Why Merrill Newman came home and Ken Bae didn’t.

By now, everyone knows that Merrill Newman has come home, but hardly anyone knows that Ken Bae is in the hospital after losing 50 pounds in a North Korean prison.

What accounts for the difference in outcomes? One reason, I’m afraid, is the cultural tendency of Koreans to feel that they have a certain ethnic “jurisdiction” over other ethnic Koreans — a tendency I’ve certainly observed in South Korea, too. Korean-American friends of mine, who were culturally just as American as me, have told me of the intense pressures put on them to adapt to Korea’s language, culture, and social norms. The North Koreans may feel some similar right to judge Bae by their standards, and that doesn’t bode well for him.

Another reason may be that Newman had friends like Thaddeus Taylor III, who were smart enough to ignore the State Department. State usually tells families to hush up and let it use its special “back channel diplomacy,” the results of which speak for themselves in Bae’s case. Instead, Newman’s media-savvy friends went public. In so doing, they stressed his age, his sympathetic personal history, and his heart condition. That certainly didn’t hurt, and it probably helped.

Bae’s family has been less vocal, or at least has seemed less vocal. For example, I’m reading for the first time that Bae has three kids. If Bae’s family learns anything from Newman’s experience, those kids will be all over the television by week’s end, telling the whole world how much they miss their daddy, and how he was just trying to help hungry people in North Korea. They don’t have to say that Kim Jong Un isn’t helping them. That much will be implied. Today, when most Americans hear Kim Jong Un’s name, the first thing they think of his Bacchanalian parties with Dennis Rodman.

By the way, Newman would like you to know that he was coerced into making that confession. Duly noted.

So, if you’re ever foolish enough to find yourself in North Korea for some reason, be sure to tell your friends to ignore the State Department and talk to the press. (As far as any North Koreans Newman may have endangered by being caught with a list bearing their names, or the names of their relatives, no amount of publicity can save them.) Sure, a lot of people have questioned Newman’s judgment, but being called naive by Bruce Cumings is like being denounced by Kim Jong Un for the lavish excesses of your lifestyle.

3 Responses

  1. Do you think because the “confession” was so poorly written, that all of this was done for domestic propaganda?

    Didn’t anyone think this through? I don’t think North Korea gained anything from this.

  2. Yes, clearly it was primarily for a domestic audience. They can’t have imagined that this would go over well with Americans. I’m surprised they even translated it. It’s possible they could be listening to Americans who are well outside the mainstream, and wrongly assuming that they have a focus group that represents how we really think, but even that seems doubtful.

  3. Perhaps, given the timing of Jung’s arrest and the purges, his release was timed to demonstrate the “forgiveness and compassion of the great Marshal”