Opposition to the Korea-US FTA Continues

The Obama administration, along with Lee Myung-bak administration of South Korea, is pushing for the ratification of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) this year, despite vocal oppostion from both sides -- citizen groups and farmers in South Korea and labor and public-interest organizations in the U.S. such as the AFL-CIO. Economist Martin Hart-Landsberg takes a look at one of the component of the proposed FTA --the investment chapter-- in the following commentary from the Korea Policy Institute.

Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement: The Investment Chapter

President Obama has said that the U.S. needs to compete more effectively for exports. That is why he is calling on Congress to ratify U.S. free trade agreements with Korea, Columbia, and Peru.

In the public back and forth about these free trade agreement most of the arguments are about whether the designated tariff reductions mandated by the agreements will produce jobs for U.S. workers. In fact, there is little reason to believe that they will. But, more importantly, little attention has been focused on the fact that these free trade agreements contain many chapters that have far reaching implications beyond employment numbers.

In fact, the U.S. free trade agreement with Korea includes 24 chapters. One of those chapters deals with investments. In broad brush, the investment chapter establishes broad limits on the ability of governments (at all levels) to regulate or interfere with private profit seeking investments by (foreign) corporations. See more.

A Call for Peaceful Settlement in Korea

A Call for All Concerned Parties to Work for Peaceful Settlement in the Korean Peninsula

A Statement from NAKA (National Association of Korean Americans), Washington, DC, January 20, 2011

A precarious security situation in the Korean Peninsula continues as the tense military standoff between the two sides of Korea has not abated since the Yeonpyeong Island artillery incident. After the incident, South Korea went on a near-war mode as it revived civilian air raid drills (regularly-occuring drills that were cancelled during the past decade when inter-Korea relations were warmer), held live-fire artillery exercises in the disputed sea border area despite explicit warnings from North Korea, and engaged in massive joint naval military exercises with the U.S. as a show of force.

South Korea went further by talking with Japan on potential military cooperations, including a possibility of Japanese troops on the Korean soil, despite fierce opposition from Koreans weary with memories of historical Japanese military intrusions on Korea. China and Russia expressed their concerns on the U.S.'s massive show of force in the Northeast Asia and announced their own joint military exercises in the region, further escalating the situation and raising fears of renewed multi-nation arms race in the region.

Despite escalating tensions and war hysteria, both sides have gestured a need for a peaceful option, realizing unchecked escalation of military tensions would only lead to catastrophic war. North Korea opposed verbally at South Korea-U.S. maneuvers, but it did not retaliate further militarily, and called for unconditional talks with South Korea. South Korea, in a reversal, raised a possibility of the support of the revival of the six-nation talks aimed at North Korea's nuclear disarmament. Washington and Beijing, emphasizing cooperation (despite mutual distrust and competition) during the U.S.-China Summit, have called for improved inter-Korean relations and measures that would allow an early resumption of six-nation talks. A high-level inter-Korea military talks may materialize soon.

All these point to a negotiated settlement as the only viable option towards peace settlement in the Korean Peninsula -- all concerned parties need to work on it vigorously in 2011.

"A more effective US policy on North Korea"

Any observer can see that the US relations with North Korea is at a standstill (or stalemate), with no resolution of contentious issues in sight (the photo shows Amb. Stephen Bosworth, special envoy on North Korea, in Beijing). At this juncture, calls for stepped-up engagement policy with North Korea abound, as this article by John Lewis, professor emeritus at Stanford University and former advisor to the US government, attests.

"Invite North Korea to the Global Nuclear Security Summit"

From Foreign Policy in Focus. By Jae Jung Suh, an associate professor and director of Korean Studies at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into waters near the disputed western sea border with the South last week, and the South Korean military returned warning shots, heightening the already high tension on the peninsula. The rising tension came amidst recent signals from Pyongyang that it wanted to negotiate a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. If peace negotiations began, Pyongyang could return to the Six Party Talks on ending its nuclear programs. So what's going on? Are we about to see another bout of military confrontation or another round of negotiations? MORE

[The satellite photo shows the exhaust trail of a North Korean rocket launch on April 5, 2009.]

Another Standoff in the Korean Peninsula Peace/Security Issue

Looks like another standoff in the peace/security issue in the Korean Peninsula: North Korea demanded the lifting of sanctions and proposed a negotiation for a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War as prerequisites for rejoining the six-party talks on nuclear disarment, for which the U.S. and allies rejected, countering that North Korea should participate in the six-party talks first. All these issues have been aired before, but the parties still cannot agree on the format and approach towards meaningful resolution.

