Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Man, she has been the minister for over three years? Wow.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Cringe but free
What's the domestic opinion on her tenure right now?
Also, looks like Taiwan just got invited to a US President's swearing-in for the first time since the '70s.
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jan 20th 2021 at 3:35:03 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
From what I know (some of my thoughts may be outdated), she's still known for being appointed to the position as she's known to be a civil servant who didn't sit for the exam and is better known for her international posts at the UN.
Not sure if the criticism against her is still around that she forged some personal details for her daughter to attend a reputable high school in Seoul in 2000.
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Public opinion here on her is divided along party lines, with conservatives saying she is 'underqualified' and 'does nothing', while liberals having a much more positive view of her. Criticism regarding her children isn't much of a thing anymore.
Because this is Korea, where standardized test scores rule supreme, some people are biased against her because she didn't become a civil servant by scoring well on the civil servant test.
Otherwise, however, she is an important first, as she is the first female foreign minister. In Korea, where standards of beauty (especially for women) are ridiculous, she did make the news because she didn't dye her gray hair black. Her being replaced was criticized as an example of the lack of diversity in Moon's soon-to-be cabinet.
IIRC she was the longest-serving minister in the cabinet.
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
Address fraud is common enough to be pretty small potatoes, IMO. Most people I know don't have a particularly strong feelings about her, with opinion mostly being tied to how they feel about the Moon admin. at large - so as Minseok says, split along party lines.
Cringe but free
Ah, I see.
Some more on the above: Taiwan-Biden ties off to strong start with invite for top diplomat.
Former President Donald Trump's administration ramped up support for Taiwan, increasing arms sales and sending senior officials to Taipei, angering China and stirring even greater enmity from Beijing towards Washington.
That had made Trump a popular figure in democratic Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, to be taken by force if needed, and raised concern in its government that Biden may not be as helpful.
Emily Horne, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said the U.S. commitment to Taiwan was "rock-solid" after the island's de facto ambassador in Washington, Hsiao Bi-khim, attended Biden's swearing in on Wednesday.
"President Biden will stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security, and values in the Asia-Pacific region - and that includes Taiwan."
Taiwan's foreign ministry said it was the first time an inauguration committee had formally invited the island's Washington representative and showed the close friendship between Taiwan and the United States based on shared values.
"These shared values are democracy, freedom and human rights," said ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou.
The United States ended formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979, switching recognition to China, though Washington is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
In a video message on her Twitter account, Hsiao, who is close to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, said she was honoured to be there representing Taiwan's government and people.
"Democracy is our common language and freedom is our common objective," she said.
Tsai sent her congratulations too, saying she hoped the two sides could work together to maintain regional democracy, freedom, peace and stability.
Biden's nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Tuesday he was in favour of greater engagement with Taiwan.
Tsai met Blinken in 2015 at the State Department when he was deputy secretary of state and she was the presidential candidate for Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party.
Cringe but free
Court rules in favor of Japan's ban on dual nationality.
In a lawsuit filed with the Tokyo District Court in 2018, eight men and women in their 30s to 80s who were born in Japan but now live in Europe claimed a legal requirement that Japanese who gain foreign nationality must give up their citizenship violates the Constitution.
The government, however, argued the plaintiffs' claim takes no note of national interests, as permitting dual citizenship would enable people to have voting rights or diplomatic protection in other countries.
Dual citizenship "could cause conflict in the rights and obligations between countries, as well as between the individual and the state," said Presiding Judge Hideaki Mori.
According to the suit, the eight plaintiffs — six who have acquired Swiss or Liechtenstein nationality and two others who plan to obtain Swiss or French nationality to facilitate their work and lives — hope to maintain their Japanese citizenship.
Article 11 of the nationality law states that Japanese citizens who acquire non-Japanese nationality on their own instigation automatically lose their Japanese nationality, effectively banning dual citizenship.
The plaintiffs claimed that the law was originally designed for purposes such as avoiding overlapping military service obligations imposed by multiple nations.
"The court did not seriously consider the feelings of Japanese living abroad," Swiss resident Hitoshi Nogawa, 77, who led the plaintiffs, said following the ruling.
