Dokdo, North Korea, and Presidential Records   2008-07-16 08:11

A few rather unrelated issues have been preoccupying the Koreans' minds this past week. First, there was a twisted scandal (or should we say "dispute?") regarding the whereabouts of Blue House records produced during the former President's term. Then a South Korean tourist was shot to death in a North Korean resort, further chilling the already cool relationship between the two Koreas. As if that wasn't enough, the age-old dispute between Korea and Japan regarding the ownership of Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks burst out once more, as the Japanese government made an official decision to state in its textbooks its alleged ownership of the disputed territory. All while sizable protests continue in Seoul, and while a number of important domestic policies keep stirring up controversy. Whoa!

First things first. On July 9, President Lee Myung-Bak flew to Japan for a quick chat with George W. Bush, who was attending the annual G8 summit in Hokkaido. (Japan is a member of G8, but South Korea obviously isn't.) Not much seems to have been accomplished in the short meeting, unlike on April 18 when the two Presidents had a lengthy talk in Camp David. Mostly, Lee and Bush "reaffirmed" their commitment to upholding the recent agreements between Korea and U.S., including of course the controversial beef deal.

Lee enjoys Bush's friendship.

To be precise, however, Lee suffered a loss this time. He has been saying very openly that the reason he had to make a concession to the U.S. with regard to beef trade was because he wanted the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement to go into effect before the end of the year. (See #4 of this post.) But according to Bush and most American analysts, it is unlikely for the U.S. Congress to approve the FTA before the end of the year no matter what gift Lee presents them with. Unlike in Korea where various factions within the ruling group (Hannara Party, Chin-Park Coalition, and Liberty Forward Party) control 67% of the National Assembly, in the U.S. 55% of the Congress is made up of Democrats, who are unwilling to seriously consider the Korea-U.S. FTA until after November's election. The Korea-U.S. FTA would be the second-largest FTA for America after NAFTA, so it's only to be expected that Americans would be very careful about it. If only the Korean government displayed a similar degree of caution!

Then, on July 11, Mrs. Park Wang-Ja, 53, was shot to death on a beach in Kumgangsan Tourist Region, the only part of North Korea that is open to the average South Korea. Mrs. Park apparently wandered off the tourist area into a part of the beach where foreigners are not allowed. If that is the case, then we would not be surprised that North Korean soldiers opened fire; indeed, soldiers who failed to stop a trespasser would lilely have been executed in North Korea. The prevailing sentiment in the South, of course, is that an unarmed, middle-aged woman in a skirt couldn't possibly have posed a military threat. But she was foolish, and that thing is clear. When you're visiting a country under a military autocracy, you have to watch out for bullets!

Nonetheless, tensions are mounting between the two Koreas for a number of reasons. First of all, the account given above is based almost entirely upon North Korea's claims. The South's request for an on-the-spot inspection was immediately rejected, despite parts of North Korea's account being highly implausible. (Middle-aged woman walking over 2 miles in only 20 minutes on a sandy beach? Was she an athlete or what?) In addition, North Korea is holding the South entirely responsible for the incident, when any reasonable government would have had to admit at least the inadequacy of its border control mechanisms. (Why didn't they install physical barriers good enough to keep out curious middle-aged women?) Well, as if we didn't already know that North Korea is the world's craziest country. Honestly, I wouldn't expect any better from them.

Ironically, the incident took place on the same day as President Lee's surprisingly friendly gesture towards the North. Several hours after Mrs. Park died (and possibly about an hour after Lee was informed of the incident), Lee Myung-Bak gave a speech at the National Assembly offering to engage in friendly talks with North Korea. This alone marks a shift from his policy so far, as he and his party have been aggressively criticizing past governments for being too North-friendly. And just as Lee decides to change his attitude towards North Korea (we don't know why, though we could guess), the North displays another classic example of its madness. Now the relationship between the two Koreas has become even more twisted than before. How do we solve this? I have no idea.

We've heard voices, both in Korea and overseas, criticizing South Korean candlelight protesters for their alleged duality. "Why don't you protest against North Korea," they say, "when you're so willing to protest against Lee's government for every little fault you can find?" The implication, of course, is that those who have been holding candles for the last ten weeks are left-wing North Korean sympathizers. That's what those who oppose us want you to believe. To be sure, some of the more left-leaning papers have contributed to this sentiment by saying very little against North Korea; these folks are just as unreasonable as those who complain as cited above. But here's reality: demonstrations serve a very particular purpose. They are a means for citizens of a more or less democratic country to make their government listen. But if a government makes it very clear that no amount of protest will change its mind, there's no use protesting. Revolution, not demonstration, is the word to describe a successful rebellion against such a crazy government; and North Korea is a clear example of a country that has such a government. C'mon, we've been North Korea's neighbor for 60 years now. We know very well that they don't give a damn about what we say, okay? So please, drop the charge of duality and hypocrisy. We're having a hard enough time trying to make our own "democratic" government listen, let alone make Kim Jong-Il care.

We are, however, protesting against Japan's claim on Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks. Hopefully, the Japanese government is a bit more reasonable than North Korea. But who knows?

