70th anniversary South Korea-US alliance built to last

This combination of images captures the major historical moments that shaped the South Korea-U.S. alliance over the past seven decades since it was formed in October, 1953 with the signing of a mutual defense treaty. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the alliance. Korea Times graphic by Cho Sang-won

By Kang Hyun-kyung

• Published Jan 2, 2023 7:57 AM KST
• Updated Jan 3, 2023 3:11 PM KST

Alliance survives anti-American sentiment, grows stronger despite periodic ups and downs

By Kang Hyun-kyung

So far, so good.

The South Korea-U.S. alliance, formed in October of 1953 with the signing of the mutual defense treaty, has successfully lived up to its primary goal of protecting the South from another North Korean invasion.

Over the past seven decades, their defense ties have grown into a stronger and wider partnership encompassing several fields other than security, despite North Korea's continued provocations which have increasingly become a growing threat to global security.

Despite the strengthening alliance, the bilateral pact has had its ups and downs. The Yoon Suk-yeol government has been leaning toward the U.S., in terms of foreign policy, over Seoul's biggest trading partner, China. This change marked a dramatic turnaround from the previous Moon Jae-in administration's foreign policy stance.

There are roughly three factors, stemming from both domestic politics and the external security environment, which played a part in either weakening or strengthening the alliance to reach the current level of indispensable cooperation. The three are anti-American sentiment, change of government, and a U.S.-China rivalry that has intensified over the past decade since Beijing emerged as the world's second largest economy.

Anti-US sentiment

Wi Sung-lac, a former chief negotiator to the six-party talks to end North Korea's nuclear programs, observed that the anti-U.S. sentiment that flared up in the 1980s had put the alliance to the test.

“The way the alliance has developed to come this far today has not been in one direction. There were stumbling blocks and hurdles that prevented the alliance from moving forward. The anti-U.S. sentiment certainly didn't help,” he told The Korea Times. “The progressive camp's dominant view of the United States was shaped during the Chun [Doo-hwan] government.”

At the early stage of the alliance, Wi added that the U.S. had prioritized defending South Korea from North Korea's invasion and communism, and for this end, it refrained from addressing directly other pressing issues, such as democracy and human rights in South Korea.

Liberal politicians, who were university students in the 1980s, began to suspect the U.S. government's motives as it remained silent about dictatorship and human rights violations.

Their skeptical view of South Korea's heavy reliance on the U.S. in its foreign policy formed around this time.

The tragic uprising that began in 1980 in South Korea's southwestern city of Gwangju is widely regarded as the watershed event that sparked the outburst of anti-American sentiment in the South.

Residents of the city took to the streets in May of that year, calling for democracy and urging military general-turned-President Chun Doo-hwan, who rose to power through a military coup, to step down. A brutal crackdown on the protestors followed, killing an unspecified number of people and injuring hundreds of others.

Anti-U.S. sentiment resurfaced in South Korean politics periodically since then.

“Anti-Americanism in South Korea appears atavistic, that is it bursts forth in cyclical patterns,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of political science at Tufts University, said. “While many remember the prevalence of anti-U.S. sentiment in the wake of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, far fewer recall that it spiked during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. It also rose during the Asian financial crisis in 1998, in 2002 and also in 2008.”

Most of the time, the cyclical recurrence of anti-U.S. sentiment is politically motivated as liberal politicians adopted it as a campaign strategy to win elections.

The rancor made U.S. politicians and high-ranking officials feel very uncomfortable.

Hillary Clinton, then U.S. senator, said South Koreans are suffering from “historical amnesia.” Henry Hyde, who served as chairman of the House International Relations Committee (2001-2007), protested to then President Roh Moo-hyun in a letter on Sept. 15, 2005, stating that he and his colleagues are “disturbed” to hear of the news that South Korean activists are attempting to tear down the statue of General Douglas MacArthur, who led the United Nations forces during the Korean War.

