The Marmot’s Hole

Washington Post international media blogger Jefferson Morley learns what readers of The Marmot’s Hole have known since this whole North Korean missile thing started—South Korea tends to react to bad news about North Korea a bit differently:

While the rest of the worlds sounds very worried, the South Korean government is downplaying reports that North Korea may be preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, according to reports in the country’s online media.

Seoul? Downplaying reports? You don’t say?

The conflicting response of government and media reflects the complexity of South Korean public opinion where fear of the North’s nuclear arsenal and disgust with its human rights abuses compete against popular sentiment for unification of the peninsula and, as The Post’s Anthony Faiola reported last month, resentment caused by the presence of U.S. troops in the country for the past half century.

Well, OK, there’s another factor in play as well, and it’s not necessarily the World Cup. You also have to take into consideration the fact that most of South Korea has been within North Korean missile range for quite some time, and most here in Seoul—well within the range of North Korean artillery—take it for granted that in the event of hostilities, we’d have at most a couple of minutes to kiss our asses goodbye, nukes or no nukes.

ICBMs are even more irrelevant. Intercontinental missiles are, pretty much by definition, not for use in hitting countries a six-seven hour drive away. Yes, they put parts of the United States within range of North Korean stupidity, but so what? Welcome to our world. Anyway, when you’ve dealt with the North Korean threat for as long as folk here, you learn after a while to tune it out. Think about the good old days of the Cold War. Most of us, and by us I mean Americans, lived our lives under constant threat of a Soviet nuclear strike. I’m not sure about you, but I didn’t wake up every morning contemplating the reality that it took only a press of the button for some grumpy badly dressed old dude in the Kremlin to ruin ruin my entire day.

I should also note that the South Korean government, official statement and critical press reports in the Chosun-JoongAng-DongA not withstanding, does in fact take the possibility of a North Korean missile launch very seriously, albeit possibly for very different reasons than the Americans and Japanese, as I’ll get to later.

Morley goes on to cite editorials in the English-language editions of Korea’s three major dailies, all of them critical of the government’s handling of the North Korean missile issue. This, of course, is Exhibit A of why it’s got to be tough being an overseas journalist trying to cover the Korean press. You have to rely on what you can read. And that usually means only those papers with English editions, which in Korea, means the Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A dailies. Now, I don’t mean to criticize those fine papers or belittle their influence on public opinion—they do account for something like 60 percent of the Korean newspaper market, after all. But to speak frankly, if you’ve read an editorial in one, more than likely you’ve read one in the other two. What’s you’re NOT going to get is a fair representation of Korean media opinion.

So, for the benefit of those poor unfortunate souls who follow the trackback from the WaPo blog expecting something insightful to read here, let me apologize and say you’ll find nothing of the sort, but by way of consolation, I will briefly summarize what some of Korea’s other rags of record had to say about the North Korean missile thingy.

In an editorial on May 18, the Hankyoreh Shinmun—one of Korea’s representative left-wing papers—called on the North Koreans to halt any missile test it may have planned, attempting to convince the North Koreans—as only the Hankyoreh can—that a missile test would not be in North Korea’s best interests. Namely, it points out that for a nation surrounded by major powers like North Korea, it was more important for defense to properly handy tension and conflict than to develop advanced missile technology. A missile test could lead to long term isolation for the North. It also warned the North that a test might seem good for potential missile exports, but this was a mistake because it would lend strength to U.S. moves to close off all North Korean missile exports.

It also warned the North that any calculation it might have made that a test could prove useful in improving its relationship with the United States ala past exercises in brinkmanship was wrong. Instead, it said in true Hani fashion, all it would do is provide justification to hardliners in the Bush administration who prefer pressure over dialog and to the U.S. military-industrial complex (and here I was thinking nobody used that term anymore). It would also strengthen the “aggressive” Korea-Japan alliance. In addition, a test would prove a burden on moderates who have pushed a peaceful resolution to problems on the Korean Peninsula, including the North Korean nuclear issue.

The paper also criticized the Bush administration (like you thought it wouldn’t?), which is condemned for not really trying to restart the six-party talks. Firstly, the administration turned down both a possible meeting between Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-kwan in Tokyo in April and a June 1 invitation to Hill to visit Pyongyang. It said Washington’s passive attitude toward restarting the talks cast suspicion on whether the United States really meant to deal with all issues through the six-party talks, as it claims.

It also said it was as foolish for U.S. hardliners to expect the North to fold unilaterally as it was for the North to expect U.S. hardliners to fold after a missile test. What’s more, with the U.S. already leveling financial sanctions on the North, there weren’t that many cards for the U.S. to play, and it was best for Washington to begin negotiations to restart the six-party talks.

The Hani summarized:

In international relations, there are frequent cases in which crises worsen due to irrational behavior on the part of actors because the actors are overly subjective in judging the situation or overestimate their own strength. Both apply to North Korea’s preparations for a missile test. The same goes for the United States’ fixation on putting pressure on the North. Our government must make all efforts so that all the states involved in this situation make realistic judgments. What could one believe if the Korea-U.S. alliance of half a century and the North-South relationship built up over the last several years were to become useless in a time of crisis?

I was just shocked the Hani hinted that the Korea-U.S. alliance might actually be a good thing, or at least useful for something. Enjoy it now, because it occurs about as frequently as a cataclysmic meteor strike.

Two other left-leaning papers, the Kyunghyang Shinmun and the Seoul Shinmun, took a similar approach, namely, warning the North that it had nothing to gain from a missile test, and that such a test would hurt South Korea’s efforts to help the North.

Which brings us to what I mentioned before, namely, that Seoul does take the potential missile test seriously. Actually, I think they dread a test even more than Washington or Tokyo. Dollars to donuts the U.S. and Japan actually want the North to launch, as it provides them even more justification to up the pressure on the North, makes it tougher for China to continue protecting the North in the UN (which Beijing will continue to do anyway, but at greater diplomatic cost), and who knows—they might even get a chance to try out that snazzy new missile defense system they’ve been working on. At any rate, Americans might be more willing to part with tax money if they know those wacky North Koreans might eventually be able to deliver a payload onto LA or Seattle.

It’s the South Koreans who have the most to lose from a test, albeit by default since the North never had anything to lose anyway. If the North fires a missile, the black haze you’ll see on the horizon won’t be from a warhead going off; it will be South Korea’s efforts to get the Americans to play nice with Pyongyang going up in smoke. The North would have shot itself in the foot once again, but it will be the South that does the bleeding. The Roh administration’s diplomatic efforts—and they’ve been considerable, and sometimes at great sacrifice to its relations with the United States—won’t be worth jack-shit, and President Roh will look like an even bigger clown in Washington than he already does. His diplomatic woes will no doubt be compounded by the Japanese, who will waste no opportunity to point out to the Americans the failures of Roh administration and why it’s Tokyo, not Seoul (and certainly not Beijing!), to whom the Americans should listen—oh, and please expedite those F-22s sales, thanks.

It’s probably also worth noting that there are probably a few South Korean officials who fear the Americans might actually respond to a test by delivering a world of hurt on the North via B-2 or F-117, and do I really have to explain why somebody within North Korean artillery range and a one-hour drive from a goodly percentage of the Korean People’s Army might not necessarily view that as a fortuitous turn of events?

The South Koreans aren’t underplaying reports because they’re not concerned about a test. They’re simply trying to keep the situation calm while they pray to sweet Jesus the North doesn’t screw them once again.