SEOUL
WATCH A Korean messenger in Europe
By Aidan Foster-Carter
Two years ago, as a provincial outsider running for South Korea's presidency,
Roh Moo-hyun was scoffed at by Seoul's snobbish elites for his lack of global
experience. Almost unthinkably, he had never even set foot in the United
States. Not one to mince his words, Roh retorted that he saw no need to go to
Washington to kowtow. That attitude did him no harm with younger Koreans, whose
votes largely propelled him to the Blue House.
In office Roh has made up for lost time, clocking up air-miles at a prodigious
rate. This week sees his first trip as president to Europe: a state visit
(Korea's first ever) to the United Kingdom (that started Wednesday), then on to
France and Poland. This caps a busy autumn. Roh flew to London from Laos, where
he attended the "ASEAN+3" (Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China,
Japan and South Korea) meeting in Vientiane, Laos. A week earlier he was in
Chile for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, with trips to
Argentina and Brazil. October saw him in India and Vietnam; September in Russia
and Kazakhstan.
The man now running the world's 12th-largest economy is cast in a very
different mold from his mostly upper-crust predecessors. Born in 1946, the
youngest child of a poor farmer, at school Roh was nicknamed "Stone Bean" since
he was small but tough. Unable to afford university, he worked on building
sites while studying at night for South Korea's tough bar exam, which he passed
in 1975: a remarkable feat for a non-graduate.
A comfortable tax practice at first in his home port of Pusan - he joined the
yacht club - changed in 1980 when he defended a student tortured on trumped-up
charges by Seoul's then-military dictators. Radicalized by this experience, Roh
specialized in human-rights cases and was briefly jailed in 1987, the year
democracy was restored. Elected a member of parliament (MP) for Pusan, he
gained national fame for sharply grilling tycoons and generals on live TV. Such
irreverence struck a fresh note in a country still in fear of the military and
in awe of elites.
A long spell in the wilderness followed, after Roh broke with his mentor Kim
Young-sam when the latter joined ex-military figures to win the presidency in
1993. Roh threw in his lot with YS's great rival, longtime dissident Kim
Dae-jung. Regional animosities between Roh's southeast and DJ's southwest made
the latter's party a losing ticket in Pusan. But Roh doggedly ran and lost
three times anyway. His image as a principled loser inspired supporters to form
Nosamo (We Love Roh), South Korea's first-ever political fan club.
After Kim Dae-jung won the presidency in 1997, Roh served briefly as fisheries
minister, yet was still a political outsider. But then the ruling Millennium
Democratic Party (MDP) decided to choose its next candidate via Korea's
first-ever primaries. To the consternation of party insiders, a bandwagon began
to roll. Roh won the vote and the nomination, only to be almost de-selected for
trailing third in the polls. But he outmaneuvered a Hyundai scion third-party
candidate, and on the day - with Nosamo working the Internet: 70% of South
Korean homes have broadband - he narrowly saw off the conservative opposition
Grand National Party's (GNP) Lee Hoi-chang, a stiff ex-judge. Koreans wanted a
change.
They certainly got one. To his eroding fan base - a 22% approval rating as of
November 12, against 72% who disapprove - Roh is a breath of fresh air: a
no-nonsense man of the people, pledged to bring arrogant chaebol (conglomerates)
and other elites down a peg, give everyman his fair share of the pie at last,
end the stifling dominance of Seoul, dig up the truth of an often painful past,
stand up to the United States, and make peace with North Korea.
His foes, by contrast, accuse him of pursuing vendettas and wild-goose chases.
With the economy growing at 4% or less - a slump, by Korean standards - his
efforts to improve chaebol corporate governance are painted as
anti-business and discouraging investment. His plan to move the capital south
from Seoul is decried as a white elephant that critics say would cost US$100
billion. Plans to ferret out "collaborators" - not only with the generals who
ruled from 1961 to 1988, but also with Japanese colonialism that ended almost
60 years ago - are seen less as a healing exercise than an attack on the GNP
leader, Ms Park Geun-hye, whose father Park Chung-hee served the Japanese
before becoming dictator (1961-79).
