[Rumman Chowdhury] Sovereign AI: A new frontier of national ambition

Should AI be a public good, shaped by local values, or a technology controlled by a handful of geographically-limited tech giants? The rise of “sovereign AI” -- locally developed, government-backed artificial intelligence systems -- reflects a world wrestling with the urgent questions of power, autonomy, and identity in the digital age. This push is not merely about technological prowess; it is a response to deep geopolitical anxieties, economic ambitions, and cultural imperatives. The geopoliti

July 10, 2025

[Editorial] Golden hour

The United States will start imposing 25 percent tariffs on all South Korean products on Aug. 1, US President Donald Trump said in a letter addressed to President Lee Jae Myung on Monday. Trump sent tariff letters to 14 countries, first releasing the letters to South Korea and Japan on his Truth Social platform. He seems to have disclosed tariff letters to the two countries first because of their large trade surpluses with the US — $66 billion for South Korea and $69.4 billion for Japan. Trump a

July 10, 2025

[Noah Feldman] The Supreme Court’s majority is playing the long game

Many legal commentators apparently believe that, in the term that just ended, the Supreme Court further enabled President Donald Trump. The court did, in fact, issue a series of conservative decisions that Trump likes. However, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the court also simultaneously pursued a careful strategy aimed at preserving the rule of law in the face of Trump’s unprecedented challenges to it. The court picked its battles, upholding a meaningful number of lower cou

July 9, 2025

[Editorial] Korea’s academic exodus

At Seoul National University, long regarded as the pinnacle of South Korea’s higher education system, an unsettling pattern has emerged. Over the past four years, 56 professors have left for academic posts overseas, a quiet but steady migration to institutions offering not only higher salaries but also more generous research funding and fewer bureaucratic hurdles. The symbolism is hard to miss: Even South Korea’s most prestigious university struggles to retain talent in an era when intellectual

July 9, 2025

[Kim Seong-kon] S.W.A.T.: 'South Korean Weapons and Tactics'

Whenever I want to relax these days, I turn on the TV and watch a Netflix series titled "S.W.A.T." In its depiction of daily incidents in urban LA, the drama makes me brood over our turbulent past, ponder our present predicaments and reflect on the future awaiting our children’s generation. The protagonist Hondo, a SWAT unit leader in LA, constantly wonders: “Is it possible for me to bring change to the world in which I live? Can I make a better society by risking my life fighting vicious villai

July 9, 2025

[Andrew Sheng] What do we owe our grandchildren?

Coming back from an extended conference on gross national happiness in Bhutan, which is one of the first carbon negative countries in the world, I became aware that intergenerational justice may be one of the most important moral questions we face today. The world is drowning in debt. According to the IMF, global debt amounted to $250 trillion in 2023, or 237 percent of GDP, with global private debt at more than $150 trillion or 143 percent of GDP. If global private wealth is now estimated at ov

July 8, 2025

[Editorial] Saving self-employed

The number of business owners that wound up their operations topped 1 million for the first time in history last year. Retail and restaurant businesses accounted for nearly half of the closures. This means that many business owners are still struggling with debt due to high interest rates, high inflation and stagnant sales. In South Korea, early retirees in their 40s and 50s tend to take out loans to start a business for a living only to close it as they could not withstand the economic slowdown

July 8, 2025

[Lim Woong] Instagram’s missing ‘dislike’ button

Ever wonder why Instagram has no “dislike” button? You’re not alone. Maybe you’ve asked yourself why it’s all hearts, thumbs-up and smiley faces — but never a simple “your-post-is-no-fun-at-all.” It’s not a glitch. It’s a design. Welcome to the dark side of digital addiction. In an age where smartphones practically live in our hands, digital addiction is far from hyperbole. It covers everything from endless scrolling on Instagram and compulsively watching YouTube Shorts to binge gaming and obses

July 8, 2025

[Martin Schram] Peace through power — It’s electric!

For several hold-your-breath weeks, as spring sizzled into summer, the nuclear dealmakers of President Donald Trump’s USA and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Iran seemed astonishingly close to a deal. So close that it seemed they’d soon reach out and seize the deal. But no one was willing to reach out. First, on May 13, Iran’s chief proposer, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, proposed solving the nuclear bomb fears by creating something few of us had considered: a regional nuclear pow

July 7, 2025

[Yoo Choon-sik] Uncertainty rises as AI law decrees miss schedule

South Korea has missed its self-imposed deadline of June 30 to disclose draft versions of enforcement decrees and rules for its basic artificial intelligence law. The National Assembly overwhelmingly passed the AI Basic Act — officially the Framework Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and Establishment of Foundation for Trust — in late December 2024. It took markets around the world by surprise, given that the country was quickly slipping into one of the worst political turmoils i

July 7, 2025

[Editorial] Power without restraint

Late Friday night, as the nation’s attention was focused elsewhere, South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea passed a supplementary budget worth 31.8 trillion won ($23.3 billion). The party acted alone. No opposition lawmakers took part. There was no compromise, no negotiation. This was no routine fiscal exercise. It was the first major budget under President Lee Jae Myung’s administration, pushed through just a month after his inauguration. Yet the process followed a now familiar pattern

July 7, 2025

[Lee Byung-jong] Singapore epitomizes soft power

The late Harvard professor Joseph Nye famously coined the term "soft power" to describe a nation's ability to influence others through attraction rather than coercion. As he put it, soft power is based on “power with” rather than “power over” — the capacity to build partnerships and coalitions, enhancing a country’s global standing beyond its military or economic might. Few nations exemplify this idea as clearly as Singapore. From its humble beginnings as a small fishing village and trading post

July 4, 2025

[Editorial] Sandbox, not straitjacket

South Korea has long prided itself on its technological sophistication, a nation of 5G networks, semiconductor giants and integrated mobile ecosystems. Yet the legal and regulatory machinery governing its economy remains ill-suited to the demands of the industries it claims to champion. A modest but telling countermeasure has been the “regulatory sandbox,” a policy tool that grants temporary exemptions from outdated laws, allowing innovative companies to test new services or products without bei

July 4, 2025

[Wang Son-taek] Why do we need the Ministry of Unification?

Few policy debates in recent memory have struck such a sensitive nerve as the question now emerging in South Korean political discourse: Should the Ministry of Unification be renamed? The idea, once considered fringe, is now circulating more seriously in the early stages of the Lee Jae Myung administration. Supporters argue that the word “Unification” has lost relevance in today's geopolitical climate and that a more pragmatic label is needed. But for many Koreans, including myself, this is not

July 3, 2025

[Ahmet Davutoglu] NATO’s Trump dilemma

NATO’s summit in The Hague came at a time of extraordinary tension. Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Europe of free riding on US defense spending, raising serious concerns about the health of the Atlantic alliance. His decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities just three days before the summit — in coordination with Israel and without informing America’s NATO allies — has only intensified those fears. Trump’s strikes against Iran evoked memories of the pos

July 3, 2025