[Editorial] Labor overprotection

Starting in a few months, freelancers, motorcycle couriers and other so-called “special-type workers” or independent contractors could be able to take legal action against their client businesses, including claims for severance pay, and challenge what they consider unfair contract terminations. Businesses would lose such lawsuits unless they can prove that independent contractors are not their employees. If an independent contractor takes legal action against a business, they would initially be

Jan. 22, 2026

[Editorial] The cost of being first

Speed is usually a virtue in technology; however, it is often a liability in regulation. On Thursday, South Korea will become the first country to enforce a comprehensive law governing artificial intelligence. But it may also expose an uncomfortable truth about regulatory first movers, who absorb the uncertainty others learn to avoid. The Framework Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and the Creation of a Foundation for Trust is ambitious by design. It seeks to institutionalize tru

Jan. 21, 2026

[Editorial] Tariff leverage

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly warned Friday that major memory chipmakers that are not investing in the US could face tariffs of up to 100 percent. A day earlier, Taiwan concluded negotiations with the United States over semiconductor tariffs. As a result, the potential tariff he mentioned would apparently target South Korea’s two chipmakers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. South Korea finalized a trade deal last year to reduce US tariffs in return for large investments in str

Jan. 20, 2026

[Editorial] The won’s warning

On Thursday, the Bank of Korea stood its ground, though the space to maneuver is narrowing. For a fifth consecutive meeting, the base rate was held at 2.5 percent. In most cycles, a pause is an interlude. This reads less as a pause than an admission. What made the decision striking was not the freeze itself, but the central bank’s fixation. BOK Gov. Rhee Chang-yong mentioned the exchange rate 64 times at his press conference. Inflation, housing and household debt all mattered, he said, but the w

Jan. 19, 2026

[Editorial] Democracy on trial

There are moments when a democracy learns most about itself not through elections, but through trials. On Jan. 13, in a packed courtroom at the Seoul Central District Court, special counsel Cho Eun-suk asked judges to impose the death penalty on former President Yoon Suk Yeol. This is not a literal call for execution, but a symbolic defense of a constitutional order that recognizes no higher crime than its own subversion. This is the first time a president chosen by popular vote has faced a capi

Jan. 16, 2026

[Editorial] Summit momentum

Tuesday's summit between President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Nara, Japan, was their second since her inauguration in October. Their first summit took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, in late October. It is notable that South Korea and Japan have held two summits within three months through reciprocal leader-level visits under what they call "shuttle diplomacy." For South Korea, relation

Jan. 15, 2026

[Editorial] Per-capita reversal

For much of this century, South Korea treated its income lead over Taiwan as quiet confirmation that its economic model worked better. The margin was never dramatic, but it endured. In 2025, it disappeared. After 22 years, Korea’s per capita GDP slipped below Taiwan’s, turning an assumed hierarchy into a revealing inflection point. The figures are unambiguous. Korea’s per capita GDP in 2025 is estimated at about $36,107, down roughly 0.3 percent from the year before. Taiwan’s rose to around $38,

Jan. 14, 2026

[Editorial] Case for restraint

North Korea claimed Saturday that it brought down drones it said South Korea sent into its airspace in September last year and again on Jan. 4. South Korea's Ministry of National Defense said the drones shown in photos released by the North do not match any models used by its military, adding that it has no intention of provoking or escalating tensions with North Korea. President Lee Jae Myung said that if the drones were indeed civilian, sending them into the North would constitute a serious cr

Jan. 13, 2026

[Editorial] Recovery or illusion

A growth rate of 2 percent rarely sounds ambitious. For South Korea in 2026, however, it is being cast as a turning point. On Friday, the Lee Jae Myung administration framed this year as the first year of an economic reset, anchoring its case to a headline expansion target of 2 percent. After a bruising 2025 marked by weak domestic demand, political disruption and global uncertainty, the pivot is deliberate. Fiscal restraint has given way to an activist industrial posture, backed by looser budge

Jan. 12, 2026

[Editorial] When AI walks

At CES 2026, the era of disembodied intelligence came to a decisive end. As AI stepped out of the cloud and into the physical world to walk factory floors, navigate city streets and manage households, the conversation shifted from what AI can say to what it can do. Nvidia’s “physical AI” is no longer a futuristic catchphrase; it is the blueprint for a world where silicon-based reasoning meets mechanical action. For the global economy, the implication is that the digital revolution has finally gr

Jan. 9, 2026

[Editorial] Power without restraint

Before dawn on Saturday, Caracas went dark. By sunrise, Nicolas Maduro was no longer Venezuela’s sitting president, but a detainee en route to New York, seized by US Delta Force in what Washington insists was a law enforcement operation. The image was blunt and the message blunter. In a world that once prized restraint, force has returned as a primary language of statecraft. US President Donald Trump framed the operation as both a necessity and a warning, pledging that the US would “run” Venezue

Jan. 7, 2026

[Editorial] A line to defend

An Army division in Gangwon Province reportedly issued, and later hastily withdrew, a baffling guideline instructing guards at guardhouses to carry “three-tiered batons” from Monday instead of firearms while on sentry duty. Specifically, the directive went further, requiring batons to be affixed to body armor rather than held in the hand. However, as criticism mounted that three-tiered batons would leave guards ill-equipped to deal with enemy infiltration, the division moved to retract the guide

Jan. 6, 2026

[Editorial] The Beijing test

In diplomacy, timing is often the clearest form of symbolism. On Sunday, as President Lee Jae Myung boarded his plane for Beijing to end a nine-year freeze in presidential state visits to China, North Korea chose the moment to fire a volley of short-range ballistic missiles. Beijing rolled out the red carpet; Pyongyang fired a warning shot. Between those two signals lies the real question over Lee’s China trip: whether South Korea can forge a path of strategic autonomy in a region where every ge

Jan. 5, 2026

[Editorial] Hope rekindled

South Korea’s annual exports topped $700 billion for the first time on Monday, making it the world’s sixth country to reach the milestone after the United States, Germany, China, Japan and the Netherlands. The achievement came seven years after the country became the world’s seventh to post annual exports of $600 billion in 2018. The outcome is encouraging, as it was achieved despite tariff pressure from the United States and the US-China trade conflict. Fueled by stronger-than-expected demand t

Jan. 1, 2026

[Editorial] 2025: Year of recalibration

South Korea began 2025 amid constitutional rupture and ends it with renewed confidence in technocratic governance. The year’s most arresting moments were political. A presidential impeachment closed one era, and the rapid inauguration of the Lee Jae Myung administration opened another, compressing the institutional shock into the space of a few months. Yet the more consequential transformation unfolded away from the assembly hall. In 2025, Seoul stopped patching aging systems and began rewriting

Dec. 31, 2025