[far-east] south korea and us may soon part company
Asia Times
With an inter-Korean summit pageantry of his own in mind, Roh has been offering North Korean leader Kim Jong-il unconditional gifts throughout his presidency: massive shipments of rice, fertilizer, and other blandishments. Now it looks as if Roh is preparing to give the Northern dictator the ultimate gift of evicting US troops from Korean territory.
President Roh believes he has little to lose by insisting on the transfer of wartime operational control, which he pointedly defined recently as the "essence of sovereignty for any nation". A refusal would mean to Roh's supporters and an emotional South Korean public - for whom the Northern threat has become a mere abstraction - reaffirmation of US imperialism and bellicosity, perhaps even "proof" of long-held suspicions that the United States secretly wishes to draw South Korea into a costly war with the North.
A US consent would chalk up a milestone in Roh's oft-proclaimed "self-reliant" foreign and defense policies, with the added bonus of pleasing the North Korean regime by achieving on its behalf one of its oldest and most important policy objectives. Roh could peddle each scenario at home for political gains in the time leading up to the South Korean presidential election in December 2007.
Strains in the alliance are not unprecedented. The United States has long viewed South Korean leaders with skepticism when it came to such matters as political liberalism in the country or overzealousness on the part of Seoul's anti-North Korea policy. Fear of being entrapped by South Korea into fighting a second Korean War remained very much on the minds of US leaders throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and even into the 1970s.
On the other hand, despite misgivings, successive US presidents in the end put up with Syngman Rhee's illiberal policies and belligerence toward the North in the 1950s, Park Chung-hee's coup d'etat in 1961 and iron-fisted rule for the next 18 years, and, in more recent years, even Kim Dae-jung's hopelessly pious courtship of the North Korean dictatorship. These South Korean leaders were not perceived to be willfully challenging the vital national interests of the United States.
President Roh has proved to be different from his predecessors. During his three and a half years in office, Roh has followed through on his words with actions. True to his rhetoric, "So what if I am anti-US?" or "Yes, my anti-US stance has been good to me," Roh has unflinchingly and systematically aided the enemy of the United States - and incontrovertibly the main enemy of the US Forces in Korea (USFK) - the totalitarian North Korean state that is bent on increasing its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Roh's offering to the North Korean regime of food, cash and material is financing its buildup of WMD, with which the North in turn threatens the the USFK, whose very purpose is to protect Roh's South Korea from the North. Such a convoluted reality is comprehensible only in the theater of the absurd. In the real world of international politics - especially in light of America's overarching post-September 11, 2001, policy of fighting a "war on terror" and preventing the proliferation of WMD - it is simply an unacceptable situation.
At no other time in the history of the bilateral relationship has a South Korean president with such audacity, and with such success, manipulated for political gains anti-American sentiments at home. It has been proved over the past few years that a direct correlation exists between President Roh's anti-US remarks and a spike in his approval ratings. While resistance or hostility toward the United States was certainly not confined to South Korea under President Roh, that the head of a key ally is directly challenging vital US national interest is certainly a highly unusual development.
At the unceremonious meeting with Roh yesterday, during which both leaders wore a weary look, President Bush gritted his teeth and did his best to keep up the pretense that all was well. To his credit, Bush avoided an open row, concealed the open fissure in the alliance, and avoided an explicit endorsement or rejection of any South Korean-proposed roadmap for the dismantlement of the US-ROK Combined Forces Command.
Keeping in mind that the issue is a potential trap for instigating anti-US demonstrations leading up to South Korea's presidential election in December next year, Bush simply intoned that the matter should not become "a political issue". Bush even deftly took a page out of the communist playbook of a "hardliner/softliner" smokescreen, and simply told his guest that South Korea should take up the matter with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
South Korean political spinners and optimists on both sides of the Pacific will accentuate the common grounds that the two nations share, such as the intention to jump-start the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, concluding a free-trade agreement, and South Korea's support in Iraq. They may have only the best intentions in mind, but to ignore the ringing of the death knell is to echo Dr Pangloss's pontification to Candide on the futility of saving Jacques as he is washed overboard in the Bay of Lisbon: "The Bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for Jacques to drown in."
To turn a blind eye to the state of the US-ROK alliance in its present last breath is tantamount to musing, "The North Korean nuclear crisis had been formed expressly to test the US-ROK alliance. We should just ignore it and sail on." In other words, it bears no real-life relevance to the crux of the problem, which is that the alliance is predicated on the common threat of North Korea.
President Roh has come to Washington and gone, and the dismantling of the alliance structure will proceed as planned in the near term.
Short on conviviality, solidarity or a meaningfully shared vision for the future, the meeting's sole significance will lie in its marking of the end of an era. Unless the South Korean people are able to persuade Roh to change course abruptly or vote into office in December 2007 a new leader with a far greater appreciation for the alliance and the integrity not to scuttle it for short-term political gain, the meeting on Thursday between Bush and Roh will be remembered as the definitive punctuation mark to a long and once special bilateral relationship.
