Smooth Sailing Ahead or Rocky Waters?: A Look at U.S.-Korea Relations in the 21st Century

By Michelle Kwon

Photo taken by The Brookings Institution

At a 2013 Georgetown University dean’s symposium, former Minister of Trade Bark Tae-ho highlighted South Korea’s three trade-related goals: revitalize trade and exports with the United States, increase the number of free trade agreements South Korea enters into, and secure continued market competitiveness via foreign investments. This three-pronged approach provides Korea the increasing momentum to secure its position as a leader within the Asia Pacific, and pursue a greater, more aggressive trade policy agenda in the 21^st century[1]; a successful conclusion and reception of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) represents the first necessary step in helping Korea achieve its short-term and long-term goal. 

However, Minister Bark identified a phenomenon that accompanied the implementation of the KORUS FTA: with greater economic integration comes social disintegration. Though the two countries have remained close allies, the Korean population has demonstrated an intense dissatisfaction with Korea’s participation in the KORUS Free Trade Agreement further compounded by declining public opinion of a U.S. presence in Seoul. Long-standing historical tensions – the United States’ mishandling of its relationship with Korea since 1948 – coupled with a particular set of recent incidents has catalyzed the deepening of anti-American sentiment in South Korea.

In order for U.S.-Korea relations to remain mutually beneficial this discrepancy must not only be reconciled, but also understood; a failure to do so could lead to a disintegration of the U.S.-Korea alliance in the coming decades, and bleak future for Korean trade prospects.

 An Imperialistic Benefactor

After the U.S.-led transition to a two-state Korean peninsula in the late 1940s, the United States provided aid to Korea as a means of incentive and preventive measures against any communist threats. Korea, at first, saw itself as being able to serve as a line of defense or segue between U.S. interests and the Asia Pacific. American aid symbolized a form of reimbursement to Korea for carrying a disproportionate share in the mutually beneficial effort to resist Communist imperialism. However, by the 1960s, the South Korean mentality started to shift from one of gratefulness to one of dissatisfaction: Koreans felt that they were not good enough. What was believed was that should Korea fall to Communism, no nation would be hurt, not even the United States – that after a few tears had been shed out of sympathy, the Americans would move on.

Korea recognized the asymmetric nature to the relationship that existed with the United States. The obvious disparity in national power and military capability gave way to an American presence that acted unilaterally in its decisions on the United States Forces in Korea (USFK), societal and social restructuring, and diplomacy vis-à-vis North Korea. In essence, the United States became a benevolent, but aggressive, imperial power in the eyes of Koreans, and it is this selective amnesia that still exists to this day that has promulgated anti-American sentiment.

Korea-Japan Relations

Secondly, another source of contention is in the United States’ multiple attempts to push the reconciliation between Seoul and Tokyo. The Korean people have still not fully forgiven the Japanese for their forceful occupation of the Korean peninsula during the first half of the 20^th century. Many of the unresolved issues, in regards to comfort women and territorial disputes are, in fact, playing themselves out more than half-a-century later. And yet, the United States ignored whatever remaining cultural tensions existed between the two countries and pushed for a normalization of relations in the mid 1960s.

From an American perspective it made no sense for two neighboring states that share centuries of history, albeit a very negative one at times, and stable economic relations, to be “unfriendly indefinitely.” The United States and Japan were able to look past catastrophic moments in their relationship – namely, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasake and Hiroshima.

From a Korean perspective, the United States was skirting its responsibility on the Korean peninsula and dumping it onto Japan. Such a push for normalized relations with Japan signaled an American desire to shift its responsibility onto another regional partner. Korea was reluctant though to not only re-engage with Japan, but was skeptical of its will and ability to take on the role the United States had been filling in Korea.

The combination of these factors strained the U.S.-Korea relationship, but, especially “irksome [wa]s the sermonizing attitude of Americans” in accusing Koreans of being narrow-minded and spiteful toward the Japanese; unable to depart from the past and irrationally act upon.

 Recent Developments that have Escalated Anti-American Sentiment

In recent years, nationwide outrage in South Korea was incited by the Nogun-ri controversy, the Maehyang-ri bombing range accident, the discharging of formaldehyde into the Han River, and the negotiations of the Status of Forces Agreement—events that the progressive media focused on heavily. The standard story line in the media that emerged was that United States was on a rampage, showing no respect for the lives of Koreans.

Moreover, in a study done on the role the media plays in influencing the US-Korea alliance, both Chosun news and Hankyoreh published less than 10 editorials and/or columns per year on the presence of U.S. troops in the ROK before 1999, while coverage levels increased by fourfold in 2003.

It is in this lens that recent incidents in South Korea, in the form of an internationally-recognized film vilifying the United States, strained U.S.-Korea relations due to North Korean provocations, and a new generation of youths in South Korea, have further sparked anti-American sentiment and made it especially difficult for the National Assembly to garner support for the ratification of the KORUS FTA.

 A Cannes Affair

On May 21, 2006, Korean director Bong Joon-ho debuted his movie, The Host, at the Cannes Film Festival. The film received unprecedented critical acclaim and international attention, and went on to sell the most number of movie theater tickets for domestic Korean film by the end of 2006. However, such publicity made it impossible for the inspiration of the movie’s plot – based on a 2000 incident in which an American mortician dumped bottles of formaldehyde down a drain into the Han River – to go unnoticed. Though the movie’s fictional ending dramatically altered the events surrounding the incident, the film sparked an influx of anti-American sentiment within the Korean populous. The cultural and political ramifications that emerged from widespread circulation and popularity of The Host, compounded by other missteps the United States has committed, has promulgated anti-Americanism in Korea.

This example brings to the light a quintessential driving force behind recent anti-American sentiment in Korea: the widespread and indoctrinated belief that the United States, though not intentional in many of its actions, has caused South Korea more pain and suffering than relief.

Conclusion

Though the U.S.-Korea relationship has clearly suffered mishaps and contentions, it has also been resilient. It is evident that a recent spike in anti-American sentiment amongst the younger generation, compounded by publicly humiliating and detrimental incidents committed by the United States have greatly increased anti-Americanism within the Korean populous. However, the United States and Korea remain close partners – in the face of the changed environment since 1948, the U.S.-Korea alliance has remained. Though historical tensions exist and anti-American sentiment may waver at high rates, the United States and Korea still managed to draft, ratify, and conclude one of the most comprehensive free trade agreements to date. Perhaps, this trade legislation is not a source of contention, but an opportunity for the two countries to put aside differences and focus on remedying relations and strengthening the alliance between the two countries as they look to tackle even greater foreign policy challenges in the coming century.

 

 

References:

[1] Korea is currently working on a Free Trade Agreement with China, if that successfully concludes, then as steps are taken to further progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Korea can be a bridge for the ASEAN region as the only country to have an FTA with the United States and China.

Bong, Yongshik. “Yongmi: Pragmatic Anti-Americanism in South Korea Anti-Americanism,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 10 (2004): 141-153.

Hahm, Pyong Choon Hahm. “Korea’s ‘Mendicant Mentality’? A Critique of U.S. Policy,” Foreign Affairs 43 no.1 (1964): 165-174.

Shin, Gi-Wook Shin.“The Media and the U.S.-ROK Alliance: The South Korean Case,” Asia Foundation. Web.

Straub, David Straub. “Public Diplomacy and the Korean Peninsula,” pp. 129-140 pp. 119-128 in Donald MacIntyre, Daniel Sneider, and Gi-Wook Shin eds, First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier (Stanford, CA: Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2009).