[Editorial] Mental health care matters

As far as mental health care is concerned, South Korea has grim statistics. Over 1 million people suffer from depression, suicide rates remain stubbornly high and a growing number of people are seeking medical help. Worse, doctors and medical facilities meant to treat patients suffering from mental illness are in short supply. To address the serious situation, the Yoon Suk Yeol administration on Tuesday unveiled a comprehensive initiative to overhaul and improve the mental health care system --

Dec. 8, 2023

[Editorial] Diversify imports

The Chinese customs authorities recently suspended shipment of industrial urea to South Korea. They are said to have held off urea shipments as a short supply of the raw material at home is looming. Reportedly, major Chinese fertilizer producers will stop exporting urea until the end of the first half of next year to meet domestic peak-season demand. These developments raise concerns in Korea about yet another severe shortage of urea solution. Beijing's urea export curbs two years ago cause

Dec. 7, 2023

[Editorial] Lessons from botched bid

Busan lost its bid to host the World Expo 2030 last week after spending hundreds of billions of won over the course of a year and half. President Yoon Suk Yeol apologized to South Koreans saying that it was all his fault, and the mayor of Busan said his city is considering trying again for the next expo in 2035. The fact that the South Korean bidding team, at least officially, didn’t see Riyadh’s landslide victory coming until the last minute was disconcerting. The Saudi Arabian capi

Dec. 6, 2023

[Editorial] Reverse depopulation

South Korea’s fertility rate hit yet another record low in the third quarter. According to data released by Statistics Korea, the average number of children to whom a woman is expected to give birth during her lifetime was 0.7 in the July-September period, down 0.1 from a year ago. The figure is just a third of the replacement level (2.1) needed to maintain the population of a nation. Considering the trend of the rate to decrease toward the end of the year in Korea, it could fall further t

Dec. 5, 2023

[Editorial] Unilateral politics

As the general election is set to be held in April, rival political parties, as well as President Yoon Suk Yeol, are ditching normal political strategies in favor of misguided and intensely confrontational tactics -- a sorry sight that raises voters' eyebrows. On Friday, a whirlwind of significant political developments played out at a fast pace. The initial blow was delivered by Yoon, who accepted the resignation offer of Lee Dong-kwan, chief of the Korea Communications Commission. For tho

Dec. 4, 2023

[Editorial] Ruling too late

The court issued a first-trial ruling on Wednesday in a high-profile case in which former President Moon Jae-in's Cheong Wa Dae intervened in the June 2018 election for mayor of Ulsan. It sentenced former Ulsan Mayor Song Cheol-ho to three years in prison for violating the election law and former Ulsan police chief, and current opposition lawmaker Hwang Un-ha to two years behind bars for violating the election law and six months in jail on charges of abuse of power. Also, two former preside

Dec. 1, 2023

[Editorial] Policy on foreign workers

The South Korean government plans to allow a record 165,000 nonprofessional migrant workers in 2024, in a bid to tackle the growing labor shortage across various industrial sectors. But the expansion should be implemented together with proper measures to minimize side effects. The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced the plan based on the Employment Permit System on Monday in response to the deepening labor shortage problems in a wide range of fields. Under the plan, the government will ex

Nov. 30, 2023

[Editorial] Revive summit soon

The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and China held a meeting in Busan on Sunday to discuss the matter of holding a trilateral summit, but ultimately failed to agree even on a rough schedule. This shows the reality of relations between the three countries. Their meeting was held about four years and three months after the last one in China in August 2019. Its symbolic significance is not small, considering heightened security concerns in Northeast Asia in the wake of North Korea's la

Nov. 29, 2023

[Editorial] More than a glitch

The South Korean government said Saturday the disruptions that had paralyzed its major administrative network a week earlier were caused by a faulty router port among the network equipment. The government’s conclusion strongly suggests that a mechanical flaw -- rather than mishandling of gear by public officials involved -- is to blame for the breakdown of the state-run network services. It is, however, hard to take the government’s explanation at face value. After all, it had alread

Nov. 28, 2023

[Editorial] Unshackle security

North Korea ripped up the Sept. 19, 2018, military confidence-building deal with South Korea on Thursday. It was a reaction to South Korea’s partial retreat from the accord in response to the North’s launch of a spy satellite. Seoul had said it would suspend some of the measures in the accord and step up surveillance along the military demarcation line after the North launched its first satellite whose apparent use was military reconnaissance. The North said that it would restore all

