[KS] Re: Still Invaded Economically and Culturally

[Martin Hart-Landsberg]

Kushibo wrote (see below): 
"One can look back over the last 100 or 150 years and easily infer
stagnancy under Chinese domination, brutality under Japanese occupation,
and stability with eventual flourishing of both democracy and the economy
while under a ROK-US alliance."

My response: 

Flourishing of democracy under a ROK-US alliance?  Are you kidding?  The
U.S. was happy to sacrifice Korea to Japanese control in an effort to win
Japanese support for U.S. domination of the Philippines.  It was U.S.
foreign policy that in large part was responsible for the destruction of
the Korean People's Republic at the end of World War II and the division
of the country.  It was U.S. military, political, and economic support for
Park Chung Hee that enabled him to stay in power.  It was the U.S. that
gave military, political, and economic support to Chun Doo Hwan, enabling
him to consolidate and extend his dictatorial rule.  The U.S. did not play
a democratic role in South Korea.  And while it did allow, for cold war
reasons, a state directed economic strategy which did promote economic
growth, once the cold war began to lose its significance for U.S. planners
(in the late 1980s), the U.S. government strongly and successfully
pressured the South Korean government to dismantle its controls, helping
to create the recent conditions of economic crisis.   

The point is not that past South Korean governments have depended on the
U.S. for support but that this support has come at a high price.  An
independent reunified Korea would have every reason for seeking a more
hands-off relationship with the U.S.


Marty Hart-Landsberg


On Mon, 31 Jul 2000, kushibo wrote:

> 
> Hasn't every president of Korea, both democratic and otherwise, including
> current president and long-time democracy advocate Kim Daejung, stated the
> importance of a continued US military presence for stability, even *after*
> reunification? My point being, this is hardly the opinion of self-serving
> Americans. One can look back over the last 100 or 150 years and easily infer
> stagnancy under Chinese domination, brutality under Japanese occupation, and
> stability with eventual flourishing of both democracy and the economy while
> under a ROK-US alliance. That's not to say that the US military presence
> caused the said flourishing of democracy and strengthening of the economy,
> but it did lead to enough stability to allow those things to evolve. The
> Philippine Senate in the 1990s demonstrated what US rhetoric long had been:
> the ROK has the right and the ability to sever the US-ROK military alliance
> and end the US military presence anytime they want, which tends to support
> the idea that USFK is here because Korea wants them. And North Korea is not
> their only threat.
> 
> K U S H I B O
> 



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