JoongAng Daily, South Korea

South Korea's Break with America is Only Natural ...

"Why is Korea breaking away from its alliances with the United States and Japan, and turning toward China and North Korea?"

By Kwon Nyong-bin

February 02, 2007

South Korea, JoongAng Daily – Original Article (English)

A Japanese diplomat-turned-professor posed that question to me at a Korea-Japan forum Japan last summer. Koreans today face the same ideological choices and challenges as the Japanese: whether to base future development on increasing ties to the continent [China, Asia], or to rely on continued expansion of overseas relationships - especially with the U.S.

JAPAN-KOREA INTERLUDE

During the historic Joseon Dynasty [1392-1910 ], Korean leadership was composed primarily of those who leaned toward China, favoring the continent. However, in the waning years of that era - and decisively after Korea's annexation by Japan - an industrialization-minded, pro-Japanese influence emerged. Those who held such views worked as agents of Japanese militarism.

Later, they were accused of surrendering our national sovereignty to Japan. Consequently, the expression "pro-Japan" has since taken on a negative connotation and is rarely used.

POST-WORLD WAR II

Evaluations of Korea’s first president, Syng-man Rhee [1948-1960 ], vary depending on whom you ask. In my view, he symbolizes the moment in Korea's history when those who looked outward across the ocean assumed power.

Mr. Rhee introduced American ideology and systems of democracy and capitalism, which were very unfamiliar to Koreans at that time.  As a result, Koreans have been able to advance as much as they have. Also, even though  Rhee made anti-communism and being anti-Japanese his political slogans, his administration incorporated a large number of elites who received a Japanese-style education or who studied in Japan.

After Park Chung Hee  took power [1961], Kim Chung-yum (who was educated in Japan) and Nam Duck-woo (a former vice prime minister who studied in the United States) were hired as technocrats. At the time, those who received doctoral degrees in the United States were treated with honor in Korea and granted major positions once they came home.

Due to the Korean War and the separation of South and North Korea, pro-North Korean and pro-Chinese groups were thoroughly isolated and viewed as criminals. China was most often called "Red China" and North Korea the "North Korean puppet regime."

During the Chun Doo Hwan administration [1980-1988 ], people who were educated in the U.S. became even more powerful. From the Rhee administration through the Chun administration, those who studied across the ocean and who were pro-Japanese and pro-American worked at the core of the regime - settling in as a privileged group. All three of these administrations were despotic.

Recognizing that the core of the despotic regimes had also been pro-Japanese and pro-American, the current administration believed that abandoning dictatorship also meant eliminating those forces. For this reason, the administration pours a great deal of money and manpower into projects to clarify historically suspicious matters or incidents.

From the end of the 1970s until the 1980s, a great number of college students and intellectuals thought they should know more about China. They studied Maoism and North Korea and even created different factions - such as the Juche [self-reliance] faction, the National Liberation Front and the People's Democracy faction. Pro-Chinese and pro-North Korean ideologies became tools to fight South Korean dictatorship.

In particular, at the time of the Gwangju incident  in 1980, some Koreans were suspicious of the role of the United States. Anti-Americanism became even more pronounced in 2002, after an American armored truck struck and killed two Korean junior high school girls . As a result, during the presidential election campaign, the student activist-turned-politician camp gained public support.

RE-ORIENTATION

Beginning in 1998, the third round of democratic government – the advent of the Kim Dae-jung [1998-2003 ] and the Roh Moo-hyun administrations [2003-present ] – marked the collapse of pro-Japanese and pro-American forces and the rise of pro-Chinese and pro-North Korean forces. Contemporary political and economic moves which reveal typical pro-continental ideology include the Sunshine Policy , the summit meeting declaration between South and North Korea on June 15, 2000; opening the railways a border crossing between the two Koreas; clarifying the truth on suspicious historical incidents; the balance theory ; and independent national defense, with plans to reassert primacy of control  in case of war [transferring wartime operational control from the U.S. to South Korea].

Looking at the long flow of history, the Roh administration is neither a sudden, isolated bump nor a temporary mistake of the people. Members of the incumbent administration are sure that their thoughts and policies are just. They believed their task to be to re-engage the continent. Therefore, they began retreating from alliances with the U.S. and Japan, while becoming pro-Chinese and pro-North Korean.

Future Dreams

Kim Jae-chul , the president of the Dongwon Group, has a map of the Korean Peninsula hung upside down in his office. The peninsula is not hanging on the tip of the continent, but is about to spring into the vast ocean.

He does this because on the continent, there is remorse for the past. So say the Communist Party and juche ideology. In the ocean view, however, there are unlimited resources, the world, Korean dreams and dynamism.

Now that the last phase of democratic administration is drawing to a close, where will we find new drive for the new era?