Nov. 27, 2023

[Editorial] Quota dispute intensifies

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s plan to increase the annual enrollment quota for medical schools to deal with a chronic shortage of doctors is a hot-button issue, particularly for doctors who fiercely oppose such a change. In the battle over the quota that involves a host of stakeholders and vested interests, the government has secured an important ally: universities calling for an increase in the quota for their medical schools. Even with the help of universities in favor of a quota hi

Nov. 24, 2023

[Editorial] Budget abuse

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea eliminated the entire government budget to build the nation's nuclear power ecosystem in a related standing committee on Monday. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration planned to run seven programs on a budget of 181.4 billion won ($140 million) next year. The party removed all of them. There is no reason for this other than the fact that the Yoon administration placed a high priority on the revival of nuclear power industry. The party's removal

Nov. 23, 2023

[Editorial] Debt debacle deepens

South Korea’s major parties are now engaged in a fierce competition to put forward as many populist pledges as possible for the 2024 budget in a bid to win more votes ahead of next year's general election. The problem is that rival parties are so focused on their own political survival and vested interests that they seem too busy to heed serious warnings from international experts about the need for structural reforms to grapple with festering economic risks. Among a flurry of warning

Nov. 22, 2023

[Editorial] Don't bulldoze the bill

The ruling and opposition parties are together pushing a project worth more than 11 trillion won ($8.54 billion) to build a high-speed rail connecting Daegu to Gwangju without a preliminary feasibility study. Daegu and Gwangju are southeastern and southwestern metropolitan cities where voters vote predominantly for the conservative People Power Party and the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, respectively. Hong Ihk-pyo, floor leader of the majority opposition Democratic Party, met with Daegu May

Nov. 21, 2023

[Editorial] Embarrassing disruption

A system breakdown hit the South Korean government’s major administrative network on Friday, resulting in massive disruptions at civil services across the nation over the weekend and revealing a loophole in the network security of the country’s critical services. The government’s electronic administrative network for public workers, called Saeol, went down Friday morning, and the civil service portal, Government24, also suffered an outage in the afternoon. The network breakdown

Nov. 20, 2023

[Editorial] Collective response

The United Nations Command was established under United Nations Security Council resolutions following North Korea’s invasion into South Korea in 1950. It is still stationed in South Korea, because the Korean War has not ended yet, though 70 years have passed after the signing of an armistice agreement. The US-led UNC has played a major role in protecting the liberal democracy of South Korea from communist North Korean aggressors. It commanded UN Forces during the war and its commander sig

Nov. 17, 2023

[Editorial] Supporting content industry

South Korea’s video content market is thriving, at least in the video streaming service market, where streaming giants like Netflix continue to produce and distribute globally acclaimed Korean productions such as “Squid Game.” But the boom has also led to unintended developments, including the monopolization of content rights by global streaming firms and deepening financial strains on local platforms, broadcasters and production houses. To find a breakthrough, the government o

Nov. 16, 2023

[Editorial] Freedom of choice

The government will relax the current 52-hour workweek -- 40 regular hours and 12 hours of possible overtime -- in certain industries and occupations. It plans to make work hours flexible so that employees in some business sectors and occupations can work longer when they have a lot of work as long as they work fewer hours at other times. The current workweek is too rigid. Making an employee work for more than 52 hours in any single week is illegal in most occupations. There is no exception for

Nov. 15, 2023

[Editorial] Tackle slow private spending

South Korea’s private spending remains in a protracted slump, while a growing number of people go on overseas trips, particularly to Japan, where they tend to spend more generously, offering a contrasting snapshot of the country’s consumption trends. Korea’s domestic private consumption stood at $206.53 billion in the second quarter, down $5.25 billion or 2.47 percent from the previous quarter, according to data released by Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the Democratic Party of Korea on S

Nov. 14, 2023

[Editorial] Bad faith legislation

The majority opposition Democratic Party of Korea last Thursday passed the so-called Yellow Envelope bill and three bills relating to broadcasting. All of the ruling People Power Party lawmakers boycotted the vote in protest. The Yellow Envelope bill, a revision to the Labor Union and Labor Relations Act, allows employees of subcontractors to demand that main contractors enter collective bargaining with them and to strike to get their demands from main contractors, even though main contractors a

Nov. 13, 2023