative has been: Bigger models, better intelligence. But the future of AI may not belong to the most massive models — it may belong to the most efficient. Small language models (SLMs) are quietly emerging as the smarter, more sustainable, and strategically superior alternative to their massive cousins, the large language models (LLMs) that currently dominate headlines and data cent

Nov. 5, 2025

[Editorial] Korea’s AI test

South Korea has grown used to leading consumer technology cycles, from handsets to displays. The Nvidia agreement announced in Gyeongju last week signals something different. By securing 260,000 Blackwell GPUs by 2030, South Korea is stepping into a race not defined by gadgets but by geopolitical capacity. For the first time, the country is positioned not merely to follow an innovation curve but to compete in infrastructure that powers the next industrial era. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperati

Nov. 5, 2025

[Bae Su-kyeong] What a snowflake knows: dignity in quiet presence

Some months ago in Seoul, I walked through streets that had fallen silent after midnight. The snow from the night before had hardened into ice, and on the frozen asphalt sat several dozen people. There was no chant, no fist, no act of violence. Only silence. In the deep shadows where no streetlight reached, I noticed a young man sitting cross-legged. On the frozen ground before him lay an open Bible. He seemed to have deliberately chosen the place where not even a trace of light could find him.

Nov. 4, 2025

[Richard Haass] Trump’s pivot from Asia

US President Donald Trump spent much of the last week of October in Asia. He managed to bring about ceasefires on several fronts of a trade war largely of his own making, after imposing tariffs on friends and foes alike. What he did not do, though, was create enduring structures in the economic sphere or put to rest increasing doubts about the United States’ strategic commitment to the region. To be sure, there were some valuable accomplishments. Trump’s meetings in Japan, arguably the most impo

Nov. 4, 2025

[Editorial] Rightful reversal

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea said Monday it had decided not to push the so-called "trial suspension bill," which would halt criminal trials of sitting presidents. The decision came just a day after its spokesman hinted at advancing the bill this month. The party said that it made the decision after consulting the presidential office. It is the right move to abandon the bill seen to be an unfair interference in judicial independence. The trial suspension bill is a revision to the Criminal

Nov. 4, 2025

[Lee Kyong-hee] Gold crown, baseball bat and butterflies

A replica of a gold crown from the ancient Silla Kingdom was likely the most symbolic gift South Korean President Lee Jae Myung could offer visiting US President Donald Trump. The setting — Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the historic capital of Silla — was steeped in heritage, and the gesture came amid tense negotiations over hefty US tariffs and investment. The hope was that the glittering headpiece might charm Trump and help unlock a breakthrough. Yet, despite South Korea’s earnest inten

Nov. 3, 2025

[Jenna Nicholas] The critical value of Indigenous climate stewardship

In August, I traveled by bus, small plane and canoe to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, in Ecuador. It’s a place with very few roads, yet like many areas in the rainforest, foreign business interests have made contact with its peoples and in just the last decade have rapidly changed the landscape, scarring it with mines or clearcutting for cattle ranching. The Amazon rainforest is rightly called the “lungs of the planet.” It stores approximately 56.8 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent

Nov. 3, 2025

[Editorial] Gyeongju leap

The world rarely pauses for ceremony these days. Trade wars, transactional alliances and strategic supply chains define the fractured global backdrop. The APEC summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, could easily have been a polite gathering with little substance. Instead, it showed that diplomacy can still bend history’s trajectory, offering a critical counternarrative to global pessimism. South Korea’s ancient capital Gyeongju hosted a summit aimed squarely at the future. The theme, “Bu

Nov. 3, 2025

[Robert J. Fouser] Anti-China protests hurt S. Korea

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week has turned South Korea into the center of global diplomatic activity, as the leaders of 21 nations gathered in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom. President Lee Jae Myung met US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi; it was his first meetings with the leaders of China and Japan. A trade-war weary world focused much of its attention on the mee

Oct. 31, 2025