As many countries in the world, including the United States, now allow dual citizenship, the clause stripping people of Japanese nationality violates the Constitution, which guarantees the right to pursue happiness and the equality under the law, the plaintiffs said.
The issue of dual nationality in Japan drew global attention when tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, who had both Japanese and U.S. citizenship, selected Japanese nationality just before turning 22 in 2019. She was born to a Japanese mother and Haitian father.
The law requires those who acquired dual nationalities under 20 years old to choose one by age 22, and those who obtained them at age 20 or older to select one within two years.
The nationality law also requires Japanese citizens who obtain foreign citizenship to notify the government of their abandonment of Japanese nationality. But as it includes no penalties, many Japanese are believed to have maintained multiple passports after obtaining non-Japanese citizenship.
About 518,000 Japanese are estimated to have permanent residency status in other countries as of October 2019, but the government has been unable to confirm how many of them hold multiple citizenship.
That’s so stupid.
I'm not surprised with that kinda ruling. Singapore and China have rules on dual nationality. Even when you hide it from the government.
If they find out, you're in trouble.
Edited by Ominae on Jan 22nd 2021 at 6:50:52 AM
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2021/01/120_302929.html
Looks like Tokyo's not going to lift a finger to the Seoul Central District Court's ruling that Tokyo is liable to pay compensation to surviving comfort women.
I mean...the court has no authority over Japan and Tokyo considers it to have been dealt with in previous agreements with the South Korean government (which it ostensibly was). They've ignored it so far, they can do it for a long time still.
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Cringe but free
Taiwan reports large incursion by Chinese air force.
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has conducted almost daily flights over the waters between the southern part of Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea in recent months.
However they have generally consisted of just one or two reconnaissance aircraft.
The presence of so many Chinese combat aircraft on this mission - Taiwan said it was made up of eight nuclear-capable H-6K bombers and four J-16 fighter jets - is unusual.
A map provided by Taiwan’s Defence Ministry showed that the Chinese aircraft, which also included a Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, flew over the same waters where the most recent Chinese missions have been taking place near the Pratas Islands, though still well away from mainland Taiwan.
Taiwan’s air force warned away the Chinese aircraft and deployed missiles to monitor them, the ministry added, using standard wording for how it responds to such activities.
“Airborne alert sorties had been tasked, radio warnings issued and air defence missile systems deployed to monitor the activity,” it said in a brief statement.
There was no immediate comment from China. In the past China has said it has been carrying out exercises to defend the country’s sovereignty and security.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That part came before Kang Chang-Il was appointed as the South Korean ambassador to Japan, using his time there studying in Todai as a plus...
Edited by Ominae on Jan 23rd 2021 at 5:26:50 AM
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Kim Jong-chul, leader of the Justice Party, resigned after he sexually assaulted Jang Hye-yeong, a Justice Party lawmaker.
Edited by minseok42 on Jan 24th 2021 at 10:36:52 PM
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
Cringe but free
This story... it was made for me!
The struggle over chips enters a new phase: The age of their manufacture in China could be beginning.
TL;DR:
- Moore's law is hitting its ceiling; building smaller and smaller ICs is getting more complex and expensive,
- The only two companies currently capable of manufacturing the latest-gen ICs are Samsung (South Korea) and TSMC (Taiwan),
- And the US and China are desperately racing to be the third while kneecapping each other's ability to do so.
Between the trade wars and probably actual wars somewhere down the line, the world's supply of critical computing components is off on a great track.
For decades a vast network of chip firms has co-operated and competed to meet this growing demand; today they crank out $450bn of annual sales. No other industry has the same mix of hard science, brutal capital intensity and complexity. Its broader impact is huge, too. When the supply chain misfires, economic activity can grind to a halt. This month a temporary shortage of chips has stopped car production-lines around the world.
And no other industry is as explosive. For several years America has enforced an intensifying embargo on China, which imports over $300bn-worth of chips a year because it lacks the manufacturing capability to meet its own needs. Fresh strains in the chip industry are forcing the geopolitical fault-lines further apart. America is falling behind in manufacturing, production is being concentrated in East Asia, and China is seeking self-sufficiency (see article). In the 20th century the world’s biggest economic choke-point involved oil being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Soon it will be silicon etched in a few technology parks in South Korea and Taiwan.
