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Voices against S.K.-U.S. free trade deal solidify
Cho Kye-wan, reporter for the Hankyoreh 21 Since the official announcement of the start of South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations on February 3 this year, the support for a proposed FTA with America enjoyed a 60 to 70 percent overall approval rating in national polls. But after the two countries held the first round of official talks on the matter in Washington on June 5, the pro-FTA support dwindled quickly. According to one of the latest polls conducted by KBS Radio on July 10, which involved 1,000 adults nationwide, 52 percent of the respondents believed that Seoul would lose out more than it would gain from the proposed trade pact with the U.S. That survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. In another poll conducted on July 13 by the Korea Society Opinion Institute, 62 percent of respondents out of a pool of 700 said they opposed it, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.A poll conducted a month earlier revealed neck-and-neck competition between the pro and con on the bilateral trade accord, with 45 percent supporting and 47 percent opposing, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Looking at all of the data in sequence, one can trace the dramatic turnabout of South Koreans’ view on an FTA with Uncle Sam. The Korean government clearly felt the heat and hurriedly formed a task force on the matter, which has since been forging an all-out effort to win back the hearts and minds of South Koreans. Whistle-blowing by ex-presidential aide and ‘national uprising’ against the FTA Why is the Korean government, which had all along claimed that the majority of the public supports the FTA deal, now losing its momentum? What were the critical factors that caused the situation to turn around? First of all, it is worth noting that the nationwide anti-FTA coalition group, The Korean Alliance against Korea-U.S. FTA, has been increasingly gaining support from the public. This anti-FTA organization was launched on March 28 in response to the government’s effort to speed up the negotiations, aimed at early signing of the bilateral pact with the United States. More than 300 civic groups have joined the coalition. When Korean movie stars staged protests against reducing the screen quota for domestic films, the public eye has become ever more focused on the FTA issue. As of today, there are 14 planning committees within the national anti-FTA group, covering areas of the media, culture, arts, public health, education, finance, public service, consumer rights, the environment, and women’s issues. Nearly all sectors of society are covered within the anti-FTA alliance now that the situation is becoming more of a unified national-level civic movement against the FTA. The combined effort has also resulted in the publication of the Korea-U.S. FTA Report early in July that explained, in detail, the key issues surrounding the FTA. Lee Won-jae, an official from the coalition said, “During the first round of the talks, anti-FTA protesters went to Washington and held rallies there. During the second round of the meetings in Seoul, we held national anti-FTA protests. In addition, we have been actively involved in a public awareness campaign since April through various meetings and rallies. It was also very effective when Professor Lee Hae-young of Hanshin University, who is part of our coalition, participated in a series of TV debates.” Professor Lee, an expert on international trade and politics, was well-received by viewers with his knowledgeable arguments on the issue as well as his level-headed attitude during the televised debates. The organization has been wise in its decision not to place a vocal anti-FTA activist at the fore in its dealings with the media. Of course, the whistle-blowing by the ex-presidential aide, Jung Tae-in, who had been one of the original architects of the currently unfolding FTA talks, was critical in turning the public current. In April, Jung created a nationwide controversy by claiming that Seoul’s hurried moves to clinch an FTA deal with the U.S. comes from President Roh Moo-hyun’s eagerness to score a major legacy before his term ends. Before then, the debate surrounding the FTA had mainly focused on the government’s alleged lack of preparation for the bilateral negotiations. Since Jung’s statement, however, the focus of the debate has rapidly spread to all issues surrounding the trade deal. With the lapse of time, those who had been careful not to take a stand, and who used to say it was hard to make a comment on the issue because the Korea-U.S. FTA could have both positives and negative effects, are now becoming increasingly uneasy after some contents of the negotiations were revealed. In the beginning stages of the negotiations, there were mainly questions about whether the macroeconomic indicators predicting the possible benefits of signing an FTA with the United States, issued by Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), were too optimistic. But the major weight of the FTA debate soon moved to the government’s poor level of preparation for the FTA talks. The fact that the government almost unilaterally conducted the negotiation process without consulting or adequately informing the National Assembly was a sore point for many. The government also refused to publicize details of the trade talks, saying that doing so would “risk the danger of revealing South Korea’s strategy.” The government said, “we are in a different position from the U.S.” The