Tough Talk in Korea

Taken one at a time, the comments made by Secretary of State George P. Shultz during his 24-hour visit to South Korea this week seem fair enough. Yes, the Seoul government has moved somewhat toward greater democratization, as last year’s National Assembly elections and the emergence of a recognized political opposition show. Yes, Korea has made extraordinary economic progress. While the human rights situation is less than ideal, in many other countries it is far worse. And the violence that radical students and others have lately engaged in is indeed a threat to stability and a possible impediment to further political liberalization.

In saying these things, though, Shultz managed to leave the impression that the United States complacently accepts the domestic policies of President Chun Doo Hwan’s government, including its ambiguous pronouncements about eventually allowing Koreans a larger role in their own national governance. To give him credit, Shultz implicitly recognized that greater political change is needed in Korea. But in the same breath he appeared to say that the pace of such change ought to be determined by the very regime that has the most to lose by allowing it. Shultz knows better than that.

The potential for a democratic transfer of power after Chun steps down from the presidency in a few years is inherent in the constitutional revision that opposition groups now seek. What they are demanding is that the president elected in 1988 be chosen by direct popular vote, instead of through an electoral college system that, because of organizational and other problems placed in the way of the opposition, has a built-in bias that favors the ruling party. That bias is helped enormously by the limits over the public’s access to information that the government maintains through its controls on the press, particularly the state-owned television network whose pro-government reporting slant is notorious.

Certainly Shultz could not be expected during his South Korean visit to promote the political fortunes of his host government’s opponents. But neither, given American concerns about the political stability of a strategically important ally, was he required to give such warm endorsement to an authoritarian regime that is moving all too slowly toward more liberal domestic policies.

No one disputes the seriousness of the external threat facing South Korea. It is nonsense, though, to accept the Chun regime’s claim that the country’s ability to meet this threat would be weakened by allowing Koreans to exercise greater political and civil rights. The United States has used its considerable leverage before to ease repression in South Korea. The time is ripe for it to do so again, in human rights, press freedom and less restricted democratic political activity.