이코노미스트 최신호에 14페이지짜리 한국 특집이 실렸다. (정확히는 2koreas 특집이니까 남북한 특집 또는 한반도 특집이라고 부르는 게 맞겠지만;;)

http://www.economist.com/printedition/

A special report on the Koreas

The effect on Mr Lee’s administration was just short of catastrophic. The president’s stellar popularity ratings crashed to earth. He was forced to apologise publicly for failing to take South Koreans’ views into account. His first team of senior advisers in the Blue House was sent packing and his cabinet resigned en masse to allow him to make a fresh start. Calls grew for his own resignation. The beef deal was hastily renegotiated and Mr Lee’s idea for a Grand Canal was dropped.

So has Mr Lee learnt his lesson? On August 15th South Korea celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding. In the Confucian world 60 is a revered number, signifying a human life coming full circle. Mr Lee used the occasion to relaunch his agenda, albeit with more humility. Ambitious quantities of bills are now being introduced into the National Assembly, in the hope that most of the legislation required for the proposed reforms will be passed by the end of this year. But doubts persist. The government distracted itself with a paranoid campaign to punish the television stations and internet sites that broadcast distortions and plain lies over the beef issue. It should have learnt a lesson about the importance of communication: it should be running a permanent campaign.

The deeper question has to do with the character of the president himself. Those who deal with him every day say he is remarkably resilient, and his belief in his programme is undiminished. But they also point out that he has a habit, carried over from his business days, of getting too involved with the minutiae of his reform plans, keeping staff running around endlessly to produce fresh details for him.

If he is too much of an action man to delegate to technocrats, Mr Lee also dislikes doing many of the things political leaders need to do: schmoozing with local politicians, stroking egos in the National Assembly and keeping up a dialogue with the public. No technocrat can do that for him, and if he does not soon begin to do it himself, his programme will get nowhere.