Korea's underwater gold rush

The article is about two weeks old, but the New York Times had a story (covered in their July 9, 2012 podcast) on the recent surge in underwater mineral exploration, in which South Korea is a major participant:

Mr. Dettweiler has now turned from recovering lost treasures to prospecting for natural ones that litter the seabed: craggy deposits rich in gold and silver, copper and cobalt, lead and zinc. A new understanding of marine geology has led to the discovery of hundreds of these unexpected ore bodies, known as massive sulfides because of their sulfurous nature.

These finds are fueling a gold rush as nations, companies and entrepreneurs race to stake claims to the sulfide-rich areas, which dot the volcanic springs of the frigid seabed. The prospectors — motivated by dwindling resources on land as well as record prices for gold and other metals — are busy hauling up samples and assessing deposits valued at trillions of dollars.

''We've had extreme success,'' Mr. Dettweiler said in a recent interview about the deepwater efforts of his company, Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Fla.

Skeptics once likened mining the deep to looking for riches on the moon. No more. Progress in marine geology, predictions of metal shortages in the decades ahead and improving access to the abyss are combining to make it real.

Environmentalists have expressed growing alarm, saying too little research has been done on the risks of seabed mining. The industry has responded with studies, reassurance and upbeat conferences.

Robotic prospectors are less grizzly
and ultimately cheaper than their human
counterparts, but are also less likely to
inspire Jack London-esque novels.

The technological advances center on new robots, sensors and other equipment, some of it derived from the offshore oil and gas industry. Ships lower exploratory gear on long tethers and send down sharp drills that gnaw into the rocky seabed. All of this underwater machinery is making it more and more feasible to find, map and recover seabed riches.

Industrial powers — including government-supported groups in China, Japan and South Korea — are hunting for sulfides in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. And private companies like Odyssey have made hundreds of deep assessments and claims in the volcanic zones around Pacific island nations: Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

On the surface of it (no pun intended), this sounds great: one could easily argue that the oceans, not space, is the last frontier, but environmentalists warn that we really don't know the true effects (and external costs, those not paid by the commercial actors but rather borne by others not sharing the profits) of mining the ocean. We had enough troubles with driftnet fishing, derisively described as "strip-mining the ocean," but this might result in actual strip-mining of the ocean.

And with clashing claims over Tokto, the Kurils, and islands in the South China Sea, this new semiprecious and precious mineral rush could lead to maritime territorial fights.

A miscalculation could result in a sort of "reverse alchemy," with the search for gold turning into battles with lead.

...

Doug Bandow gets it completely wrong on the US military commitment in South Korea

Over at Forbes, Doug Bandow, regurgitated the Korea-defend-yourself rant. A snippet:

However, Seoul has precious few responsibilities in return. ROK forces never have been stationed in America. There were never plans for the South to assist the U.S. if the latter was attacked by the Soviet Union. No South Korean ships patrolled the sea lanes and no South Korean aircraft guarded the sky.

In the early days there was little the ROK, an impoverished dictatorship, could do. Seoul could not protect itself, let alone anyone else. But then, Washington should not have maintained the fraud that the security tie was mutual.

The South since has joined the first tier of nations. It obviously can do more, much more. Nevertheless, the treaty remains a one-way relationship. The ROK occasionally has contributed to Washington’s foolish wars of choice, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan, in order to keep American defense subsidies flowing. But this is no bargain for the U.S., which is expected to protect Seoul from all comers.

As you can guess from my past posts, this article had me throwing things at my computer monitor. The nicest I can put it is that this article is so fraught with inaccuracies and lack of understanding, Forbes should be embarrassed for allowing it to be printed.

The assumptions that underpin Mr Bandow's ignorant rant — that South Korea does nothing for its defense, pays nothing for its defense, and does nothing to help — are all grossly inaccurate. I would excuse him for writing as if it's still 2005, but he gets even that wrong (he's also wrong about the Cold War being over, at least in Northeast Asia).

Even during the leftist Roh Moohyun administration, South Korea has consistently spent about 2.5 percent or more of its GDP on its military. That's not as much as the US, of course, but considerably higher than most of its allies.

This is almost all geared toward defense against North Korean attack, but increasingly more is spent on helping the US patrol against international piracy (as does neighboring Japan that also enjoys US defense commitments), as well as the US-led operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where South Korea had the third largest contingent of military personnel after the US and the UK.

More importantly, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans fought alongside their American counterparts during the Vietnam War. At any given time there were 50,000 ROK troops there, and the number of dead is officially over 5000. That's from a country one-sixth the population of the US. It is irrelevant that Mr Bandow thinks these wars were "foolish," and that does nothing to diminish South Korean sacrifices.

