Over a million South Koreans poured into the streets in recent weeks to protest the return of American beef to the Korean dinner table. Fears of Mad-Cow Disease have sparked the largest demonstrations since Korea democratized two decades ago. Given that not a single American has contracted the disease since a handful of cases were discovered in cows in 2003, the protests appear to be a massive overreaction. But then the causes of the demonstrations run much deeper than just food safety concerns.
The protests began soon after Seoul’s pro-American new president, Lee Myung-bak, pledged to fully open the Korean beef market on the eve of his first meeting with President Bush in April. Lee was trying to rejuvenate an alliance that had faltered in recent years and remove the chief roadblock to a free trade agreement with the United States. Lee returned from a warm meeting with Bush at Camp David to see his popularity plummet in the face of accusations that he had ignored public sentiment and been too generous with Washington. A popular investigative television show questioning the safety of American beef and making the sensationalist claim the Koreans are genetically more susceptible to the disease added to the firestorm of criticism, especially among university students.
Thus, was a protest movement born. Students were once the conscience of Korea, but they relinquished that role in the 1990s as democracy took hold and society rejected their violent methods. At today’s student rallies, though, peace candles are the preferred weapon, rather than the Molotov cocktails that I dodged as a foreign student in Korea in the 1980s. The students came out in early June not so much to rebel against the government but to express their exasperation with Korea’s hypercompetitive education system. Having witnessed countless demonstrations during my years in Korea, I did not take them very seriously at first. I suspect the president made this critical mistake as well.
Lee is widely perceived as arrogant and out of touch, which, coupled with growing anxieties about the economy (especially skyrocketing fuel prices), gradually drew office workers and parents with strollers into the streets for the first time in a generation. The protests reached a crescendo on June 10 when hundreds of thousands (the precise number is still in dispute) peacefully protested in Seoul. Though the ostensible focus is U.S. beef, anti-Americanism has been notably absent. Equally surprising, the demonstrations have not become a vehicle for the liberal opposition parties–routed in National Assembly elections just two months ago–to take the political process to the streets. Protestors have repeatedly told opposition muckrakers to “go back to the National Assembly.” Indeed, the protests have lacked a public face. Even the umbrella group stoking the demonstrations was hastily formed after they began.
Since becoming president in February, Lee has been painfully slow in carrying out the ritualistic cleansing of his cabinet and secretariat–up to two dozen heads could finally roll in the coming days. This is unlikely, however, to boost his rock-bottom popularity, which threatens to turn him into a lame duck with four years and nine months to serve. He needs to discard the top-down management skills he honed as the CEO of Hyundai Construction and find a way to connect with voters.
While this is largely a domestically driven crisis and little anger has been directed against the United States, the Bush administration has appeared deaf to Seoul’s pleas for help. Two Korean delegations have visited Washington so far, and both have experienced intense resistance to modifying the beef deal. The Lee administration has replaced its calls for “renegotiating” the free trade agreement with requests for “additional negotiations,” but Washington has been reluctant to give any ground for fear of undermining other trade negotiations. The largest U.S. beef producers have promised to send only beef made from cows less than 30 months old, which is thought to be safer than that of older cows, but it is unclear if this will be enough to assuage Korean concerns.
The stakes could not be higher for finding a mutually agreeable solution. South Korea was America’s third leading market for beef, worth over $800 million in sales, when the ban on American beef went into effect five years ago. More important, Seoul is one of America’s leading economic partners, with over $70 billion in trade expected this year. On the security front, South Korea is one of a handful of countries that have sent troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Delaying implementation of the accord or keeping the most problematic types of beef off Korean shelves would cost little, and greatly improve America’s image. Lee’s mistakes present an opportunity for the Bush administration to show President Lee and the Korean public that America is a friend indeed.
Peter M. Beck is an adjunct faculty member at Yonsei University in Seoul.
