What, if anything, should we do about TikTok? Is the forced sale of the fastest-growing social media platform in the world a commonsense step to protect America from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party? Or is legislation that would mandate the app’s sale or ban a threat to free speech?
Long before “Parasite” won the Oscar for Best Picture and K-pop groups performed on “The Tonight Show,” South Korea’s best-known export was Samsung, an obscure maker of cheap microwaves that Western expatriates in the country had taken to calling “Sam-suck.” Today, Samsung is a household name, and a bigger smartphone maker than Apple. But its path to the top was strewn with secret deals, price fixing, bribery, tax evasion and more, all of it overseen by an ultrasecretive, ultrarich family ready to use every means at its disposal to stay in command.
By Raymond Zhong
The New York Times
Mar 17, 2020
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans assumed that Lee Kun-hee was the equivalent of royalty, an untouchable oligarch at the helm of one of the world’s largest companies, the Samsung Group.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Dec 18, 2012
PHAN THIET and PHU QUOC, Vietnam — In 1910, a little-known nationalist named Nguyen Sinh Cung taught elementary school in Phan Thiet, a coastal town in southeastern Vietnam.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 26, 2011
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam —Vo Van Toi’s high-tech laboratory clashes against its impoverished surroundings. Outside, cattle roam swampy fields and squatters sell sugarcane from wooden huts. Inside, he shows off his near-infrared spectroscopy machine, which measures oxygen content in blood, and a CT scanner.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Mar 1, 2011
SEOUL, South Korea — In his bag, Park Jae Dong always carries a fine-point ink brush. The mellow, aging artist speaks in few words, preferring to communicate through Korean cartoons, or manhwa, which have gained such popularity across Asia in recent years.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
May 30, 2010
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Geoffrey Cain Jennifer Grossman The Atlas Society Geoffrey Cain is an investigative journalist and author of The Perfect Police State: An Undercover
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