(Scroll down two posts for some cool pics about colonial era Gunsan.)
With the Hole now operating at Daily Kos-like levels of productivity, I think I will act like a full-blown KOSmonaut and make a ‘comment rescue.’
Yesterday, I posted on a Hankyoreh cartoon making light of the 9-11 attacks and the Chosun Ilbo using ethnically ‘insensitive’ caricatures of Chinese and Japanese in another cartoon.
Commenter Sonagi, then found this out:
I was curious as to whether this offensive cartoon appears in either the Japanese or Chinese editions of the Chosun Ilbo. It does indeed appear in the Japanese version:
http://japanese.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2006/09/05/2006090500006 0.html
but the Chinese version substituted a cartoon about striking electric company workers and the big Chaebol:
http://chn.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2006/09/04/20060904000028.htm l
It seems that the Chosun Ilbo is afraid to offend the Chinese but not the Japanese.
If a conservative paper like the Chosun is afraid of the Chinese (which their not placing the cartoon in the Chinese addition would seem to indicate) then perhaps the Finlandization of Korea is going faster than anyone expected.
12 Comments
So much for the idea of being an ‘equalizer’ in the neighborhood. No problem kicking sand in the face of Korea’s patron, but don’t upset the Chinese. Roh and the left seem to prefer a relationship in which Korea will be dominated, judging by their appeasing of KJI.
This is just another indication of what should be obvious to anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with the history of ROKUS relations since the time of Syngman Rhee, to wit, the Korean right is, at best, only marginally more responsible a strategic partner than the Great Pretender, his Roh Nothings and those whom they represent. When the GNP wins the next election, this will become increasingly apparent - not so much on the security front, where they likely will be more cooperative, but on the economic front, where they will mightily resist the threat to their comprador privileges represented by the puch for open markets (unless Roh et al, having failed in all their other initiatives to rein in the chaebol and their minions cave in the FTA negotiations and make a deal on the way out the door - not likely, given that they share the same nationalist sentiments as the right).
Sorry about the ignorance, but could someone give some background on ‘Finlandization.’
Wiki has a pretty goos short account of Finlandization @
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization
Well said, Sperwer (post #2). The Korean right are pro-(Korean)business. They are not pro-market.
But the question is why Chosun would be afraid of China? What can China do to Chosun?
China would complain not only to the Chosun Ilbo but perhaps to the Korean government, the same government that muffles the voices of North Korean defectors and critics of the North Korean regime.
China would complain not only to the Chosun Ilbo but perhaps to the Korean government, the same government that muffles the voices of North Korean defectors and critics of the North Korean regime. The Chosun Ilbo may also have reporters in China, who could be harassed or expelled by the nation that imprisons more journalists than any other. Maybe the Chosun isn’t afraid of being on the receiving end of a specific retaliatory measure but just doesn’t want to generate ill will with a rival patron of North Korea. With Japan on the other hand, there’s so much expression of anti-Japanese sentiments in the public space that a cartoon won’t get much attention.
“China would complain not only to the Chosun Ilbo”
How do you know that,Sonagi? Did Chosun Ilbo write about that?
Embassies and individuals do complain to media organizations that publish or broadcast news reports deemed distorted or offensive. The Chosun made a decision not to run the cartoon in its Chinese edition only. Why do you think that is, Gaemi?
Serious role reversal here, but I generally compliment the Chosun on its stance about China.
Chosun was first to sound the warning about Beijing’s “historical territorial ambitions” and other Chinese threats, well before other papers saw them coming.
It wrote quite a bit about Goh Kun’s statement that while he was acting president he went and asked top gov’t people what the plan was if NK collapsed. Might have been around the time of the Ryongchon explosion up there. According to Goh they said “there is none” (which wasn’t entirely true) and he couldn’t sleep for quite a while for worry that if it did fall China would set up a pro-Beijing gov’t there. Anyway Chosun used it to attck Roh, but they still pressed the point that China is a long-term threat and need to be kept out of NK.
While working there I personally translated several editorials attacking comments by China’s ambassador to Korea, which it accused of “thinking like he’s here to govern a tributary state” and indeed he had been talking that way. I know for a fact that Chosun’s man in Beijing got called to the responsible ministry there and was told in vague terms that he should be aware of the fact they all read the Chosun.
The Chinese Chosun is another story. They’re a small group of people and, being mostly Koreans with personal experience in China, they get on the net every day and sift through all the Hallyu fan sites and occasional Korea bashing (literally, even, as in when Korean students get beaten up at football games) on Chinese language sites. The name “Choson” represents the hanja both China and Japan generally use for the peninsula, so the Chosun Ilbo gets a lot of traffic from both places for that reason alone. Still, Japanese Chosun is one of the most well-visited news sites in the Japanese language ANYWHERE - that is, it beats most news sites in Japan. It is the best source for anti-NK and anti-Roh information (sometimes true, sometimes not) in Japanese. Korea’s the little country next door in this era when Japanese are watching Korean dramas on TV, and when there’s a 5 car accident on the Seoul-Korea expressway, Japanese Chosun covers it. DAre I say, and I mean it as a compliment, it’s almost a regional Japanese news outlet. In the meantime, however, the Chosun just has to be strong with Japan because it has to prove itself, given its
ready and willing, more-than-average collaboration activities.
Chinese Chosun, however, is still strugging to catch up (and the pressure is on within the company) and the way they chose to do that while I was there was to pump it full of Hallyu / tabloid / dyed Korean hair junk as possible. They try not to offend.
Because as history has shown us repeatedly, Korea is basically China’s little whore who pants and licks at every beckon and whim that her master, China, commands. They dare not upset their master.
Absolutely spot on. Give me a break…the publishing of an anti-Japanese cartoon in the Chosun Ilbo has as much impact in increasing the low class level of Korean manners and bigotry as a fart would in increasing the danger of a hurricane.