We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!

Oops–Correction: We’re Number Three! We’re Number Three! I had originally missed the most significant part of the story–that a significantly larger percentage of South Koreans now considers North Korea to be a threat than the United States. Well, hope does spring eternal. Many Joni Mitchell was right. This could actually cause my head to explode.

Original Post:
In a stunning public relations victory for Washington, a new survey released today reports that Japan has surpassed the United States as the most hated nation in Korea:

In a national survey examining which country Koreans feel most threatened by, Japan jumped to the top spot over the United States and North Korea. According to the poll of 800 Koreans done last week by Research and Research, a survey company, 37.1 percent of respondents said they feel Japan is the greatest threat to Korea. North Korea was the second most threatening country at 28.6 percent, followed by the United States at 18.5 percent and China at 11.9 percent.

The company’s poll in January last year found that 39 percent of the respondents said the United States was the most threatening country to Korea. At the time, only 7.6 percent of those surveyed counted Japan as most threatening.

A survey of institutionalized mental patients found similar results, although the landlocked African state of Botswana registered a surprisingly high 39% in that survey, which was conducted by an OhMyNews “citizen reporter.” The State Department released a statement thanking survey participants for hating the United States less than last year. The Embassy of Botswana had no comment.

More results, which are equally hard to reconcile with today’s reality:

With which country should Korea cooperate the most in terms of national security? USA, 60%; China, 16.5%; North Korea, 8.1%; Japan, 3.5%. What’s most remarkable here? Not the 25% who prefer to cooperate with China or North Korea, two states that recently invaded and pillaged South Korea and continue to treat large numbers of (North) Koreans ruthlessly to this day, but that there are actually Koreans out there who not only favor an alliance with Japan, but
“Of the respondents who said the United States is threatening, 29.2 percent were in their 20s and 26.4 percent were in their 30s. Only 13. 7 percent in their 40s and 8.1 percent in their 50s said the country threatens Korea. “
77 percent said the alliance with the United States had seriously deteriorated over the last two years.
35.1% said that “the Korean government should become more independent, even if it means that the alliance [with the United States] gets worse;” 38.5 percent said the alliance needed to be further cemented. That could mean trouble for Roh if the 38.5% and the “uncertains”(26%) vote, since (as we all vividly recall) undecideds break against incumbents. Of course, many of that 26% may like the alliance as it is now, but they’ve failed to grasp that where the alliance is now is in a rapid plunge, not a sustainable condition.
75% believed North Korea has nuclear weapons; “slightly more than half said inter-Korean economic cooperation and South Korean aid to North Korea should continue, regardless of Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons.”

Thanks to reader Paul Webb, who supplies us with more polling data from Korea, in which the U.S. retains the “greatest threat” title:

First, the United States (29.5%); second, Japan (29.2%); third, North Korea (18.4%).
44.4% of South Koreans believe North Korea’s nukes are good for Korea.
45.7% of people in 20s and 50.1% of students believe the U.S. is the number one threat to Korea.

Apparently, at least 44% of South Koreans haven’t read this.

In other xenophobia-related news from Korea:

This week’s willing victim of shameless nationalist pre-election political manipulation is Kim Gyung-Tae, who finally died of the injuries he suffered after dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself on fire to protest a local Japanese government’s ineffectual claim over two islands the size of a city block that Korea occupies and where no one has ever lived. In other news, 200,000 people are still locked away in the North Korean gulag.
Foreign investment is bad . . . because it’s foreign. And because it is (was?) profitable.

Meanwhile, in completely unrelated news, campaigning has “officially” begun for the April 30th bi-elections.

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