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In a meeting with Korean residents in Istanbul, Turkey on Saturday, President Roh Moo-hyun said he found Koreans who are "more pro-American than the Americans" very hard to deal with. "They talk with not Korea but the United States at heart," he said. "Koreans should think and judge like Koreans."
It is typical of this government to divide people into them and us, pro-American and anti-American. For pro-American read dependent on a foreign power, for anti-American read independent. This dividing attitude toward a particular country into either pro or anti is a die-hard habit with ideological activists in thrall to colonial times.
National interest is what should govern the relations between countries. This applies to allied or friendly countries, too. On things commercial we can stand up to the United States; on Japanese textbooks whitewashing Japan's wartime atrocities, we can work with China. That is how it was with both the Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung administrations.
But from the perspective of long-term national interests, there exists a basic framework in international relations which we change at our own peril. That is what former president Kim Dae-jung meant when he said a while ago there were three paradigms in Korean diplomacy, with the Korea-U.S. alliance at the core, the three-way alliance with Japan next, and beyond that cooperation with the four Great Powers in the region. That, he said is Korea's "destiny," whether it likes it or not.
Roh has recently been saying that Korea will play a stabilizing role in Northeast Asia, while making it clear he does not want the U.S. Forces Korea to be deployed in any dispute between the United Stats and China -- an entirely hypothetical scenario.
Not only is the direction of American policy toward China light years away from the U.S.' containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War; China also has no intention of engaging in a hegemonic struggle with the United States, not for the time being at least. This is a common perception among experts. Roh's unnecessary and premature remarks under these circumstances have invited an international debate about the Republic of Korea's future path. "Is that a break with the Korea-U.S. alliance?" they ask in Washington. "We welcome it," says Beijing. Can either really benefit our national interest?
So now the chief executive's has had it with those who are concerned over his remarks, which after all go to the heart of the nation's future. It is an attempt to stifle any dissent over his foreign policy, no more. If he succeeds in whipping up his supporters, he could maneuver us into a situation where a sensible foreign policy is sacrificed on the altar of populism.
The Republic of Korea's foreign relations have for some time now relied on one-man diplomacy. Things have come to such a pass that the Foreign Ministry is relegated to carrying out presidential instructions. "I offer my deep gratitude to the president for his lucid directives and showing us the way to go when the Foreign Ministry falls short in its abilities," the foreign minister was recently moved to say. All the more reason to be very worried when the president divides us once again into two kinds of people.
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