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SPEAKING FREELY
Superpower politics: National
interest first
By Sung-Yoon Lee
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have their
say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
MEDFORD,
Massachusetts - During a short visit to South Korea in
early March I witnessed first-hand something of a
historical irony: vocal anti-US sentiment eclipsing any
audible or latent anti-Japanese sentiment. Neither is
particularly beneficial to South Korea, which, by its
geographical location in the North Pacific - surrounded
by the United States, Japan, China, and Russia - is
fated to face overwhelming challenges in the conduct of
its foreign affairs. But what was startling in this
particular wave of anti-US sentiment was that on March
1, the commemorative date of the 1919 Korean Declaration
of Independence against Japanese colonialism, pro- and
anti-US rallies took center stage instead of any
commentary on Japan's colonial legacy.
March 1,
2003, became an occasion for voicing contrary views on
the North Korean nuclear threat, with South Koreans in
their 40s and above calling for the strengthening of the
South Korea-US alliance, while those in their teens,
20s, and early 30s singled out the US as driving a wedge
between Koreans north and south of the 38th parallel.
The March First Movement symbolizes for all
Koreans a nationalistic spirit of independence, both as
an organized movement and as the ardent ideal of an
entire people during Japan's colonial rule over Korea,
1910-45. Inspired by US president Woodrow Wilson's
pronouncement of the right to self-determination of all
peoples, Koreans launched on March 1, 1919, a peaceful
demonstration across the nation. The movement itself
failed to gain official recognition from the
international community, but it nonetheless symbolized a
powerful emerging Korean nationalism, and served as a
precursor to the May Fourth Movement in China. It also
gave birth to the Korean Provisional Government, a
government-in-exile in China that survived until
liberation in August 1945 even in the face of Japan's
ever-growing pressure during its 15-year war campaign in
East Asia. The Korean Provisional Government was a
beacon to all Koreans, a symbol of fierce nationalism
for those who had been deprived of statehood and
identity.
My cab driver, when I asked him to
take me to the Kim Koo Museum and Library on the morning
of March 1, intoned deferentially that what South Korea
needed today was a figure like Kim Koo, a leader who
could unite the nation and cast a vision for a coherent
collective stance against the threat to its national
security that is North Korea. The father of Korean
independence movement, Kim Koo served as the premier of
the Korean Provisional Government, and, in liberated
Korea, as the greatest living symbol of peace and
national unity. A tragic victim of political
assassination in June 1949, Kim more than anyone else to
this day symbolizes Korean ethnic nationalism and a
longing for national unification.
The new South
Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, in pushing for dialogue
and diplomacy with the intractable North Korean regime,
on several occasions in recent months has invoked Kim
Koo and Abraham Lincoln as historical figures whom he
admires the most. Peace and reconciliation both men
represent aplenty, but it would serve President Roh well
to remember that both Kim and Lincoln sought
reconciliation from a position of strength, not weakness
or romantic idealism. What's more, what Kim Koo
represented in a time of colonial repression and in the
uncertain years of post-World War II Korea are
fundamentally different from the misguided ethnic
nationalism so prevalent in South Korea today.
Nationalism was a constructive force in resisting
colonial oppression and in the staggering challenge of
nation-building half a century ago. Today, in its
virulent anti-US rhetoric and shockingly naive
attachment to North Korea, it is simply self-defeating.
Roh Moo-hyun was thrust into his presidency on
the waves of such unruly passions. But popular passions
ebb and flow, and it's now time for Roh the statesman to
take over from Roh the candidate. A series of diplomatic
faux pas marks Roh's stated positions on North Korea and
the United States, from his remark on February 19 that
he would not even consider using force in persuading
Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program to his
admonition in an interview with an English newspaper of
US intelligence-gathering flights near North Korea.
Simply put, South Korea depends on the United
States for intelligence, for security, and for survival.
The stated national goal of North Korea is the
absorption of the South through force and subversion,
and the acquisition of nuclear weapons, by offsetting
South Korea's superiority in conventional arms, is the
surest way to achieve this end. And the greatest
obstacle for the North in "liberating" its Southern
brethren is the physical presence of US troops in South
Korea. The US to South Korea is its irreplaceable ally,
while the North Korean dictatorship of Kim Jong-il its
unremitting foe. President Roh must look more deeply
into his historical heroes and come to the realization
that genuine peace, reconciliation, and statesmanship
are founded on an uncompromising resolve to face great
challenges, not to mention properly identifying friend
and foe.
To his credit, Roh is following through
- without further hesitation on account of domestic
politics - on his pledge to send 600 South Korean
military engineers and 100 medics to the Persian Gulf
and help its indispensable ally in war. South Korea, by
its geographical fate of being surrounded by
overwhelming neighbors - China, Japan, Russia, the US -
and, for now and the foreseeable future, a threatening
North Korea, unfortunately does not have the luxury of
extensively pontificating on the moral justness of the
cause. International politics is a beast that most often
operates independent of moral ideals, and nothing is
more indicative of this than wars. The time will come
for lengthy debates and an assertive foreign policy, but
for now, in the post-September 11 era, the moral
quandary that Roh faced has had to take a back seat to
national interest.
It was a controversial and
difficult decision for the Republic of Korea (ROK) to
send combat troops to Vietnam in 1965, another "unjust"
war that the US was carrying out in a distant foreign
land. The then South Korean president Park Chung-hee
dispatched over a period of six years some 300,000
soldiers to Vietnam in support of the US. As a result,
$1 billion flowed into the South Korean economy (nearly
10 percent of the developing nation's gross domestic
product), not to mention the recommitment of the US to
the defense of South Korea. When push comes to shove,
international politics comes down, regrettably, to
national interest, not moral ideals. And it is decidedly
in South Korea's best interest to show its unflinching
support to the US in order to reaffirm the faltering
ROK-US alliance and to forestall any North Korean
adventurism.
Both Kim Koo and Abraham Lincoln
exercised their leadership by taking decisive action in
war, and so, too, must their South Korean admirer.
Sung-Yoon Lee is a professor of
international politics and Korean history at the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University,
Massachusetts.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
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