By Robert Koehler has an excellent link to a blog from a Korean-American that lays out the Korean perspective in regards to the Cows Gone Wild US beef issue. I do not agree with some of his conclusions, but he has made the most rational arguments I have seen yet from the Korean perspective. His overarching conclusion in the posting is that the US beef issue has little to do with actual US beef, but more to do with how Korean President Lee Myung-bak is governing the country and handling of the beef issue. His criticism of how Lee handled the beef issue in regards to how it was presented the public are valid but to claim the protests going on now are anti-Lee and not anti-US beef I do not agree with.
Protester trying to set riot police bus on fire.
The anti-Lee Myung-bak theme I increasingly see being promoted by the anti-US groups because I believe the anti-US groups have to frame this issue as an anti-Lee Myung-bak issue and not an anti-American issue because the foreign media is beginning to take notice of what is going on. If the anti-US groups kept arguing their non-sensical reasons to deny US beef imports the foreign media would shred their arguments and make these people a global laughing stock. So now they are attempting to frame it as an anti-Lee issue.
However, if this was an anti-Lee issue then why are they still demanding non-sensical US beef import regulations? The fact is that the protest leaders are saying it is an anti-Lee issue in order to obscure the issue with the foreign media and score political points against Lee while the average Korean on the street still thinks he is genetically disposed to mad cow disease and that the US government is intentionally trying to kill Koreans:
Cha Yoon-min, 13, marched on City Hall on Saturday night with his mother, a lawyer in Seoul. “I am afraid of American beef,” he said. “I could study hard in school. I could get a good job and then I could eat beef and just die.” [Washington Post]
Image from Korea Beat. I have to wonder if this guy was injured by the riot police or from projectiles thrown by fellow protesters?
This sure doesn’t sound like anti-Lee Myung-bak reasoning to me. The average Korean is still being drawn to these protests because they think that US beef is dangerous and that added regulations needed to be added the import agreement even though these demands have no basis in fact. I recommend you read the Ask A Korean posting referred to above to debunk many of the myths, but one of the biggest ones is that the US doesn’t allow over 30 month old beef to imported into the country which is simply not true:
That rule also designated Canada as the first minimal-risk country recognized by USDA. The expansion of that rule is a major step in facilitating fair, science-based trade while continuing to protect animal health in this country, consistent with international standards as defined by the World Organization for Animal Health, also known as the OIE.
Specifically, this rule allows for the importation of: cattle and bison for any use born on or after March 1, 1999 — the date determined by USDA to be the date of effective enforcement of the ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban in Canada; blood and blood products derived from bovines, collected under certain conditions; and casings and part of the small intestines derived from bovines.
Today’s final rule also lifts a delay imposed in March 2005 on meat and meat products from bovines older than 30 months of age.
Meat and meat products from bovines older than 30 months of age will be allowed, provided specified risk materials are removed prior to importation. [USDA website via TMH]
Korean mob blocks traffic in downtown Seoul.
Notice the decision by the USDA to accept cattle from Canada over 30 months in age is based off of science and not Internet scare mongering as we see right now going on in Korea. The prominent claim is that other developed countries do not accept beef over 30 months in age so why should Korea? Once again this is simply not true:
After six years and with the threat of sanctions looming large, France has finally agreed to lift its embargo on imports of British beef, imposed in 1996 as a result of the BSE crisis.
The lifting of the import ban had been expected after the French food safety agency (AFSSA) last month announced that there was no public health reason to maintain the embargo, but it still comes three years after the EU authorities ruled that British beef was safe to eat.
The decision by French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to lift the embargo will help ease Franco-British relations, but the real reason for the change of mind was the threat of sanctions imposed by the European Court of Justice as a result of France’s illegal actions in maintaining the ban after the Commission lifted the EU-wide ban on British beef in 1999. (…)
France also accused the UK of being the only EU country not to test cattle aged over 30 months, those considered to be the most at risk from BSE because of its long incubation period. But the change of government, and more importantly, the AFSSA report, prompted a change of heart in France, and while Paris still has some concerns, exports of British beef can at least resume. [Food Navigator Europe]
Young Korean mandatory service conscripts being attacked by grown men acting like spoiled children.
