Roh Mute About Dispatch Decision

Ours is a country that is so foreigner-excluding that we are virtually the only one in the world without a Chinatown. Still, we went abroad and got jobs and did businesses and earned money, and all that helped us to build the foundation for our development. We export high-tech goods, but whenever we're confronted with something unfavorable we say we're still a developing nation.

In our foreign relations we used the power of the United States in every field and at every level of the diplomatic world. We acquired information from the United States and used the country as a sponsor. All these were free lunches, and the international society didn't mind paying the bill, because we were so small and because we were important in the Cold War structure. When the world was divided into the Western and communist worlds, we were at the front of the Western world, so we were able to enjoy free lunches in areas such as defense, diplomacy, politics, industry, trade and finance. And the world didn't mind.

But suddenly the Cold War ended, and our economy grew to become the 12th largest in the world, and international society began to take note of our free lunches. It also noticed that we were spending huge amounts of money to spruce ourselves up. Then international society decided it was time for us to pay our own way.

The first real bill we got may have been the foreign exchange crisis of 1997-98. In contrast to the Cold War, when we were in the red in trade, the Western world refused to provide us a free lunch. The bill we got was the world's suddenly cool posture - which we never saw during the Cold War era.

Now the United States is bringing us another bill, to send a combat unit that can control a part of Iraq. A few decades ago, when we sent troops to Vietnam, the Americans paid the bill. And we even earned huge amounts of money through industry supporting that war. But this time it looks like we'll have to pay our own way. And our soldiers may even have to shed blood.

The problem is that even if we refuse to pay this bill, the free lunches are over. And if we refuse to pay this bill, we may be barred from the restaurant from now on. Even if the Republicans lose the next presidential election and a Democrat takes over, there would be no change. The Democrats are critical about Bush's Iraq policy, but if Korea refuses to pay this bill, the consequences - though somewhat different - would remain.

Some of our politicians say no to the dispatch because there is no justification for it or because it is bad for our long-term interests. But many countries are sending troops to Iraq, despite having no clear justifications, such as Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, Romania, El Salvador and Honduras. Even the small island of Fiji is hurrying to send an infantry battalion.

Russia, France and Japan are now having tugs-of-war over the issue, but they aren't really thinking about long-term national interests. The small countries know now that there's no free lunch, and the big countries have never had one.

President Roh Moo-hyun lamented in his inauguration speech, "We have been living in an era that put us on the fringes and we have had to rely on others." Yes, it goes without saying that if you have a history of getting free lunches, you have a history of relying on others.

Beyond this question of dispatching troops, many bills are coming our way, in areas such as trade, foreign workers here and participation in international society. Only when we have the guts and the conscience to pay the bills will we be able to leave the fringes of history. And only when we have such a wherewithal will we stop relying on others.

The writer is an editorial writer at the Chosun Ilbo Sept. 17, 2003