Kim Daejung and the Nobel Peace Prize

From The Marmot's Hole, we get a reminder of a persistent meme:

It was a progressive President (Kim Dae Jung), who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his summit with KJI. It’s comical now to see their famous photo together in light of the obvious payoff that got that photo-op in the first place – for which one of Kim’s administration was sentenced to prison.

A persistent but incorrect meme, attributed not just to the above commenter but shared and spread by countless commenters, bloggers, pundits, and journalists.

To be specific, the meme is that it was the Kim Daejung-Kim Jong-il summit in 2000 that got him the prize. That would be the null hypothesis, whereas the alternate hypothesis would be that without the summit he would still have gotten it.

Let's go directly to the horse's mouth for the reasons Kim Daejung was awarded the Nobel, the Nobel Committee's announcement itself:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2000 to Kim Dae-jung for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular.

In the course of South Korea's decades of authoritarian rule, despite repeated threats on his life and long periods in exile, Kim Dae-jung gradually emerged as his country's leading spokesman for democracy. His election in 1997 as the republic's president marked South Korea's definitive entry among the world's democracies. As president, Kim Dae-jung has sought to consolidate democratic government and to promote internal reconciliation within South Korea.

With great moral strength, Kim Dae-jung has stood out in East Asia as a leading defender of universal human rights against attempts to limit the relevance of those rights in Asia. His commitment in favour of democracy in Burma and against repression in East Timor has been considerable.

Through his "sunshine policy", Kim Dae-jung has attempted to overcome more than fifty years of war and hostility between North and South Korea. His visit to North Korea gave impetus to a process which has reduced tension between the two countries. There may now be hope that the cold war will also come to an end in Korea. Kim Dae-jung has worked for South Korea's reconciliation with other neighbouring countries, especially Japan.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to express its recognition of the contributions made by North Korea's and other countries' leaders to advance reconciliation and possible reunification on the Korean peninsula.

Nowhere does it mention the summit, though that would be covered more generally under "sunshine policy." However, the reward itself was by no means just for the Sunshine Policy, as is clear by the statement by the Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee in the award ceremony speech:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2000 to Kim Dae-jung. He receives the prize for his lifelong work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular. We welcome the Laureate here today.

Again, the summit is not mentioned, and what it is a part of is mentioned secondarily. It was his work long before 2000 that got him notice and got him the prize. That, in fact, was specifically mentioned when he was awarded the prize in 2000:

The question has been raised of whether it is too early to award the prize for a process of reconciliation which has only just begun. It would suffice to say in reply that Kim Dae-jung's work for human rights made him a worthy candidate irrespective of the recent developments in relations between the two Korean states.

But, you might protest, would he really have gotten the Nobel without the attention-grabbing Kim-Kim summit? Again, we can look at the words of the Nobel Committee for the answer. Kim Daejung's "lifelong work for democracy and human rights in South Korea" is on par with other award winners, notably Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar/Burma in 1991, Lech Walesa of Poland in 1983, Nelson Mandela in 1993, etc. The latter is notable because Kim Daejung has often been referred to as "the Nelson Mandela of Asia."

At best, the June 2000 summit may have caused the Nobel Committee to take notice of Kim Daejung's nomination, which would have been received by February 2000, four months before the summit actually took place, but a lot more happened prior to that which would also have gotten them to take notice. South Korea and its very messy moves toward democratization were a major story in 1987 and 1988 as the Olympics had all eyes on the ROK.

This was part and parcel of an Asian Spring that flourished a decade and a half before there was an Arab Spring. It was the likes of Corazon Aquino and Kim Daejung, among others, who shaped the East Asia of today, and it is for that primarily that Kim Daejung was awarded the Nobel.

These are people who risked their lives to bring democracy and respect for human rights to their country and their region. To diminish this by saying Kim Daejung "bought the Nobel Prize" — even if the case can be made that he bought that summit — is a revisionist travesty.

(More on Kim Daejung here, in my ode to him after he died)

...

The sun goes down on the Sunshine Policy

South Korea's Unification Ministry has officially pulled the plug on the so-called Sunshine Policy of active engagement begun in the late 1990s under then-President Kim Daejung and carried on, with nearly all carrot and no stick, by his successor Roh Moohyun.

From Voice of America:

The South Korean Unification Ministry's annual report calls the Sunshine Policy of peaceful engagement with North Korea a failure.

The ministry's white paper, issued Thursday, contends a decade of cooperation, cross-border exchanges and billions of dollars in aid did not change Pyongyang's behavior or improve the lives of North Korean citizens.

Lee Jong-joo, a ministry spokeswoman, says South Korea's goal is to see North Korea prosper, but Seoul must respond appropriately to any provocations from Pyongyang.

While I can understand the pendulum swinging completely the other way under the Lee Myungbak administration, I'm loath to call Sunshine a "failure." In fact, when Kim Daejung was president, it was probably wise to at least try it, because what we were doing before wasn't getting us anywhere.