A number of times during the last several days, Japanese government officials made it clear that their new middle-school curriculum would include the claim that Dokdo (Takeshima in Japanese, Liancourt Rocks in neutral International terms) is theirs. The twin islands, which sit halfway between South Korea and Japan in the middle of East Sea (a.k.a. Sea of Japan), have been a constant subject of dispute since World War II. At the end of that war, Japan had renounced control over the territories it had seized during the war. Dokdo, along with the rest of the Korean peninsula, was thus freed from Japanese rule. The islands have been under South Korean control ever since, but Japan has been citing ambiguities in the Treaty of San Francisco as well as historical records as possible justifications for their return. These claims are highly controversial. (Dokdo isn't the only territory that Japan claims to be its own. Japan also wants parts of Sakhalin, though Russia just seems to ignore those claims most of the time.)

Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks. About 40 South Korean maritime police are stationed on the islands, as well as three lighthouse keepers and a handful of civilians who call Dokdo home. Agriculture is close to impossible due to the rocky topography, but fisheries are abundant in the surrounding waters.

For most Koreans, the issue of Dokdo raises high emotions. The twin islands (or rocks) are more than just a piece of barren land; in part due to the territorial dispute, Dokdo is one of those things that keep reminding us of the colonial past. Unlike in Germany where Nazi sympathizers now have very little influence, Japan still has sizable political forces that try to defend and romanticize colonialism. (See the Wikipedia article on comfort women and how the Japanese government is unwilling to acknowledge responsibility for those age-old crimes.) As a result, any failure on the Korean government's part to properly address the issue of Dokdo is likely to cause a public uproar. Right-wing, left-wing, everyone knows it. President Lee knows it, too. Soon after Prime Minister Fukuda of Japan reaffirmed his decision about the middle-school curriculum, South Korea recalled its envoy to Japan. If Japan keeps provoking the Korean People, further measures may be necessary.

The picket in the middle says: "Protect Dokdo, or you're dead, MB!" (MB is short for Lee Myung-Bak.) Other pickets read "Lee Myung-Bak's incompetent dictatorship kills the economy", "Who do you protect with the power we gave you?" and "Do you want five years of candlelight protests?" Notice that the focus is shifting away from the issue of U.S. beef.

A demand for a firm stance on Dokdo has quickly been added to our list of pickets. So far, the Korean government doesn't seem to have done anything wrong with regard to that issue. That hand-written picket in the middle should therefore be taken as an early warning. The issue of beef trade with the U.S. (where Lee compromised food safety in return for an early FTA... no, not even that!) and the way Lee is handling the North Korean problem (friendly talks when our citizen was shot to death?) make a lot of us suspect that President Lee Myung-Bak and his government are seriously incompetent when it comes to foreign relations. President Lee was caught bowing to King Akihito of Japan in April when he visited him. Though the bow might have meant nothing more than a "Hello" to him, Lee should have been extra careful because he is supposed to represent the Korean People. Most folks here don't want our President bowing to the leader of, or making concessions to, a country that doesn't even want to acknowledge its past inhumanities, let alone compensate for the wrongs done. We'll be closely watching how the Korean government handles the issue of Dokdo. President Lee had better stay out of trouble this time.

Last Saturday (July 12), several thousand citizens gathered in Cheonggyecheon Plaza for another candlelight demonstration. Because the larger Seoul Plaza has been off-limits for more than a week now, the People had to move to the smaller square. Several thousand was a respectable number given the heavy rain around the time of gathering. As the rain became lighter, more people joined the crowd for a march across downtown Seoul. The demonstration was peaceful. Instead of trying to breach the police barricade around the Blue House, demonstrators proceeded to YTN, the nation's fourth-largest TV station, where the government is trying to appoint a pro-Lee CEO.

I mentioned the dispute over Presidential records at the beginning, which I haven't talked about yet. This issue is still rather mixed up, so maybe I'll talk about it in more detail in a later post. Just to give a brief summary, the current law in Korea says that a former President has the right to access Presidential records produced during his term. For example, Roh Moo-Hyun, who was President from February 2003 to February 2008, has the right to access Presidential records produced during that time. On the other hand, the incumbent President, Lee Myung-Bak, has very limited access to that information. Depending on the importance of a piece of information, it may be held back, even from Presidents, for up to 15 years. Now, Roh Moo-Hyun seems to have copied a lot of his own records onto a hard drive to bring home when his term expired five months ago. Lee Myung-Bak found out about this, and accused Roh of leaking information that should have been classified. In addition, Lee asked for the immediate return of the hard drive to the Blue House. Apparantly, both sides have done something wrong. Roh shouldn't have made those copies, as his right to access Presidential records doesn't include the right to make digital copies (or at least, it's not clear if he has that right). Lee, on the other hand, shouldn't be asking those records to be returned to his office, as he doesn't have the right to access them. National Archives stepped in and offered to take the matter into its own hands, but the controversy continues. Meanwhile, the ruling party is talking about an amendment to the law that would enable Lee to access Roh's Presidential records. Roh, on the other hand, claims that he is being deliberately prevented from exercising his rights and that he should be able to access the relevant information through a secure Internet connection before he would give up the hard drive in question. (Roh is obviously the more tech-savvy of the two Presidents.) The People are left asking: what kind of interests are at work here? What's in those records that make both the former and incumbent Presidents to want them? Or to put it more plainly: have we, by any chance, been deceived again?

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