Today, every South Korean male is required to serve in the military or do some appropriate government service. The typical commitment is over two years, in the prime of their youth. Again, this is geared almost entirely toward defense against North Korea, and it represents tremendous costs to the ROK government, its economy, and even its demographics (as it leads to delayed marriage and thus lower overall fertility in a country that is disastrously below population replacement levels).

So Mr Bandow is wrong on all those counts. Moreover, he utterly misses the point of the value of the US military presence in Northeast Asia. The deterrent presented by the US military in Korea, Japan, and Guam has kept the region free of major conflict for nearly six decades. Contrast that with the previous six decades, which saw four major wars fought on or over Korea.

Deterrence costs pennies to the dollars compared to what would likely result if the US vacated (and which the US would almost certainly get sucked into anyway). Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries in the region may not always see eye to eye with Washington, but the Pax Americana has helped foster democracy and open markets that both are highly beneficial to the United States.

And that discussion doesn't even get into the inherent reliance that South Korea has on the United States because it agreed not to develop nukes that would better insure its territorial security.

Not to mention the whole idea of allied deterrence is that North Korea might think it can get away with an invasion of South Korea if it punches really, really hard in the beginning (what they did in 1950), but they would be highly unlikely to do it if they knew South Korea's powerful ally would come to bear on them. Critics call it a "tripwire," but any thinking person would just realize it makes good sense.

Next time Forbes should leave the Northeast Asia analysis to Northeast Asia analysts and not ideological pundits paid by the pixel.

Note: Robert at The Marmot's Hole put something up on this before I had a chance.

...

Dropping "Captain America" from Captain America (UPDATED)

source

UPDATE:
Well, it turns out that in Australia they changed one of the taglines in the trailer to make it a little less America-centric.

In the US version, it says, "Heroes are made in America." But in the South Korean trailer, it was changed to, “When evil rises, a hero will stand.”

And since the Korea-bashing kvetchpats — those who saw Paramount's Korea distributors dropping Captain America from the title as a sign that Korea is an underserving, America-hating "ally" and that the US should leave South Korea to be gobbled up by China — are nothing if not fair and balanced, then no doubt we will hear equally loud and angry criticisms of Australia, right? Right?

ORIGINAL POST:
Over at the New York Times, a media reporter tells us that South Korea is one of only three countries (Russia and Ukraine being the other two) where marketers will drop "Captain America" from the title of Captain America: The First Avenger:

South Korea is another story. Although that country is one of Hollywood’s top-performing territories, resentment about the continued presence of the United States military runs deep. Marvel and Paramount worry that those feelings are particularly strong among younger South Koreans, the ones who powered “Iron Man 2” to $27 million in ticket sales in that country last year.

Frankly, this is a journalistically lazy and highly misleading statement. A reader might get the impression that the vast majority of South Koreans feel bitter indignation toward the US military being in their country but perhaps cannot get them to leave. A lingering han moment.

In fact, there is a small segment of South Korean society that feels this way, the chinboistas, and they regularly make their views known through persistent demonstrations that also attack government and corporate policy (with some of them simultaneously overtly or covertly supporting the Pyongyang position). The majority of the population, however, feels something considerably more positive and a bit more complex.

Most South Koreans are appreciative of the US role in helping keep South Korea safe and the region stable. This is sometimes tempered, however, by annoyance when the US military or its personnel are involved in violent crimes or environmental degradation, among other things. And while that sometimes bubbles into angry sentiment amongst the general population, especially if the persistent chinboistas have done their job properly, it is mostly aimed at the individual situation and not USFK presence itself.

Any wisdom to taking "Captain America" off the title of the movie, if in fact that is a wise thing, comes from something else. In fact, there is also a longstanding and persistent impression of American arrogance (which draws resentment when it leads to, say, President Bush pushing its South Korean allies to send troops to Iraq to participate in a war most oppose), even as so many South Koreans see the United States as an ally and a country to aspire to or even stay in for a while (or permanently).

Koreans paying their W10,000 for a movie may get a little tired of seeing America always playing the triumphant victor. Look at how many blockbusters involve some theme like that: Independence Day, Pearl Harbor (though that's sorta unavoidable), even Top Gun. Even The Last Samurai requires an American to come in and tell the 19th century Japanese what's what.

And if you think it's only South Koreans who feel this way, you're sorely mistaken (I can't even count how many times I've had this conversation with my Japanese friends here in Hawaii or Korea).

