In the first article in what I plan as a series, I argued that we will not be able to tell if lasting changes for the better have come in SK's anti-US/USFK habit until Korean society once again becomes comfortable that USFK is not going to leave. Since 2003, the society has had a constant, recurrent fear of losing the US security blanket due to the amount of major changes the US has been pushing for USFK and the downsizing of 1/3rd of the troops.

In the first article, I pointed out that Korean society has buried even large anti-US activity virtually overnight whenever they thought such activity might backfire - either by damaging the US military commitment to Korea or causing an anti-Korea backlash among American consumers.

Today's article will focus on how 2002 was such an abnormal year on the US-SK front, we can't use it to judge the current environment.

Massive Prolonged Demonstrated Anger

100,000+ people marching in the streets of Seoul (and in other cities simultaneously) to protest the US in Korea is highly abnormal. It is not unheard of - but is outside the norm.

A protest of 100,000 can happen here and there. Since 2003, there have been one or two occasions where that many people came out to show support for the US-SK relationship.

But, in the winter of 2002-2003, 100,000+ people were taking to the streets each week. The entire society was up in arms. It was truly impressive. It was so impressive, the US media began running several stories about it each week. And that is earth shattering stuff --- they never pay attention to Korea unless it is North Korea.

I noted at the start of the first article - as a brief aside - that counting heads at protests is the wrong way to judge how deep the anti-US feeling runs. I have been saying that since the late 1990s.

It is even more wrong headed to judge today's anti-US attitude by comparing anti-American activity to the worst of 2002.

History

There have been other abnormal spikes in activity in Korea.

2000 was a very bad year.

It saw a string of issues used to whip the Korean masses into a frenzy just like in 2002. The protests and heated talk around the office water cooler lasted for months and months just as they would 2 years later. But, 2002 was much more heated and with a larger street participation.

Next, I wasn't in Korea for the 1994-95 Subway Incident, but I get the feeling from what news reports I could find it was one of those abnormally high spikes in demonstrated anger/hate. I also judged it by how my adult students still wanted to talk about it a year later.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics was another one of those abnormal years.

Before that, I believe the picture becomes too crowded to be of much use in determining the norm.

I have gone into some detail at this page about my theory of how everybody under estimates the depth of anti-US activity before the 1990s.

The short version is ---- before the early 1990s, anti-US thought and activity was pretty much the same as anti-government activity. South Korea's authoritarian rulers were deemed to be one in the same as the US in Korea: the idea being that without US support, the dictators would fall, and since the dictators weren't falling, obviously the US wanted them in office.

But, the anti-government forces were a mixed group, and it is too hard to draw the dividing lines: some were pro-North radicals who despised the US and the ROK government. Some were true democracy advocates who disliked the US in Korea. Some were democracy advocates who hoped the US would one day use its influence to help them. And so on...

It is too difficult to judge how strong or weak anti-US thought was before the late 1980s...

So, if we want to see what other years match up with 2002 - we could say again 2000, 1995, and 1988.

In-between these years, the "norm" was what I came to understand by the end of the 1990s:

The Norm

About every 8 to 14 months, (once or twice a year) a "spike" in anti-US activity would take place. A spike comes in 2 varieties that can overlap:

1) An issue strikes the media’s fancy, and it runs with it, and if the people are receptive, Korean society will spend a few weeks to a few months --- blasting the image of the US in Korea with a lot of rhetoric and hot air.

I call this type of spike the office water cooler variety.

The “average” Korean doesn’t feel like joining in the street protests, but they do feel like discussing quiet a bit amongst themselves how the US is a net evil for Korea – or, if you prefer, a type of cancer – but it is begrudgedly a “necessary evil” – or a cancer they can’t cut out just yet.

You can often spot this kind of spike by how many negative stories about the USFK, US in Korea, and the United States in the world are coming out in the press. You can also judge by the tone of the piece.

A good way to tell if a spike is coming to an end ---- is to watch for when the press shifts from quoting the anti-US NGO leaders, and Korean politicians speaking ill of the US-SK relationship, to giving a voice to US Embassy and USFK leaders without a negative spin, and especially when the editorials and articles start criticizing the anti-US groups.

In this swing, you also find the articles where the media explains how much South Korea stands to lose if USFK pulls out or the US consumer market becomes non-Korea friendly.

This has actually been going on fairly consistently since 2003. Which is highly odd.

Normally, this positive press (by at least throwing cold water on anti-US activity) only lasts a few days to maybe a couple of weeks – because the society usually listens quickly and the cause of the worry vanishes. This time, however, USFK seems to want out for other reasons than anti-US activity (which the Pentagon has usually ignored), so the usual ducking hasn’t work so far.

2) The second type of spike is the one most outsiders or expats living in Korea talk about: the street demonstrations.

Whether it starts at the grassroots level and pulls the press in late, or it starts with cheerleading by the press ------- this type of spike is defined by --- how it pulls in more average Koreans.

If you start getting 5,000-10,000 sized protests over a period of weeks to a couple of months, you can give a reasonable guess that a spike is underway.

The level of violence used, and also how the society responds to the violence, is another sign to watch.

If you have several fairly large and violent protests, and the media chastises the protesters, you can feel relatively comfortable that it won’t last long.

If, however, the press sides with the violence and demands USFK or the US government to end the violence by doing whatever Korea wants, then you should start to batten down the hatches.

Since the summer of 2003, there have been a handful of these larger, violent protests. Pyongtaek 2005 saw a couple of monster ones.

But, in trying to track them, none have caught the imagination of the average Korean, and the press was quick to criticize both the violence and usually the purpose of the protest.

Conclusion

It is hard for me to spot anti-US spikes these days since I am not in Korea. It is very hard to get a feel for the water cooler type spike.

While teaching Korean adults, it was pretty easy. Now, I have to rely on the newspapers, but they provide good enough signs to give an educated guess as to what is going on.

I thought 2006 was going to be a big protest year – of the hot variety. There were several big ticket items that were coming up that normally gain the average Korean’s attention. Given the large, violent protests of 2005, I thought 2006 would be back to the norm pre-2002.

It didn’t happen.

That could be a sign of lasting change. Or --- it could be a sign of how deeply Korea is still worried about USFK leaving.

Time will tell…..  

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