The National Campaign to End the Korean War (based in North America) issued the following statement (on Jan. 12, 2010 in New York) in response to these developments:

“The Obama administration’s rejection of North Korea’s call for peace sends an alarming message to the most militarized regions in the world. It signals that the White House is unwilling to end a rare opportunity to finally end 60 years of confrontation and hostility. On July 27, 1953, the Korean War was halted by an armistice signed by North Korea and the United States with a promise within months to negotiate a permanent peace treaty. This peace treaty has yet to be realized.

“Washington’s reliance upon the six-party talks as a viable diplomatic step towards ending the Korean War is out of step with its original promise for directly engaging North Korea. ‘Ad-hoc arrangements like the six-party talks’ described by the Obama administration cannot leverage peace on the Korean peninsula. The ultimate responsibility for formally ending the Korean War with a permanent peace treaty exclusively falls upon the United States and North Korea. Direct talks and a peace treaty will position President Obama and Asian leaders to achieve nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula and region.

“We urge the Obama Administration to stand by its commitment to directly engage North Korea and to find a bilateral solution to this longstanding war. Now more than ever, the White House can finally bring peace to the millions who have suffered from this conflict.”

"Japan’s Democratic Party foreign policy platform prioritizes Korean peninsula"

[From the commentary in The Hankyoreh following the Japanese election that brought the opposition Democratic Party in power, with the leader Yukio Hatoyama (photo).]

Korea policy takes up a much larger portion of the foreign policy platform of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) than of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Since its formation in 1955, the LDP had based its foreign policy upon exclusively dealing with U.S. affairs, but the DPJ’s position has placed a priority on foreign policy in Asia in order to denuclearize Northeast Asia, and the Korean peninsula in particular.

The DPJ’s platform calls for the creation of an East Asian community with the creation of a regional cooperative system in the Asia-Pacific predicated on establishing equal diplomacy with the U.S. As an East Asian community fundamentally involves a push for South Korea, China, North Korea and Japan to promote the denuclearization of East Asia, trust with surrounding nations is of utmost importance. In the long term, the DPJ also dreams of issuing a regional currency similar to the Euro.

The DPJ platform goes beyond opposing visits to the Yasukuni Shrine by the prime minister and other ministers, and calls for the creation of a new public memorial facility. This expresses the will to eliminate the source of friction between Japan and its neighbors during the administration of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro. Moreover, in the policy booklet that forms the basis of its manifesto, the party has revealed its position to establish a research bureau in the National Diet Library to study peace issues in order to put to rest post-war issues, including the issue of comfort women. This is something that was inconceivable during the former LDP administration.

When acting DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro was head of the LDP, he visited South Korea in 1999 and became the first minister-level Japanese figure to pray at the graves of independence activists such as Kim Ku, much to people’s great surprise. Ozawa’s image had been that of a rightist and a hawk who advocated that Japan become a “normal country,” but he is surprisingly becoming known as a “liberal” on issues of history.

Worsening Labor Situation in South Korea

In addition to the Lee Myung-bak administration's suppression of citizens' political rights, crackdowns on labor unions have intensified, in a return to the days of authoritarianism. The following statement in support of South Korea's labor movement was initiated by the U.S.-based Transport Workers Solidarity Committee (endorsed by San Francisco Labor Council) in calling for a solidarity picket at the Korean Consulate in S.F.

The Korean labor movement is under a brutal attack. Hundreds of police and hired thugs are attacking the Ssangyong Motor sit-in strike by auto workers. These workers are demanding negotiations over their layoffs. The company has refused to negotiate, instead, with the support of the state the management illegally hired thugs to beat up the workers using baseball bats, steel pipes and martial arts weapons (nunchaku). They came on July 21, 2009 to the plant to seriously injure the striking workers which they did. They beat up workers who had no possibility of resisting arrest or defending themselves. [The photo above shows Ssangyong management blocking the passage of water and supplies to the striking workers.]

This vicious attack on the Ssangyong Motor workers has been condemned by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions KCTU. They have called for a General Strike and also for solidarity actions at all Korean Embassies and Consulates around the world. The use of organized privatized thugs to attack workers must be protested throughout the world.

