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Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Double Feature Night: '12.3 The Day' + 'The President's Last (going with a) Bang'

Last night, YOON Suk-yeol's political suicide lasted less than one hour. There was no scenario in which the lamest of all ducks could implement an actual martial law on the ground, and when I saw the media at the National Assembly and MPs walking in, I knew for sure I could go back to sleep.

 

Proving once more that he has no political skill whatsoever (was he following advice from his expert in anal acupuncture?), YOON decided to go with a bang, declaring the first martial law since the Gwangju massacre era, almost on the anniversary of CHUN Doo-hwan's coup...


Last night's double feature: '12.12 The Day' or 'The President's Last Bang'?

All that to make a point and denounce the way the opposition is abusing its legislative majority to undermine the nation.

Even if the argument is not unfounded, YOON has not been a model of probity himself, and using the ultimate political nuclear weapon is not the way for an utterly unpopular president to treat democracy and an assembly democratically elected in a landslide one year earlier. 

Furthermore, unlike the controversial 2020 landslide (international media criticized the timing, which resulted in a referendum on the handling of COVID by the MOON Jae-in administration, who would have lost massively if the elections had been held a few weeks earlier during the Daegu crisis), last year's rout was mostly owned by YOON: yes his record was torpedoed by the legislative branch, but he scored too many own goals to deserve any shot at victory.

Needless to say, both sides of the aisle (HAN Dong-hoon and LEE Jae-myung) denounced yesterday's folly, and now YOON Suk-yeol has no choice but to step down or to face impeachment and give way to the next lame Duck(soo) in line, Prime Minister HAN Duck-soo.

My post right after the announcement of the martial law:

#YoonSukyeol declared #martiallaw in #Korea to make a point: accusing the national assembly of 'dictatorship', of willing to impeach him and take over judicial power, of undernining the nation, and for some MPs, of working for #NorthKorea. A radical move naturally denounced by both sides of the aisle (#HanDonghoon & #LeeJaemyung), who have the power to undo that move by vote, provided they manage to convene.
Reminders: Korea's #balanceofpower worked perfectly to remove #ParkGeunhye but was later distorted under #MoonJaein to protect LJM and friends from #justice. Named by Moon to reform justice, YSY refused that unplanned distortion of #democracy and resisted, eventually rising to win the presidency against LJM, but without a legislative majority.
Like Moon before him, Yoon disappointed on core principles. His outrage vs outrage strategy seems likely to backfire considering his abysmal popularity ratings.

My post after the confirmation of its withdrawal:

Votes cast, #martiallaw withdrawn. As expected, point made totally inaudibly and counter-productively...
The lamest of all ducks, #YoonSukyeol proved once more his total lack of political skills. This suicidal stunt not only fuels the opposition but also undermines the last counterpowers standing.
#Democracy wins, but #Korea's #balanceofpower remains broken, and leadership change remains needed on both sides.


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Friday, October 11, 2024

The Dessert of the Tartars

A bit like Nessie or Buzzati's fabled Tartars, we kept waiting for it every year but it never showed up. And all of a sudden, it just landed. 

Korea's first Nobel Prize in literature. 

The prestigious award didn't crown a veteran in the HWANG Sok-yong, YI Mun-yol or KIM Hoon tradition (the poet KO Un has long been metooed out of the race), but a confirmed 50-something author who (sorry KIM Young-ha and Co., but that makes it even better) happens to be female. 

After her 2016 International Booker Prize and last year's Prix Medicis, HAN Kang completes a powerful global hat trick.

Great to see a modern author claim the spotlights - I'm sure other sides of the highly diverse Korean literature will also receive the exposure they deserve.

This sweet victory comes right after Korean cuisine brilliantly showcased its incredible diversity and creativity through Netflix's droolingly addictive 'Culinary Class Wars'.

As K-pop faces growing signs of 'K-fatigue' and the local movie ecosystem struggles, it's really refreshing to see Korean literature and cuisine grab the headlines... In case you needed positive answers to the question "Can Korea sustain its cultural leadership?"...

