[This thing is riddled with typos and stupid grammar mistakes which I will clean up tomorrow, because I'm too tired to do it right now.

And just think --- I'm an English teacher!]

The post:

I think you have a shot of being right.

But first, a quick note:

But protests are dwindling
I have said from the start that counting heads at protests or the number of protests is a misguided way of judging the society's feelings toward the alliance. What bothered me much more than angry street protests has always been how pervasive the anti-US items are among average Koreans like the ones I was teaching when I first arrived.

Street protests have always been too easily dismissed by Koreans and outsiders (like the US government) as "just a radical fringe."

I started out by trying to combat that misconception fervently.

If you teach Korean adults, at least if you were teaching them in the mid to late 1990s, you can see just how deep the anti-US process reaches.

But, again - I agree with you that things might have actually been changing for the better - but it is too early to tell with any kind of confidence.

I will have to wait a few more years before I start saying that things are changing for the better, and there are several reasons for witholding judgement.

I think since I have some time and this is worth discussing, I'll try to type up what those reasons are - and it will take a series of posts, because to do them justice, I'll have to extend them.

First off:

The Turtle Phase:

I have said from day one, and had concluded by around 1998, that one part of the anti-US/USFK process is The Turtle Phase.

The brief definition is that - any time Korean society fears it is going to lose USFK as a security blanket - and/or - it fears bad international press might cause American citizens or the US government to scale back on Korean imports into the US ------ anti-US activity - even some of the biggest activity - can vanish overnight.

And one indisputable fact the last 5 years has been ---- Korea is afraid the US Defense Department is ---- looking for the exit sign.

Korean society pretty much shrugged off the first push of the Land Partnership Plan - probably for 2 reasons:

1) they had seen the government and society delay to death deals with the US they didn't like, why should this one be in different?

and

2) the SK-NK Summit flipped even conservative Koreans on their ear into a giddy state of believing peace and unification could just be around the corner. It wore off in about 6 months to a year for the conservatives, and slowly eroded over the years with the average majority.

But, in 2000, the LPP didn't really matter in part because it looked like maybe USFK wouldn't be needed soon anyway.

But, in the transitional period from 2002 to 2003, the American almost daily press coverage of the anti-US orgy that had been going on for months - was like a slap in the face.

And suddenly, some Koreans of influence (especially in the press) took serious note of the Pentagon pushing the LPP.

Then Rumsfeld announced USFK was going to downsize by 1/3rd.

That sent Korea into shock, and a reasonable argument can be made that the relative quiet we have seen the last 5 years has simply been a sign that they have not recovered from it yet.

Before what to them was a stunning revelation - that the US might actually be willing to pack up in leave, it was beyond obvious Korean society as a whole took the US alliance completely for granted.

I was amazed that Korea adults had no real present fear North Korea would ever attack. It was such a total difference from America's Cold War experience, I was highly suprised.

But, despite some saying North Korea would never attack because they were Koreans, it was clear the real reasons was the same "Mutually Assured Destruction" doctrine that prevented the US and USSR from blowing up the earth, except in the South Korean version, they had more confidence, because North Korea knew it couldn't strike directly at the US and the US could wipe the North off the face of the earth any second it felt like it.

South Koreans were also convinced the US would never want to leave Korea.

Even when I arrived in 1996, the end of the global Cold War did not phase them. I only taught adults for about my first 2 years, and they had no fear the US would take the opportunity that the end of the Cold War gave it to cut its defense budget by pulling out of South Korea.

Whether it was a more left-leaning Korean who believe the US wanted to keep Korea divided and stayed in Korea for selfish, self-serving reasons, or a right-leaning conservative who believed the US-SK alliance was a thing of steal and America would never betray Korea like that, they were convinced the US would't leave.

That changed in 2002-2003, and the fear is still fresh.

It is still fresh, because just about every month or at least every 3 months since the end of 2002, there have been clear signs that USFK might be thinking of leaving.

Or, there have been clear bad blood brewing due to the Roh administrations desire (perhaps) to see USFK leave.

We have also had recurrent, frequent brouhahas about implementing the LPP. The US side will not back down from it. It has been pressing periodically for Yongsan to move finally and pull off the DMZ and consolidate bases and downsize by 1/3rd.

This is not what Korea and Korean society is used to.

They are used to delaying plans to death and the US shrugging its shoulders and going along. That isn't happening now.

So, until I see Korean society return to some confidence that the US relationship is solid and not on thin ice, I have to question whether anti-US through is waning or just waiting.

It might not take but a couple more years to see:

Roh is leaving office after the election this year, and the conservative, pro-alliance GNP is most likley going to win the Blue House.

Donald Rumsfeld, who seems to have been the force behind preparing to leave South Korea, is gone. So, the US side might have a change of heart with a change in leadership.

Also, the US has a presidential election next year, and any changes slated for USFK are not set in stone. They have not advanced to the point where it would cost more economically and politically to reverse them than it would to go on through. In short, the next US president could easily just drop parts of the LPP and other changes.

We shall see.

It might take 3 years or so for the comfort zone feeling to return.

When it does return, I'll be watching to see if we move back to the way things were in the mid to late 1990s:

where you could expect at least one significant spike in anti-US activity every 8 to 12 months and one big dust up about every 2 to 3 years.

The form of the activity could be the press running wild and getting Koreans to talk day after day about how bad the US was for Korea - but with no significant street demonstrations beyond the usual.

Or

A spike could be large scale protests (not hundreds of thousands but a few thousand several times a month) for a month or two in which many average citizens felt like they needed to protest.

I am not sure we have not actually been seeing this happen already in 2005-today.

I believe I wrote here somewhere a year or two ago that I officially announced things had gotten back to normal.

I was probably not exactly right there.

But, it is hard for me to get a good feel for it since I'm not in Korea any more and not teaching Korean adults.

But, I will say with confidence that the environment among the masses even from 2005 to today has been better for USFK and the US in Korea than it was in the mid to late 1990s.

Is it a trend that will last?

Have the minds of average Koreans been changing for the better toward the alliance?

it is just too complex a thing to tell right now.

Time will tell.  

Article Tools
Show Printable Version
Email this Page