(34) Korean Presidents speech to US Congress

By Jay Kim

I attended the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. The crowd that gathered in Washington, D.C., where the ceremony was held, made the inauguration for President Clinton 16 years ago pale by comparison. The streets from the Capitol Building to Pennsylvania Avenue (where the White House is located) were filled with people who had braved the biting cold and sharp winds.

There was also a notable amount of African-Americans attending the event, and I could imagine how they felt as they watched the inauguration of the first black President in U.S. history. Even I, a Republican, felt proud, because this was only something that could happen in America. The fact that Martin Luther King Day was the day before the inauguration gave it more meaning.

I remembered how, in the early 1960s, it looked strange to me that black students would sit by themselves in the corner of my college cafeteria. However, now that Obama had been elected, one could say that the U.S. is really a nation of freedom where people have many opportunities to succeed. Obama went up on the platform to a thunderous standing ovation that seemed to shake the whole city.

I found myself remembering former President Kim Dae-jung’s speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Since I was directly involved in former President Kim Young-sam’s speech, I knew the contents of that speech very well, and I thought he did a good job. However, the circumstances of Kim Dae-jung’s speech were very different. For one thing, the number of congressmen attending the event was lower than expected.

Out of 435 House Representatives, only about 50 showed up, with about 20 of them Republicans and about 30 Democrats; also, only about 15 of 100 senators from the Senate planned to attend. Someone had an idea to fill the seats with interns and aides; the Senate would contribute 50 interns and aides, the House another 50 and the aides from each standing committee would make about 300. It was thought that it would not be so disgraceful, since this would make the Capitol look fuller on TV. The presence of the families and attendants of President Kim in the second floor seats would also help the event look relatively successful.

Kim Dae-jung entered the chamber of Congress to a passionate standing ovation, and after brief greetings he took the podium. Surprisingly, he gave a speech in English. There are not many cases in U.S. history where a foreign president gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in English. Even Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, who came to America with his parents at age 14, graduated from a high school in Pennsylvania, and majored in architecture at MIT, chose to give his speech to a joint session of Congress in Hebrew. So Kim’s decision to not give his speech in Korean was historic.

The attending congressmen, as well as his interns and aides, followed along with a written version of the speech previously given to them. However, those without the written version later complained that they could not understand the content of Kim’s speech, due to his thick accent. My sister in law, who grew up in the U.S., was on the second floor, but she complained that his pronunciation of English prevented her from understanding the speech at all. I still don’t quite understand why he chose to deliver the speech in English, a language in which he was not nearly as fluent as Korean.

However, language issues aside, I thought his speech was great. The audience was deeply moved, and even he needed a moment to collect himself after he talked about the moment when a U.S. military helicopter saved him from being thrown into the sea by Korea’s past military regime. At that moment, everyone stood up and gave him a massive standing ovation, and I joined in, looking around probably.

The audience on the second floor also applauded passionately, probably understanding at least that part. His address finished successfully with the warm applause he received promising strong Korea-U.S. relations. Kim Young-sam’s speech had also received many ovations for its content, but without the passion that Kim Dae-jung’s speech had evoked. Kim Dae-jung’s speech was a topic of conversation in Congress for a while. People in Washington were very optimistic about Korea-U.S. relations, believing that Korea, who had spilt its blood together with the U.S., was the most trustworthy ally in Asia.

Unfortunately, it took less than a year after Bush’s inauguration for Korea-U.S. relations to begin to deteriorate. The reason was a North Korea policy called the “Sunshine Policy.” The U.S. was bewildered by the news that food aid from South Korea was given to the North Korean military without reaching hungry North Korean civilians. However, the U.S. took a cautious stance on the issue, fearing that a wrong move would draw criticism that the U.S. was interfering with South Korea’s internal affairs.

Nevertheless, the U.S. presented the evidence they had to the South Korean government, and unsurprisingly reports soon surfaced that South Korea’s response was just not to disturb the policy. In the end, the U.S. stopped expressing its concern as well, for fear of giving an impression that they were sabotaging Kim Dae-jung’s efforts to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which he eventually did. Winning the first Nobel Prize in Korean history thrilled the whole nation as well as Korean-Americans. The U.S. government also sent its congratulations.

The U.S. government never officially opposed the Sunshine Policy, and I do not remember any lawmaker criticizing the policy in Congress. Concerns about military appropriation of the food aid against South Korea’s intentions were expressed, and there was disappointment with South Korea’s proceeding with the policy almost unilaterally without close discussions with the U.S. But this was not the fundamental problem that troubled the Korea-U.S. relations.

What made relations awkward was that Kim Dae-jung was surrounded by people who were socialistic and anti-U.S. The U.S. was concerned about the anti-U.S., pro-North Korea people who misled the nation by talking as though unification was right around the corner and constantly cried for Korean nationalism.

Ultimately, I think the really serious deterioration in Korea-U.S. relations started with the Kim Dae-jung administration but grew worse during Roh Moo-hyun’s presidency.

Some people in the U.S. openly criticized President Roh’s election, riding a wave of anti-U.S. sentiment. They were concerned about the future of Korea-U.S. relations, watching those who longed for a visit from Kim Jong-il, rather than a visit from the U.S. president. Sensing an opportunity, Japan strengthened its alliance with the U.S., and with America’s help became the leading nation in automobile production.

Jay Kim is a former U.S. congressman. He serves as chairman of the Washington Korean-American Forum. For more information visit Kim’s website at www.jayckim.com.