administration repeatedly emphasized the importance of keeping its negotiation strategy in the dark. But the more it did so, the more it came under increasing public criticism that questioned: “So, how in the world is our negotiation strategy different from that of the U.S.?” Faced with such escalating criticism, the government and the government-backed Uri Party reluctantly gave in to announce that they would be more open in sharing the FTA negotiation-related data to the National Assembly and the public. Yet, when public opinion began to turn even more anti-FTA, and it was revealed the government exaggerated its estimation of the positive outcome of the FTA, the Seoul government this time said: “Instead of looking at the FTA from only a gain-and-loss angle, it is more important to look at it as an opportunity to begin structural reforms in the nation.” The former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance & Economy, Han Duck-soo, also said, “A rabbit needs only a small plot of land. A lion, however, needs vast grassland,” using the simplistic dismissal of anti-FTA opinion as something that would lead to the seclusion of South Korea from the international community. However, when the first round of talks began on June 5 in Washington, it was also the time that the Korean FTA negotiation team started to lose the game against its U.S. counterpart. As some details of the meetings were leaked, the government’s claim that its push for an FTA with Washington is “a leap forward to becoming an advanced economy and an opportunity to improve the competitiveness of South Korean industries” was also increasingly perceived as less convincing rhetoric. In short, the anti-FTA movement is spreading into even wider areas like wildfire. In the sectors of medicine and education, for example, the more details that were leaked to the public, the more protests it has generated. That prompted the Seoul government to rush to clinch a deal with Washington more quickly. Sowing the seeds of bad faith During the initial stages of the talks, both Washington and Seoul said that they were not interested in including the education market in the negotiations, but then, during the second round of the talks, the U.S. said it was interested in offering Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) services in Korea. This threw into question whether the Korean government had initially lied to the public. Feeling cornered, the South Korean chief FTA negotiator, Kim Jong-hoon, who had kept talking about the need for gaining increased national competitiveness by partnering with advanced economic blocks through FTAs, is now repeating a much different version of essentially the same story: “We are going to deal with the talks in a competent manner. It’s not about meeting the deadline but, rather, the content (of the FTA) that is what matters the most.” The prime minister, Han Myong-sook, also said: “We’re not going to rush to sign a deficient deal. If the negotiation process becomes more disadvantageous to us, we can stop it at any time.” Her statement was seen as primarily aimed at placating public opinion. As a matter of fact, the unilateral cancellation of a few working-level discussions by Seoul during the second round of the talks is seen by many as a gesture to mollify public opinion. The Korean government was also criticized for making four major concessions even before the talks began. It came under fire for its poor preparation for the negotiations: “The U.S. is aggressive, but Korea doesn’t even have a proper strategy,” said one criticism. The Korean government allegedly canceled those discussions in an attempt to accentuate that it was confident in its negotiations with Washington. As for the turnaround of public sentiment toward the FTA, Lee Won-jae of the anti-FTA alliance said, “The government’s repeated blunders are also a contributing factor.” For example, the Government Information Agency ran an interview article on June 14 in which it said: “Korean college students are taking the Korea-U.S. FTA as a new opportunity,” as if it had conducted interviews with some college students. It had not. And when its dishonesty was revealed to the public, the government agency issued a statement of apology, pledging no similar future incident would occur. The interview fabrication greatly turned off the public, which had initially put their faith on the government, said Won. Public sentiment went from bad to worse when the American chief negotiator Wendy Cutler thanked the Korean government for “making four concessions” that Washington had demanded as a prerequisite for starting the talks. The Seoul government had previously all along denied making those concessions. These are all manifestations of the fact that the Korean government is hastily pushing for a deal with Washington with sloppy preparations. Another misstep came from Kim Hyun-Jong, South Korea’s trade minister, who said, that “if South Korean movies’ share in the U.S. market is low, then we can solve the problem by making movies that Americans like to watch.” His comment revealed that the Korean government underestimates the cultural value of domestic films and only looks at them as a means for profit. An even worse misstep was the Korean government’s agreeing to the U.S. demand to grant investors the right to sue the other country’s government, which had been one of the hot-button issues of the talks, touching essentially on the issue of a nation’s sovereignty. Australia excluded it in its FTA deal with the U.S. that began last year. So, the Seoul government’s giving in to this U.S. demand further