But so what? South Koreans have just accepted that that's the way Hollywood works. Hollywood also self-corrects, to a degree, with movies like Fahrenheit 911, which did brisk business in Korea in the middle of the last decade. And even the Hollywood films that have an overall positive spin on America, often temper this with the downside of Washington or suburbia or whatever. In fact, that was the theme of another movie with the country's name in the title, American Beauty.

So the NYT columnist has it wrong. Iron Man 2, doesn't have $27 million in South Korean ticket sales despite resentment toward the United States military. Rather, it did well simply because it was good, and because, at heart, South Koreans are generally upbeat on the US (and maybe that's why the response is so harsh when USFK or Washington seems to do them wrong).

And it also helps when South Korea is not depicted by Hollywood as a disease-carrying backwater where Americans should feel free to have sex in Buddhist shrines. If you ever want to lose money on a picture, it's the content, not the title, that you have to worry about. I just hope the Nazi-era Captain America doesn't depict Korea as an ally of Japan. Then we'll all do just fine.

Trump shoots his mouth off on Korea

Possible presidential candidate Donald Trump, fresh from cluelessly releasing the wrong document that would officially certify his birth while chiding President Obama for not being forthcoming about his own origins, the real estate developer turned media whore decided that birther b.s. was not enough to wrap up the Republican nomination and he went after some more red meat for some Tea Party conservatives: foreign "occupation" and free-trade pacts, specifically with South Korea.

From Reuters:

He singled out the recent trade pact with South Korea, signed after a military showdown with communist-ruled North Korea, saying it was a "joke" with insufficient benefits for the United States.

"We go over there, we protect them, we protect them with our ships ... Did anyone pay us for this? No! So, what is happening is mind-boggling."

As with so many things spewing from his mouth, the mercurial and diarrheal Trump doesn't let facts get in the way of a good rant, but one would hope voters are more grounded in reality. And for those voters, let's take a look at the facts, courtesy of PolitiFact:

First, we should note that the number of U.S. service members is dwarfed by the more than 500,000 South Korean service members on active duty, plus many more South Korean reserve troops.

"The South Koreans defend themselves," said Allan R. Millett, a historian and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. "We do the high-tech things so they can have more shooters."

But do they pay for the U.S. help?

Indeed, they do. South Korea has regularly signed agreements spelling out its "burden sharing" responsibility for U.S. troops. The current agreement, which was signed by representatives of the two governments in January 2009, covers the five-year period between 2009 and 2013.

The financial burden South Korea must shoulder, converted into dollars, is about $694 million. That amount will rise for each of the succeeding four years at an amount pegged to inflation. The prior agreement covered 2007 and 2008, with payments totaling $664 million and $678 million in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

The payments by South Korea fall into several sub-categories. Labor cost sharing, paid in cash, accounts for about 41 percent of the total. Logistics cost sharing, which is paid in kind, accounts for about 18 percent. And construction programs, which are a combination of cash and in-kind payments, account for the remaining 41 percent of the costs.

Trump’s statement that South Korea doesn’t "pay us" is a sweeping statement that suggests they get U.S. protection for free. But in fact, they are paying the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

The idea of South Korea getting a free ride, when in fact almost all ROK males have to perform military service or a suitable substitute and Seoul spends a higher percentage of GDP than almost all the US's allies, is ludicrous. That Trump would uncritically regurgitate such claims for political points shows that he just simply doesn't have the intellect or the ethical standards to run the country. We need someone who actually understands how things work if we want to fix what's wrong. Throwing your feces, simian-like, at whatever bothers you at the moment, is not an effective plan.

Oh, and the Free Trade Agreement was not signed after the North Korean attacks but renegotiated. In fact, it was signed in 2007, when George W. Bush was president.

Let's also take note (as suggested elsewhere in the PolitiFact article) that the US military presence in South Korea (and Japan) is not just about preventing war on the Korean Peninsula but in Northeast Asia in general, which is clearly in the US's interests.

The Marmot (who is no fan of the US military presence in South Korea) also addressed this issue, even quoting one of his favorite America Firster pundits, John Derbyshire:

Once you start to have subversive thoughts like that, others come thick and fast. If we don’t need those thirty thousand troops in South Korea, then, hey, maybe we don’t need the 36,000 we’ve got stationed in Japan, either. It may even be — you might want to sit down for this one, it’s way out radical — it may even be we don’t need to keep 52,000 troops stationed in Germany, or the ten thousand in Italy, or the nine thousand in Britain. It’s real nice for those countries to have us protecting them, but how is it good for us?

Methinks simpletons like Derbyshire don't understand how deterrence works or why it's important. The highly successful Pax Americana, the greatest source of stability Northeast Asia has known in centuries, is still needed. And it would seem that Europe is uncharacteristically peaceful as well, thanks to the US-anchored NATO which calls for the US military presence.

Let me make it simple: The US military presence in Northeast Asia and Europe costs pennies on the dollar compared to how much it would cost the US in lives and treasure were a war to inevitably break out in our absence. A war there would likely suck us right back in (see: World War I, World War II, Korean War, etc.), but even if it miraculously didn't, we would still lose more treasure than it costs to station our troops there. Isolationism as a way to cut costs or save lives is a fantasy, and that's why you don't understand how it is good for us to have troops in places where we have lost tens or hundreds of thousands to put down an enemy that hasn't returned on our watch.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think South Korea (and Japan) can do more. I've long been an advocate of Seoul joining Washington on military ventures that mutually benefit both, particularly anti-piracy efforts off Africa and Southeast Asia (and Seoul is stepping up more and more in that regard). That is the solution if you think one side is benefiting more than it should, not grabbing up your marbles and walking off in a huff.

Back to Trump. I have never liked Donald Duckweed, not even when he was a Democrat. Setting aside his creepiness (he said he'd date Ivanka if she weren't his daughter... his hot daughter), I loathe people who make fortunes off of political connections and feeding other people's vices (e.g., Atlantic City) and I am old enough to remember the man's failed real estate ventures — and that alone makes me shudder at the possibility of this know-nothing trying to run the economy or foreign policy. It's clear from his TV shows that he is all flash and no substance, and that is no way to run the frickin' country.

Geez, if we want a "reality" TV show host to run the nation, let's go with Jeff Probst. I admit, I came up with the idea as a one-off, but on paper the guy would make a far better candidate, and I think the Democrats should drop Joe Boring and pick up Jeff as his running mate.

How Jeff Probst stacks up against The Donald:

• More experience (in terms of seasons on television)
• Fewer failed marriages
• Does not make creepy comments about romantic/sexual relations with his hot daughter (who "has a very nice figure")
• Obvious from reward challenges and immunity challenges that the guy understands the value of competition
• From his interactions with contestants on Survivor™ it is clear that he is in touch with the average American (and, lately, former NFL stars, pin-up models, would-be actors, sports franchise cheerleaders, etc.)
• More foreign experience (China, Africa, Panama, Nicaragua, Australian Outback, Marquesas Islands, Vanuatu, Gabon, Palau, Fiji, Brazil, Cook Islands, Samoa, etc.).
• Calm temperament, even when faced with idiots
• Better hair
• Not a duckweed

So there's nothing left to say: Probst in '12!

UPDATE (April 27, 2011 HST): 
Trump wins! Obama forced to release long-form birth certificate, which is fake!!!

China's biggest problem is China

In light of the appalling news that China sent back to North Korea an octogenarian South Korean POW who had escaped the DPRK and made contact with ROK activists, Joshua of One Free Korea has penned a post that goes very directly to the heart of why so many of us who who are involved with or closely follow North Korean issues, South Korean politics, or wider East Asian goings-on fear, loathe, or otherwise deeply distrust Beijing and its policies.

You may have read my own China Rant (the meat of which starts about a third of the way through), my feverish defense of the Pax Americana, or other posts with a similar theme (such as the scary reality of Beijing whipping up PRC citizens against South Koreans for political aims), but I was so impressed with the elegant simplicity of Mr Stanton's short essay that I wanted to reprint the second paragraph in its entirety:

In the end, all of our differences with China over Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Korea, and everything else come down to its contempt for the rights of individual human beings. If China recognized that the condition of humanity carries with it certain basic rights and liberties, it would be a threat to no one, it would have peacefully reunified with Taiwan decades ago, it wouldn’t be plagued with ethnic and labor unrest today, and wary Asian nations wouldn’t be looking for alternative structures to check its thuggish conduct, its hegemonic predations, and most recently, its aggression through its North Korean proxy. That is why Pacific nations need a military alliance, patterned after NATO during the Cold War, to contain China for next 20 years until demographics, economics, religion, and politics catch up with its anachronistic statism. There already is a new Cold War in Asia — it’s just that some would rather not admit it. But I suspect that historians will record that it was presaged by the ugly nationalism of the 2008 Olympics, and “officially” began with the Cheonan Incident.

Sometime in the just ended decade, when I was in grad school at Yonsei, one of my professors bemoaned how utterly clueless young South Koreans were on average (he cited academically gathered statistics) about Beijing's policies even while they praised China-Korean ties, and how they tended to support policies that would undermine the US-ROK relationship (and the Seoul-Tokyo relationship) in favor of joining Benevolent Big Brother China in the historical embrace of Chinese hegemony.

[source]

In 2008, my anger at the Chinese students attacking South Koreans and resident foreigners in my 'hood because they dared speak out against Chinese policies, abated only because I realized that the infamous incident made a lot of South Koreans stand up and take notice. I only hope the Ch'ŏnan incident will have the same result.

I'm encouraged that someone like Joshua, who seems generally distrustful of Seoul's attitude toward and reliance on Washington, feels that a "NEATO" (i.e., something like a Northeast Asia Treaty Alliance modeled after NATO) is needed. I don't, however, share his optimism that such an alliance or even the current form of the Pax Americana might be needed for only twenty years. I look back at China twenty years ago, and I don't see that a whole heck has changed politically, even if the economy has grown in leaps and bounds. Likewise, I see Russia regressing (hence their own support for Pyongyang vis-à-vis the Ch'ŏnan sinking), and that also makes me uneasy.

In other words, expect to be a stabilizing force in this region for a long, long time (but also be aware that the cost is worth it, and far cheaper in blood and treasure than the alternative).

I like China as a culture and a country and I have many friends from that land (no small number of whom feel exactly as I do). My beef is with Beijing policies, which I see turning some of my own Chinese friends into patriot-bots at times. Very scary to see such adamance and arrogance coupled with such ignorance, especially in people who are otherwise very knowledgeable and thoughtful when it comes to their own field of study.

And don't get me wrong about the United States. I am an American citizen and I am proud of many of the things my country has done or continues to do, but I am not living in some fantasy world where I feel it can do no wrong or that it should not be criticized. I think we have botched the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I frankly don't think we should have been in the former at all, particularly as it prevented us from properly finishing the latter. America's enmeshment between government and corporate America is also something that can make me deeply anxious, both in terms of domestic and international policies. Nevertheless, I think in the aggregate it is clearly a force for good, one that its allies can rely on to help them achieve good as well, and, moreover, a place where we the people still have ability to change what we see wrong with it without fear of imprisonment, torture, or worse, while the people in allied countries ultimately have the power to ask us to leave.

Not so, I fear, with China.

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.

From the "things would be so much simpler if they weren't so complicated" files

Over at One Free Korea, a commenter named Stephen Erickson alerted us to his essay on making a deal with China over North Korea, a grand bargain which boils down to "our side" giving away the store in exchange for questionable IOUs:

The deal would look like this. The Chinese would agree to support short-term punitive measures against North Korea, in order to give South Korea some satisfaction for the loss of its ship and crew members. But more importantly, China would quietly guarantee that no similar incident would happen again. China has the power to keep North Korea strictly in line, and would agree to do so. In return, the US would promise to withdraw its ground forces from SouthKorea in a year or two. After ten or so years of peace without incident, the US would withdraw all of its naval and air assets as well.

Removing US troops from South Korea would distance us from the Korean powder keg and itself help diffuse the situation. North Korea would no longer be able to use the American presence as justification for its belligerent actions. Nor would such actions be permitted by the Chinese because of the aforementioned agreement. Getting out of Korea would save precious dollars and US military forces needed elsewhere.

As I wrote at his site (awaiting moderation) and at OFK, Mr Erickson's essay is based on a series of inaccurate assumptions.

First and foremost, he fails to grasp the extreme positive brought about by the US military presence in South Korea. This role by the US in Korea is the single greatest stabilizer in the region, without which the types of events that played out prior to the US taking a strong and active role in Northeast Asia would likely replay (four major wars on or through Korea in the sixty years prior to 1953, and none in the nearly as long period since then). The concomitant corollary to this assumption is also incorrect: were war to erupt again, the US would likely find its way into that as well, eliminating any cost savings from removing the highly effective deterrent and, while removing any real influence on the part of the US to prevent the conflict.

His second faulty assumption is that China even could "guarantee that no similar incident would happen again" and that "China has the power to keep North Korea strictly in line." In fact, this ill-considered notion would be laughable if its consequences weren't so deadly serious. It assumes that North Korea has no other game plan in the absence of cash flow from Beijing, when in fact Pyongyang is quite adept at playing even players like Beijing and Moscow off each other. With Russia looking to stick it in the US's eye whenever they get a chance, it's clearer and clearer that we're still in a form of the Cold War, but just the sound is on MUTE. Pyongyang would simply return to its old game plan of looking to Moscow when it can't get what it wants from Beijing.

Pyongyang cheats at cards, and Mr Erickson's solution amounts to taking the cards away so they can't cheat no more, unaware they've also got mahjong, chess, Monopoly™, and Battleship™ from which to hornswoggle their opponents.

His third misconception, in reference to the idea that "North Korea would no longer be able to use the American presence as justification for its belligerent actions," is that North Korea needs any real justification at all for its belligerent actions. This is a country that routinely accused its three greatest donors of food — Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo — of trying to overthrow it... while they were accepting such food aid. The belligerence is not caused by the actions of North Korea's enemies; rather, North Korea talks up what enemies they are as a justification for its belligerence. The propaganda is for domestic consumption, and the population must hear all about an oppressive enemy in order to justify or explain away Pyongyang's tight grip and string of economic failures.

And his final fantasy, that "such actions [would not] be permitted by the Chinese because of the aforementioned agreement" is just as egregious. China cannot control Pyongyang, and when Pyongyang eventually behaves badly despite America's departure from South Korea, that fact would be quite obvious, as would China's own duplicity when it fails to follow this international agreement that might undermine its client state.

When I clicked on Mr Erickson's link from One Free Korea, I was hoping for some creative proposal, not the throwing-one's-hands-in-the-air because this North Korea stuff is just too mind-boggling hard to think about. How about reassuring China that they have nothing to fear from a unified Korea under Seoul's control, by the US promising no American bases in former DPRK territory and Seoul promising that Chinese economic agreements made with Pyongyang will be honored?

His idea, I dare say, is like giving away your Lexus to a meth head as long as they promise to keep sending you money for bus fare.

Edited comment: I note that Mr Erickson's essay appeared at CenterMovement.org, a site that bills itself as a "journal and meeting place of the American center." Funny, I've long considered myself a moderate, and I thought that, when it comes to the military, the role of the moderate military is to remind the left of the value of a well-equipped and well-trained military and its role in acting as a deterrent, while reminding the right that its use should be prudent and well-reasoned and usually not as the first option.

Why the US Army should leave Korea (or not)

At The New Ledger and his own site, Joshua Stanton of One Free Korea makes a case for the departure from South Korea of the US Army (note: not the entire US military, which would still have Air Force and Navy installations in the ROK).

While I consider Joshua to be a very astute observer and commenter on North Korea whose site is among my most favorite ever, I think he misses the mark on this one, largely by use of "old news" that has long since changed. This is the comment I left:

If Mr Stanton's conclusion is that we withdraw our army units from South Korea, while keeping our air force and naval bases, I think that could be a warning to the current ROK government that they need to spend more money to modernize their own military, consider keeping mandatory military service at two years instead of dropping it eventually to eighteen months, expand ROK naval assistance in pirate-infested waters of Africa and Southeast Asia, and more substantially help out in other places. And if President Lee's government balks at this, we'd be within reason to make good on the threat of withdrawing the army units.

But the air force and navy should remain, not only to make it clear to North Korea that any invasion would be met with the full force of two militaries, but also to keep China hemmed in throughout the region, something of value not just to South Korea, but to America and all its other allies in the region. The Pax Americana has been the most successful source of stability in the region for centuries, and its very effectiveness should not be seen as a reason to dismantle it.

So if the distinction between removing the US Army and removing the US military is made, my only real quibble with this article is the copious use of examples from four or five years ago or earlier, a lifetime of change in Korean time and back when a highly unpopular, blindly North Korea-sympathetic administration was in Seoul's Blue House. So many things are so different from then, including an increasing commitment to aid America's efforts on the high seas and help rebuild Afghanistan (a large medical center and job training facility opened this week near Bagram), that the article is somewhat outdated.

Of course, things can change again, but for now the fifth-columnist chinboista forces that infect public sentiment are largely at bay, but even when they are raging or manipulating, the loud protestors on the vocal fringe do not necessarily represent the public at large. Walking off in a huff because the agenda-driven opposition says bad things about us is not a good way to run military or foreign policy.

Of course, anyone who reads my site regularly has probably already read my own views on the highly successful Pax Americana, so my take on this perennially floated proposal should be familiar and unsurprising.

Commenters are discussing the same thing at The Marmot's Hole. Predictably, some of the very people whose disdain for Korea is ever apparent are the same ones saying Korea should fend for itself (not that this is Joshua's argument). Regarding commenter David Barch's point...

I don’t hear anyone offering up a thoughtful rebuke to the idea that rich, developed countries like Korea should provide for their own defense.

... the rebuke might be that South Korea is providing for its own defense. In fact, 2.7% of South Korea's GDP is spent on military expenditures, not as much as the two war-fighting US at 4.06%, but considerably more than most American allies (Japan at 0.8%, Ireland and the Philippines each at 0.9%, New Zealand at 1.0%, Canada at 1.1%, Spain at 1.2%, Germany at 1.5%, Poland at 1.71%, Italy at 1.8%, Taiwan at 2.2%, the UK and Australia each at 2.4%, and France at 2.6%, among others).

