Beef xenophobia strikes South Korea
As tens of thousands of people waved candles in central Seoul and other South Korean cities, a month of street demonstrations against the purported danger of U.S. beef broadened Tuesday night into a populist backlash against the country's fledgling president, Lee Myung-bak.Just when you begin to think the South Koreans have reached some level of emotional maturity crowds start throwing a tantrum over hamburgers and steaks. It is as silly as the Muslim tantrums over cartoons. These people need to grow up. It has never occurred to me to be upset about having a South Korean cell phone instead of a Motorola. If i did I would by as emotionally immature as the Korean kooks in the street.Lee's entire cabinet offered early Tuesday to resign to take responsibility for the beef dispute and to take heat off the president, who has been in office less than four months.
The resignation offer, which Lee has not yet acted on, came in anticipation of what was by far the biggest night of demonstrations against his government.
The crowd in Seoul, chanting "Out with President Lee" and wearing stickers that made Lee look like a rat, included office workers, mothers and fathers with children, college students and members of labor groups.
"It is too late to soothe the public with lip service, and even fixing the beef issue is too late," said Lee Hong-taek, 33, a game software specialist, who joined the protest after leaving work. "The real question is his leadership style."
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If you want Koreans to wake up to how ridiculous it is for a country that relies on International trade for its livelihood to be impeding free trade with this sort of nationalistic hysteria, I suggest you do just that. Boycott Korean goods. Korea must be shown that there are consequences to this sort of patently unfair behavior.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who is currently living in Korea, I can tell you that Korea actively thrwarts free trade. While Korea is a huge cell phone manufacturer that benefits from huge overseas sales, Nokia's phone are nowhere to be found. Most Koreans still don't know what an Ipod is for the same reasons (though they are finally available in the country at inflated prices).
Korea is behaving like the guest who comes over every Christmas and gladly receives gifts but never gives any. This year, we should not plan on not giving Korea any more christmas gifts. If Korea is unwilling to be a fair trading parter, it is time to uninvite it from the party that is the International trading system.