WASHINGTON -- The makings of a crisis are evident on the Korean Peninsula. And it is not about North Korea's clandestine uranium-enrichment program or about the Dec. 19 presidential elections. Instead the crisis revolves around the U.S. armed forces, which are badly mishandling relations with South Korea. Not only is this increasing anti-Americanism among long-standing friends complicating day-to-day alliance activities, it is making the United States begin to resemble, in South Korean eyes, the latest in a longline of foreign occupiers.
The tensions may not undercut the alliance in immediate terms; the threat from North Korea remains too real and other bonds remain too strong for South Koreans to take such a dramatic step. But over the longer term, Seoul might see more and more advantages to associating with China and fewer to working with the U.S. Nearly 15,000 people took part last Sunday in a show of anti-American sentiment, the largest in years.
The current situation has political antecedents dating back two years to when differences between U.S. President George W. Bush's hardline philosophy toward North Korea and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's softer "sunshine policy" were perceived in Seoul (correctly or not) as undercutting inter-Korean efforts at detente.