Start with the shifts in the industry. A surge in demand and those novel kinds of computation have led to a golden age in chip design. Nvidia, which creates chips for gaming and artificial intelligence, is now America’s most valuable chip firm, worth over $320bn. The quest to create bespoke chips in order to eke out more performance—think less heat, or more speed or battery life—is also drawing outsiders into the design game. In November Apple unveiled Mac computers powered by its own chip (it already uses its own in the iPhone), and Amazon is developing chips for its data centres. The design boom has also fired up dealmaking. Nvidia, for instance, is bidding $40bn for Arm, which makes design blueprints. In the future a new open-source approach to designing chips, called RISC-V, could lead to more innovation.
Contrast this effervescence with the consolidation in chipmaking. A gruelling 60-year struggle for supremacy is nearing its end. Moore’s law, which holds that the cost of computer power will fall by half every 18 months to two years, is beginning to fail. Each generation of chips is technically harder to make than the last and, owing to the surging cost of building factories, the stakes have got bigger. The number of manufacturers at the industry’s cutting-edge has fallen from over 25 in 2000 to three.
The most famous of that trio, Intel, is in trouble. It has fired its boss, an admission that it has fallen behind. It may retreat from making the most advanced chips, known as the three-nanometre generation, and outsource more production, like almost everyone else. That would leave two firms with the stomach for it: Samsung in South Korea and TSMC in Taiwan. TSMC has just announced one of the largest investment budgets of any private firm on the planet. An array of corporate A-listers from Apple and Amazon to Toyota and Tesla rely on this duo of chipmakers.
The other big industry rupture is taking place in China. As America has lost ground in making chips, it has sought to ensure that China lags behind, too. The American tech embargo began as a narrow effort against Huawei over national security, but bans and restrictions now affect at least 60 firms, including many involved in chips. SMIC, China’s chip champion, has just been put on a blacklist, as has Xiaomi, a smartphone firm. The cumulative effect of these measures is starting to bite. In the last quarter of 2020 TMSC’s sales to Chinese clients dropped by 72%.
In response, China is shifting its state-capitalist machine into its highest gear in order to become self-sufficient in chips faster. Although chips have featured in government plans since the 1950s it is still five to ten years behind. A $100bn-plus subsidy kitty is being spent freely: last year over 50,000 firms registered that their business was related to chips—and thus eligible. Top universities have beefed up their chip programmes. If the era of advanced chips being made in America may be drawing to a close, the age of their manufacture in China could be beginning.
How worried should you be? It is hard to ignore the dangers. If America withdraws from cutting-edge manufacturing and China continues to hurl resources at it, the White House will be tempted to tighten the embargo further in order to stymie China’s development. That could have explosive consequences. And the inexorable logic of scale is set to lead to an alarming concentration of production. The manufacturing duopoly could start to use their pricing power. Already a fifth of all chip manufacturing, and perhaps half of cutting-edge capacity, is in Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory and threatens to invade. The chip industry is poised for mutually assured disruption, in which America and China each have the ability to short-circuit the other’s economy.
Chips and old blocs
Some hawks in America and Europe want to respond with a subsidy bonanza of their own: socialism for semiconductors. But that would dampen the free-market renaissance in chip design and is, anyway, likely to fail. Instead, chip-users such as Apple should press TSMC and Samsung to diversify where factories are. America must urge Taiwan and South Korea to cut their soft subsidies for chip plants, so their firms have more incentive to build factories around the world. Last, President Joe Biden needs to create a predictable framework for trade with China in sensitive sectors, including chips, that allows it to participate in global supply chains while safeguarding Western interests. His predecessor oversaw a chaotic array of controls aimed at impeding China’s development, in chips as well as finance. These gave it an incentive to develop its own alternatives faster. The first chips may have been used in missiles, but it would be wise to avoid them becoming a flashpoint in a 21st-century cold war.