These attacks are not only against the striking auto workers but also against the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU, Jeon Gyo Jo) for criticizing the Lee Myung-bak administration. The government has announced plans to discipline all 17,000 members of the union such as firing 88 individuals who led or contributed to the statement. The union has charged that the government is seeking to exterminate the public school teachers.

At the same time, 13 thousand Korean National Union of Media Workers (KNUM) is striking to protest a new law that would increase censorship under the Broadcasting Law and hurt workers rights under the Irregular Worker Law. Both these anti-labor laws were pushed through without debate by the ruling Grand National Party to suffocate democracy and freedom of the press.

Please join with us in the solidarity action to let the Korean government that this union busting and attack on Korean labor rights has no support from the working people of the United States.

"North Korea Attacking Hawaii?"

As tensions are running high in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia with no easy resolution on the horizon, John Feffer of the Foreign Policy in Focus breaks some "myths" about North Korea in the current crisis (re-posted at The Huntington Post).

New US Strategy Towards North Korea Needed

With North Korea's second nuclear weapon testing and test-lanching of several missiles, and its announcement that the Korean War armistice is void, and the response of South Korea joining the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (which North Korea considers an act of war), things are spiralling down to another escalation of tensions in the Korean Peninsula.

Rather than contemplating military approaches to the current situation, all sides should think about diplomatic breakthrough that will avert another catastrophecal conflict in the peninsula. Among those who favor this approach is Leon Sigal, a former State Department official who has visited North Korea with Korea experts and scholars.

His main arguments in an article, "Punishing North Korea Won't Work," from the Bulletin of Concerned Atomic Scientists are:
-- Despite Monday's nuclear test, the latest North Korean nuclear crisis really began last June, when the Bush administration began unilaterally rewriting an agreement with North Korea.
-- During her February trip to the region, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went out of her way to antagonize North Korea in order to reassure Japan and South Korea.
-- Sustained diplomatic give-and-take that holds out a new political, economic, and strategic relationship between Washington and Pyongyang would be a more productive strategy.

... The only way to do so [denuclearization of North Korea] is to probe through sustained diplomatic give-and-take. That requires offering meaningful steps toward a new political, economic, and strategic relationship--including diplomatic recognition, a summit meeting, a peace treaty to end the Korean war, negative security assurances, and a multilateral pledge not to introduce nuclear weapons into the Korea Peninsula as well as other benefits to its security, agricultural and energy assistance, and conventional power plants if possible or nuclear power plants if necessary. In return the United States would get steps toward full denuclearization.

Scholars Express Concerns About Current Crisis in Northeast Asia

"Scholars Around the World Express Concerns about Current Crisis in Northeast Asia"
*Signatures collected by Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea

Despite some hopeful signs in the last two years, the Korean peninsula is againteetering toward crisis. The Six Party Talks are stymied. Progress toward normalizing relations between the United States and North Korea has stalled. Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated.
In this context, North Korea’s rocket launch this week and the overreaction to it threaten to trigger another round of escalation.

We urge all the governments in the region to remain calm and turn to dialogue and diplomacy to stop the peninsula from degenerating into a conflict. We believe that this crisis is a reminder of the absolute imperative of achieving permanent peace in the region.

Frustrated by the lack of progress in the Six Party Talks and genuinely interested in advancing its space program, Pyongyang is making its second attempt to put a satellite into orbit. This time, North Korea has signed the appropriate international protocols governing satellites and given the proper notification. The UN resolution sanctioning North Korea after its 2006 nuclear test does notexplicitly forbid satellite launches. That North Korea is attempting to abide by this resolution suggests that Pyongyang still wants to engage with the international community.

We are concerned about the growing militarism in Northeast Asia, including increased military spending, destabilizing U.S. military exercises around the peninsula, and the bellicose rhetoric from North Korea. Japan has taken the current crisis as an opportunity to accelerate its missile defense programs; South Korea is solidifying its uncompromising position. We believe that an overreaction to North Korea’s rocket launch would only fuel North Korea’s suspicions and make further negotiations difficult. Talk of sanctions would only help end dialogue in the region.

We call on the region’s governments to reaffirm the principles declared in the September 19 Joint Statement of the Six Party talks as well as the roadmap identified in the February 13 agreement. The six countries should abide by their commitments and move forward not only on denuclearization but also with the larger engagement package, which includes a peace treaty to replace the Korean War armistice, concrete steps toward normalization, and a roadmap that Pyongyang can follow to become integrated in the global economy and a peace structure. A narrow focus on non-proliferation is a recipe for prolonged, fitful, and probably fruitless negotiations. Only by expanding the number of options on the table can the Six Party Talks make headway.

