Converging factors suggest
that anti-Americanism – largely dormant in South Korea since 2008 – could
return next year
In 2020, could public
anti-Americanism once again roil South Korean-US relations?
It has happened before – in
2002 and 2008. Now, with Washington demanding a stunning increase in payments
from Seoul for US troops in Korea, and with North Korea engagement – the only
glue binding leftist Korean President Moon Jae-in and right-wing US President
Donald Trump – on the verge of collapse, the alliance faces a stress test.
Recent data suggests South
Koreans have a positive view of their only ally. Some 92% of Koreans say they
support their country’s alliance with the United States, according to a report
published on December 16 by the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs, following research on 1,000 South Koreans in
December.
However, the day after the
report was published in the US, two leftist demonstrations took place in Seoul.
Both ostensibly protested the cost-increase demands. but Asia Times barely had
to scratch the surface to uncover deeper animosities.
‘US troops get out!’
On Tuesday morning, protesters
gathered outside the Korea Institute of Defense Analysis where the annual SMA
“Special Measures Agreement” negotiations on the share of costs for US Forces
Korea, or USFK – the 28,500 US troops based in Korea – were underway.
Demonstrators briefly clashed with riot police blocking the institute’s
entrance as they tried to force their way in.
“Stop the negotiations!”
protesters chanted. Others held up signs reading “US troops get out!” and
“Let’s not pay, let’s charge rent.”
“I came here to be the voice
of South Koreans who are against the US pressure for more cost-sharing,” said
An Ji-jung, 52, a civic organizer with the minority Progressive Solidarity
Party. “It is the US that should pay more – they are using our land for their
soldiers!”
It is a majority voice:
According to the Chicago Council’s research, 68% of South Koreans say Seoul
should negotiate a lower cost than what the US is demanding; 26% say Seoul
should refuse to pay. According to multiple reports citing anonymous sources
from both Seoul and Washington, the US is demanding $4.7 billion, though US
negotiators have recently said this is overstated. Last year, Seoul paid just
under $1 billion.
But some demonstrators went
further. “I think US forces should get out completely,” said Cheon Jin-hee, 32.
“USFK is a symbol of the Cold War.”
“I think the alliance should
end at some point – it started with the division of the Korean peninsula,” said
Song Ah-reum, 28. “It should finish, to move the Koreas closer together.”
The same evening, in a plaza
directly in front of the US embassy, another demonstration took place. There,
protesters hefted candles and donned illuminated red horns as a sign of anger.
“Korea is angry! Trump is
trying to get money from other countries. The US is humiliating Korea!”
thundered one speaker. “Some people say it is good to have the US here to
protect us – but I don’t think so! Do we have to pay for all these US weapons?”
Banners read “Alliance?”
“Extortionist!” “We won’t pay!” and “US troops get out!” while images of
US aircraft carriers and troops played across an LED screen. Students ripped
apart a giant US flag while a punk rock song, “Why are you acting as if you own
this land?” played.
“We are against the US
government’s policy on the peninsula,” said Kim Su-chan, 38, a unionist. “They
have interrupted inter-Korean relations.”
“Ultimately, USFK should be
removed because they are not here to protect us against North Korea, they are
here to fight against China,” opined a 27-year-old student who gave her name as
“Ms Lee.”
“This protest is basically
against the cost-sharing, but the reason we are here is USFK is here, so
the goal of the protest is to get US troops out,” said a 40-year-old researcher
who gave her name as “Ms Bang.” “It is better to have South Korea and
North Korean come together than have a US alliance.”
Asked about public support for
the alliance, she questioned the Chicago Council data. “I don’t think 92% of
Koreans support USFK – maybe 50% or 55%,” she said.
Yet in a country where
demonstrators can number in the hundreds of thousands, Tuesday’s protests were
tiny: Perhaps 500 persons, total.
In recent years, however,
there have been far, far bigger protests against the US.
Long-simmering force
The United States is South
Korea’s only treaty ally, and Koreans were staunch US Cold War allies, fighting
alongside GIs in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. More recently, Koreans
troops have played non-kinetic roles in US-led missions in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The US is also Korea’s number
two trade partner and home to a 1.8 million strong Korean-American community.
US culture – from blue jeans to burgers to Hollywood – is ubiquitous across
Korea.
Yet anti-Americanism – a broad
and emotive force that pushes back against what is perceived as an unequal
relationship, and which is largely (though not exclusively), animated by US
troop issues – has existed in the body politic since 1980.