And here's a relevant BBC video from a year back:
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jan 24th 2021 at 6:15:16 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Moors Law has been "hitting its ceiling" since the 80s, its not even close to ending yet... its just one of those things that "is going to die in 2 years" for the last 30, because every one always looks at it from the lense of there day, and ignore the fact that it keeps on going because people come up with solutions to the problems of there day reliably.
Any time you see something that claims that, it imediatly looses all credibility, just as all those articles from the early 2010s that claimed the end of PC's was just around the corner, trust us guys, cellphones, and now tablets are going to make PC's obsolete, no one will have a computer by 2020 trust us seriously.
They both fall apart when you think about them for more then a surface level observation.
Edit: Did some checking, no its been claimed that it is going to end in the next couple years since the 80s, not the 90s, so for over 40 years now.
Edited by Imca on Jan 24th 2021 at 6:59:00 AM
Cringe but free
It's not a hard ceiling, but when you see a giant like Intel (which coined the concept in the first place) delaying its move to the 10nm generation and now stumbling over hard on the way to 7nm, you know that the game is getting harder than it used to be.
Intel and HP are both working on the problem with their takes on 3D-stacked architectures; but by the law's strict scope on transistor density, our current processes are hitting their physical limits.
For those unfamiliar, ICs are largely built using the photolithography process, which, simply put, is like stenciling metals on the nanometre scale. First, you'd start with your base semiconductor wafer. Silicon is the traditional choice: it's common and cheap, though the pure, electronic-grade kind still costs a pretty penny. Then you lay on layers upon layers of conducting metals like copper, sandwiched between insulator and doped semiconductor layers to make up a dense maze of transistors.
The way you'd shape each layer goes roughly like this: a thin paste called a photoresist is spread on top of the metal (or whatever material) layer you just laid down. Then you put a pattern mask over the wafer and shine ultraviolet light through it. The parts of the paste that the UV hits either harden or soften (depending on the type). That allows you to etch through the metal underneath with acid or ion bombardment, which finally nets you a single layer. Repeat hundreds of times for a single batch.
Moving on to smaller chip sizes means that you'll have to work the process at finer and finer resolutions. The shortest wavelength of UV light is 10nm. Our chip sizes are currently pushing through the 10nm boundary. Do you see where the problem is?
Right now, only Samsung and TSMC have really managed to break through that barrier. Intel is struggling, and while other companies like Apple and Huawei's HiSilicon can design smaller chips, they still rely on TSMC to actually manufacture them, lacking the capability to do it in-house.
We're making progress on the singled-digit-nanometre track, down to 5nm, but it's been incremental rather than exponential; there are only so many ways you can manipulate light. Plus at that size, we're getting into a whole new world of fun quantum tunnelling effects, which are only going to complicate things.
It could be an opportunity as much as it's a risk. When someone — whether in the US, EU, East Asia or elsewhere — finally works out single-electron transistors at an industrial level, we can look forward to a whole new era in computing. But for the time being, those are the physical and logistical limitations that we'll have to work with.
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jan 24th 2021 at 7:53:47 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
CNN: China flies warplanes close to Taiwan in early test of Biden
Taiwan's Defense Ministry said 13 Chinese planes entered the southwestern portion of the island's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday followed by 15 on Sunday, prompting Taipei to take defensive measures, including scrambling fighter jets to monitor the Chinese flights.
According to Taiwan's Defense Ministry, Chinese military planes made more than 380 flights into the island's air defense identification zone last year.
In a statement Saturday, the Biden administration urged Beijing to stop trying to intimidate Taiwan and promised support for the democratic government in Taipei.
"We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan's democratically elected representatives," US State Department spokesman Ned Price said, adding that US-Taiwan ties are deepening and Washington remains committed to the island's self-rule.
The US showed a strong commitment to Taiwan's defense during the Trump administration, approving the sale of advanced military hardware to Taipei, including F-16 fighter jets, while sending high-level envoys to the island, both moves that angered Beijing.
In an early show of support from the Biden administration toward the island, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US, Hsiao Bi-khim, attended Biden's inauguration last week. It was the first such official invitation to a representative of the Taipei government since 1979, when Washington established formal diplomatic ties with Beijing.