If you love Korean food, don't miss CCW. Fantastic dishes, amazing chefs, and a fun jury duet combining PAIK Jong-won (not always that demanding for his own venues) with ANH Sung-jae (merciless but fair)

Not a HAN Kang miracle; yet another prestigious international nod

Sorry boys, you lost these Literary Class Wars. Gotta up your game for Season 2!


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Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Summer Hit Wave

Sorry Seoul, I was out of town this Summer. Equally glad to miss your crushing, record heatwave, and thrilled to enjoy Paris 2024 and the most spectacular olympics and paralympics.

Rooting for both nations, this Parisian Seoulite was lucky enough to witness 3 gold medals for Korea:
  • Archery at Invalides (NB: silver for France):

    Little suspense there: as expected, KIM Woo-jin, KIM Je-deok and LEE Woo-seok destroyed all competition, kindly tipping France with one set in a final played under a merciless sun in a postcard setting (the Invalides at 9 o'clock, the Eiffel Tower at 12, the Pont Alexandre III and the Grand Palais at 3).


 

  • Fencing at Grand Palais (NB: bronze for France):

    In that very Grand Palais, arguably one of the most spectacular venues of the Games, OH Sanguk, PARK Sangwon, GU Bongil, and DO Gyeongdong had a tougher time defeating Hungary. But nothing could stop the men's sabre squad from claiming gold for the third time in a row, not even that eruption of the stands when Leon Marchand won his race in the middle of the final.


 
  • Badminton at Porte de la Chapelle Arena (NB: no frogs in sight except in the stands):

    Another expected triumph for Korea; this time for AN Se-young who let HE Bing Jiao remain hopeful for two thirds of the first set before switching to cruise mode all the way to victory.



Kudos to Paris, France, and Tony ESTANGUET for pulling out a fantastic event and particularly the most successful paralympics ever. FOMO brought Parisians who skipped the Olympics back for that 'return match', and over 95% of all seats were not only sold but also fully animated, even when audiences weren't allowed to make any noise (a silent 'ola' during blind football games? simply brilliant).

After the 2002 World Cup in Korea, I didn't think I could experience another moment of national communion around such a major sport event, particularly in a city where protesting is the national pastime. I'm happy I was wrong.

Needless to say, in both cases, the magic eventually rubs off, and national unity quickly collapses; but for all their defaults, I'll keep rooting for my two favorite countries. With this gift tee that pretty much wrapped up a smoking hot Summer:



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Sunday, June 23, 2024

On Korea's Jigsaw, Urban Footprint, and Urban Replanning

If you're a frequent flyer on my Korean errlines, you've had your fill of rants about recurring blunders in urban planning, the persistence of obsolete visions of urbanism, or (re)development equations that totally ignore plummeting demographics.

Well criticizing is easy. Urban harmony is like life or democracy: a very delicate, dynamic balance of power, a complex, evolutive system of checks and balances. No one will ever achieve perfection, and that's the beauty of it.

Besides, I see some glimmers of hope. Korea has eventually started worrying seriously about its shrinking population, seeking more inter-regional solidarity and cooperation, thinking about reviving ailing city centers in smarter ways... 

Korea is starting to realize that the real estate paradigm it's been addicted to for decades has become a Ponzi scheme, a sub-zero sum game where eventually everybody loses, even the wealthy ones who won't be able to resell their 'luxury condos' with a profit after paying much more for them than they would have for the most outrageous Manhattan penthouses.

Korea is starting to realize that it can't afford 'affordable housing' if that means building apartment blocks in greenbelt areas, that when a 'new town' succeeds somewhere, it means that somewhere else, an older town in depleting.

Korea is starting to realize that it can't keep adding new non-matching pieces to an ever growing jigsaw puzzle on an ever shrinking table, that these absurd urban footprint dynamics can't be sustained any longer.

The 5th Comprehensive National Territorial Plan, which covers the most critical 2020-2040 period, already mentions sustainability and other sound principles, but all is not set in marble and a lot has happened since it was released 5 years ago: rural desertification and fertility rate diminution accelerated dramatically, the GTX and other projects reshuffled whole decks... So a revised version is expected next year, for the 2026-2040 period.

Improving inter-regional solidarity and cooperation remains a key goal, particularly where they prove already challenging at the intra-regional level because of political divisions or fierce city rivalries. 

