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April,
2003: Publius
By Greg Rushford
Published in the Rushford Report
This story is worth telling because it helps
illuminate the years of pent-up frustrations that are presently driving
the World Trade Organization’s poorer members to demand greater access
to rich-country markets in the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. But it
begins with a confidential meeting in the Oval Office thirty-six years
ago. On
March 14, 1967
, President Lyndon Johnson met privately with
South Korea
’s prime minister, Il Kwon Chung, to talk about important matters of
diplomacy. The only persons in the room apart from the president and the
prime minister were their interpreters. The quotations in this article are
taken from the notes of the conversations, which have been declassified by
the State Department (see, Foreign Relations of the United States,
1964-1968, Volume XXIX, Part 1,
Korea
, Department of State, Washington).
The two leaders began by talking about the sort of things you would
expect: their shared mutual assessments of politics and various national
security issues. But pretty soon they got down to serious business: kimchi.
Kimchi, for those who haven’t yet savored its delights, is as
good a place as any to begin understanding the ever-present link between
economics and national security, not to mention passions on the Korean
peninsula.
South Korea
’s fiery national cuisine is made of fermented vegetables, of which
cabbage is most common. Kimchi is about as subtle as a three-alarm fire
bell.
Korea
can be that way sometimes.
In the privacy of the Oval Office, Prime Minister Chung soberly
informed the Leader of the Free World that the South Korean soldiers who
had been dispatched by President Park Chung Hee to help his American ally
fight the Vietnam War were miserable because they had been cut off from
their beloved kimchi. The prime minister said he had been asked by
President
Park
to bring this very serious morale problem to Johnson’s personal
attention. Chung stressed that the kimchi issue was “vitally
important.”
There was a plaintive tone to the Prime Minister Chung’s words as
he told Johnson how important kimchi was to Korean warriors. “The Prime
Minister said that, when he had been in the United States at the Command
and General Staff College he had longed for kimchi even more than he had
longed for his wife back in Korea,” according to a classified U.S. note
of the conversation.
The problem was that poor
South Korea
was hard-pressed to do the right thing by its fighting men. The previous
Christmas, it seems,
President
Park
had sent some kimchi to Korean troops in
Vietnam
, “paying the expense out of his own pocket,” Chung related. Now,
could Johnson please come up with $3- $4 million a year to get enough
kimchi to
Vietnam
to ensure that the Koreans would fight like tigers?
Chung also brought up another matter. “In view of the importance
of developing the Korean economy — which President Johnson himself had
often stressed — it is vital that Korean exports to all parts of the
world be increased, especially to the
United States
,” the prime minister told the president.” Toward this end, Chung
asked only that the Korean Minister of Commerce and Industry could meet
annually with the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
Johnson said that he would accept the proposal about the bilateral
Commerce meetings, and do what he could on kimchi.
But of course, in
Washington
,
D.C.
the wheels of the government’s budgetary process can grind slowly. The
kimchi issue was still stuck in the bureaucracy in October, when Prime
Minister Chung had another opportunity to ask for greater access to
U.S.
markets. Chung had a private talk with Vice President Hubert Humphrey in
Saigon
, on the sides of the inauguration of South Vietnamese President Nguyen
Van Thieu.
“The Prime Minister expressed concern about the possibility of
restrictions on the importation of Korean goods into the
U.S.
,” according to the notes of the meeting. “For the past 18 years,
U.S.
officials have encouraged
Korea
to increase its exports,” Chung said.
Korea
was now exporting about $350 million to the
United States
. The Koreans wanted trade and the opportunity for real development, not
just foreign aid, Chung insisted.
Humphrey responded immediately with the old
Washington
shuffle.
“The Vice President stated that there is increasing protectionist
sentiment in the Congress, from industries such as steel, textiles, glass
and others,” the memoranda of conversation noted. While Humphrey said he
would take a look at the situation, especially the textile issue, he was
careful not to make any promises. “There are strong pressures here,”
Humphrey bluntly informed Chung.
Pressing, the South Korean official complained about discriminatory
Buy American policies. Why is the
U.S.
“so strict” on this? he asked.
Humphrey held out little hope, and even suggested that the Koreans
peddle their wares elsewhere. “The Koreans should have trade missions
and not rely wholly on the American market,” the vice president told
Chung. “We hope to maintain the American market as an open market, but
nevertheless the Koreans might do well to find new outlets for their
production.”
Humphrey added that of course, personally he was all for free
trade, saying that he had “worked hard for the success of the Kennedy
Round” of multilateral trade liberalizations.
At least Lyndon Johnson delivered on kimchi — and then used the
leverage to ask for something more from the South Koreans.
When he met with
President
Park
in
Canberra
on
December 21, 1967
at the funeral service for
Australia
’s Harold Holt, who had disappeared while swimming in the ocean, Johnson
pressed the South Korean leader to send more troops to
Vietnam
. When Park demurred, saying that he didn’t think he could get the deal
through his National Assembly, Johnson said basically that that’s what
presidents are for, to do the impossible.
“The bureaucracy in
Washington
gave him more hell about the kimchi than it did about the war in
Vietnam
, but he managed to get it,” the notes of the conversation relate that
Johnson told Park. “Mr. William Bundy [then Assistant Secretary of State
for
Asia
] explained that the problem of canning the kimchi had delayed arrival. It
was being sent as fast as possible and the VC [Vietcong] would never be
able to hold the Koreans once it arrived.”
As it turned out, not even a secret weapon as powerful as kimchi
proved enough to vanquish the Vietcong.
Happily, in the three-plus decades since officials in
Seoul
were accustomed to being treated in such a patronizing fashion by the
United States
, formerly impoverished
South Korea
has now become a wealthy, confident country and a prominent member of the
world’s trading system. Hubert Humphrey would have been surprised at
just how successful the South Korean economic engine has been in obtaining
access to US - and global markets.
U.S.
foreign aid to
South Korea
between 1945-1965 was $12 billion. The
U.S.
trade deficit in 2001 with the Asian tiger was $13 billion.
Korea
is now
America
’s sixth largest export market, and two-way trade has been running at
more than $50 billion a year. And certainly, Korean officials no longer
have to grovel merely to get meetings with the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
And these days, it is mainly the
United States
that is demanding more market access to Korean markets. The 2002 report on
national trade barriers that was issued by the Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative contains 29 pages of gripes on behalf of a long list of
American products that are groveling to export more to Korea, including
cars, beef, rice, oranges, and soybeans. While there are certainly real
issues here, still, the tone comes across as a bit self-righteous,
considering that
America
’s own protectionism is still very much alive.
The broader lesson is, what goes around, comes around. These days,
U.S.
trade officials are hearing plenty about rich-country hypocrisy, as the
WTO’s poorer members press their demands to get more access to closed
rich-country markets. For the Doha Round, it could be payback time.
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