All avenues of communication and exchange, including bilateral ones, must be pursued. A bold move to open dialogue must begin now.

Signatories (institutional affiliation for the purpose of identification):
Charles K. Armstrong ( Columbia University), Donald Baker (University of British Columbia), Tim Beal (Victoria University of Wellington), Herbert P. Bix (Binghamton University), Mark Caprio (Rikkyo University), Koen De Ceuster (Leiden University), Hyo-Je CHO (SungKongHoe University), John P. DiMoia (National University of Singapore), Myoun-hoi Do (Daejeon University), Alexis Dudden (University of Connecticut), Henry Em (New York University), Stephen J Epstein (Victoria University of Wellington), John Feffer (Foreign Policy in Focus), W. Chad Futrell (Cornell University), John Gittings (School of Oriental and African Studies), Mel Gurtov (Portland State University), Suk-Jung Han (Dong-A University), Marty Hart-Landsberg (Lewis and Clark College), Larry G. Hepinstall (University of Maryland University College), Theodore Hughes (Columbia University), Roger L. Janelli (Indiana University), Kelly Y. Jeong(UC Riverside), Jennifer Jung-Kim (UCLA), Jungmin Kang (Stanford University), Monica Kim (University of Michigan), Nan Kim (University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee), Samuel S. Kim (Columbia University), Suzy Kim (Boston College), Yong Hyun Kim (Dongguk University), Kab Woo Koo (University of North Korean Studies), Heajeong Lee (Chung-Ang University), Keun Lee (Seoul National University), Namhee Lee (UCLA), Seung-joon Lee (National University of Singapore), Ramsay Liem (Boston College), Gavan McCormack (Australian National University), Chung-in Moon (Yonsei University), Robert Oppenheim (University of Texas at Austin), Haksoon Paik (Sejong Institute), Albert L. Park (Claremont McKenna College), Katherine Park (nodutdol), Samuel Perry (Brown University), Andre Schmid (University of Toronto), Mark Selden (Cornell University), Eric Sirotkin (Korean Peace Project – National Lawyers Guild), Jae-Jung Suh (Johns Hopkins University), Seung Hye Suh (Scripps College), Vladimir Tikhonov (Pak Noja) (Oslo University), Jun Yu (University of Hawaii), Haruki Wada (University of Tokyo)

"U.S.-North Korea: Putting Peace First"

This op-ed appeared in the International Herald Tribune, by Christine Ahn and Paul Liem. Ahn is a fellow and Liem is chairman of the S.F.-based Korea Policy Institute.

"If North Korea is genuinely prepared to completely and verifiably eliminate their nuclear weapons program," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said before she departed for Asia, "the Obama administration will be willing to normalize bilateral relations, replace the peninsula's longstanding armistice agreements with a permanent peace treaty, and assist in meeting the energy and other economic needs of the North Korean people."

Clinton's acknowledgment of the need to replace the armistice with a permanent peace treaty is a warm welcome to millions of Korean-Americans and Koreans hoping for a peaceful resolution to heightening tensions on the peninsula.

During her stop in Japan, however, she appeared to adopt the Bush administration's position that North Korea disarm as a precondition for normalization. Warning that a North Korean missile test would be "unhelpful" in moving relations with the U.S. forward, Clinton also stated, "If North Korea abides by the obligations it has already entered into and verifiably and completely eliminates its nuclear program, then there will be a reciprocal response certainly from the United States."

In the West, the conventional wisdom is that North Korea engages in "provocative" activity like missile testing in order to blackmail the United States into negotiations. What is forgotten, however, is that in the absence of an ongoing peace dialogue, the status quo between the United States and North Korea is that of two countries at war, held at bay only by a fragile truce.
For this reason, North Korea, as well as the United States and South Korea, routinely engage in war exercises and pursue modernization of their military technologies. In fact, the United States has committed to spending $10 billion on base construction in South Korea, and South Korea has begun to increase its military budget annually by 10 percent under its $665 billion Defense Reform 2020 Initiative.

For nearly eight years, the Bush administration threatened North Korea with dire consequences for not acquiescing to demands that it disarm its nuclear weapons program before receiving the benefits of U.S. friendship. As a result, not only did the North continue testing its missiles - it also tested a nuclear weapon in 2006. Today, whether the international community likes it or not, North Korea is a nuclear power.

