China and South Korea have become embroiled in a cultural appropriation row after a woman appeared at the opening ceremony of the Beijing winter Olympics wearing traditional Korean dress. The Chinese embassy in Seoul defended the decision to include a participant wearing hanbok, describing her as a representative of the country’s dozens of ethnic groups. Her appearance sparked anger among many South Koreans, who denounced it as another attempt by China to claim parts of Korean culture – including its national dish, kimchi – as its own. The embassy described…
Tag: South Korea
Your Monday Briefing: The Olympics Begin
Good morning. We’re covering the start of the Winter Olympics, tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and Afghanistan’s crumbling health care system. The Winter Olympics begin China’s leader, Xi Jinping, opened the Beijing Games on Friday with a clear intent to celebrate his country’s increasingly assured global status. Xi stood defiantly with Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia, a calculated display of solidarity to show their partnership and project their growing impatience with Western censure. (President Biden and other democratic leaders critical of China’s human rights record stayed home.) China also…
Omicron Surge in Asia Restricts Travel for Lunar New Year
The Omicron variant has dampened the plans of tens of millions of people across several Asian countries to travel during the Lunar New Year, as officials battle the pandemic for a third year. Observed this year on Feb. 1, Lunar New Year falls just as many countries are seeing surges in coronavirus cases. Omicron is becoming the dominant variant in countries like South Korea, which expects up to 90 percent of its cases to be Omicron-related by the end of February. Before the pandemic, as many as three billion trips…
Beijing authorities conduct mass Covid testing as cases rise before Olympics
Beijing’s local government has ordered more Covid-19 tests on Sunday as China’s capital continued to report new cases, less than two weeks before the start of the Winter Olympic Games. Nine locally transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were found in Beijing on 22 January, down from 10 a day earlier, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Sunday, adding that six out of the nine were in the city’s Fengtai district. Fengtai would organise nucleic acid tests for all of its residents on Sunday, district health authorities said. City authorities…
North Korea Says It Will Skip Beijing Olympics Because of the Pandemic
SEOUL — North Korea said on Friday that it would not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the coronavirus pandemic and moves by “hostile forces.” Its no-show at the Beijing Games would deprive South Korea of a rare opportunity to establish official contact with the North. Officials from the South had hoped that the Olympics would provide a venue for official delegates from both Koreas to meet to discuss issues beyond sports. In a letter hand-delivered on Wednesday to China by the North’s ambassador, the country’s Olympic Committee…
Your Monday Briefing: South Africa’s Parliament Burns
Good morning. We’re covering a fire in South Africa’s Parliament, a breach in the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea, and possible changes to women’s rights in China. South Africa’s parliament burns A large fire damaged much of the Houses of Parliament on Sunday. Officials warned that the damage to the historic complex would be extensive. Officials said the fire spread from an office space on the third floor of a building adjacent to the old National Assembly building. Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service spokesman warned that…
Covid live: France confirms 130 Omicron cases; South Korea has deadliest day of pandemic
At the Commons science committee, Dr Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association has accused the UK of a “knee jerk response” in bringing in a travel ban within 24 hours of Omicron being announced in South Africa last month. It would have been better to get people to wear masks, socially distance and keep away from large gatherings, she added. While proof of vaccination or a negative lateral flow test for certain events could help reduce the spread of the virus, Dr Coetzee said lockdowns were too…
What AUKUS Means for U.S.-China Great Power Competition
This is a hallmark of great power competition: Competitive initiatives like AUKUS provide visible ways to counter or balance or complicate China’s military activities but don’t necessarily help allies meet defined objectives. More often, competition becomes an end in itself — an open-ended imperative that assumes everything an opponent dislikes must be good policy. Another common feature of competitive policies is that officials tend to overlook their costs. For one thing, AUKUS carries significant diplomatic costs at a time when the United States is in desperate need of credibility with…
South Koreans Now Dislike China More Than They Dislike Japan
SEOUL — The list of election issues set to define South Korea’s presidential race next year is long. The runaway housing prices, the pandemic, North Korea and gender inequality are a start. But an unlikely addition has also emerged in recent weeks: China. South Korea’s decision to let the American military deploy a powerful antimissile radar system on its soil in 2017 has been the subject of frequent criticism from China. And last month, a presidential hopeful, Yoon Seok-youl, told the country to stop complaining, unless it wanted to remove…