Politicians and high-ranking government officials were not the only ones who felt uncomfortable about the “U.S. bashing” in South Korea. U.S. Korean War veterans who risked their lives to fight for South Korea's freedom, U.S. soldiers stationed in the South and other Americans felt betrayed.

Bruce Bennett, an adjunct defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, who was in Seoul after the death of two school girls, Mi-son and Hyo-sun, who were run over and killed by a U.S. Army vehicle in 2002?triggering anti-American sentiment to reach its peak months before the presidential election, said U.S. soldiers in Korea were angered, too.

“When the prosecutor wanted to override the status of forces agreement and jail the U.S. soldiers, I heard a lot of anger among the U.S. personnel,” Bennett said. “About half of the U.S. Army personnel are married and many of them have sacrificed a lot to be away from their wives, children and families for a year or two at a time to defend [South] Korea. Some felt that the [South] Koreans involved in the anti-U.S. rancor were ungrateful and didn't recognize their sacrifices.”

Bennett went on to say that many Americans felt at that time that the U.S. was paying a lot and making sacrifices for South Korea's security and that the U.S. should not keep making such sacrifices if the South Koreans were unwilling to recognize the U.S. efforts.

Conservatives, liberals on different page

South Korea's foreign policy has zig-zagged from one extreme to another whenever the government changed from the right to the left or vice versa. The South Korea-U.S. alliance has been beefed up or hurt as a result, depending on who is president.

Its essential part has remained the same despite government changes because both liberals and conservatives are fully aware of the indispensable nature of the alliance to national defense.

There were no South Korean presidents who tried to break the pact.

But there have been systemic efforts to change its nature.

Conservative politicians tried to lift the alliance to the next level to make it a stronger partnership, whereas liberals attempted to scale it back as they prefer lessening South Korea's reliance on the U.S. so Seoul could play a balancing act between Washington and Beijing. Liberals also paid greater attention to wooing North Korea and mending inter-Korean relations.

“It's an open secret in Washington D.C. that both Republican and Democratic administrations favor a conservative administration in Seoul, for the simple reason that in South Korean politics, the conservatives tend to be more pro-U.S., less anti-Japan, and more skeptical of North Korea than the progressives,” Lee said.

Bennett said the liberal Kim Dae-jung government (1998-2003) was slightly different from two other liberal governments, namely the ones led by Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in.

“Still, even progressive presidents like Kim Dae-jung sought to deter North Korea,” he said, noting that Kim warned of North Korea's armed provocations of any kind in his inauguration speech. “No [South] Korean president has wanted to end the [South] Korean alliance with the United States because it provided [South] Korea with a substantial national security subsidy, but the progressive presidents have often had different objectives from the United States.”

Wi argued that that the line between conservatives and liberals in their foreign policy stances, particularly about the alliance, has been blurred, hinting that South Korea's relations with the United States won't be greatly affected even though another government change occurs in the future.

Over the past decade, he said both conservative and liberal camps have undergone a division from within.

“What we are seeing today is that there are two different factions inside the liberal camp and the conservatives also are divided into two groups from within,” he said. “On the conservative side, there are far-rightists called the 'Taegeuki Warriors,' while the center-right are still the majority…. This is the case for the liberal camp, too. We know there are a group of people who identify themselves as part of the 'independent faction.' They are enthusiastic about building good relations with North Korea. They are close to China. But their stance on the U.S. is very different. They are far-left politicians.”

Wi claimed that the divisions inside the conservative and liberal camps have been developed in favor of the alliance.

“The differences between the center-right and the center-left have been narrowed. Radicals are not popular among the Korean public. The public opinion supports moderates,” he said. “It's true that South Korea's foreign policy has been inconsistent in times of government changes and this trend will be continued. But what I've noticed is that the change in foreign policy is not as salient as it had been in the past.”

Shin Gi-wook, a professor of sociology at Stanford University, however, presented a different view. He predicted that South Korea's conservatives and liberals will continue to stick to their respective traditional stances on the alliance because they perceive it as part of their identity.