In addition to their autonomy, such special self-governing provinces as Jeollabuk-do or the recently upgraded 'Gangwon State' don't have to deal with special cities punching holes in their maps. In comparison, Gyeonggi-do must cope not only with giant neighbors nesting in its midst (Seoul and Incheon*), but also with a complex history of city creation explaining odd administrative shapes, or new towns stretching over different cities (e.g. Dongtan).

Granting a special status to a local government was generally done without much concern for the impacts around, which prevented all parties from reaching their full potential.

Wherever you stand on the fierce political fight over the creation of Sejong City (the left wanted to move the capital city to a new, central location to balance development across South Korea - the right refused to undermine Seoul and maintained part of the government there), you have to admit that from an urbanism point of view, things could have been done a bit better.

We're not talking Brasilia or Nusantara, a new capital erected far away from existing hubs: Sejong City seats right* next to the metropolitan city of Daejeon, South Korea's 5th largest cit, its central hub, and already the seat of several  central administrations, and right next to Cheongju, Chungcheongnam-do's capital.

Daejeon lies less than one hour away from Seoul via KTX but no, Sejong City must not enjoy express connectivity with the 'old' capital because then civil servants would commute instead of moving to Sejong**. And no, Daejeon's subway shouldn't come all the way to Sejong's vital parts. At its inception, it's almost as if Sejong City was designed as a local competitor instead of a national facilitator.

17 years after its creation, Sejong claims 400k souls, Daejeon remains around 1.5M, and Cheongju inched up from 650 to 720k. Common sense would have led to something more  rational, even simply two cities instead of three: the regional capital Cheongju and a-name-it-whatever-you-fancy-as-long-as-you-spare-local-susceptibilities national capital bis. If arranged harmoniously, I bet the latter would be today a thriving 2.5-3M strong metropolis.

Mind you, both Daejeon and Sejong are faring relatively well nowadays, but I'm not surprised to see the Sejong City - Daejeon - Chungnam - Chungbuk ensemble included in the potential revisions to Korea's 5th CNTP. Some consistency would clearly make the meta-region more competitive internationally - with the caveat that it wouldn't present an official one-stop front. 

Same with 'sudogwon', the capital region (Seoul-Incheon-Gyeonggi-do): unlike say the Ile de France region that encompasses Paris and its surroundings, it doesn't really exist as an official entity with representatives. It does make sense for the national government to be directly involved in an area representing half the nation's population and GDP, but the World's 4th metropolitan bloc can't fully leverage its potential. Of course, adding another administrative layer and the tensions that go with them, particularly with dwindling resources, may not necessarily be the panacea. Some even envision Daejeon + Sejong + Chungnam + Chungbuk as an 'ultra-wide megacity' - at least that would avoid the ego problem of who gets to be granted the regional capital status...

The debates promise to be complex and animated, but it's important to get every stakeholder involved, to identify all the impacts of each option, to learn from past mistakes, to minimize / optimize the urban footprint, to think urbanism beyond cities, towns, and other labels, wherever humans decided to settle or to build (be it a road, a remote factory, a farm, or even a field), and not to build for builders' sake.


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* If the cities are administratively continuous, there's no actual urban continuum... but then again, few cities in Korea excel at urban continuity.

** Likewise, I still can't stomach the fact that the railway from Seoul to Incheon Airport was deliberately delayed until a few years after inauguration because that would have hurt taxi businesses. Or that Songdo didn't have a subway from day one (hello? a ginormous polder built from scratch?). At least nowadays, if new big fat greenfield 'new towns' keep popping up, most of them include a railway connection.

Monday, April 15, 2024

Short termed, short sighted

For the second time in a row, the left won in a landslide elections they were losing a few weeks earlier: in 2020, COVID19 replaced the election by a self congratulatory referendum on how the nation contained the pandemic, and in 2024, the executive power piled up unforced errors at an almost comical pace. In-between, conservatives did win the 2022 presidential election, but only by the narrowest of margins, a litany of gaffes and disastrous campaign choices almost fully depleting the considerable headstart the unpopular outgoing administration had kindly granted them.

