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The old bromide for Westerners was Koreans were "the Irish of Asia". The allusions were to directness, pugilism, tippling, passionate loyalty to their church [Confucianism], a [recent] melancholy history.
But these days for American policymakers, Seoul's antics are more akin to "the French of Asia". One can't push the comparison too far, of course. But there's no doubt the South Koreans are beginning to try the bonds of any alliance.
All the more so, since the logic of their positions is obscure to say the least.
But how to explain young Korean nationalist wannabes turning a blind eye to the murder by the hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen in a man-made famine. Seoul is not only now going out of its way to explain away the boorish refusal of Pyongyang to negotiate a nuclear-free Korean peninsular – one of South Korea’s stated aims. But it hides evidence, not to say colludes in their imprisonment, of the flight of refugees or the continuing brutal repression of one of the world’s worst regimes.
Like France in and out of NATO, Seoul can’t seem to decide what it wants from an alliance with America – pursuing diametrically conflicting goals. It is cutting military expenditures, while waging a rearguard action against U.S. efforts to rejigger the American commitment. That would reduce American bodies in South Korea but is a pledge for billions in new hi tech defenses. It opposes strategic use of U.S. forces for regional defense from joint bases in Korea. But it has sent 3,000 ROK troops to Iraq as part of Washington’s “coalition of the willing”.
The latest flash of genius is Seoul’s announcement it has promoted China to the level of its military liaison with Japan. One could explain South Korea’s refusal over decades to join the U.S.-Japan alliance. The bitterness of a half century of Japanese Occupation could not be erased, even by two of its participants, Park Chung-hee and Nobuskue Kishi – no DeGaulle-Adenauer act, theirs, 30 years ago.
But to dilute that relationship when it is obvious the Tokyo-Washington alliance is strengthening is to fly in the face of realities. Even more far fetched is the Roh Administration’s recent murmuring it sees its foreign policy stratagem as becoming the “balancing” entity in Northeast Asia, see the current edition of East-Asia-Intel.com,. [Scary since the last Korean balancing act ended early in the last century with a loss of independence.] It seems to be part of Roh’s delusions of grandeur -- delusional for unlike DeGaulle’s France, the ROK does not have a [nuclear] force de frappe to back up its calls for gloire.
There is, of course, no denying the formidable role South Korea already plays in the world economy -- and could play in world politics. Seoul has as much interest as the U.S. in halting the nuclear arming of the basically unstable North Korean dictatorship, and its transformation into a “normal” regime. Alas! There is more than a little suspicion that fear of a Pyongyang collapse [and a perhaps mistaken belief it would have an “East German” call on Seoul’s resources] is greater than a fear of North Korean aggression, even with bitter memories of the long and bloody Korean War initiated by the Communists. But Pyongyang has a track record of using the kind of aid Seoul thinks it can use to buy their rulers off to simply maintain its wretchedness.
ROK President Roh Moon-Hyun occasionally touches ground and talks of turning his attention to the economy. But the fact is, he hasn’t. Seoul is now living in a bubble – the kind of distortion that brought on the decade of Japanese economic stagnation. Overburdened with domestic debt, no growth, the modest GDP is exclusively based on exports, buoyed, of course, by “the China boom”. No wonder there is as much as 40 percent unemployment among those young, educated South Korean demonstrators.
It is Korean companies [Samsung Electronics and Huyndai Automobiles] who have cut themselves off from the domestic bog who are carrying the ball. And foreign investment with its commensurate transfer of technology is not coming, essential to maintaining Korea’s competitive position against those same Chinese exports South Korean entrepreneurs are helping create. Roh’s foreign policy fandangos is not helping.
The other characteristic Westerners used to assign the Korean stereotype was pragmatism. Unlike France where anti-Americanism is the old time religion, there is a large body of Koreans – almost half the electorate the last time around – who know their history, and the U.S. role in helping to produce the present democratic regime. That will have to be the hope in Washington as it tries to patiently sit out being made a punching bag for Korean frustrations.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
Apologists would say South Koreans are wallowing in an orgy of nationalism. Fine. Korea took a beating in the post-WWII settlement. Stalin’s last minute intervention in the defeat of Japan helped divide their country, with, as the [not so] new Korean left says, American compliance. Then South Koreans had to shed military dictatorship.