The Olympics Addendum Part II: Korea’s beef

Koreans have strong feelings about some stuff. The biggest issues we've observed relate to "Free" trade and the Empires of Japan and China. For instance, free trade bothers Koreans as much as it does Americans, because they view it as a betrayal of the Korean farmers to benefit the rich owners of the 10 businesses the essentially run Korea. Big business is the 4^th and most powerful branch of government. Who controls most of your life?  It’s not the IRS.

 

Koreans with beef at the Independence Hall Museum. Note the "gun box" and rocket launcher.

One symbol of Korea’s anti-free trade sentiment is an aversion to American beef (see news story here).  I don’t really blame them, since “free” trade harms the smaller farmers of South Korea, but the small farm market may crumble in the coming decades, because industrial agricultural facilities are starting to open up, unfortunately.  Agriculture markets dominated by small farms are often cited as a near-ideal free market in economics classes.  In the small farm market, capitalism can flourish unfettered by the business thuggery inherent to oligopoly (only somewhat better than monopoly). Industrial agriculture results in the market being consolidated to have too few players, so market failure occurs, regulations get made with mixed success to address said market failure, and then you wind up with stuff like the American airline industry. Consolidation is the enemy of capitalism and it is closer to communism than I would like.  So the recent free trade agreement with the US which has brought us many nice home appliances, and has brought Koreans cheaper food is opposed similarly in both countries. We actually got a TV camera pointed in our faces a few nights ago and they asked our opinion of Korean Beef, and we said it was delicious. That said, big business helps the owning country on the international stage, which is one of the reasons we keep them around.

The biggest beef Koreans have is with imperialism—mostly of the Japanese variety. Empire is defined as a country that rules conquered peoples. From the 1890s to ~1980 various powers have vied for control of East Asia, and Korea has suffered through most of it. Prior to WWI, the US and Britain backed Japan in its war with Russia for control of the region.  The Japanese beat the snot out of the Russians at a time when non-European countries typically lost wars. Japan thus took over Korean region for themselves and started the disgusting process of empire building. They continued, and likely would have been successful if they hadn’t attacked Perl Harbor (Many Japanese advisors knew that was a bad idea, but the “tea party of Japan” won the dispute to their own detriment.) During the years from ~1905 through 1945, Japan raped Korea on many levels. (A) they did a lot of raping, (B) they stole all the natural resources, and (C) they enslaved the people etc. These are just a few of the crimes committed by the Japanese, and while much of East Asia harbors bitter feelings, Korea probably does the most. No matter how many times Japan says  “We’re sorry,” many Korean’s are still so traumatized that many see the apologies as “just words” and no amount of reparation can undo what has been done here. In Japan's defense, Japan probably learned most of this stuff from the western nations, who were just as evil back before WWI, we just don't talk about it.

After the Japanese got nuked, Russia and the US divided the Korean peninsula. As in most wars, there were no good guys.  The South Korean leadership was dictatorial in that time, and had no redeeming value.  North Korea at least gave everyone a free bowl of rice every day, but the tables have turned since then.  South Korea got a better dictator who built up the economy, but was a ruthless SOB. Eventually S Korea became a democracy. 

WWII was part of a larger conflict to unify East Asia, which was ultimately performed by Mao. China is the new Empire of East Asia, and has expanded its soft power across the globe.

Korea still has an open territorial dispute with Japan oven an Island in the sea of Japan, which Korea actively lobbies international bodies to rename as the East Sea. A lot of people here feel really strongly about it, but I think it’s mostly about natural gas. I roll my eyes when I see news about it, because it looks to be two islands, so it seems most sensible to split it down the middle, but that’s apparently unacceptable to either Korea or Japan. Add it to the list of Korea’s beefs.