Disappointed with US
South Korea and the United States have been “blood allies” over the past seven decades. America liberated the Korean Peninsula from Japanese colonial rule, protected South Korea from North Korean invasion, and bought South Korean products to jumpstart the latter’s economy. In short, South Korea today is unthinkable without the U.S. as its benefactor.
Or, so have thought most, if not all, of South Koreans. Now, many of them are starting to question their thoughts.
The liberation of the peninsula was the inevitable result of the U.S. victory over Imperial Japanese in World War II; the U.S. entry into the 195053 Korean War was to protect East Asia — mainly Japan — from communist domination; and the opening of the U.S. market to South Korean exports — along with its economic blockade against the North — was aimed to demonstrate capitalism’s superiority over socialism.
In other words, it’s not that the U.S. has had a particular fondness of South Korea but used it as a pawn in a chess game under its global policy strategy, as the alternative theory goes. After all, that’s how most international relationships work.
These days, the revisionists are reaffirming they are right.
South Korea and Japan are now waging an economic and diplomatic war, and the U.S. is implicitly, or rather explicitly, siding with the latter. After Seoul decided to terminate an intelligence-sharing treaty with Tokyo recently, Washington not only expressed “disappointment and strong concerns” with the move but urged Seoul to restore the pact as soon as possible. Washington blamed Tokyo, too, but only reluctantly to appear to be impartial.
The U.S. displeasure is somewhat understandable. Washington forced Seoul to sign the pact with Tokyo three years ago to deal jointly with Pyongyang’s nuclear threats and Beijing’s global hegemonic challenge.
Still, it was all too apparent to any objective third party’s eyes that Japan provoked South Korea through economic retaliation under the pretext of national security. How can South Korea continue to share military information with Japan that says it does not trust Seoul as a security partner?
Washington should have told Tokyo first to lift export restrictions of critical materials and parts to South Korea as well as to put Seoul back on Japan’s list of preferential trade partners. The Trump administration’s failure, or refusal, to do so show which of the two East Asian allies it favors — lopsidedly.
What’s interesting in this regard is that U.S. officials say the Moon Jae-in administration — not South Korea or the Republic of Korea — is making mistakes. It seems as if Washington is set to drive a wedge between the South Korean public and their leadership.
If so, Washington is making mistakes. Nothing can unify Koreans like anti-Japanese sentiments or campaigns. North Korea is even more adamant in accusing Japan of its historical wrongdoings. Some right-wing politicians and media outlets here seem to be venturing to stand up for Japan or its prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in the ongoing diplomatic disputes. Even the conservative Liberty Korea Party knows, however, it will lose elections by siding with Japan.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has confused friends with foes all over the world, is doing the same between the two Koreas. He loves and praises North Korea’s Kim Jongun despite Pyongyang’s continuous missile provocations, while pressing the South Korean leader to pay more for defense costs and even ridiculing the latter’s way of talking. It’s a small surprise then President Moon is calling for Washington to speed up the return of some now-defunct U.S. military bases to South Korea.
It’s uncertain whether Trump will remain in office for one more year or five. However, what Moon is doing is only natural for the leader of any sovereign country. It was somewhat awkward Seoul has had no frictions with Washington under an almost unprecedentedly bizarre leader, the likes of whom are unlikely to appear in the future, either.
The problem is this commonsensical move is accepted as a kind of revolt here. “South Korea’s open rebellion against US” was the headline of a column written by Oh Young-jin, digital news managing editor of The Korea Times, on this page last Saturday.
He might have intentionally exaggerated a bit, but not a few Koreans would really think it was Seoul’s rebellion against Washington, like some former Soviet satellite countries such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia did so against the Kremlin in the 1950s and 60s. “Tread on a worm, and it will turn” might be the old Korean saying that describes the situation more correctly, however.
That also explains why those ultra-right demonstrators who worship general-turned-dictator Park Chung-hee and his disgraced daughter Park Geun-hye carry not just South Korean flags but also the Star-Spangled Banner and even Israeli national flags.
I do not remember the author or his organization but the abstract of a hypothetical study I read in the mid-1980s shocked me with this scenario: In a trisected world in some future day among white, yellow and black/brown people, only two countries — Israel in the Middle East and South Korea in East Asia — will belong to the Caucasian group led by America.
The near-fictional prediction points to two things — the unchanging U.S. influence on South Korea and, reciprocally, Seoul’s importance for Washington’s global strategy, especially as China remains the archrival of America as it is now.
Japan showed it could turn its back on America in the early 1940s. It may do so again if it becomes strong enough to stand alone or too weak to stand against China even with U.S. help. Korea cannot, and will not, because it will hardly be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with China or Japan by itself for the foreseeable future.
However, Washington should not take Seoul’s goodwill for granted, especially when South Korea is set to settle old scores with its former colonial power. This is not least because the current situation between Seoul and Tokyo is due in large part to the U.S. siding with Japan tracing as far back as 1905 when Washington allowed Tokyo’s protectorate over Seoul under the so-called Taft-Katsura agreement. Another old saying here sums it up: One who has tied a knot must help untie it.