President Roh, early in his time in office, when North Korea tried to stage a China Spy Plane Incident by sending out its fighter jets to intercept a US spy plane in int. air space and maybe try to force it to land in North Korea, Roh warned --- the US --- that pushing an enemy might be a good idea as far as negotiating strategy, but America shouldn't go to far, because, of course, if a war started, it would be Korean lives at stake, not Americans ---- I guess he forgot about the 37,000 US soldiers in country at that time and the hundreds of thousands more earmarked for Korean War II if it ever broke out...
At
this link, you can check out how Roh, even when trying to say
something positive about the US-SK alliance history and show non-support
for the radicals recent effort to tear down the Douglas MacArthur statue
in Inchon's Freedom Park, shows his heart is with the radical anti-US
groups. Below is a taste :
He said some hoped for “a quicker change in the Korean-American relationship, but the important thing is for us to move ahead in a controlled manner based on consensus.” He also urged fellow Koreans not to insult others simply because they have divergent views and interpretations of history and “proceed with what must be done with calmness and presence of mind.”
Update : The editorial by the Chosun Daily, considered the most conservative Korean newspaper and at the top of national circulation -- said much of what I said about the Taft-Katsura memorandum on a conversation. Good.
The Uri Party showed us a common theme in Korean society -- blaming the US for everything including the Japanese colonization.
This is not the universal opinion in Korean society, and it is supported by some in academia beyond Korea, and it was supported by some, especially missionaries in Korea, at the time of the infamous Takt-Katsura "Treaty."
That is all fine. An academic debate is not much of a thing to fret over --- except when it is used as another of the many, many issues to keep a constant, acceptable level of anti-US feeling in a nation where tens of thousands of US troops are sitting facing a very dangerous North Korea continually on the verge of collapse but loaded to the teeth with missiles, artillery, and WMD --- when a weak historical argument about a meeting a hundred years ago is used with other similarly weak items to keep a well of anti-Americanism thriving --- which produces periodic explosions of demonstrated hate in the streets of Seoul in which many average Koreans participate actively or in spirit around the coffee table at work.
Ruling Uri Party Rep. Kim Won-wung said the MacArthur statue should be seen in a long historical perspective going back beyond the Korean War and the division of the country to Japanese colonial rule. “The source of Korea’s modern misfortunes is the U.S-Japan treaty sealed on July 29, 1905, [the secret Taft Katsura Agreement] which acknowledged Japan’s control of the Korean Peninsula,” he said. Late though it is, he said Korea should protest against the agreement and initiate as formal repeal of the treaty. “Seoul and Washington need to correct the errors of the past,” he said.
(you can google for plenty of info about the war and the "treaty" but click here for a brief note)
The problem for this law maker, immediately, is that there was no "treaty" to be repealed, no matter if you want to extend the hand of understanding to poor Korean society, which has been downtrodden throughout its 5,000 year history of invasions and suppression -- blah blah blah --- things Koreans repeat constantly to the point that non-Koreans writing tourist guides or other things in which they give a passing note to broader Korean history will repeat without a second thought.
Update : Think this is just a limited thing to one loose canon in the Uri Party? I used to give President Roh and crew the benefit of the doubt, but 3 years after his election - pushed over the edge by his anti-US credential like when he said if elected he would not "run to kowtow" in the White House to have a photo op like all other Korean leaders did - enough is enough to draw some conclusions...
Like when the Unification Minister and point man on National Security selected by Roh - thus a key player in the South Korean government - said :
...the Gwangju Democratic Uprising of 1980 was thwarted by an “invisible hand.” The minister was telling an Uri Party policy committee how the destiny of the Korean Peninsula has been controlled by outside forces for the last 100 years.
“A hundred years ago, the Philippines became a U.S. colony and the Korean Peninsula a Japanese one owing to the Taft-Katsura Agreement” of 1905, Chung said. “The division of the nation and Korean War were not our will either,” nor was the failure of the Gwangju Uprising. A century later, Chung promised “a hot summer in which our fate will be decided not by North Korea, China, the United States, Japan or Russia, but by our own pride and self-determination.”
Back in 2002, during the election, candidate Roh had to sack one of his right hand men after news leaked in Korea that the man had, while on a visit to the US capitol, handed White House staff a folder with a background of Roh and warned the United States, "Though Roh may not be entirely palpable to the U.S. Republican Party's taste, don't think about trying to interfere in Korea's presidential election and keep your hands off the ruling party's nomination race." (Korea Times)
The "agreement" was a conversation between the US Sec. of War and the Japanese representative. The Japanese were at the time finishing up the business of kicking the great Russian Empire's ass in Manchuria --- the 2nd war in decades for control of Korea. Japan shocked the world with that stunning victory against a great European power, and it was already firmly established inside Korea at the time, and the Korean government was already in shambles after decades of pressure from China, Russia, and Japan since the middle of the 1800s.
