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Superpower politics: National interest firstBy Sung-Yoon LeeApril 4, 2003 Reprinted from Asia Times |
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March 1, 2003, became an occasion for voicing contrary views on the North Korean nuclear threat, with South Koreans in their 40s and above calling for the strengthening of the South Korea-US alliance, while those in their teens, 20s, and early 30s singled out the US as driving a wedge between Koreans north and south of the 38th parallel. The March First Movement symbolizes for all Koreans a nationalistic spirit of independence, both as an organized movement and as the ardent ideal of an entire people during Japan's colonial rule over Korea, 1910-45. Inspired by US president Woodrow Wilson's pronouncement of the right to self-determination of all peoples, Koreans launched on March 1, 1919, a peaceful demonstration across the nation. The movement itself failed to gain official recognition from the international community, but it nonetheless symbolized a powerful emerging Korean nationalism, and served as a precursor to the May Fourth Movement in China. It also gave birth to the Korean Provisional Government, a government-in-exile in China that survived until liberation in August 1945 even in the face of Japan's ever-growing pressure during its 15-year war campaign in East Asia. The Korean Provisional Government was a beacon to all Koreans, a symbol of fierce nationalism for those who had been deprived of statehood and identity. My cab driver, when I asked him to take me to the Kim Koo Museum and Library on the morning of March 1, intoned deferentially that what South Korea needed today was a figure like Kim Koo, a leader who could unite the nation and cast a vision for a coherent collective stance against the threat to its national security that is North Korea. The father of Korean independence movement, Kim Koo served as the premier of the Korean Provisional Government, and, in liberated Korea, as the greatest living symbol of peace and national unity. A tragic victim of political assassination in June 1949, Kim more than anyone else to this day symbolizes Korean ethnic nationalism and a longing for national unification. The new South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, in pushing for dialogue and diplomacy with the intractable North Korean regime, on several occasions in recent months has invoked Kim Koo and Abraham Lincoln as historical figures whom he admires the most. Peace and reconciliation both men represent aplenty, but it would serve President Roh well to remember that both Kim and Lincoln sought reconciliation from a position of strength, not weakness or romantic idealism. What's more, what Kim Koo represented in a time of colonial repression and in the uncertain years of post-World War II Korea are fundamentally different from the misguided ethnic nationalism so prevalent in South Korea today. Nationalism was a constructive force in resisting colonial oppression and in the staggering challenge of nation-building half a century ago. Today, in its virulent anti-US rhetoric and shockingly naive attachment to North Korea, it is simply self-defeating. Roh Moo-hyun was thrust into his presidency on the waves of such unruly passions. But popular passions ebb and flow, and it's now time for Roh the statesman to take over from Roh the candidate. A series of diplomatic faux pas marks Roh's stated positions on North Korea and the United States, from his remark on February 19 that he would not even consider using force in persuading Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program to his admonition in an interview with an English newspaper of US intelligence-gathering flights near North Korea. Simply put, South Korea depends on the United States for intelligence, for security, and for survival. The stated national goal of North Korea is the absorption of the South through force and subversion, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons, by offsetting South Korea's superiority in conventional arms, is the surest way to achieve this end. And the greatest obstacle for the North in "liberating" its Southern brethren is the physical presence of US troops in South Korea. The US to South Korea is its irreplaceable ally, while the North Korean dictatorship of Kim Jong-il its unremitting foe. President Roh must look more deeply into his historical heroes and come to the realization that genuine peace, reconciliation, and statesmanship are founded on an uncompromising resolve to face great challenges, not to mention properly identifying friend and foe. To his credit, Roh is following through - without further hesitation on account of domestic politics - on his pledge to send 600 South Korean military engineers and 100 medics to the Persian Gulf and help its indispensable ally in war. South Korea, by its geographical fate of being surrounded by overwhelming neighbors - China, Japan, Russia, the US - and, for now and the foreseeable future, a threatening North Korea, unfortunately does not have the luxury of extensively pontificating on the moral justness of the cause. International politics is a beast that most often operates independent of moral ideals, and nothing is more indicative of this than wars. The time will come for lengthy debates and an assertive foreign policy, but for now, in the post-September 11 era, the moral quandary that Roh faced has had to take a back seat to national interest. It was a controversial and difficult decision for the Republic of Korea (ROK) to send combat troops to Vietnam in 1965, another "unjust" war that the US was carrying out in a distant foreign land. The then South Korean president Park Chung-hee dispatched over a period of six years some 300,000 soldiers to Vietnam in support of the US. As a result, $1 billion flowed into the South Korean economy (nearly 10 percent of the developing nation's gross domestic product), not to mention the recommitment of the US to the defense of South Korea. When push comes to shove, international politics comes down, regrettably, to national interest, not moral ideals. And it is decidedly in South Korea's best interest to show its unflinching support to the US in order to reaffirm the faltering ROK-US alliance and to forestall any North Korean adventurism. Both Kim Koo and Abraham Lincoln exercised their leadership by taking decisive action in war, and so, too, must their South Korean admirer. Sung-Yoon Lee is a professor of international politics and Korean history at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts. |
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