The Death of an Alliance, Part 21: Call the Plumber!

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Most of it is true and needed to be said–at least privately–but exactly whose idea was it for a Japanese politician to take the lead in criticizing South Korea’s new shift from U.S. ally to “regional balancer?” And in public, no less?

Japan’s Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi reportedly had harsh words for Korea during a recent visit of Korean lawmakers. He said Seoul had been neglecting its alliance with Washington although unity between South Korea, the U.S., and Japan was key to solving the North Korean nuclear dispute. He told the members of the National Assembly’s Defense Committee that Tokyo “would not accept” a new role Korea sees for itself as a power balancer in Northeast Asia. Seoul was reportedly told of Yachi’s statements by its embassy in Tokyo.

Perhaps the U.S. felt that it was necessary to give the criticism a more “multilateral” dimension. Given the intensity of Korean antipathy toward Japan, however, I suspect this will transform an ill-considered idea that Roh Moo-Hyun pulled out of his ass just before some key bi-elections into the latest nationalist cause celebre. And while I believe that the “balancer” concept is bad for every single country in the region–and especially for the Korean people on both sides of the DMZ–no one has a right to take issue with an elected government’s inherent right to freely enter the Chinese Peoples’ Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

In other words, what Japan will or will not accept isn’t an issue. The issue is whether the United States ought to continue subsidizing the defense of a nation that has unilaterally walked away from its obligations under the alliance while expecting to retain its military, diplomatic, and financial benefits.

Now for the interesting part:

The lawmakers quoted Yachi as saying, “The U.S. and Japan are sharing intelligence about the North Korean nuclear issue, but because the U.S. does not trust South Korea, it’s hard for Tokyo to share the intelligence it has gathered about [the matter] with Seoul.” The vice minister reportedly used frank language to criticize South Korea.

That fits other reports we’ve seen before, notably this one. Yachi went on to say what we already know, which is that South Korea has essentially lined up with China and North Korea in the six-party talks.

He warned if North Korea conducts a nuclear test, Tokyo would cut food aid and raise “in earnest” the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang.

UPDATE 5/26.

On the record:

“It’s below my dignity as a Korean official to ask the Japanese why they said something like that,” he commented. He also dismissed reports in the Japanese press that Seoul’s unceremonious scrapping of a Korean-U.S. military plan for contingencies in North Korea, dubbed OPLAN 5029, would be a key topic when President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S. President George W. Bush meet next month. The matter had not made its way on the summit agenda, he said.

He doth protest too much, methinks. And now for what they’re saying off the record:

However, the U.S. does appear to view Seoul’s desire to become a “balancer” in Northeast Asia as an attempt to shake itself free of the alliance with Washington. A high-ranking government official said, “I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from U.S. figures asking what we’re trying to do.” The Korean National Security Council has explained that Seoul’s ambition to act as a balancing force in the region was in the U.S. interest as well.

A ruling-party lawmaker who attended a Korea-U.S. relations seminar in Washington last week confided, “When I claimed that ‘the Seoul-Washington relationship is firm as ever,’ my American friends retorted, ‘What do you mean? There are problems'” Nevertheless, our government from top to bottom keeps reciting the mantra that the alliance is “well-managed.

More:

They say the Japan Defense Agency expressed surprise in that South Korean ruling party legislators appeared to justify North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons at a time when Seoul needed to take a firm stand against it. The agency’s leadership also reportedly said there was definitely a problem in the relationship between South Korea and the United States. “It appears the United States has come to distrust South Korea,” they said.

Japan’s outspoken Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi reportedly said, “The South Korea-U.S.-Japan relationship is very important in resolving the North Korean nuclear dispute, but the problem was South Korea… It’s questionable whether South Korea stands with us. On the contrary, I wonder if the South is moving in the opposite direction.

Grand National Party lawmaker Park Jin, who is on the Defense Committee, went off on his own to meet a high-ranking U.S. official, who told him the Chinese government was divided between pragmatists and hardliners on the North Korea issue. Park said the official told him Chinese President Hu Jintao supported the pragmatists, but again South Korea was the problem. According to the official, Chinese pragmatists were telling the U.S. that as long as Seoul continues to “appease” the North and take a low-key approach, Beijing cannot take the lead in persuading Pyongyang. According to the official, South Korea held the key to resolving the issue, Park said.

Park also quoted the unnamed official as saying, “After Korea and the U.S. agreed in 2003 on OPLAN 5029 [a joint military plan for contingencies in North Korea including mass defections and natural disaster], Seoul belatedly called for it to be cancelled, and the South Korean government intentionally leaked this to the press. Park said the U.S. official called this “a slap in the face for an ally” which had damaged the bilateral relationship.

I feel the need to repeat myself here. Nations determine their own interests, interests (or the measure of them) change, and alliances change with them. Fine. I’m simply of the opinion that the alliance as currently structured is a bad deal for the United States and a disaster for the North Korean people, who are assigned the task of spending the next several decades in maximum security lockup living on the equivalent of two medium-sized potatoes a day.

UPDATE 2, 5/26:

The Lost Nomad has much more, including a great picture and a link to this story:

An official with Korea’s National Security Council said Tuesday the U.S. government had blasted Seoul over reports in the Korean media detailing an ill-fated plan by the Korean and U.S. military dubbed OPLAN 5029 for contingencies in North Korea. The plan, which Seoul later scrapped, outlined a response to eventualities in North Korea including natural disaster and mass defections.

“When NSC deputy chief Lee Jong-seok visited the U.S. in early May, the responsible U.S. government department expressed serious regret that the plan was leaked to the Korean media,” the official told reporters. “The U.S. demanded to know why it was leaked to the media, and why this always seemed to happen.”

. . . .

“Since a leak of the operational plan as a matter of military secrecy could harm Korea’s national interests in both the Korea-U.S. relationship and North-South relationship, the NSC paid special attention to security but was unsuccessful in preventing leaks,” the official said.

If they’re admitting that they can’t even control top secret information, I can’t see why they have the chutzpah to argue that we should still give them access to it. South Korea is starting to look like a loony John Birch commie-conspiracy theory come true.