The
Korean idea that the US "gave" Korea to Japan is shit. Japan was
in possession of Korea - firm possession.
The amount of displeasure Korea likes to exercise whenever they might think or hear about the infamous Taft-Katsura "Treaty" ---- matches the idea that the US is responsible for the Japanese colonization. It is founded on the idea that the US could have prevented the colonization or that it should have defended Korea. It is also based on a projection of US power in the world post-WWII back onto 1905 -- when Russia was considered a greater Euro-Asian power than the upstart Americans by far.
In response, main opposition Grand National Party lawmaker Park Gye-dong said there was no such thing as a Taft-Katsura Agreement; all that happened was an exchange of opinions between the U.S and Japan. It is wrong to blame the U.S for Japan’s colonization of Korea, the outbreak of the Korean War and the division of Korea, all based on a non-existent secret treaty, Park said.
Good. A healthy debate with some Koreans of importance swinging blows for the US to fight the distortions is something I really hope to see more.
(See Kimsoft, as usual, for a solid English version of what most Koreans tell themselves about the blood on America's hands. After giving brief details of how Japan had kicked Russia's ass, he says, "Teddy Roosevelt let Japan have Korea and Manchuria.)
The problem is, even if Korean society as a whole is not as gung-ho as the Uri Party member, they do enjoy a healthy culture of reminding themselves the US to blame for most everything bad in Korea --- even if they don't feel the need to fight for this interpretation as much as the radicals.
He said Korean textbooks contained a “historical error” in describing the agreement as such.
The blame against the US for what Japan did is just one of the minor points of general agreement Korean society has as examples of how the US is to blame for almost everything bad in Korea's modern history.
The Kwangju Massacre, the Nogunri Massacre as "one among many" in the Korean War, the US causing the 1997-98 "IMF" economic collapse, GI Criminals and the Evil SOFA, environmental crimes, the Maehyang-ri "bombing of civilians", and others give a constant fertilization for anti-US activity in Korea year after year, month after month - and they are echoed by the press and teachers and professors and law makers and pop culture and so on throughout each year.
It is not an accident polls have shown more and more Korean adults display anti-US views the richer South Korea and the weaker North Korea becomes.
The average Korean views the US-SK relationship as a necessary evil --- but an evil --- and they will take just about anything to convince themselves of the evil part...(30 Sep 2005)
President Roh's Right Hand Man
This shit head known as the Unification Minister in Korea, who is the South Korean president's right hand man, once again directly blamed the United States for the colonization of Korea by the Japanese.
Tracing back the history of Korea, this year is quite significant; it marks both the 60th anniversary of the nation’s liberation from
the Japanese colonial rule and centennial of the Katsura-Taft Agreement, signed between Japanese Prime Minister Katsura and the U.S. Foreign Minister Taft [factually wrong], which led to Korea’s national tragedy of becoming a colony of Japan.
This closed-door agreement mediated by then U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt [factually wrong] provided that Japan turn over its control over the Philippines [factually wrong] to the U.S. in return for the U.S. acknowledgement of Japan’s predominance over the Korean Peninsula.
It is, indeed, ironic that after the agreement, President Roosevelt received the Nobel peace prize, while the Korean Peninsula was annexed to Japan.
First,
understand that these are common thoughts in
Korea. The only time you will find people questioning
them is when they are stated by powerful enough people who might draw
the attention of the world media and/or US politicians.
Recently, Hillary Clinton spoke about the "growing" problems with South Korea's understanding of history and how it makes an enemy out of the United States. In the post directly below this one, you will see an update where the Chosun Ilbo (the most conservative newspaper in Korea) attacked (before Clinton's statement) the Roh government's twisting of history and defended America's place in it via Korea, and other newspaper editorials did the same. Which is good.
But the fact remains, the Unification Minister feels it is worthy of making a key first element in the first few paragraphs of his statement about the future and unification ---- that the United States is to blame so much for Korea's misery, it can be traced back to a direct blame for Japan colonizing Korea -- because he knows most Koreans have come to believe that is true. He knows the only people who will call for stoning him are "a few right wingers" and people like me...
If pressed, average Koreans will find a way to disagree with the Unification Minister, because they are not ready to see the US get angry enough to pull US troops out, but if you don't press them, they will remain in basic agreement with the ideas of the Minister.