US-China rivalry

The rise of China is the latest development having greatly impacted South Korea's alliance with the United States.

Amid an intensified rivalry, South Korea was asked to choose between the United States and China as the two powers clashed and were pitted against each other in almost all issues.

Wi said the rise of China has complicated South Korea's foreign policy.

“The choice South Korea is facing today is much more complicated than the one it faced during the Cold War when the United States were competing with the former Soviet Union,” he said. “Back in the Cold War days, South Korea was quick to join the U.S.-led Western democracies because the nation had almost no economic or trade ties with China or the Soviet Union. So the choice back then was very simple.”

China is now South Korea's largest trading partner. Its stronger presence in the South Korean economy has become a source of trouble to the South whenever its security guarantor, the United States, and its largest trading partner, China, clash. Some portrayed South Korea as a shrimp pitted against two whales. Following China's rise as the world's second largest economy, the choice facing countries like South Korea has become much more complicated than the one in the past during the Cold War.

The U.S.-China rivalry, meanwhile, has created another Cold War-like confrontation between the U.S.-led Western democracies and what the U.S. called autocracies, namely China, Russia and North Korea.

The showdown between democracies and autocracies has been salient after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year as China and North Korea openly supported Russia. This raised a question: Will tensions between the two sides be eased once the war is over?

Wi remained skeptical.

“I don't see the possibility that tensions between the two blocs will be eased. The competition between the United States, South Korea and Japan in one side and China, Russia and North Korea in the other one began even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. China and Russia are like strategic partners and they together stand against the United States. North Korea, meanwhile, tried to join them to make sure its own survival. Therefore, it will be inevitable for the United States, South Korea and Japan to continue and strengthen their trilateral partnership for the time being.”

Clash of democracy, autocracy complicates alliance

Experts shared the view that the alliance should be further expanded to better cope with the changing global security environment. But the question is how.

Shin called for South Korea's increased and proactive role in the alliance.

“South Korea needs to take more responsibility in preserving peace in the region and the world,” he said.

He noted that South Korea is no longer a tiny shrimp that was pitted against the U.S. and China, but a dolphin.

Lee presented a similar view, stating that the defense of South Korea against North Korea's provocations has been and will remain the centerpiece of the alliance.

“But the alliance today should expand beyond peninsular security issues toward greater cooperation on other high-priority issues like cyber, global health, supply chains, the environment, etc,” he said.

The Yoon administration unveiled its Indo-Pacific strategy Thursday, which is aimed at pursuing freedom, peace and prosperity in the region, indicating that the South will play a bigger role in dealing with global issues.

The nation's first-ever regional diplomatic strategy also hints that Seoul's policy will be more in line with Washington as freedom, democracy and peace are the important values that the U.S. government has been emphasizing.

Wi stressed that policymakers should be realistic, defying some liberal politicians' past attempts to redefine the role of South Korea in the U.S.-China rivalry as a survival tactic through a balancing act.

“South Korea can no longer be a player in the middle or play a median role between the U.S. and China (as some liberal politicians had dreamed and tried in vain in the past),” he said. “South Korea is an ally of the U.S. and our values, trade, finance and scientific technology, all sectors are deeply linked to the West. Therefore, we cannot turn out back on them. We are destined to stand together with the U.S.”

The real challenge, he said, is that the South Korean economy is also linked to China, and the country is also important to the South, because to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea and the unification of the two Koreas, their support is critical.

“We cannot sever ties with China or deem it as our enemy. So what we can do is that we work together and cooperate with the U.S. as an ally, but when it comes to the level of our alliance with the U.S., South Korea cannot be equal to other allies of the United States, such as the United Kingdom, Australia or Japan. Our alliance with the U.S. cannot be as airtight as the U.S.-U.K or U.S.-Australia alliance, because the circumstances facing us are very different from those other countries.”