France and other European Union nations are accepting beef over 30 months in age without 100% testing of all the cattle from the United Kingdom which is the country where mad cow disease started and was a large epidemic that actually did kill people unlike America and Korea where no one has died from eating American beef.
The most hypocritical aspect of the mob’s demands are that they are demanding the US to implement safety measures they are not willing to implement on their own domestic beef industry. Korea is not a member of the OIE which is global regulatory agency in regards to beef safety. Since Korea does not allow inspections by the OIE, the United States beef is considered safer then Korean beef for consumers. The need for Korea to join the OIE is quite apparent considering KBS caught Korean cattle ranchers selling sick cows on the blackmarket and feeding cows with feed that causes mad cow disease.
It appeared early on the Lee Myung-bak government would be able to advance Korea to meet global standards in a number of areas to include trade, but as we have seen with the US beef issue facts mean nothing to a mob and Lee Myung-bak has now allowed the mob to establish government policy despite all the facts that say otherwise. This all bodes very badly for the Lee Myung-bak Presidency that is barely 100 days old.
8:51 pm on June 4th, 2008 1
[...] Comments iwshim on Enlightened Bay Area Man Writes KT, Plays ‘People Get Ready’The New US Beef Narrative in Korea: Blame Lee Myung-bak! on FAN DEATH! It’s What’s for Dinner…The New US Beef Narrative in [...]
9:18 pm on June 4th, 2008 2
You have to laugh at the headline from your KBS link:
“More Madness: Now Korean Beef is Scrutinized ”
Koreans are now saying: Wait a minute, scruitinizing Korean beef in insane, this has gone too far. Scruitinizing American beef is fine, if it keeps it out.
It doesn’t look like Bush has the backbone to stop Korea. Hopefully Obama will use Super 301 and punish the Koreans.
9:51 pm on June 4th, 2008 3
The Koreans still at Bagram AB are eating US beef every day.
10:06 pm on June 4th, 2008 4
This is where a professional poll would come in handy. Until then, I’m hearing and reading more noise than opinions.
10:10 pm on June 4th, 2008 5
lcgrant you should take pictures, it would make for a good laugh.
10:42 pm on June 4th, 2008 6
[...] rest is angry, over-inflated rhetoric from left and right One example of a conservative overreaction to the beef fracas is GI Korea’s, whose opinions I generally prefer over the rest of the ROK expat blogosphere. The [...]
11:00 pm on June 4th, 2008 7
I did a post on this the other day:
usinkoreajournal.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/1980s-revisited-indeed-anti-us-or-anti-dictatorship/
I linked it to a page I did a couple of years ago on common misconceptions about the lack of anti-US sentiment prior to the Kwangju Massacre.
My argument is that anti-US activity has been significant in Korean society going back to 1945 – but it is more difficult to analyze because it overlapped greatly with anti-authoritarian government sentiment.
In short, protest against things like Park Chung-Hee’s harsh rule were also protests against the US in Korea, because the two were viewed as one in the same.
Today, it is a little different, but claiming anti-US activity isn’t really anti-US activity but anti-Blue House is an echo of the past.
11:22 pm on June 4th, 2008 8
I really wish more sources back home were picking up on this. And it’s absolutely impossible to call these protests primariy about LMB. There are plenty of legit reasons to protest the import of American beef or to protest the President—not that I necessarily agree with them—but what’s transparent to any foreigner living over here is that the issue of Mad Cow Disease was created OUT OF THIN AIR to drum up public support among those who may have been quiet. I don’t understand why—again—this is so clear to the bloggers over here but overlooked by the media sources back home.
