Yet the effect of removing the isolated, vulnerable speaker faced with counterprotest is to silence the few while allowing the counterprotesters to prevail. That’s a violation of our free-speech ideals, which value everyone’s words equally, regardless of how many people are gathered to speak at a given location in a given moment.

Consider that when a lone speaker is being met with large counterprotests, it’s always easier, cheaper and safer for police to remove the speaker than it is to control the counterprotesters. That’s the law of numbers.

That’s why it is worrisome to hear police say that it wasn’t worth fighting antifa over “a grassy area.” What was at stake wasn’t just a patch of grass, but the public space where peaceful speech was taking place. Protecting the First Amendment has to be a key police objective.

The point is that while avoiding violence is a necessary goal, it is also a competing and important goal for the police to protect peaceful speech from violent threats. In the name of avoiding violence, the police must not cede public space to violent protesters -- regardless of whether they are far left or far right.

To be clear, my goal is not to criticize the police. Their thankless and crucial job of keeping the peace is the necessary condition for free speech. Avoiding violence should be a high priority, sometimes the highest. Contextual judgment is crucial.

Imagine that 100 neo-Nazis, instead of 100 anti-fascists, had crossed barricades in defiance of police orders. The public would have been justifiably outraged. And a police chief who argued that it was wiser to withdraw his officers rather than provoke confrontation would be under significant pressure to recant or even resign.

With all due deference to police expertise, things are not that simple. Violent protesters who cross barriers and disrupt peaceful protest are deeply threatening to freedom of speech.

In November, President Moon will be attending the ASEAN Plus Summits in the Philippines as well as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vietnam, and it is anticipated that these occasions will further expand the horizon of ASEAN-Korea relations.

“The Philippines is not pro-US, pro-China, or pro-Japan, but it is pro-Philippines and pro-ASEAN,” is what the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Alan Peter Cayetano, said while he was answering a flurry of questions on the South China Sea issue and the

There is a saying, “it takes two hands to clap.” This means that for ASEAN-Korea relations to prosper, it cannot be done one-way — it must be two-way and reciprocal. For Korea to map out a meaningful vision and strategy for ASEAN-Korea relations, it should first know

Last but not least, all of these endeavors should add up to building a peaceful and prosperous East Asia. ASEAN’s efforts to fully achieve a more integrated ASEAN areinseparable from building the East Asian Community, while Korea also should make contributions to building the EAC and bringing peace and prosperity to the region through supporting ASEAN’s community-building efforts.

Fifth, Korea should more actively share its development strategy and experience with ASEAN. It is important to be a partner that can help each other and in this sense, Korea should cooperate closely with the ASEAN member states with the capacity building of its

partner and the second largest destination for investment, for ASEAN, Korea is the fifth largest partner for trade and investment, and would be the best partner for technological cooperation amid ASEAN’s current efforts of transforming into a digital economy.

Third, for ASEAN-Korea relations to be long-lasting, it must be mutually beneficial. The economies of ASEAN and Korea are complementary, and they are already partners that need and want each other. For example, while ASEAN is Korea’s second largest trading

In doing so, the following six elements must be considered to make Korea’s vision and strategy more seamless and sustainable. The first element is middle-power diplomacy. Much of the uncertainty in the Asia-Pacific region is in one way or another related to the

prominent academics around the region gathered to discuss the past 50 years and the future of ASEAN-Korea relations, it is about time that Korea developed a more clear and concrete vision and strategy toward ASEAN.

even brighter. Recognizing this, there is no doubt that Korea is gearing up to take the ASEAN-Korea relations to another level. Nevertheless, as pointed out at the International Conference on ASEAN-Korea Partnership held this week, where policymakers and

ASEAN is strategically an important partner, with a population of 640 million people and a gross domestic product of $2.6 trillion (5th largest economy in the world). With the launching of the ASEAN Community at the end of 2015, the prospects for this region are

Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha during the ASEAN-ROK Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on the occasion of the 50th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and the 24th ASEAN Regional Forum, held in Manila in early August.

Pursuing mutual and sustainable prosperity, increasing people-to-people exchanges, and partnering in building a new East Asia that is peaceful and safe, are the three main directions of the Korean government in strengthening its ties with ASEAN, according to