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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Everyone in Roh Moo-hyun's government, without exception, says that Korea and the United States are on good terms. Lee Jong-seok of the National Security Council (NSC) visited Washington D.C. early December to meet with people on the United States' National Security Council, the Departments of State and Defense. "Now that I'm here," he said. "It seems there isn't anything to worry about that much."
Experts on both sides say that relations have improved compared to a year ago. When asked about future prospects, however, they say a little more. "There are actually problems. The U.S. likes to conceal things until they become a problem, and Korea works hard to ignore them."
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After having an informal meeting on the North Korean nuclear issue at the U.S. Department of State on Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, center, South Korean Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lee Soo-hyuck, left, and Mitoji Yabunaka, the head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asia and Oceana Affairs Bureau, take questions from reporters.
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"Korea isn't obstructing the six-way talks on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, but it isn't helping either," said one diplomatic source in Washington said last December. "That's how the U.S. is feeling right now."
The source added that the United States is of the position that Korea has to form a common front with the other five countries talking with the North in the six-way talks if the North is going to be led to giving up its program. Instead, Korea goes back and forth between the United States and the North, breaking up the common front.
He went on to say that when it comes to the North Korea nuclear issue, South Korea is less reliable than China. It has been reported that the U.S. administration has taken note of how some officials in Korea blamed the U.S. for the failure to hold another round of six-nation talks in December.
Another source said that the Bush Administration is concerned about repeatedly surprising comments from Jeong Se-hyeon, Korea's Minister of Unification, about how North Korea is changing but the South's views continue to be biased.
Dennis Halpin, a "Pearson Fellow" in the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, was sent to Korea last year to see the situation on the ground.
He and others in his party also visited the provincial cities of Busan and Jinju, where they talked with university students and members of the general public. An official with the U.S. Congress said that their undisclosed report stated that differing views about North Korea by the United States and South Korea would become the single greatest issue of concern.
U.S. officials frequently cite an episode that occurred last September, when the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Yoon Young-kwan, was given an unprecedented invitation to the White House by President Bush, who asked, "How's my friend President Roh Moo-hyun?", then, "Wouldn't it be nice if the North and South were reunited right now?"
Yoon reportedly said that hasty reunification wouldn't be desirable. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not make the conversation public at the time.
Behind these differences of perception lie reservations on how to think about the identity of Roh's government. Many of the suspicions and anxieties the United States had towards the current government have, of course, been resolved. Bush Administration officials say that the Roh government acts better than it talks. There was a lot of sound and fury over the decision to send additional Korean troops to Iraq, but the government still decided to send less troops than the United States and Britain, and the United States is relatively grateful for the move.
One individual, however, who was for a long time responsible for Korean affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency and who demanded anonymity, said, "There are still lingering questions about what policies the Korean government has about North Korea, unification, and U.S. forces stationed there." He meant to say that there is still a lot of curiosity about the true nature of Roh's government.
Last fall, when researchers from a Korean state-funded think-tank visited the U.S. State Department, one high-level official there asked if Korean society "isn't becoming more socialist." A few months ago, when a Korean official met with members of the U.S. government only to return to Seoul and lie about what had been discussed, someone in the Bush Administration reportedly declared that meeting notes would have to be kept on future discussions.
In the Republican-led Congress, an anemoscope of what the administration will do, there is no small number of people who feel hurt by Korea or feel betrayed.
One Republican member of the House of Representatives, speaking at a Congressional caucus on non-proliferation several months ago, strongly criticized Korea, saying that tens of thousands of Americans died in the Korean War, and American aid was a big part in Korea's economic development and democratization, but that now Korea is saying it doesn't need the United States. Early last year, Republican member of the House of Representatives Ron Paul even submitted a resolution calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in Korea.
This kind of "hate" for Korea is possible, of course, because of "love" that exists for it as well. Six or seven members of Congress fought in the Korean War, and a considerable number had fathers who either fought in the war or later served in the U.S. military in Korea.
Senator John Warner is the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. On the wall of his office hangs a picture of him taken in the Pohang-Yeongdeok region during the war, and he proudly points it out to Korean visitors. John Conyers, a Democratic member of the House, displays a flag given him by a Korean War veterans group in Virginia commemorating his participation in combat.
The House's "Korea Caucus" has 56 members. When the American broadcasting company CBS's current events program 60 Minutes ran a segment about anti-Americanism in Korea, titled "Yankee Go Home," members' offices were filled with letters from constituents calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The legislatures and executive branches of both countries are currently not demonstrating any desire to create positive points of contact that would strengthen relations. They are instead reacting, writing prescriptions after the fact, when negative issues arise.
(Joo Yong-joong, midway@chosun.com )
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