Dr Sung-Yoon Lee is associate in research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University, and a former professor at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
With an inter-Korean summit pageantry of his own in mind, Roh has been offering North Korean leader Kim Jong-il unconditional gifts throughout his presidency: massive shipments of rice, fertilizer, and other blandishments. Now it looks as if Roh is preparing to give the Northern dictator the ultimate gift of evicting US troops from Korean territory.
President Roh believes he has little to lose by insisting on the transfer of wartime operational control, which he pointedly defined recently as the "essence of sovereignty for any nation". A refusal would mean to Roh's supporters and an emotional South Korean public - for whom the Northern threat has become a mere abstraction - reaffirmation of US imperialism and bellicosity, perhaps even "proof" of long-held suspicions that the United States secretly wishes to draw South Korea into a costly war with the North.
A US consent would chalk up a milestone in Roh's oft-proclaimed "self-reliant" foreign and defense policies, with the added bonus of pleasing the North Korean regime by achieving on its behalf one of its oldest and most important policy objectives. Roh could peddle each scenario at home for political gains in the time leading up to the South Korean presidential election in December 2007.
Strains in the alliance are not unprecedented. The United States has long viewed South Korean leaders with skepticism when it came to such matters as political liberalism in the country or overzealousness on the part of Seoul's anti-North Korea policy. Fear of being entrapped by South Korea into fighting a second Korean War remained very much on the minds of US leaders throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and even into the 1970s.
On the other hand, despite misgivings, successive US presidents in the end put up with Syngman Rhee's illiberal policies and belligerence toward the North in the 1950s, Park Chung-hee's coup d'etat in 1961 and iron-fisted rule for the next 18 years, and, in more recent years, even Kim Dae-jung's hopelessly pious courtship of the North Korean dictatorship. These South Korean leaders were not perceived to be willfully challenging the vital national interests of the United States.
President Roh has proved to be different from his predecessors. During his three and a half years in office, Roh has followed through on his words with actions. True to his rhetoric, "So what if I am anti-US?" or "Yes, my anti-US stance has been good to me," Roh has unflinchingly and systematically aided the enemy of the United States - and incontrovertibly the main enemy of the US Forces in Korea (USFK) - the totalitarian North Korean state that is bent on increasing its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Roh's offering to the North Korean regime of food, cash and material is financing its buildup of WMD, with which the North in turn threatens the the USFK, whose very purpose is to protect Roh's South Korea from the North. Such a convoluted reality is comprehensible only in the theater of the absurd. In the real world of international politics - especially in light of America's overarching post-September 11, 2001, policy of fighting a "war on terror" and preventing the proliferation of WMD - it is simply an unacceptable situation.
At no other time in the history of the bilateral relationship has a South Korean president with such audacity, and with such success, manipulated for political gains anti-American sentiments at home. It has been proved over the past few years that a direct correlation exists between President Roh's anti-US remarks and a spike in his approval ratings. While resistance or hostility toward the United States was certainly not confined to South Korea under President Roh, that the head of a key ally is directly challenging vital US national interest is certainly a highly unusual development.
At the unceremonious meeting with Roh yesterday, during which both leaders wore a weary look, President Bush gritted his teeth and did his best to keep up the pretense that all was well. To his credit, Bush avoided an open row, concealed the open fissure in the alliance, and avoided an explicit endorsement or rejection of any South Korean-proposed roadmap for the dismantlement of the US-ROK Combined Forces Command.
Keeping in mind that the issue is a potential trap for instigating anti-US demonstrations leading up to South Korea's presidential election in December next year, Bush simply intoned that the matter should not become "a political issue". Bush even deftly took a page out of the communist playbook of a "hardliner/softliner" smokescreen, and simply told his guest that South Korea should take up the matter with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
South Korean political spinners and optimists on both sides of the Pacific will accentuate the common grounds that the two nations share, such as the intention to jump-start the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, concluding a free-trade agreement, and South Korea's support in Iraq. They may have only the best intentions in mind, but to ignore the ringing of the death knell is to echo Dr Pangloss's pontification to Candide on the futility of saving Jacques as he is washed overboard in the Bay of Lisbon: "The Bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for Jacques to drown in."
To turn a blind eye to the state of the US-ROK alliance in its present last breath is tantamount to musing, "The North Korean nuclear crisis had been formed expressly to test the US-ROK alliance. We should just ignore it and sail on." In other words, it bears no real-life relevance to the crux of the problem, which is that the alliance is predicated on the common threat of North Korea.
President Roh has come to Washington and gone, and the dismantling of the alliance structure will proceed as planned in the near term.
Short on conviviality, solidarity or a meaningfully shared vision for the future, the meeting's sole significance will lie in its marking of the end of an era. Unless the South Korean people are able to persuade Roh to change course abruptly or vote into office in December 2007 a new leader with a far greater appreciation for the alliance and the integrity not to scuttle it for short-term political gain, the meeting on Thursday between Bush and Roh will be remembered as the definitive punctuation mark to a long and once special bilateral relationship.
Dr Sung-Yoon Lee is associate in research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University, and a former professor at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
posted by James Higham @ 04:47
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