But there is an alternative. A decade ago, North Korea agreed to a moratorium on its missile testing, and continued to mothball its plutonium reactor under an earlier agreed framework, as a result of a peace initiative launched during the Clinton administration. In this instance both countries agreed to take the first step toward peace together, not one before the other.

The Obama administration has a plateful of domestic and international crises before it. Fortunately, in the case of North Korea, there is a wealth of experience and lessons. The foremost of these is that while the "you disarm first" approach of the Bush administration proved to be disastrous, the "let's do this together" approach of the Clinton administration achieved positive results.

Failure to heed this hard-learned lesson, by an administration that pledged to pursue diplomacy over bluster and war, would be tragic.

Denuclearization of North Korea is still possible. But in the absence of a common commitment to peace secured by a permanent peace treaty, it is unlikely to occur.

James Laney, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, recently advised: "A peace treaty would provide a baseline for relationships, eliminating the question of the other's legitimacy and its right to exist. Absent such a peace treaty, every dispute presents afresh the question of the other side's legitimacy."

Let's dare to put peace first, for a change.

[See also Ahn's article, "An Expensive Division: Looking at the High Cost of Maintaining Two Koreas."]

Call to Action by the Asia-Pacific Freeze Campaign

Followup to KR posting: Beyond the Six Party Talks: The Need to Stop the New Arms Race in Asia?

The Asia-Pacific Freeze Campaign: A Call for a Safer, Greener Future

With multiple crises affecting our world – global economy, climate change, resource depletion – we must urgently redirect the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on preparing for war. The United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea spent about $970 billion in 2008 on the military. That figure, alarmingly, is on the rise. For about one-tenth of this near-trillion dollar amount – about $90 billion a year – we can achieve more genuine security by eliminating global starvation and malnutrition, educating every child on earth, making clean water and sanitation accessible for all, and reversing the global spread of AIDS and malaria.

With the Asia-Pacific Freeze campaign, we the people of this region call on our governments to freeze military spending and then reduce these budgets on an equitable basis. The savings must be put toward achieving genuine security and a sustainable economy for the future of our planet. See the complete Call to Action.
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The photo above shows the King Sejong, South Korea's first Aegis destroyer, as seen in Busan Naval Base on Dec. 22, 2008, which signifies South Korea's move to develop a blue water navy. This military modernization and arms buildup, along with buildup in Northeast Asia/Pacific regions by Japan, Russia, China, and the US suggest a new arms race, which makes the Asia-Pacific Freeze Campaign timely and relevant.

"Korean demilitarized zone now a wildlife haven"

[From The Christian Science Monitor] Just 30 miles north of this pulsating metropolis [Seoul] is one of Northeast Asia’s last bastions of biodiversity. This stretch of wilderness is home to migrating flocks of rare cranes and some of the last wild bears and leopards in the region.
But it’s not Shangri-La or a national park: It is the notorious Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas. Established after the 1953 Korean War cease-fire (the two nations are technically still at war), it is the most dangerous and heavily militarized border in the world.

The de facto wildlife preserve encompasses 390 square miles of diverse terrain virtually untouched by human development for 55 years. Now, as this accidental Eden faces major development pressures, a growing contingent is pushing for its establishment as a transboundary nature park – which could also be a step toward peace between the two Koreas.

Read more.

The South Korean Massacre at Taejon: New Evidence on US Responsibility and Coverup

Followup to KR posting, "Thousands killed in 1950 by US's Korean ally"

Article by Prof. Bruce Cumings

In July 2008 the world media heralded the arrest of “the world’s most wanted war criminal,” Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. He had been in hiding for thirteen years, ever since he was charged with genocide by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for his role in the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. These events were subsequently termed “Europe’s worst slaughter of civilians since World War II.”

Fifty-eight years earlier, in another distant July, the North Korean People’s Army bore down upon the city of Taejon, south of Seoul. Police authorities removed political prisoners from local jails, men and boys along with some women, massacred them, threw them into open pits, and dumped the earth back on them. Somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 died, and their stories remained buried for half a century. American officers stood idly by while this slaughter went on, photographing it for their records, but doing nothing to stop it. In September 1950 the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to keep these photos classified; they were not released until 1999. Read on

Racism in Korea

Not much of a fan of Chosun Ilbo, a conservative media outlet in South Korea, but an editorial on racism in South Korea against foreigners, especially the blacks -- "Korea Should Embrace Multiculturalism" -- highlights the problem in South Korea.

