Check out this headline from the front page of today’s Hankyoreh.
The English translation really doesn’t do it justice, but it’s hard to convey the tone of something like that.
How’s this line, by the way:
A Korean delegate to the FTA talks said, “These institutions play the role of a kind of public safeguard and support small and medium-sized businesses, key industries, and the public sector. If Seoul and Washington sign a fair trade agreement, it will be more difficult to request private banks to consider the public good. Then the national economy will face a serious problem,” he added.
Requesting that they consider the public good? Is that what they call leaning on banks to issue bad loans to poorly run but politically important/connected businesses these days?
6 Comments
Original Korean:
미, 이번엔 국책은행 특혜시비 예고
Hankyoreh translation:
Another FTA issue looms: state-assisted banks
Me:
US expected to make a fuss about state policy banks
There’d have to be a word to carry the nuance of unnecessary argument as in sibi.
Further, from the Korean original:
중소기업, 기간산업, 서민 등 민간에서 다루지 못하는 부분 (emphasis AL)
English translation:
small and medium-sized businesses, key industries, and the public sector
Now, if Koreans only could convey the meaning of the emphasized Korean word to the US counterpart, they’d surely understand the Korean position…
My favorite part of that headline was the 이번엔 part.
I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this with Robert, but it certainly seems like “이번엔…” gets used in the context of someone who keeps doing something wrong.
Roh government doesn’t really want free trade, they want a sort of kind of somewhat free trade for some sectors and lots of barriers and protections for others, and a free ride for the goods from Kaesong.
I think the negotiations are interesting because it involves two countries that are both very guilty of Governmental support in export trade and dumping.
Well gee, I guess if you consider stability in your country’s financial networks to be part of the ‘public good’, you might not see it that way. But consider the bigger picture: When the next big bailout comes, the government can just blame it all on the IMF again. There’s your public good right there.