I understand that the beef issue is tied in to LMB, but seriously, I’m totally at a loss as to how people can divorce this from latent anti-American feelings ESPECIALLY after what has transpired over the years. Man, I really want people back home to pick up on this.
11:50 pm on June 4th, 2008 9
I wonder if the guy in that photo is really injured at all. As some commenters at Korea Beat said it does kind of look like stage blood.
I figured thevpublic would turn on Lee — South Korean presidents always seem to sweep in on a wave of popularity and then spend years with low approval ratings — but this kind of speed is ludicrous. It was only months ago that he won a crushing victory at the ballot box. People who voted for a guy nicknamed Bulldozer can’t complain that he doesn’t take the time to nicely explain everything for them. On the other hand, he is responsible for getting caught flatfooted on this issue and not quickly addressing the bad science behind all the propaganda.
3:36 am on June 5th, 2008 10
I wish the press was better at covering this. They aren’t getting it right. But, at least they are getting it. They are WAY AHEAD of the curve compared to 2002 and any period prior to that.
I still remember back to then and how many of the K-blogs you see today were so frustrated they took to the internet to get the message out. It started in forums, which was the mode of the day, and then moved over to blogs when those started to become available.
At least today, the press is looking over at Korea — even if by taking what Koreans in country working for the AP have to say — with a vested interest in not exposing the irrational nature of it all.
On Lee and taking a beating, I expected it to begin when he said he was going to axe the Unification Ministry. Then there were a couple of other items I thought might be used.
But it was beef that finally got it in motion.
And by this point —- I feel some of my long held theories about the nature of anti-Americanism in Korea have been validated.
For 5 years, something unknown was going on in Korea: the Blue House was occupied by someone who was anti-US. For the first time, Korean society couldn’t count on the Blue House ignoring rampant anti-US activity. So, they pretty much waited to put the conservatives back in office —- and now we are back to business as usual.
6:00 am on June 5th, 2008 11
This made a very small article in USA Today this morning. It was a rather pathetic picture of a Korean girl holding a candle with a very small headline next to a large caption of Chinese quake victims. Koreans better hope that the real media is not showing the world more of their idiocy.
6:46 am on June 5th, 2008 12
[...] anyone out there who still wants to claim the Cows Gone Wild protests are anti-Lee Myung-bak and not anti-American then please explain to me why were statements from US Ambassador Sandy [...]
12:47 pm on June 5th, 2008 13
GI, When I pass through Bagram in July I will get some pictures of the Korean medics and engineers enjoying food in the KBR DFAC. But, maybe by then this will be a dead issue.
8:49 pm on June 5th, 2008 14
[...] US beef protests have definitely drowned out any domestic media interest about the new USFK [...]
6:21 am on June 6th, 2008 15
[...] Click here to read more. Click here to return to Korea Click here to return to MySpace News. [...]
5:31 pm on June 11th, 2008 16
[...] ROK Drop: The New US Beef Narrative: Blame Lee Myung-bak! [...]
2:50 pm on June 14th, 2008 17
actually Korea is a memeber of the OIE. It has a BSE ranking which is “undetermined” meaning, among other things, it hasn’t done enough testing to adequately determine the risk of eating Korean beef. It’s a lower ranking than US beef. Enjoy your bulgogi Korea dude.
6:18 am on June 21st, 2008 18
[...] is just another example of what I have been saying for some time, the Korean public was unhappy with their new President Lee Myung-bak for a variety reasons, but the anti-US groups saw an [...]
1:14 am on July 5th, 2008 19
I am in Yongsan.
HELP ME…
I AM SURROUNDED with Koreans who have MAD KOREAN DISEASE
Where does this come from?
It comes from Koreans consuming irrational web-posts, Attacking the USA.
How can this be cured?
Get the US 8th Army out of this country ….
Let the Koreans learn responsibility and learn to defend for themselves.
10:33 pm on July 8th, 2008 20
[...] ROK Drop: The New US Beef Narrative: Blame Lee Myung-bak! [...]