Tim responds: Seth, From what I hear from SKorean colleagues in the press and the labor movement and read in the SK press, Chinese intentions in Korea are not an issue. The debate is not framed in a ‘US vs China hegenomism framework’ (which is more a construct of certain outsiders) but in the context of how to end the N-S stalemate and create the conditions for peaceful unification (obviously a long way off but a cherished goal nonetheless).
SK and China have very close relations right now and China has played a constructive role in S-N dialogue. Opinion in SK on US troops varies widely, with student and worker groups on one end and KCIA-military on the other, including:
1) US forces should be removed immediately and are the key barrier to unification; 2) the Status of Forces Agreement – where US soldiers are tried by the US army for crimes committed against Koreans – is terribly unfair and must be radically redrawn; 3) the US-Korea Command structure, in which a US general controls the entire Korean military during wartime, should be changed, giving that control to SK and scaling down the US presence (particularly on the border) as N-S tensions decrease; 4) the current structure should be maintained until a peace agreement is reached; 5) SK's role in the US-Japan-SK triangular alliance should actually be deepened (as it is under the new US-Japan security guidelines).
As for the hegemonism issue, its clear to all Koreans that the only significant foreign military presence in Korea for the past 50 years has been the US. Chinese soldiers withdrew shortly after the Korean War, and the Soviets never had much of a presence except right after WWII. What really angers people from all political persuasions in the South is US arrogance towards them. Many Koreans feel that the US has used Korea for its own ends, and then leveraged ts military power in the South to gain economic and political concessions. Over the past 15 years, I’ve been stunned to hear bitter anti-American denunciations from South Korean business people and diplomats who are quite conservative and anti-Communist but feel that Americans treat them like a vassal state. And of course there’s the shameful way US soldiers treat Korean women – anybody who has visited towns near the major US bases knows what I mean – that hurts Korean pride. In short, it’s a v! ! ery complex relationship.
Tim Shorrock