John Barry Kotch - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Meta

John Barry Kotch

For John Barry Kotch's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

May 31, 2003

Roh's summit of deferral

SEOUL -- Plying the Aegean like Ulysses of yore in Greek mythology -- full of self-doubt as to what awaited him at the end of his voyage if, in fact, he reached his final destination -- South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun returned from his maiden voyage to the United States on his feet, but just barely.

COMMENTARY / World

May 10, 2003

France deserves far better than the dock

SEOUL -- For those old enough to remember the climactic U.N. Security Council face-off in 1962, during which the United States confronted the Soviet Union with incontrovertible evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, there's a lesson here. When America's U.N. ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, accused his Soviet counterpart, Vladimir Zorin, of deception and was prepared to wait "until hell freezes over" for his answer, Zorin snapped back, "I'm not in an American courtroom."

COMMENTARY / World

May 2, 2003

U.S. sets the bar high in N. Korea talks

SEOUL -- The United States and North Korea finally have begun talking again. Or have they? Are they talking to each other, at each other or past each other? Although the two sides agreed to keep the diplomatic channels open, it's going to take a lot more meetings to get out of this crisis in one piece.

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 10, 2003

Options in Korea after Iraq

SEOUL -- The war in Iraq is casting a long shadow over the impending crisis on the Korean Peninsula and, in particular, on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and intentions. Last month in Seoul, antiwar protesters succeeded in delaying a vote in the National Assembly on dispatching 700 noncombat engineers and medical workers to support coalition efforts in Iraq. Last week, the measure was approved, but not without the political cost of alienating a large part of new South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's political base.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 7, 2003

Roh Moo Hyun steps forward

SEOUL -- In his inaugural speech to the South Korean people in Seoul last week, President Roh Moo Hyun gave us a window on his world. At the top of his policy agenda is greater independence on the Korean Peninsula and deeper integration in the region. Roh sees the way forward to peace on the peninsula through a more balanced and reciprocal relationship with the United States in the post-Cold War era sustained by a regional security dialogue.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 30, 2002

S. Korean-U.S. relations at a crossroad

SEOUL -- Riding atop a tsunami wave of popular protest against perceived inequities in the Status of Forces Agreement governing U.S forces in South Korea and a general restiveness over the American military presence, South Korea's president-elect, Roh Moo Hyun, promises to bring a new focus to South Korean-American relations, even as he strives to preserve intact his predecessor's "sunshine policy" of engagement with North Korea -- priorities that for Washington are contingent on the North's abandoning its nuclear weapons program.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 14, 2002

Play inspection card in Iraq, N. Korea

SEOUL -- The double crisis over weapons of mass destruction that now confronts the world in Iraq and North Korea respectively represents a golden opportunity to kill the proverbial "two birds with one stone."

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 1, 2002

A six-party process to clear up the Korean air

T he crisis over North Korea's attempted acquisition by stealth of a nuclear capability through enriched uranium processing provides a golden opportunity for institutionalizing a process of concerted multilateral diplomacy.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 24, 2002

Securing consensus on Iraq

SEOUL -- As the U.N. Security Council debate on Iraq moves forward, precedent is pertinent. For Korea a half-century ago, it took three Security Council resolutions to authorize and organize an armed U.N. response; for Kuwait in 1990, more than a "baker's dozen."

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 26, 2002

Strike a balance in the Security Council

SEOUL -- While virtually all countries are agreed on the danger posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's surreptitious efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD), this is not the only -- or even the main danger -- facing the international community over how to respond to Iraq's noncompliance with existing United Nations resolutions on inspections. There is a parallel challenge to the U.N. Charter itself, not to invert its principles and purposes to serve narrow national interests by manufacturing a casus belli where none exists under current international law.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 16, 2002

A step forward for Japanese diplomacy

Frustrated with attempts to re-engage with the Bush administration, North Korea has reached out to alternative sources of support, sidestepping the United States for the moment by turning to Tokyo. Like a good boxer who knows how to bob and weave to elude his opponents and then land a telling blow, Pyongyang's diplomacy seeks largess at the lowest cost, again demonstrating an ability to use foreign powers to its own advantage.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 2, 2002

Uphill battle for regional hub aspirees

SEOUL -- South Korea (where the idea of becoming a regional hub is now all the rage) and Malaysia share the same basic vision for Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, respectively. In addition, the two countries are cosponsoring an initiative to formally coordinate the ASEAN plus three forum. Last month, Malaysia announced its willingness to provide $10 million seed money to launch an ASEAN plus three secretariat in Kuala Lumpur. Seoul was the first to applaud the initiative.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 13, 2002

Eliminate the major source of inter-Korean naval clashes

SEOUL -- As a result of the latest North-South naval clash on the West Sea, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" is now in shambles. But it need not have been so. Even before the defense ministers of the two Koreas sat down almost two years ago in Cheju following the 2000 Pyongyang summit -- to discuss the relinking of the severed rail line across the demilitarized zone, or DMZ -- procedures to prevent repeated naval clashes in the West Sea should have topped their agenda. In retrospect, this was an ominous omission.

COMMENTARY / World

May 26, 2002

Candidate of Kim's party in tough race

SEOUL -- Roh Moo Hyun, the recently anointed presidential candidate of Kim Dae Jung's Millennium Democratic party, or MDP, for December's elections, has been on a roll this spring. A relative political unknown, he succeeded in toppling his party's front-runner for the nomination, Rhee In Je, while generating enough political momentum to earn him the sobriquet "Roh Phoon."

COMMENTARY / World

Apr 29, 2002

Another train trip in the cards for Kim?

SEOUL -- In the wake of South Korean presidential envoy Lim Dong Won's recent and apparently successful visit to Pyongyang earlier this month, there is renewed optimism not only over resuming inter-Korean dialogue but also on realizing the promised reciprocal visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to Seoul. Just last week, Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun stated that he was convinced that Kim would visit Seoul soon as promised.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 29, 2002

Davos themes dazzle with Webcasting

SEOUL -- If you missed Davos in New York last month, you have a rain check coming via the miracle of Webcasting. The more important panels will be broadcast at the World Economic Forum's Web site ( www.weforum.org ), starting Monday. Don't pass up this intellectual cyberfest for the netizen!

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 2, 2002

Bush fails to show Korean peace map

SEOUL -- The stage was set for a summit showdown when U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Seoul last week, and it did not disappoint. At stake was not only the future of Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" of engagement with North Korea -- which is highly dependent on the resumption of talks between the United States and the North -- but also the solidity of the U.S.-South Korean alliance.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 17, 2002

North Korea through different prisms

SEOUL -- In his State of the Union address, U.S. President George W. Bush has managed to disappoint South Korea and enrage North Korea at the same time by lumping the latter with the likes of Iraq and Iran. As the president begins a Northeast Asian rain-check sojourn with stops in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing -- and with Korean issues a high priority in all three capitals -- he is likely to be called to account. Ironically, two of them, Tokyo and Seoul just joined with Washington in a high-profile Honolulu trilateral forum designed to coordinate policy toward North Korea.

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 27, 2002

Globalization role of APEC's other half

SEOUL -- Earlier this month in Honolulu, parliamentarians from 25 Asia Pacific nations renewed debate over the digital divide at the annual meeting of the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, headed by former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 20, 2001

Scale of Sept. 11 determines type of trial

SEOUL -- While Afghanistan has historically been referred to as the great game among the Great Powers vying for political supremacy in central Asia, a great debate has emerged in the United States over whether the terrorists responsible for the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon should be tried in a court of law or a military tribunal.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.

The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports