The Death of an Alliance

The adjustment of alliances according to the inevitable shifting of nations’ interests is a gradual process, but if there’s a single event that can be said to mark the end of a military alliance based on a great nation’s promise to protect a small one, it is the point where the great nation publicly withdraws its promise of protection:

[Chairman of the House International Relations Committee Henry] Hyde said the South Korean Defense Ministry omitted from its 2004 white paper a reference to North Korea as the “main enemy”, while continued North Korean hostility was a major basis for the South Korea-U.S. alliance. But the same white paper said 690,000 U.S. troops would be deployed to the Korean Peninsula if a military conflict were to erupt – four times the number of U.S. troops currently serving in Iraq – reflecting excessive expectations on Seoul’s part. He said it was only appropriate to ask for a clear definition of who South Korea’s enemy is if it wants U.S. help.

(*cough*)

That statement was published in a fascinating article in the Chosun Ilbo about the nearly univeral, bipartisan frustration within the U.S. Congress about South Korea’s appeasement of the North–even at the apex of the North’s nuclear defiance, oppression, proliferation, and threats. More specifically, Rep. Hyde was referring to the annual South Korean Defense Ministry white paper, which this year omitted the characterization of North Korea as its “main enemy” for the first time. And while the description itself is mainly semantic, too many other, more tangible actions by South Korea’s government and people suggest that they don’t see North Korea as much of a danger. Hyde specifically brought up Seoul’s continuing aid to the North Korean regime. He might as well also have added that no one really has any idea where that aid actually goes.

The article also reveals what we’ve long suspected about all those pollyanish statements about the strength of the U.S.-ROK alliance (my apologies in advance for the long quote, but it’s all must-reading):

Hyde’s statement reflects what many within the U.S. Congress have been silently thinking. Both Washington and Seoul have been stressing the solid nature of the alliance through summits and discussions between foreign ministers, but congressional conservatives – and especially Korea experts with civilian think tanks – say fundamental disagreements lie just below the surface.

When South Korea took the sides of the Chinese and Russians in demanding U.S. “flexibility” over North Korea, or when President Roh Moo-hyun said during an address in Los Angeles in November that there was some reason to North Korea’s nuclear claims, those differences became plain. The new chillier atmosphere was palpable when both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act late last year despite opposition in South Korea.

When National Assembly speaker Kim Won-ki recently visited the U.S., the Grand National Party’s Park Jin said the mood of the U.S. Congress — Democrats included — had gotten very hardline after Pyongyang’s Feb. 10 declaration that it has nuclear arms. Following discussions with U.S. lawmakers, Millennium Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Nak-yon said the burden faced by the Korean government to maintain cooperation with the U.S. seemed to be growing heavier.

Rep. Tom Lantos, a sponsor of a recent “ADVANCE Democracy Act” to spread global democracy, told South Korean lawmakers Seoul and Washington needed to present a united front to North Korea. Grand National Party lawmaker Kwon Young-se said he got the strong impression this meant Lantos wanted Seoul to come round to Washington’s position.
. . . .

Even though the U.S. Congress, like the National Assembly, is divided into hawks and doves, conservatives and progressives, it is no exaggeration that the entire U.S. legislature has fallen in with the hard line when it comes to North Korea’s nuclear program. Hyde’s comments are emblematic of the dissatisfaction with Seoul spreading in Washington as a sense of crisis over North Korea deepens.

The Chosun Ilbo correspondent is clearly no fan of Henry Hyde, and I can pretty much personally account for the fact that Hyde is no fan of contemporary South Korea’s politics, either:

Rep. Henry Hyde, a 16-term lawmaker from the state of Illinois, is a conservative with a record of hardline comments about North Korea. He was among lawmakers who wrote to Pyongyang demanding to know the whereabouts of South Korean pastor Kim Dong-shik, who was abducted to the North Korea in 2000. He also declared Washington-Pyongyang relations would not be normalized until Kim’s kidnapping was resolved.

That’s not the half of it. The letter was signed not only by Hyde, but by the Speaker, Dennis Hastert, and by Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s young, liberal rising star and 2004 keynote speaker, and by every last member of the Illinois delegation. Here’s what they said in that letter, courtesy of The Suh Republic, which in about 20 minutes will be the newest addition to my blogroll:

His Excellency Pak Gil Yon
Ambassador
Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea to the United Nations
515 East 72nd Street, 38-F
New York, NY 10021

Dear Ambassador Pak:

This letter is to inform you and your government of the distress with which the undersigned Members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation received the finding from the Seoul Central District Prosecutor=s Office on December 14, 2004 that South Korean citizen and U.S. permanent resident Reverend Kim Dong-Shik had been abducted by agents of your government in northeast China in January 2000 and taken forcibly into North Korea. Your government, regrettably, has, by its own admission, been involved in the abductions of a number of Japanese citizens, as well as an even greater number of South Korean citizens.

Reverend Kim Dong-Shik, as you may be aware, is the spouse of Mrs. Young Hwa Kim of Chicago, Illinois, and is the parent of U.S. citizens, one of whom is currently residing in Skokie, Illinois. Citizens from a Korean-American church in the Chicago area have also raised this matter as an issue of grave concern and have requested Congressional assistance in ascertaining the facts behind the disappearance and current whereabouts of Reverend Kim. In pursuit of these issues, Mrs. Kim and a delegation from Illinois will be visiting Capitol Hill in the near future.

The successful resolution of this case, therefore, is of critical importance to us, both because of the constituent interests involved as well as because it is a case involving the most fundamental of human rights. Reverend Kim, in his selfless efforts to assist refugees escaping in an underground network to third countries, brings to mind two great heroes held in high esteem in the United States. The first is Ms. Harriet Tubman, who established an underground railroad allowing for the escape from slavery of those held in bondage before President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation; the second is the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who, during the dark days of the world conflict against fascism in the Second World War, rescued Jewish refugees trapped in Hungary. We view Reverend Kim Dong-Shik as also being a hero who assisted with the escape of the powerless and forgotten.

We, therefore, wish to inform the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) that we will NOT support the removal of your government from the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism until such time, among other reasons, as a full accounting is provided to the Kim family regarding the fate of the Reverend Kim Dong-Shik following his abduction into North Korea five years ago.

Sincerely,

J. DENNIS HASTERT
Speaker of the House of Representatives

HENRY J. HYDE
Chairman

RICHARD J. DURBIN
United States Senator

BARACK OBAMA
United States Senator

(etc., etc., etc.)

I’d add that “Ellisoo” is a thoroughly good person who worked hard on the North Korean human rights issue before going to work for the U.N. Her presence there is great news for the people of North Korea, at least if you’re one who thinks that there might still be a way to rescue the U.N. as a useful institution. Don’t miss her report on what happened at the U.N. building when Condi Rice announced that she was sending John Bolton there!

The Chosun also said that “Hyde was also one of the key figures who pushed for high-ranking North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop’s visit to the U.S. in 2001. ” Almost. Hwang’s visit was in October 2003, a point I vividly recall because I was there. Read the rest on your own.