And then there is the average of two years of military service most South Korean men must go through, which comes with considerable opportunity costs vis-à-vis economic growth and demographics. The notion that South Korea is not pulling its own weight is pure fantasy pulled out of the arses of people who are somehow able to maneuver that notion past the stick lodged up that same arse that they have about Korea.

That is not to say South Korea can't be a better partner that does more outside the peninsula or that allows the US to use ROK-located bases for its own missions outside the peninsula, but the guaranteed two-against-one if anyone messes with South Korea is what keeps it safe. Alliances are built on that principle, and I don't understand why people whose own negative impressions of Korea color their thinking on everything from Hyundai to Bagram so conveniently forget that when it comes to the ROK.

A pax on all your houses!

[Note: This post was originally intended to be a comment at Marmot's Hole about Korean being a welfare queen, especially when Marmot called into question the need for the Pax Americana to continue. I did post it at Marmot's, but decided to put it up on my own blog here, with some modifications.]

The Marmot wrote:
As for Pax Americana, yes, it did keep everyone reasonably well behaved in the region during the Cold War, but I don't see why the US need play the same role now.

This is one of the problems of the Pax America: it's very success leads people to believe it's not needed. It still does keep everyone reasonably well-behaved. And too little has changed to realistically expect that that good behavior would continue of the U.S. were not playing sheriff.

I know it may sound unpopular to tout the United States' role as the world's policeman, but the fact is that there is no one else to play that utterly necessary role. To paraphrase actor Troy McClure (a character in The Simpsons voiced by the late Phil Hartman) when he was told he'd gotten the part of The Human in a theatrical version of "Planet of the Apes": It's the part we were born to play, baby!

No other country has the combination of the power, the willingness to use that power where appropriate, PLUS the commitment to democracy, economic growth, and human rights that the United States has. No one.

A very distant second would be the United Nations, which is too mired in its own bureaucracy to play anything beyond being a peacekeeper where peace has already been established. It serves no deterrent threat in the way that the United States does. The US-led war in Iraq may be unpopular around the world, but the fact remains that there is no government that fears the United States that is not doing serious wrong to their own people.

Were the US to give up that role, there would be no one to take it up, and we would see with the absence of effective alliances why a good alliance keeps the peace. China would be a threat to Taiwan and to all of Korea, and perhaps Japan. Japan would see China as a threat, especially if it swallowed up Taiwan (which is a stone's throw from Okinawa) or Korea, and they would engage in a massive military build-up which would in turn give China further reason to build up its military. With its eastern neighbors engaging in an arms race, who knows how Russia will react around its territories.

The result would be a very expensive and very big powder keg. Japan alone has two major territorial disputes not counting the least likely to blow up, Tokto/Takeshima: The "Northern Territories" of Etorofu, Kunashiri, and Shikotan, known as the "Southern Kuril Islands" by the Russians who occupy them; and Diaoyutai/Senkaku-shoto, uninhabited islands with great hydrocarbon potential that are also claimed by China and Taiwan, and where Japan has unilaerally declared an economic zone.

For its part, China has numerous territorial disputes besides Diaoyutai/Senkaku-shoto. There are still issues to be squared away with India and Pakistan, where China is involved with the Kashmir question, said to be the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute. An area where China may be more likely to get involved in actual shooting might be the Spratly Islands, over which China claims sovereignty, as do Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. China also occupies some of the Paracel Islands that are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. There are even issues with North Korea (islands in the Amnok/Yalu River and in the Tuman/Tumen River, plus an indefinite border around Mt. Paektusan) which could become pretextual flashpoints in some future land grab.

In the early 1990s, the Philippine Senate booted out the US military in a fit of nationalism; shortly thereafter, the People's Republic began putting up military structures in the Spratly Islands to bolster their claim. I don't think the timing is a coincidence but a portent.

It's not like the Big Red Dog is barking at the door.

The biggest red dog has been put to sleep. The other one has been barking, but not so much because we've been feeding it milk-bonz and we're carrying around a big stick.

China is not threatening two of America's two largest trading partners, unless you're referring to Taiwan as one of them.

China is not overtly threatening South Korea or Japan because the United States is there. And China is threatening Taiwan on a regular basis. China waits patiently for opportunities; if none are there, it does nothing.

China is a mid-ranked regional power at best, and Japan and South Korea are more than capable of defending themselves against potential Chinese aggression.

If China were to quickly and decisively take over the Diaoyu-tai/Senkaku-shoto, or to rapidly move in to a collapsing North Korea in order to "restore order," what would a lone Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea be able to do to stop this?