A US Navy aircraft carrier strike group entered the South China Sea at the weekend, the first deployment during the Biden administration of one of the 100,000-ton warships with its contingent of more than 60 aircraft.
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Florida man offers to host Olympics in Florida if Tokyo Olympics are cancelled. Florida's CFO Jimmy Patronis sent a letter to the IOC suggesting that the IOC relocate the 2020 2021 Olympics to Florida if Tokyo Backs out.
The letter, signed by Patronis and posted online, cited the supposed strength of state's vaccination roll-out, its economic re-opening and sports events it has hosted during the pandemic, as well as the fact that its theme parks, including Disney World, are open for business.
But Florida has struggled badly in the coronavirus pandemic, with over 25,000 deaths so far in the state as the US death toll nears 420,000.
Feels like we are talking about one of these right wing folks that pretend COVID-19 is not a threat, what with the way the COVID-19 death toll in Florida is being unceremoniously disregarded. Or as they say, Only in Florida.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Cho Sujin, a lawmaker for the conservative People Power Party, is under fire for comments comparing the legislator Ko Min-jung, who is from the ruling Democratic Party, to a medival king's concubine. She said that Ko was a favorite of the ruling party, and that "Even a royal concubine who produced an heir to the throne would not have been pampered like this."
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Ah, good old (well, not even six months old but still) PPP.
Keep this up, and the next general election will result in the Democratic Party taking 200 seats.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Oh, bother.
Wait, did she really just call someone from the other party a concubine?
Wtf is this, high school?
Edited by M84 on Jan 28th 2021 at 3:52:11 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised
A Self-inflicted Disaster
Do not underestimate the childishness of politicians.
NK News reports that Kang Kyung-hwa is being replaced.
After witnessing the revival of inter-Korean diplomacy, South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha will step down from her position and pass the torch to a former security official, the presidential Blue House announced on Wednesday.
Chung Eui-yong, former director of the Blue House National Security Office, is set to take over Kang’s role once he is confirmed for the position. South Korean law dictates that the confirmation of a nominee must happen within 20 days of the president making the appointment.
“The foreign minister candidate, Chung Eui-yong, is a top expert who dedicated his entire life to the field of diplomacy and security,” Chung Man-ho, a spokesperson at the Blue House, said in a briefing on Jan. 20. He added that the new nominee will “strengthen the ROK-U.S. alliance” and “firmly establish and bring progress in the Moon administration’s Korean Peninsula peace process.”
Kang, who served in the position for three and a half years and is South Korea’s first foreign minister, saw several key highlights with Pyongyang as President Moon Jae-in shook hands and exchanged letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on several occasions.
Back in 2017, her nomination nevertheless caused a stir, for it was unusual for a South Korean president to appoint someone outside of the traditional community of diplomats who passed an official exam. Kang’s long career includes several positions in the United Nations, including assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy high commissioner for human rights.
“Kang broke the glass ceiling,” said Bong Youngshik, a research fellow at Yonsei University Institute for North Korean Studies. “Her first day of service, which I think was her best moment as the foreign minister, represented that Seoul is preparing to actively participate in multilateral diplomacy in the global era … She had the experience and expertise for that.”
Now, with Chung Eui-yong potentially taking on the role, the Moon administration is slated to work with a seasoned diplomat who personally met both Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Chung is known for his role in visiting North Korea as a special envoy and delivering the message that Kim Jong Un would be open to meeting Trump. In March 2018, Chung then made the announcement at the White House that Trump would “meet Kim Jong Un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization” — remarks that further carried the honeymoon of inter-Korean relations.
But now that inter-Korean talks and U.S.-North Korea diplomacy is largely stalled, it’s unclear whether Chung’s past experience will carry much weight in Washington, according to some experts. As it stands, his predictions of “permanent denuclearization” have yet to come true.
“President Moon will expect a lot from Chung, but Washington will treat him with caution,” Bong said.
Choi Kang, vice president of research at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, agreed: “They may listen to what [Chung] says, but that doesn’t mean that they will agree with it.”