Forget China vs. US: South Korea Owns the Execution Layer

Markets Are Finally Noticing

The global macro conversation has collapsed into a tired binary. Every panel, every note, every investment memo frames the world as China versus the United States… state-directed scale versus entrepreneurial dynamism, engineers versus lawyers, factories versus software. It’s a clean story of course, and it’s also increasingly wrong.

What’s actually reshaping power isn’t trade flows or GDP rankings. It’s the restructuring of labor, those who keep skilled people in place, those who let institutional knowledge decay, and those who still know how to operate complex systems at scale.

Once you look at the world through a workforce lens, a country that almost nobody is modeling correctly comes sharply into focus - South Korea.

I have no intent on creating a nationalist argument, because this isn’t the growth story most think this argument is. It isn’t even a hype trade. It’s just about execution, and in this current cycle we are in, it is everything.

The ones that will win the behind the scenes headlines in 2026 are the ones that have positioned themselves so the system cannot function without them. It’s getting mighty interesting and we are still in January.