Heck, with China surrounded by Korea, Japan, India, Russia and Vietnam, I fail to see why the U.S. need pay the costs of "keeping things safe."

Taiwan and South Korea spend about 2.5% of their GDP for their military. South Korean males are required to spend on average over two years of their young lives in military service; Taiwanese spend 18 months. In other words, they are paying part, not all of the costs. These countries are paying what they can, and they're giving up a lot in terms of manpower to do it. There is no free ride; these are not welfare queens.

Japan's case is special, because of the pacifist constitution that the United States put in place (and the result has been very good for peace in the region). There is a 1% cap, but in Japan's case, that's a lot of money. Again, Japan is not getting a free ride, especially considering the usage of valuable land that Japan provides the U.S. military bases. Tokyo is paying its own way in ways that it can.

Seems to me a waste of resources and wrongly placed subsidies.

The US military deterrent costs pennies compared to what could easily happen if the United States were not playing sheriff in this neck of the woods. Besides the blow to democracy and human rights that would likely occur if a war were to break out between China and Japan over the Diaoyu-tai/Senkaku/shoto, for example, or if China were to establish control over North Korea (or all of Korea) or Mongolia. Let's not forget, the Chinese sent in troops to bolster its satellite state just fifty-five years ago; they do consider such things within their purview.

The success of the Pax Americana can be summed up very easily. In the sixty-year period ending with the Korean War, there were FOUR major wars involving the Korean Peninsula: the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, in which Japan wrested control of Korea from China, taking over Taiwan outright in the process; the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, in which Japan re-asserted its claim over Korea against Russia and moved to take over part of China; the Second Sino-Japanese War, beginning in 1937, in which Korea was used as a base from which to launch and sustain a strong war against China and its other neighbors; and the Korean War, in which the Russians and the Chinese both sought to help a vicious communist Korean government wipe a capitalist Korea off the map.

This is not just about Korea: Japan was the instigator in three of those wars; including the bloodiest; China was involved in three of them; and Russia was involved in two.

Since the end of the Korean War, when the US-ROK alliance, the US-Japan alliance, and the US-Taiwan alliance were all firmly established and in place, there have been ZERO major conflicts. The only variable has been the strong U.S. presence.

The sheriff's in town, so behave.

So is this a big waste of money? Not considering what the recent historical record shows us that the future holds without the U.S. playing sheriff.

By way of analogy, think of the dikes and levees that were supposed to prevent New Orleans and southern Louisiana from being submerged in the event of a serious hurricane. The Feds and the State (apparently under both Republican and Democratic leadership) decided that it would be too costly to do anything beyond a Category-3 hurricane. And after all, what is the likelihood of something more powerful than that hitting New Orleans? Not enough to justify the extra billions of dollars it would have taken.

Well, New Orleans gets hit by category-4 hurricane that had just been downgraded from a cateogry-5. What happens the ensuing death and destruction was far, far, far greater than what was saved by not preparing for it.

A war involving the countries that now benefit from the Pax Americana would be a major blow to the US economy. China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan make up 40% of the U.S.'s top trading partners. There would be untold death and destruction, probably hurting those who share the democratic values of the United States. And these wars have a way of eventually pulling the United States in anyway, so our effort to "save our boys" by getting out of the way would probably be for naught anyway.

With Hurricane Katrina, defense against foreign terrorists at home during 9/11, defense against domestic terrorists in Oklahoma City, etc., we can see that there are so many cases where the we (American citizens) were inadequately prepared for a threat we either underestimated or did not see. But here in East Asia, we are actually vigilant and ready. Why dismantle what has been and continues to be a genuine success story?

Of course, the lack of multilateral security systems in the region is somewhat distressing, but then again, when Uncle Sam is handing out bilateral defense guarantees, there's really no reason to build rational security regimes with your neighbors.

Somewhat distressing? It's very distressing. The United States can and should use its role to bolster good triangular relations with its allies. That might involve getting Roh to be more like Kim Daejung (who said that Korea and Japan's future relations should not be determined by historical grievances) and getting Koizumi to stop flouting the sensitivities of countries against which Japan onced aggressed.

And to be fair, the "sheriff mentality" can be applied both ways. South Korean personnel have been "deputized" for duty in other parts of the world, especially in Vietnam but also recently in East Timor, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Japanese personnel as well. This is something that should continue (in Japan's case, carefully so, within the framework of the pacifist constitution), maybe even increased.

That would be a better solution than bemoaning having to play sheriff because no one else can. Embrace being the peacemaker and peacekeeper; it is the legacy for which future history books will praise the nation. Plus it's a lot cheaper than the alternative.