By Michael Breen
The request by China that Korea boycott the Nobel awards ceremony in Oslo next month, because it disapproves of the peace prize recipient, presents the government of President Lee Myung-bak and the country as a whole with a dilemma.
China is a close and important ally and is not making this request lightly. Other countries have been asked too. Authorities there take the decision to recognize the jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo as an affront. They consider Liu a criminal because he advocates democracy and an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.
How should the government figure its response? It is a matter of gauging relative damage? Is the question, in other words, which outcome will hurt less, upsetting China or being rude to the Europeans?
Many government officials and business people will no doubt take this approach and apply the principle of expediency. The outcome is certainly to take the Chinese option.
Decision-makers know Korean voters will understand strategic acquiescence. The decision to send troops to Iraq, for example, was deeply unpopular, but was taken to stay on the right side of the United States. In that case, people could express their opposition. Koreans have learned they can let off steam against democratic allies, especially the US and Japan, knowing there will be no retaliation.
But China does not play by the Queensbury Rules. It knows the weakness of Koreans is concern for their economy and, if denied, it will punch back hard.
China may expect Korea to cave in first and wish to point to its example in making its argument to other countries. Unfortunately, from the shabby dumping of Taiwan in 1992 in favor of China, without the courtesy of advanced explanation, to the refusal for years to give a visa to the Dalai Lama, Korea’s foreign ministry has signaled its unwillingness to upset China. Such decisions are understandable but the execution, without any public agonizing and debate, has only rewarded China’s bad behavior.
But expediency is not the only principle here. It is hard to ignore an overriding discomfort at feeling pushed rather than asked. In that case, the principle to be summoned is non-interference. Ironically, in pushing Korea in this way, China is violating the same principle it has accused the Nobel committee of violating.
The outrage that China is telling Korea what to do is likely to remain contained in online forums rather than influence any actual decision-making. But commentators have a point. They’re thinking, this is not the 19th century. Korea is an independent country and we decide whether to attend the Nobel ceremony ourselves.
But, for many others, that feeling of discomfort derives from a more honorable place than national pride. It is disagreement with the Chinese expectation that a democratic country like Korea can be forced to retreat from its own values. Here, the principle is one of integrity, of being true to democratic values regardless of the consequences.
The primacy of this principle becomes clearer if the players are changed. Imagine, for example, that Aung San Suu Kyi were the recipient ― not hard, as she did win in 1991 ― and the Burmese government were asking Korea not to attend. This wouldn’t take long.
This example exposes the crux of the issue. Korea believes in democracy. A democracy cannot take the side of dictatorship over democratic dissent. To go further, though it’s not said so often out loud, in this country, people believe democracy and an end to Communist Party rule to be a moral good.
Thus Korea should attend the Nobel awards ceremony without any diplomatic gestures such as reducing the scale and lowering the seniority of its delegation. To do otherwise would reflect an unacceptable lack of integrity.
Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.
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