That year, Seoul’s
authoritarian government deployed paratroopers to crush pro-democracy protests
in the city of Gwangju: A massacre ensued. While the killers were Korean, many
South Koreans believed Washington green-lighted the operation. Subsequently, US
cultural institutes in the country were sacked, and US athletes were booed
during the 1988 Olympics.
In the 1990s, Koreans were
further angered by US market-opening pressures, and in the wake of the 1997
Asian financial crisis, public, media and regulatory ire impacted US businesses
that acquired distressed local assets, notably private equity fund Lone Star.
But USFK remained the
lightning rod. In 2002, anti-Americanism exploded after two schoolgirls were
killed by American troops in a road accident.
Hundreds of thousands
demonstrated against the legal status of GIs in Korea – who are subject to US,
not Korean law. Signs went up in forbidding Americans entry to restaurants, and
the American Chamber of Commerce’s Seoul office was ransacked. Several off-duty
US soldiers were detained by student radicals and forced to apologize
on-camera, and a US officer was stabbed to death in Seoul’s foreign quarter,
Itaewon.
The brouhaha contributed to
the victory of leftist candidate Roh Moo-hyun in that year’s presidential
election and led some officials in the US to question the future of USFK.
Still, after Roh’s victory, the anger simmered down.
But in 2008, after local media
alleged that the US was selling BSE-infected beef to Korea, massive protests
again shook central Seoul. When the allegations were proven false,
anti-Americanism subsided, and nationalist sentiment refocused on Japan over
historical and territorial issues.
Today, US troops have largely
vacated their vast, intrusive and high-profile base in central Seoul, and a
process is underway to transfer wartime operational control of South Korean
troops to South Korean command.
Yet incidents continue.
In 2015, the then-US
ambassador to South Korea was slashed in the face by a knife-wielding pro-North
Korean activist. In 2016-17, protesters blocked access to the site of THAAD, a
US anti-ballistic missile battery. And the current ambassador’s residence was
broken into in October by students protesting the USFK cost increase.
These incidents – and
Tuesday’s protests – are not the conflagrations of 2002 and 2008. But the
outlook for 2020 suggests far greater numbers could hit the streets.
2020: A perfect storm?
With a Korean parliamentary
election in April and a US presidential election in November, the political
temperature will rise in both countries next year.
The outcome of the ongoing SMA
cost-sharing negotiations will require parliamentary ratification, meaning it
could well become an electoral issue.
“Depending on how the
Americans move ahead with the negotiations and how this looks to the Korean
public, it could play out fairly negatively,” James Kim, a research fellow at
Seoul’s Asan Institute, a think tank, told Asia Times. “There is likely to be
an element on the left who would like to exploit this for political purposes.”
A conservative group of senior
ex-servicemen, the Korean Retired Generals and Admirals Defending the Nation,
expressed their concern in an email sent to foreign reporters. Defining
cost-sharing talks as “the pivotal issue that will make or break the fate of
the [South Korea]-US alliance” the group said, “We urge the Moon administration
to…prevent the [South Korea]-US alliance from becoming broken off.”
All this suggests a major
irony: Korean leftists and anti-Americans making common cause with the
rightwing Trump, who is keen to bring GIs home.
Still, the alliance was
strained well before Trump’s steep price demands were delivered.
Washington was angered when
Seoul, engaged in a historical/diplomatic/trade spat with Tokyo, announced the
cancellation of a military intelligence sharing agreement with Tokyo this
summer. Subsequently, Seoul – likely under US pressure – made a humiliating,
last-minute U-turn on the issue.
Meanwhile, many South Koreans
are already frustrated by their inability to interact economically with North
Koreans due to US-led sanctions.
All this leaves Moon’s and
Trump’s engagements with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the only major
political tie binding them. Now, signals suggest that Trump’s engagement
policy with North Korea is on the brink of collapse.
If that happens, it could open
a policy chasm between Seoul and Washington – particularly if Trump threatens
military action against North Korea.
“If there is a fall out
between Trump and Moon, that would provide ammunition for the anti-American
crowd,” Don Kirk, a columnist and author of Bases of Discontent, which
covers US bases in Korea’s Jeju and Japan’s Okinawa, told Asia Times. “That
certainly could bring out anti-American demonstrations.”
And demonstrators could mass
in far larger numbers than the modest throng seen on December 17, one protester
warned. “In 2002, the protests started small but then expanded,” said Kim,
the unionist. “The same thing may happen next year.”
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