Here's what I wrote about Sunshine upon KDJ's death:

When he became president, he decided that it was time to shift gears vis-à-vis North Korea. Some four decades of mutual hostility had not made North Korea less threatening, more democratic, or any friendlier, and he thought it was time to try killing with kindness. Reach out to the North, try to integrate them, get political and social change to come from economic integration. And so was born the "Sunshine Policy."

Critics of the Sunshine Policy complain that after ten years, Kim Jong-il's regime is still standing. They complain that Roh Moohyun kowtowed so much to Pyongyang that Seoul's back was broken. And while I've been a harsh critic of Roh Moohyun, it is not Kim Daejung's fault that RMH was all carrot and no stick; I don't think, had he been allowed a second term, that KDJ would have been the same toward North Korea as his successor was.

Although I think right now we should pursue what Joshua at One Free Korea calls "Plan B," I find it a bit ironic that anti-Sunshiners (one professor at Yonsei called them "Moonshiners") say that because Sunshine didn't work to change North Korea over the past ten years, we should return to a hardline policy, which failed to work for forty years. Well, they don't say that last part.

Another reason I am not inclined to say Sunshine didn't work is that the greatest benefit of that intensive engagement may not yet have occurred:

I do believe, though, that engagement is important for showing a human face of the enemy. No matter how much the North tries to demonize the South or the Americans, the food aid and now the daily presence of South Koreans in North Korea — even a hermetically sealed part — engagement erodes that demonization. It may seem laughable today, but prior to democratization in South Korea, kids in the ROK learned that the North Koreans had horns and would kill them just as soon as look at them. The North had learned as bad or worse, but that type of propaganda no longer is capable of packing the same punch. It’s a joke now, even in the North.

I don’t know if engagement will have a desired effect. I think it’s possible that if there were a sufficient shake-up in the ruling apparatus (e.g., the sudden death of the Dear Leader) that certain factions might now be more confident than before that they can work with the South and the US. And when/if the South ever does take administrative control over a collapsed North, the reduced level of demonization will make it easier.

I fully expect the DPRK to go into a tizzy about this, and possibly threaten to close down factories, stop family reunions, or do some other things that sorta underscore perfectly that Sunshine needs to fade because it has failed to stop Pyongyang from grabbing Seoul by the gingkos whenever it wants and then throwing a temper tantrum.

At what point do we stop calling the "refugees"?

South Korea has just welcomed its 20,000th North Korean refugee, a forty-one-year-old woman who arrived this past Thursday with her two sons. Her mother is already in the South.

You can thank this man for the fact that there are so many:

Meanwhile, Kim Daejung deserves credit for allowing in more North Korean refugees than all his predecessors combined, a feat which included his future-oriented decision to establish Hanawon, a facility designed to process and integrate the newly arrived North Korean refugees. Funny how his critics twist all this around.

Here's hoping that this new ROK citizen will have a better life, and that tens of thousands more — at least that many — follow in her footsteps.

A picture of Park: Time archives provides a contemporary Western view of a controversial historic figure

Korea's Mute Press (August 4, 1961)
"Are you aware, General Pak, that the newspapers are afraid to criticize you?" asks a journalist. "This is the first time I have heard of it. If this allegation is true, it is because you journalists are chicken-hearted," the gimlet-eyed boss of the junta that seized power answered.

Gimlet-eyed is Time's description. I wonder if they could get away with that today. Anyway, I thought that was a fitting start for this series of links to Time archives, with descriptions of some that I've had a chance to more thoroughly read. A tidbit:

Last week South Korea's press, which serves a nation of 24.5 million people, readily conceded the point to Pak. "He was asking for a martyr's courage," said Editor Pu Wan Hyuk of the Chosun Ilbo. "We cannot expect reporters to be revolutionaries." Asked a reporter: "How can you tell the precise dividing line between constructive criticism and anti-revolutionary slander? It's better to stay on the safe side."

The fact is that South Korea's newspapers, after a year of heady freedom under ousted Premier John M. Chang, are thoroughly cowed. Hard put to scrape up news that will not offend the tough, jaunty officers who run the country, they dutifully print government handouts verbatim, sometimes run ads two or three times, at no extra charge, simply to fill space. Fortnight ago, when the respected Hankook Ilbo indiscreetly printed a telegram criticizing retired U.S. General James A. Van Fleet's visit at the junta's invitation (TIME, July 28), it was ordered to run off the rest of the edition with the story blacked out.