YOON Suk-yeol simply forgot his core mission: restoring Korea's moral compass following the PARK Geun-hye and MOON Jae-in failures. Instead of defusing crises by discarding bad apples early on, he stubbornly protected people who kept undermining his whole administration, and reforms led by moderate pragmatists went unnoticed as reactionaries sparked new outrage all over the place. The former prosecutor never understood what politics and campaigning entail, never realized how disconnected he looks, never measured how good PR at home matters more than easy stunts overseas. 

If we all knew he wasn't much of a visionary leader, we didn't suspect him to be that blind. YOON can't remain this clumsy, old school administrator wasting time and energy micromanaging everything instead of delegating and focusing on the big picture. Typically, why put yourself in the position of the target for a reform as tricky as healthcare, when presidents usually use ministers as fuses they can discard when things go sour?

Now this lame duck has no choice but to take a step back, get rid of the swarm of old* retrogrades torpedoing his every moves, and focus on his core mission with a more inclusive approach. Get the nation ready for its next big crisis (Trump 2?)... If he can.

Now YOON is not the only major loser of these elections.

Yes there was simply no contest between a well oiled blue machine and a rickety red mess, yes the record turnout (67%, a 32-year high) made even clearer the victory of the former, but for all that progressives didn't win either.

The left (in blue, and also on the left of the map) won 63.6% of all districts (81% in the capital region)

Because LEE Jae-myung managed to get rid of all opposition within his ranks, leaving no platform for the progressives and moderates who wanted to restore the values of KIM Dae-jung and ROH Moo-hyun to stand upon.

LEE is clearly not a KIM or a ROH, an inspiring leader with a strong sense of justice. More like TRUMP, he mostly cares about himself and avoiding justice, and his program essentially consists in retribution against his opponents.

Actually, YOON's failure is best illustrated by LEE Jae-myung, CHOO Mi-ae, and CHO Kuk emerging as the ultimate winners. The first words of CHO Kuk, as exit polls predicted a supermajority for the left, said it all: it was all about changing the constitution, impeaching president YOON Suk-yeol and PPP interim leader HAN Dong-hoon. But exit polls were spectacularly off the mark, and the left didn't increase its tally all the way to the 200 seats that would have enabled CHO's dreams.

Where's the hope? Where's the vision for the future?  Who can emerge left or right to prevent a LEE Jae-myung presidency or another disappoinment? 

And how will LEE himself evolve to seize the opportunity? Because LJM is not DJT; he's much smarter, he knows that he can't hide anymore, that he must propose something with his large majority. Maybe expose new faces, new masks to hide behind.

Korea can't hide anymore either. Demographics, the long neglected elephant in the room, have at last become a national emergency. Like the environment, North Korea, the economy, justice, internal divisions.

I keep hoping common sense and common ground will prevail, but time is running out.


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* as well as the young ones. LEE Jun-seok has survived the blue tsunami and remains a toxic nuisance.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

GTXtension(s) - fast transit rather than mass commuting?

In case you missed it, three new projects of GTX (Great Train eXpress) lines were announced earlier this year. Since we're getting closer to the inauguration of the first section on March 30 (GTX-A from Suseo to Dongtan), but also to key elections on April 10, I'll spare you all the wonderful urban development pledges that have popped up from all sides (I guess merging Gimpo with Seoul was one of the most radical), and talk a bit more about these Great Train extensions and GTX-tensions.

By stretching ABC and adding DEF, the network reaches further North, South, West, and East, and draws a first ring around Seoul and across Gyeonggi-do (GTX-F):

If GTX clearly brings places closer together, dividing by 3 the time to join Suseo and Dongtan, and if it reaches relatively fast speeds (105 km/h in its inaugural section, with peaks at 180 km/h), the system is 'express' in the sense that it makes few stops. And so far, it has more or less managed to resist intense pressure to add intermediary stations, particularly within Seoul. 

Which makes the success of seamless multimodal transport hubs even more critical, and I'm not sure that will be the case from day one. 'Luckily', the traffic shall not be too massive, because as it is conceived now, GTX can't really handle mass commuting. 

