Fugitive Slave Update

The Joongang Ilbo rips Roh and his Mini-Uni a new one over their plans to stiff-arm North Korean refugees:

This is the most remarkable nonsense. Was Mr. Chung speaking in his capacity of unification minister? Including yesterday’s statements, Mr. Chung has shown that his awareness of defector issues and North Korea policy is seriously wrong. Mr. Chung has failed to understand that the defector issue is a matter of human rights “• a universal value of mankind. In the international community, human rights are firmly established as inalienable.

Furthermore, we are responsible for the care of North Koreans: They are our brethren. That is why the government must keep its principles of protecting defectors with respect to human rights. Seoul should not take unprincipled positions. Mr. Chung’s logic that “accepting defectors individually is possible, but en masse is not” is not acceptable. . . . He is paying too much attention to the North Korean government, not the North Korean people.

“It is understandable from the North Korean point of view that North Korea sees the mass transport of defectors as a serious threat to its regime,” Mr. Chung has said. “In inter-Korean relations, competitive policies between the two regimes have been abandoned,” he also said. Such remarks reveal Mr. Chung’s approach.

As unification minister, Mr. Chung can make remarks of appeasement toward North Korea to thaw frozen inter-Korean talks. But appeasement repeated too many times may be viewed as “flattery to the North” and will help no one. It is also ineffective in resuming inter-Korean talks: Pyeongyang, so far, has made no positive response. That speaks for itself.

Of course, remarkable nonsense of that kind appears to be exactly what approximately 62% of the South Korean people want.

• 62% disapproved of efforts by civic groups to arrange defections.
• 32% of the 1,500 respondents over 20 years of age agreed with NGOs’ attempts to help the refugees seeking asylum.
• 50% approved the government’s North Korea policies, up 15.6 percent from a previous survey conducted in February.
• 42.6% were critical of the government’s North Korea policies, down from 57.2% in February.
• 45.5% said Seould should either send a special envoy or “do something” to revive inter-Korean dialogue; 22.7% said South Korea should cut off aid to North Korea until North Korea returns to the negotiation table.
• 64.2% would buy products made in North Korea; 34.2% said they would not.
• Perceptions of “the North in general” were 60.4% positive, up 14.2 percent from February.
• For 40% of respondents, their top priority was the linkage of roads and railways with those of the North;
• For 31.5% their top priority was the construction of a permanent meeting place for family members separated during or after the Korean War.

These results are from the MiniUni, so reader beware (just as you’d beware of a political campaign’s own internal polling) but I have no reason to doubt that this is off by more than 10 or so points.

As I’ve said many times, it’s their country, but they’re our troops, and the United States must formulate its own policies to protect its people and territory. News like this reminds you that the gulf between South Korea and the United States is now so vast that no U.S. policy can do that while giving serious consideration to South Korean “sensitivities.”