A mercurial personality, within months of taking office last year Roh
threatened to hold a referendum (probably illegal) on his rule. Last March he
became the first South Korean president ever to be impeached, which a simple
apology could have prevented. A popular backlash then gave his Uri Party - he
had split the MDP - a majority in elections in April. In May the Constitutional
Court threw out his impeachment, so Roh came bouncing back. (Less to his
liking, in October the court ruled his plan to move the capital from Seoul
unconstitutional.)
In foreign affairs, the first two years of Roh's single five-year term have
been dominated by North Korea's slow-burn nuclear crisis. Like his predecessor
Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his summit with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il - later revealed to have followed secret payments to
Pyongyang of at least $500 million - Roh is committed to a "sunshine" approach
(now dubbed the "policy for peace and prosperity"), sharply at odds with US
President George W Bush's "axis of evil" rhetoric. But the US focus on West
rather than East Asia has papered over the divisions so far: most recently at
APEC, before which Roh restated his opposition to using force or even sanctions
against Pyongyang. A shared folksy manner helps him rub along with Bush, a gift
lacked by the lofty Kim Dae-jung.
A little-known fact is that South Korea's 3,600 troops in Iraq (a move
unpopular at home) are the alliance's third-largest contingent after those of
the the US and UK. Yet last year when Bush thanked key allies by name, Korea
was omitted. That hurt, as did two quasi-unilateral US decisions: to redeploy
its forces in Korea away from the front line to well south of Seoul, and then
pull out some 12,500 - a third of the total - permanently. Roh's nationalist
talk about seeking a more independent defense posture has thus come back to
haunt him, even though the US will spend $11 billion on new high-tech weaponry
for the peninsula.
With China this year displacing the US as South Korea's largest trading
partner, Seoul had drawn closer to Beijing. They form, with Moscow, an unlikely
post-Cold War "axis of carrot" troika: opposing any pressure on North Korea
except to urge it to return to six-party talks on the nuclear issue, in
abeyance since June. Yet a crass Beijing project to rewrite history and claim
the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo as Chinese has wiped out pro-China
feelings in Seoul. Those who know Koreans know better than to mess with their
past.
But Europe they like. South Korea has more people studying French than anywhere
else in Asia (even Vietnam), and is the world's fourth-largest importer of
Scotch whiskey. European Union members are major trade and investment partners.
British companies have invested $3.4 billion in South Korea, while Korean firms
have $2.5 billion here in the UK. Trade this year is set to top $10 billion, up
by almost half from last year. This week (Wednesday and Thursday) more than 100
firms from both countries were scheduled to meet in London for an annual
bilateral high-technology forum.
Politically, Britain, like most EU members - except France - now has full
diplomatic ties with Pyongyang. Whereas past South Korean governments fought
tooth and nail to stop any such contacts, Seoul's current Sunshine Policy
encourages them. In May 2001 senior EU officials, including Xavier Solana and
Chris Patten, met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in what was seen as a
hint to the Bush administration - in vain - to continue former president Bill
Clinton's engagement approach. For the UK, dialogue is not incompatible with a
robust stand on not only the nuclear issue but also human rights: there have
been frank exchanges in London and Pyongyang on both.
In London, Roh has doubtless asked British Prime Minister Tony Blair to urge
his friend George to be more flexible on North Korea. Beyond that, there seems
no special reason to go to Europe at this time, except that
Queen Elizabeth made a state visit to Seoul in 1999, and it was Britain's
turn to reciprocate.
One must hope Roh is adapting to life on the road, with its glittering but
grueling round of banquets. In October, with the usual candor that endears him
to some but embarrasses others, Roh told Koreans in Vietnam that he found it
hard to cope with changes of climate, culture and cuisine; he sought comfort in ramyon
(Korean instant noodles). More seriously, despite studious preparation for each
trip, he admitted his lack of English made small-talk a problem; an interpreter
could be summoned, but the moment had passed.
With his sunny insistence that all will be well, be it South Korea's economy or
the North's nuclear crisis, there is an air of Candide about Roh Moo-hyun.
While his scrapes are not yet as dire as those that befell Voltaire's hero, his
hosts may feel less Panglossian contemplating a peninsula whose dark clouds do
not look easy to dispel.
Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in sociology and
modern Korea, Leeds University, United Kingdom.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