Beyond the limited number of trains per hour, their shortness is an issue, and commuters may struggle to find a spot to hop in, particularly in intermediary stations. I've experienced rush hour on Paris region's RER, with its long, double-decker trains, and that's not always pleasant... We may not see scenes similar to Line 9 saturation on steroids, but expect at least significant frustration from a lot of people who were expecting GTX as the instant panacea.

GTX provides fast transit before mass transit, it shortens connections before coping with mass commuting, and that's already something big. Even if you won't commute to work there, simply knowing that you can go to Seoul very quickly for lunch, dinner, or on a weekend can make moving far away less alienating. 

These massive and costly extensions do add Gangwon-do (Chuncheon and Wonju) and Chungcheongnam-do (Cheonan) to the equation, but also risk of further widening the gaps between sudogwon (Seoul-Incheon-Gyeonggi) and the rest of Korea as well as within the capital region and within the capital itself. With its relatively cheap fees (KRW 3.2K + 250 per 5 km), GTX may even cannibalize such alternatives as KTX.

The choices of routes and stations is always debatable and many areas within and beyond Seoul will remain underserved, but I always welcome transversal approaches in transport, and cooperation within the capital region. Nowadays, Seoul is collaborating much closer with Gyeonggi-do, including for its Climate Card now, and a ring bringing Gyeonggi closer together and bypassing the capital altogether marks a significant step.

Somehow, GTX is forcing the emergenceof  the grand vision, the great debate that's always been lacking. The way this whole region keeps developing remains a litany of missed opportunities, particularly since most of this urban and transport development (or lack of) relied on new towns built from scratch. And you know how often I complain about so much urban planning without urbanism or planning.

Now we're hearing about covering the Gyeongin Expressway and the rift between the Eastern and Western sides of Dongtan new town, and both will cost a fortune, but the Seoul-Inchon axis dates from ages ago, and that rift should have been solved from Dongtan's very conception. As demographics plummet and finances shrink, Korea can't afford not to get it right from the beginning. 

This nation is so great at alphabets, it should contemplate beyond ABCDEF.


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Friday, January 12, 2024

Seoul Smart Life Week - What happens in Vegas stays in Seoul?

So taking more space at CES was not enough: Seoul wants to be a match with the World's leading consumer electronics show and launch 'Seoul Smart Life Week' later this year (Oct 7-9 in COEX).

Mayor OH Se-hoon announced the event at the 640 sqm Seoul Pavilion in Tech West Eureka Park, where 81 companies exhibited their solutions and gizmos (very strong biotech and A.I. verticals behind  Seoul Biohub and Seoul AI Hub). 18 of them claimed a CES Award, but the prize OH and Seoul Business Agency are after means even bigger bucks.

Well the first edition 'only' aims at 100 cities and 200,000 visitors, but it takes time to install a big show in a crowded calendar, and COEX can't host a Barnum the size of CES.

KINTEX would gladly oblige, but Korea's biggest exhibition venue is in Ilsan, Goyang, Gyeonggi-do, with limited hospitality capacity nearby. Seoul wants to become a global or at least an Asian leader, to put for good Tokyo, Hong Kong (and its half-yearly Electronics Fair), or Singapore (COMEX- ITSHOW-The Tech Show-Consumer Electronics Exhibition) behind. 

Seoul plans to change venues after the Jamsil Sports Complex is fully transformed into the Jamsil Sports MICE Complex, with a business hub connecting the COEX, SETEC, Hyundai Motors Global Business Center, Dominique Perrault's new Yeongdong-daero, and of course the Han River in this very vegassy vision mentioned in my recent focus (see 'Seoul waterways and urbanism - the full story'):

Seoul already hosts many tech-related events, but no top-of-mind brand emerges. At least, if it may not seem very original, 'smart life' sounds definitely more human-oriented than the old-tech-y 'electronics' or 'IT'. Unlike CES with the CTA, this new SSLW will not be led by an industry but by a local authority, with city pavilions rather than national spaces. To compete with Vegas, Seoul will not only need new hardware and software, but also the power hitters Korea Inc. sends to the national pavilion. And ultimately, Samsung LG, and Co. will have to be convinced to release buzzworthy novelties 3 months earlier than usual.


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