For
points of history --- Roosevelt did not meet with the Japanese behind
closed doors. His Sec of War (defense) met with the Japanese.
And no "agreement" was cut. A conversation was held to discuss the
war with Russia Japan was currently stunning the world by winning.
The global community, especially the two main players - Russia and
Japan, were going to tap President Roosevelt and the US to mediate a
peace settlement --- because the US was
considered enough of an uninterested party in the dispute!!
Germany and the UK were not as trusted, because they were deemed by the parties at war to have to much a vested interest in their colonies and place of power in relation to Russia or Japan or both. The US was considered far enough away from both and just a young upstart global power compared to Germany and the French and British Empires.
Later, Roosevelt did facilitate Japan and Russia making a peace treaty which did leave Japan in control of Korea and with major interests in Manchuria, but to say the US "caused" these things to happen is a pile of shit.
Japan defeated China in the late 1800s to kick its influence out of Korea, and it stunned the world by defeating the mighty Russian Empire in its own backyard in the Far East. When the US Sec of War met with Katsura, Japan already had Korea. It had fought two bloody wars to take Korea. They did not need US permission, and the US was in no position to fight Japan to make them leave even if it had wanted to. -----
----- but, South Korean society has decided it was incumbent on the US to fight and die for Korea to kick the Japanese off the land, and they point to a conversation, and the written summation of what was talked about in that conversation, as "proof" the United States is just as much to blame for the colonization as the Japanese.
The United States, pre-Cold War, sat out the bulk of World War I, and watches as the societies that had formed the bedrock of early American society slaughtered whole generations of their peoples, and it sat out for a significant period of time World War II even in the face of all of Europe becoming fascist, but, because the United States did not "do something" to force Japan to leave Korea after it destroyed the Russia war fleet and Far Eastern army, the US caused the colonization of Korea...
It is such a tragic reality that we have taken a backseat, and never had the opportunity to take charge in deciding on our own future......[The recent 6 Party Talks Joint Statement] was a good example of demonstrating our capacities for determining our fate and future on our own.
The Unification Minister goes on to say that the 6 party agreement brokered by South Korea was necessary because of "external Cold War confrontations" by which he meant the North's nukes and the SK-NK confrontation which he tellingly says is not an "internal" factor for South Korea. Remember, it is not of South Korea's making. He means, in a nutshell, that South Korea is locked in a Cold War for which it has no connection via its free will. That is why he felt the need to add "external Cold War confrontations surrounding the two Koreas, such as the vestiges of animosity between the two Koreas, mistrust between the U.S. and North Korea,..."
He further goes on to bury the security reality in South Korea -- Therefore, it is such a pity that some people still immersed in a totalitarian mindset used Professor Kang Jeong-koo’s historical viewpoint on North Korea to instigate a South-South conflict and conjure up the ghost of the Cold War.
You must keep in mind here, the Unification Minister is a power in the Korean government and close to Roh. Roh and the Minister can directly state they want USFK out of Korea, because there is no more Korean Cold War, at any time they want.
They don't, because in reality, even they still worry about the possibility North Korea will make war and the South again --- if the US security umbrella is lifted.
They believe this, and they know USFK will not leave without South Korea telling it to get out, so, they are free to hide this reality to make themselves feel better as Koreans.
By believing they don't have to worry much about the US security umbrella leaving, they can stoke Korean pride by saying there is no reason for such am umbrella, because the Cold War in Korea is over.
South Korea and its people can tell the United States to leave at any time they want. They could have done so anytime in the past 50+ years.
I hope South Korea gets to go it on its own soon. There are too many lives of US soldiers at stake in a nation that loves to overlook their commitment and see their nation and government as a hindrance to Korea's past and future. (added 31 Oct 2005)
Pres. Roh's Right Hand II
Also in the article I ripped in the last post, the Unification Minister says something that literally made my jaw drop :
From a different perspective, the incident involving Professor Kang can be regarded as
froth, which comes to the surface in the stream of massive historical changes on the Korean Peninsula. The froth will soon dissolve in the huge current of history.
I am confident that if we dismantle internal Cold War confrontations, there will be a bright and hopeful future opening before us.
In fact, North Korea’s land stands for not only our realities but also our future. If we step on the territory of North Korea, we will realize that not one single plant or tree is different from those of the South.
How
about the people in the concentration camps and emaciated bodies of the
families that are not deemed high enough on the state's threat to
support list to get their hands on the bulk of the international food
aid?
How about looking away from inanimate objects to the plight of the North Korean people, you sack of shit.