Photo: Tasha Santa Reid (or "Yoon Mi Rae"), a hip-hop star in Korea, is the daughter of an African-American father and a Korean mother. At a young age, she moved to South Korea, where she says she dealt with racism and grew up feeling divided between cultures.

"Where’s the buzz: Mad Cow epidemic movement in South Korea"

Followup to KR posting, "Korea's new generation of 'Web 2.0' protesters"

The remarkable phenomenon of widespread public protests in South Korea in recent months, made possible by the Internet and handheld electronic devices, is being picked up by web monitoring groups that spot trends in global web use. See "TrendsSpotting" posting.

"Korea's new generation of 'Web 2.0' protesters"

Recent protests in South Korea were marked with participation by tech-saavy younger generation. Spontaneous gatherings and decentralized mobilization were made possible by the use of internet chat rooms, text messages on cell phones, video sharing, and reports by "citizen reporters." Here is an article on this phenomenon:

In June 1987, Seoul's City Hall Plaza reverberated with a chant that signaled the end of military rule in South Korea: "Dokjetado!" or "Down with the dictatorship!" In June this year, the plaza has once again become a rallying point for crowds calling for the removal of an unpopular government: "Out with Lee Myung Bak!"

But the similarity ends there. And in those differences lies the challenge for Lee and anyone else engaged in politics in this very highly wired country, where the Internet has merged with South Koreans' penchant for street demonstrations. "The Internet fits Koreans' quick-paced temperament," said Kim Il Young, a political scientist at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. "As you have seen recently, when the nation's world-class Internet infrastructure, its nationalism and its hot tempo all come together, you have a major conflagration." More

"An Anger in Korea Over More Than Beef"

After six weeks of unending candlelight vigils and street protests in Korea, the mainstream US media is finally taking notice of the events, as the massive demonstrations suggest a historical parallel from the late 80s when the military-dominated government yielded to public pressure and implemented democratization measures and paved a way for civilian-run government.

Somehow, embattled Lee Myung-bak has resorted to similar responses of the military dictators of the past: rough police crackdown, attemps to ban public demonstrations, denial of public sentiments and public discourse, and false allegation of "subversive forces." No wonder why Korean citizens are demanding the ouster of "dictatorial government of Lee Myung-bak."

Here is an analysis from The New York Times:

When tens of thousands of South Koreans spilled into central Seoul on Tuesday in the country’s largest antigovernment protest in 20 years, the police built a barricade with shipping containers. [see photo] They coated them with oil and filled them with sandbags so protesters could not climb or topple them to march on President Lee Myung-bak's office a couple of blocks away. Faced with the wall, people pasted identical leaflets on it, their message dramatically summarizing Mr. Lee’s image and alienation from many of his people: “This is a new border for our country. From here starts the U.S. state of South Korea.” More

"Will North Korea Become US Ally?"

Well-known Korea expert Prof. Bruce Cumings of the University of Chicago ventured on this topic in his speech on the occasion of the 8th anniversary of the inter-Korean summit:

The sharp changes in North Korea policy accomplished by Kim Dae Jung and the Clinton administration were immediately challenged by George W. Bush, within weeks of his inauguration in 2001. Seven years later, the Lee Myung Bak administration appears to think that a daunting rupture occurred between the ROK and the U.S., and that it was the fault of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun thus requiring the new administration to repair relations with Washington.

The Bush administration seemed to think so, too, by inviting President Lee to the presidential retreat at Camp David, in total contrast to the disastrous reception Bush gave to Kim Dae Jung in March 2001.This negative tendency is almost always labeled “anti-Americanism,” as if Koreans were upset about Americans in general, rather than Bush’s policies in particular. But when we examine the evidence, it is quite clearly anti-Bushism. More

"Ending the U.S.-Korea Alliance"

For over two decades, Doug Bandow has run counter to conventional Washington wonks' positions in his calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Korea, first as the researcher for the libertarian Cato Institue and now as a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. His latest article in National Interest Online:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has returned from the Republic of Korea (ROK), where he reaffirmed “the solid U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea.” Troop levels will fall no lower than twenty-five thousand, to be reached after modest reductions this year. The goal, he adds, is to turn the relationship into a “twenty-first century strategic alliance.”

Actually, the right twenty-first century alliance is no alliance. More