The New Life (November 3, 1961)

Death for Doubters (January 19, 1962)

Against Wanton Desires (March 9, 1962)

A Dying Business (May 4, 1962)

Well-Timed Clemency (May 11, 1962)

New Life (May 25, 1962)

Back to Normal (August 31, 1962)

Democracy of a Sort (December 28, 1962)

Over to You, Gentlemen (March 8, 1963)

The Heat's Off (March 22, 1963)

Squeeze in Seoul (March 29, 1963)

Silent Sam, the Pressure Man (April 19, 1963)

Slim Mandate (October 25, 1963)

Back to the Barracks (November 16, 1962)
Back to Normal (December 6, 1963)
Fatigues to Flannels (December 27, 1963)

The Simple Life (February 7, 1964)
Early in his rule of South Korea, President Park closes five of his six presidential villas as an example to other leaders. An austerity plan long forgotten:

So, said Park, government officials must stop driving cars and learn to commute by bus or bicycle, reduce their liquor intake and cut restaurant side dishes to a maximum of three. In keeping with his austere mood, Park advised women to wear their skirts shorter and demanded crew cuts for men. Above all, civil servants must stay out of kisaeng (geisha) houses. That, declared the proprietress of a big kiseng house in Seoul, was carrying things too far. Said she: "Where else can government officials transact their business?"

Power Grab (October 30, 1972)

Protests Against Park (December 3, 1973)
Net of Repression (January 21, 1974)

Trials and Errors (June 24, 1974)
A look at how President Park used an iron fist to crush the political opposition, including how he dealt with future President Kim Daejung, whom he "defeated" in the 1971 presidential election.

No Harmony or Peace (August 5, 1974)

Another look at the same topic.

The Accidental Assassination (August 26, 1974)
A detailed look at the 1974 assassination attempt on President Park that left his wife dead.

Fingers of Fate (September 23, 1974)
Finger-chopping whackiness (with literal whacking) in Chonan as protesters cut off their left pinky out of anger that Park's would-be assassin (and his wife's actual assassin) was from Japan. They demanded that Japan ban the pro-North Chosoren residents association.

Ford Makes His First Foray Overseas (November 25, 1974)
President Ford's Far Eastern Road Show (December 2, 1974)

Eastern Modifications (April 28, 1975)

Twisting a phrase by Park (and other East Asian leaders, notably one from Singapore) about East Asia's capacity for democracy, this article takes another close look at then-recent crackdowns on dissidents, including the execution of accused communists who "conspired to overthrow the government by encouraging anti-Park demonstrations."

After Viet Nam: What Next in Asia? (May 12, 1975)

Getting Nervous (June 9, 1975)

Survival is at Stake (June 30, 1975)

In this sweeping interview conducted in the wake of America's exit from Vietnam, a somewhat anxious President Park makes the case for why the US military's continued presence in South Korea is essential to ROK and Japanese security. I would consider this one a must-read.

The North: Unceasing Repression (June 30, 1975)

The one takes a break from Park-bashing to note that the South Korean leader "seems positively Jeffersonian compared with his counterpart north of the Demilitarized Zone." A must-read for a contemporary view of Kim Il-sung

The Long, Long Siege (June 30, 1975)

More Dissent, More Repression (March 22, 1976)
A Matter of Conscience (September 13, 1976)

The Seoul Brother (November 8, 1976)
Not about Park Chunghee per se, but about a scandal involving some possible attempts by Park regime players to gain influence in Washington. See also Koreagate on Capitol Hill? (November 29, 1976), Seoul's School For Scandal (December 13, 1976), The Swindler From Seoul (July 4, 1977), Still Waiting for Harvest Time (September 19, 1977).

Spooking Capitol Hill (November 15, 1976)
G.I.s at the DMZ: Time to Come Home? (June 6, 1977)
Memories of Ice Mountain (October 31, 1977)

Park Returns (March 6, 1978)

Park Goes Public (April 10, 1978)

Park Talks (a Little) (April 17, 1978)

Talks with a Troubled Ally (July 9, 1979)

Riots and Rights (October 29, 1979)

Milestones (November 5, 1979)

Assassination in Seoul (November 5, 1979)
Questions about "one of the most bizarre killings of a head of state in history." I put this up as a post in its own right back in November 2005, which may have been an inspiration for matt's (of Popular Gusts) own forays into the Time archives.

A Very Tough Peasant (November 5, 1979)
A look back at the personal history and political life of President Park in the wake of his assassination. This also became a post in its own right in November 2005. I would consider this one a must-read, too.

Mouring and Post-Mortems (November 12, 1979)
Further examination of the who's, what's, and why's of Park's assassination.

Normality (November 19, 1979)
"Business as usual" returns to Seoul as the panic, chaos, runs on banks, and scrambles to hoard food that were feared in the wake of Park's assassination did not materialize.

Park's Man Takes Power (December 17, 1979)

Acting Like Big Brother (December 31, 1979)
President Choi Kyuhah is formally inaugurated to replace President Park.

The Army Rears Up (December 24, 1979)
Chun: A Shadowy Strongman (May 26, 1980)
Legacy of Righteous Tumult (June 2, 1980)
Season of Spleen (June 2, 1980)
Kim's Sum (June 30, 1980)

Ten Days That Shook Kwangju (June 9, 1980)
This one is obviously more Chun-related than Park-related, but it comes in the wake of Park's assassination.

Park Chung Hee (August 23, 1999)
Donald Gregg talks about Park as one of the hundred most influential people in Asia, before Rain came to dominate the list.