Seoul's Mad Cow Fiasco
by Hancho C. Kim
Posted June 25, 2008
Judging by the obsession with “Mad Cow” disease gripping Seoul right now, one would think South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had just negotiated a deal to import beef from the U.K., Belgium, France, Germany or any number of places where people have fallen ill from their country’s infected cattle. That’s not what’s happening. Tens of thousands are gathering in Seoul each day to protest beef imports from the U.S. and the risk they carry of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Apparently, the madness has already set in on some level. Nobody has ever gotten sick from BSE-tainted U.S. beef since the progressive neurological disease was first reported in the U.K. in 1986. Not one person.
Nonetheless, the perception exists among South Koreans that the country’s new president is opening the market to BSE-tainted beef—a perception that has inspired enormous nightly candlelight vigils, mothers marching en masse in protest alongside their small children in baby strollers, and violent rallies quelled by police water cannons and fire extinguishers. Even the recent agreement to limit imports to beef under 30 months of age, just as the U.S. does in Japan, has done nothing to silence the protesters.
The mounting public outcry has been enough to paralyze the Lee administration in its first 100 days. President Lee’s approval rating has plummeted from 50% to 17% and the opposition party is extracting every last inch of political advantage, even boycotting the opening ceremony of the National Assembly in protest. Meanwhile, a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. which stands to stimulate two-way commerce by $20 billion is languishing in both countries’ legislatures, hung up over the renegotiation of beef import restrictions. Progress has even stalled on President Lee’s ambitious pet project of a grand canal that would connect the country’s four major rivers.
Welcome to the Misinformation Age. The premise behind this entire issue and its ensuing paralysis is a remarkable demonstration of the power of a lie today. Right now, South Korea is still battling the Avian Flu, while it simultaneously stares down the barrel of its belligerent, uncooperative and now, nuclearized, neighbor to the north. Despite these very immediate dangers, South Korea’s population is fixated on the threat posed by 42 million perfectly healthy cows in the United States. It defies logic.
Seoul’s descent into madness didn’t come out of thin air. It was exploited—perhaps even manufactured—by political opponents who saw an opportunity in the perception that the new president was more businessman than statesman. His CEO-style presidency combined with his immediate coziness with Washington gave opponents the opportunity to depict U.S. beef imports as favoring U.S. interests over South Korea’s. Never mind the fact that U.S. beef meets an international standard for safety that exceeds South Korean standards.
The fact that this story is helping revive the fortunes of the recently ousted liberal party in Seoul while drawing attention away from their favorite charity in Pyongyang is likely no coincidence. Recent local by-elections handed them resounding wins and Pyongyang isn’t in the headlines for once, so it’s a strategy that’s working—for now.
It’s clear what President Lee must do. He must make the facts known and expose the lie and the liars. The message should come straight from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the 172-nation international body that seeks the prevention and eradication of all animal disease and one of the world’s leading authorities on BSE. Too many people with zero credibility in medicine have been speaking out on this issue for too long.
Furthermore, President Lee must take concrete measures to protect his country’s citizens from genuine exposure to BSE by raising the regulatory standards South Korean beef must meet. South Korean cattle must conform to OIE international standards just as U.S. beef does.
If South Korea wants to engage in free and open trade with the US, or any other country for that matter, its leadership must prove that the country can be a trusted, reliable partner that isn’t vulnerable to these kinds of artificial crises. Furthermore, leadership in Seoul must prove that it can effectively cope with real crises such as neighboring rogue regimes. These are impediments to free trade every bit as real as contaminated beef.
By allowing this entire episode to get out of hand, President Lee has proven that he is, indeed, more businessman than politician. