Korean Undergraduates Distrust for Business Reporting

This may not be indicative of Koreans - not even young Koreans - in general, but interesting never theless.

According to a survey conducted by the October 2008 issue of the Yonsei Annals - a Yonsei University (pictured) student publication - 63 per cent of Yonsei undergraduates surveyed said they do not trust the press when it comes to business stories.

Respondents said they do not think that all irregularities and allegations against Korean enterprises have been fully reported in the media.

Agreeing, Lee Sang-ho, an MBC reporter who is known for his exposes of Samsung in what became known as the "Samsung X-file reports", said that negative news about large Korean enterprises "are not being reported as they should be."

Lee added: "In the early stage of the Taean oil spill accident, even the fact that one of the ships which caused the collision belonged to Samsung Heavy Industries could not be reported."

Another reporter who was not named argued that the "media cannot be fully free from enterprises' influence, because most of the press' earnings depend on their advertisements. However ... reporters try to be as objective as they can."

But this unnamed reporter from Korea Economic Daily also pointed out that "since business figures generally have a sense of duty for Korea's economic stability and growth, it is hard just to criticize them. Criticizing is easy, but reporters consider the broader perspective, encouraging businesses to revitalize the economy as well as objectively showing the facts to the people."

Confucianism and Singapore

It is interesting to see how others view Singapore (pictured - isn't the blue sky kind of artificial?).

Recently I caught a documentary about Confucianism on the KBS overseas channel. The documentary tried to highlight how Confucianism is manifested in modern Asian societies. Apart from Korea, the documentary also featured Japan, Vietnam, China and Singapore.

In the case of Singapore, two examples were raised to highlight how Singapore "practices" Confucianism.

The first is the Singapore government's policy of offering scholarships to mainly Southeast Asian students to come and study in the island-state.

The second is how Singapore is used as a medical hub by others in the region.

The two examples, according to the documentary, highlighted Singapore's philosophy of giving something useful to its regional neighbors, so that "my neighbors will have a stake in my survival", and how one's success should be used in a way that those around it could also enjoy the benefits.

All in line with the Confucian philosophy, apparently.

But did Singapore policymakers have these Confucian principles in mind when they came up with these policies? I think not. To Singapore, the policies are mainly economic and long term imperatives of a small island-nation constrained by size, lack of resources and the need to keep all options open.

Beijing-Macau Relations

In an article titled Hong Kong and Macau under One Country, Two Systems, Chou Kwok Ping explained why relations between the two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) and Beijing differed after their respective handovers in 1997 and 1999.

Unlike issues affecting Hong Kong, those affecting Macau were generally less well-known.

These included inexperienced local officials being promoted to senior positions to replace their non-Chinese counterparts, the wastage and overspending of municipal councils, and the discontentment with rising social inequality in the wake of the 2002 gambling liberalizations.

They also included the collusion between government and business over labor import and land sale, culminating in the 2006 Labor Day demonstration involving over 3,000 people, said to be the largest since the 1989 June Fourth Incident.

"These issues, however, neither undermined people's trust in the handover of sovereignty and in the Chinese government nor adversely affected Beijing-Macau relations. Local people tend to blame domestic factors rather than the Beijing government for the problems," Chou wrote. (Interpreting China's Development, Ed. Wang Gungwu and John Wong, World Scientific Publishing, 2007).

Another reason for the more amicable relations between Beijing and Macau is, according to Chou, the limited success of Macau democrats in amassing public support. This reportedly made it easier - unlike the case in Hong Kong - for both governments to contain disputes affecting Beijing-Macau relations.