By Andrei Lankov
It requires little imagination to predict the response of South Korean public opinion by the recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suddenly, with apparent disregard for the earlier agreements and past precedents, demanded a $1 billion payment for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) deployment in Korea. What was on the cusp of completion now seems quite uncertain and more problematic now, and a new forthcoming wave of anti-U.S. sentiment should catch no one off-guard.
But what of the history of anti-Americanism in South Korea? How did the (South) Korean public perceive the U.S. when first relations were first established in 1882, and how has that evolved?
We can safely omit an in-depth analysis over the Japanese colonial period (1910-45). It will suffice to mention that Koreans prior to 1945, unless immersed in Japanese imperial propaganda, tended to look at the U.S. quite favorably. The old adage "my enemy's enemy is my friend" is useful to understand why Koreans looked toward the U.S. with great expectations.
The defeat of Imperial Japan and subsequent liberation of the Korean Peninsula changed attitudes toward the U.S. The then-powerful left, Stalinist to the core and ever ready to toe the Moscow line, quickly came to perceive the U.S. (with some justification) as the primary force preventing the emergence of a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist paradise throughout Korea. On the other hand, the nationalist right, quite predisposed toward the U.S., saw it as a major ally and protector against the "red menace."
The 1950-53 Korean War became a permanent ideological separator. The leftists and their sympathizers were sometimes killed, sometimes ran north, so that up until about 1980 the vast majority of South Koreans were staunchly pro-American. The memory of the Korean War, North Korean occupation and associated war crimes, were still fresh. The alliance with the U.S. was seen as a security guarantee, and America itself served as an embodiment of modernity and progress. U.S. humanitarian aid, which saved countless lives through the war and after, was much appreciated by the Koreans.
However, nothing is permanent in the world of politics. From the late 1970s a new generation began to enter adult life. These people grew up in the conditions of the Korean economic miracle, and many saw security as natural and permanent as the Han River that runs through Seoul. This new generation did not think much of U.S. humanitarian aid, since for them starvation was something from stories of old, not an obstacle in everyday life.
Further, young South Koreans born after the war were increasingly skeptical of the military dictatorship, which they knew was heavily subsidized by the United States. Their parents knew it, too, but the older generation saw authoritarian rule as a necessary price to be paid for stability and internal peace.
This skepticism grew into enmity, so much so that that by the 1980s, America was seen by many as the lifeline of a mortal enemy — the then ruling regime. Predictably, the youngsters of the 1980s, known as "generation 386" were attracted to all kinds of left-leaning nationalism. The turning point was the Gwangju Uprising of 1980, brutally suppressed by military government forces with the tacit (or, as the young revolutionaries believed, explicit if secret) approval of the U.S. government.
Thus, student activism in the 1980s took decisively anti-American turn. U.S. flags were burned, stories of crimes committed by the U.S. soldiers — some true but mostly wild exaggerations — were widely disseminated, and demands for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces dominated public spaces.
In due time some members of "generation 386" became the ruling class themselves; the Roh Moo-hyun administration (2002-2007) was full of former student activists and dissidents. In a sense, it was the political exploitation of anti-Americanism which propelled Roh to the presidency.
However, in subsequent years anti-Americanism has faded. The former student activists lost much of their starry-eyed enthusiasm for radical social utopias — not least because they learned the true evil of North Korea. Today, the vast majority of the public remain overwhelming pro-American. In a 2014 poll, 93 percent of South Koreans surveyed said the alliance with the U.S. was necessary.
This return to a pre-1980s positive consensus is bound to change again: the surprise billing for THAAD, demand for FTA renegotiations, and unclear signaling of alliance commitments push many away toward U.S. predisposition. This is particularly true under the new Moon Jae-in administration, himself a former activist.
Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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It requires little imagination to predict the response of South Korean public opinion by the recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suddenly, with apparent disregard for the earlier agreements and past precedents, demanded a $1 billion payment for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) deployment in Korea. What was on the cusp of completion now seems quite uncertain and more problematic now, and a new forthcoming wave of anti-U.S. sentiment should catch no one off-guard.
But what of the history of anti-Americanism in South Korea? How did the (South) Korean public perceive the U.S. when first relations were first established in 1882, and how has that evolved?
We can safely omit an in-depth analysis over the Japanese colonial period (1910-45). It will suffice to mention that Koreans prior to 1945, unless immersed in Japanese imperial propaganda, tended to look at the U.S. quite favorably. The old adage "my enemy's enemy is my friend" is useful to understand why Koreans looked toward the U.S. with great expectations.
The defeat of Imperial Japan and subsequent liberation of the Korean Peninsula changed attitudes toward the U.S. The then-powerful left, Stalinist to the core and ever ready to toe the Moscow line, quickly came to perceive the U.S. (with some justification) as the primary force preventing the emergence of a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist paradise throughout Korea. On the other hand, the nationalist right, quite predisposed toward the U.S., saw it as a major ally and protector against the "red menace."
The 1950-53 Korean War became a permanent ideological separator. The leftists and their sympathizers were sometimes killed, sometimes ran north, so that up until about 1980 the vast majority of South Koreans were staunchly pro-American. The memory of the Korean War, North Korean occupation and associated war crimes, were still fresh. The alliance with the U.S. was seen as a security guarantee, and America itself served as an embodiment of modernity and progress. U.S. humanitarian aid, which saved countless lives through the war and after, was much appreciated by the Koreans.
However, nothing is permanent in the world of politics. From the late 1970s a new generation began to enter adult life. These people grew up in the conditions of the Korean economic miracle, and many saw security as natural and permanent as the Han River that runs through Seoul. This new generation did not think much of U.S. humanitarian aid, since for them starvation was something from stories of old, not an obstacle in everyday life.
Further, young South Koreans born after the war were increasingly skeptical of the military dictatorship, which they knew was heavily subsidized by the United States. Their parents knew it, too, but the older generation saw authoritarian rule as a necessary price to be paid for stability and internal peace.
This skepticism grew into enmity, so much so that that by the 1980s, America was seen by many as the lifeline of a mortal enemy — the then ruling regime. Predictably, the youngsters of the 1980s, known as "generation 386" were attracted to all kinds of left-leaning nationalism. The turning point was the Gwangju Uprising of 1980, brutally suppressed by military government forces with the tacit (or, as the young revolutionaries believed, explicit if secret) approval of the U.S. government.
Thus, student activism in the 1980s took decisively anti-American turn. U.S. flags were burned, stories of crimes committed by the U.S. soldiers — some true but mostly wild exaggerations — were widely disseminated, and demands for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces dominated public spaces.
In due time some members of "generation 386" became the ruling class themselves; the Roh Moo-hyun administration (2002-2007) was full of former student activists and dissidents. In a sense, it was the political exploitation of anti-Americanism which propelled Roh to the presidency.
However, in subsequent years anti-Americanism has faded. The former student activists lost much of their starry-eyed enthusiasm for radical social utopias — not least because they learned the true evil of North Korea. Today, the vast majority of the public remain overwhelming pro-American. In a 2014 poll, 93 percent of South Koreans surveyed said the alliance with the U.S. was necessary.
This return to a pre-1980s positive consensus is bound to change again: the surprise billing for THAAD, demand for FTA renegotiations, and unclear signaling of alliance commitments push many away toward U.S. predisposition. This is particularly true under the new Moon Jae-in administration, himself a former activist.
Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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