There has clearly been no shortage of work for South Korean journalists in the past few weeks. Last month, Park Geun-hye was elected President of South Korea. An event as important as a presidential election tends to get a lot of media attention, but even after the election, there is…
Category: East Asia
TAIWAN: Monopoly Game for Media Investors
The dice has been rolled. Taiwan’s government advances four spaces and lands on Boardwalk. Will they purchase it and prevent the monopoly that Taiwan’s media group is after? Since the start of the new year, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been submitting legislation to regulate cross-media ownership. However, other…
U.S.: On This Issue, Even China Does It Better
It would not be hard to convince many us who live in the West Coast of the painfully obvious need for severe gun-restrictions laws and attendant gun-control law-enforcement. We’re easy. California is just that way. Why recently, we actually voted to increase our taxes to support our schools! Imagine. Call…
LOS ANGELES: How to Handle Difficult North Korea
A GUEST COLUMN BY SPENCER KIM, A MEMBER OF THE U.S. COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS — North Korea has successfully, sort of, launched a long-range missile. We are outraged. We want more sanctions; we want to pressure them till they say uncle or collapse. We wonder how China could be…
JAPAN: Issues the Big Election Never Really Discussed
The monumental election in Japan’s House of Representatives is quickly approaching, bringing with it a slew of reports and articles on everything Japanese – from policy to political strategy. Set for December 16th, the election has the potential to change the political landscape of the nation. With issues such as…
TAIWAN: Keeping the Hakka Tradition Alive
Recently, the national Hakka cultural and economic summit was held at Taipei’s Hakka Cultural Park, by the Cross-Strait Hakka Cultural and Economic Association. Among those who attended were former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung, Hakka Affairs Council Deputy Minister Lee Chao-ming, and China Review News Editor in Chief,…
SOUTH KOREA: A Little Sympathy Goes A Long Way!
Free speech advocate gets ten months behind bars for posting online? This sounds close to ridiculous in a democracy like South Korea. However, Park Jung-geun, a South Korean photographer and a supporter of free speech, suffered this exact fate recently. He is accused of supporting North Korea, an act that…
CHINA: A New Fashion Model In Town
Heels, lace, and mini-skirts! These are some of our favorite things. By “our,” I mean the possessive term for females. China’s new clothing line, Yuekou, is marketing these pieces to young Chinese fashionistas in a brand new way that is shocking to their audience, as well as the rest of…
INDIA: China’s Passport to Trouble
China is at it again! Existing territorial conflict between New Delhi and Beijing over Arunchal Pradesh is no concern of the past. The controversial issue has been revived as China recently took matters into its own hands, launching new e-passports in which it showed the regions of Arunachal Pradesh and…
CHINA: What the U.S. Election and iPhone 5 Have in Common
It is not a rhetorical question: a US immigrant officer asked a Chinese journalist this question verbatim when he applied for a visa to cover the election in U.S. The journalist was caught off guard; he had many answers to that question, but in his point of view none of…
JAPAN: Banzai! Here’s to Four More Years and Closer Ties!
The 2012 U.S. Presidential Election garnered countless reactions from across the globe, and Japan was no different. The island nation, according to Mainichi Daily, has welcomed Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney. The reelection comes at a crucial time for US-Japan relations, considering China’s recent push to increase authority in…
NORTH KOREA: Down On America, No Matter Who The President Is
Presidential elections in the United States get a lot of attention, both in the U.S. itself, and all over the world. This election has actually been somewhat eclipsed in South Korea, due to their own upcoming presidential elections. North Korea has paid most of their media attention to South Korea’s…
CHINA: The World’s Sexiest Man?
And now, ladies and gentlemen, let us announce the World’s Sexiest Man of 2012! Recently, on a very rare occasion, China’s People’s Daily agreed with a newspaper based in the United States. The English edition of newspaper- often deemed by western media as a Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece- dedicated a…
CHINA: Media Wondered As ‘Crown Prince’ Wandered
After weeks of rumors spread by the media about his supposedly deteriorating health, Xi Jinping appeared in public for the first time on September 15th. But since then he has been all over the place. But before that, the new head of China had cancelled a number of meetings with…
CHINA: Guan Xi – It’s All About Whom You Know, Reports The New York Times
If you’ve ever done business in China, you would be very familiar with the term “guan-xi,” translated as connections. Without any guan-xi, it is nearly impossible to get things done. China is a nation built on guan-xi, a business deal-making strategy embedded in the culture. From a Western democratic perspective,…
JAPAN: Are These Stupid Islands Worth the Trouble?
The ongoing disagreement over the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, islands is nothing new to those who follow current events in East Asia, even as both China and Japan have made stumbling efforts at negotiation. the first of which took place on September 25. Despite the storm, the truth is that the…