deteriorated public sentiment. Now, with the second round of free trade talks between Seoul and Washington hitting a snag, the major focus on the public debate appears placed on the example of Mexico, which many Koreans look to as a case study. The controversy initially started when South Korean TV program KBS Special aired a program negatively portraying the results of Mexico’s FTA deal with the U.S., which it had signed 12 years ago as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This airing was soon followed by ‘The PD Notebook,’ a prime time investigative program, in a slot aimed at showing that NAFTA brought down the Mexican economy, divided its society, and deteriorated the livelihood of the underprivileged. The government’s National Policy Briefing team criticized the PD Notebook for days, saying it had distorted the relevant facts. Lee Baek-man, the chief Presidential secretary for public relations, called the program “a typical example of a misrepresentation of facts. The NAFTA may have contributed partially to exacerbating the livelihoods of the Mexican working class. However, the major culprit was the depreciation of the Mexican peso.” When The PD Notebook ran its second segment of the program, this time disclosing that the government had already agreed to the four pre-concessions, the very next day the government shot back by holding a joint press conference, hurriedly mobilizing the Ministry of Finance & Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade. The speedy tit-for-tat response by the government to such criticism may be a testimony to the degree of accuracy of the program. In all this process of stirring up national anti-FTA sentiment, the pan-national Korean Alliance against Korea-U.S. FTA systemically mobilized its resources to win over the public; the ex-presidential secretary’s whistle-blowing accelerated the process, and the PD Notebook was the bomb that moved the anti-FTA support well over the threshold to where it is now - as we see, a resounding “No.” As illustrated in the Government Information Agency’s running a full-page advertisement rebutting the PD Notebook program’s contents, the program caused a powerful commotion across the society in its perception on the FTA. Especially, as the Korea-U.S. FTA debate has started to discuss the Mexico FTA case, now there is a brooding fear that the Seoul-Washington FTA may not only be limited to the economic issues, but may also cover all other aspects of society and may bring the whole society down by leading it into a new territory of uncertainty and crisis. Although the Korean government hastily came to the fore in an attempt to manage the ever-rising anti-FTA flame, the ensuing controversy has further entangled the government in yet another dilemma. Namely, the FTA debate has not only divided political parties and lawmakers in their stance on the matter, but it is now witnessing differing voices within the upper offices of the government, as well. Even within the pro-government Uri Party, lawmakers are divided on the issue. Witnessing the impasse the government faced, the so-called ‘New Right’ civic groups formed their own pro-FTA coalition with the launch of the FTA Forum and issued a pro-FTA statement in which it said: “We are concerned about the lack of preparations and initiatives of the Roh administration that might lead to the FTA negotiations being inconclusive. If the government’s incapability and irresponsibility in its dealings with the talks undermine the trade deal with the United States, it will also undermine the national interest. Then, essentially the government and the pro-government Uri Party should bear the entire responsibility, both political and historical.” What about Korea’s business sector? On July 11, the co-chairpersons of the Private Sector Taskforce on FTA, which includes Lee Hee-beom, chairman of the Korea International Trade Association; Sohn Kyung-sik, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and Kang Shin-ho, chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, said in a statement: “If South Korea wants to reap maximum possible benefits from an FTA, it is essential for it to forge a deal with a big economic bloc such as the United States.” But an official from the same taskforce voiced concern on the side: “The interests of big and small companies are different. Besides, different companies may have different ideas of when and with whom South Korea should form an FTA first. So, we are being careful when we issue any statement on the matter. Even if we issue one, we don’t include names of certain companies and industries. We are very careful in limiting ourselves in making only generally worded statements, emphasizing the need to upholding the national interest.” The Korean jaebol, or business conglomerates, are keeping a low profile while all of this is happening too. They are mindful not to invite the public outcry to point in their direction by issuing a pro-FTA statement. But they also do not feel the urgent need to stand at the forefront of the pro-FTA drive when their government is making all-out efforts to realize the deal. On the other hand, they may be also calculating that an FTA with the U.S. may be a good thing, but not something South Korea needs right away. Regardless of what they are thinking, the FTA issue is so divisive that the business sector is keeping its mouth shut. Meanwhile, as time passes, the Korean government is finding itself increasingly cornered. This article, which was first appeared in the 1 August issue of the Hankyoreh 21 weekly magazine, was translated by Lee Seong Hyun.
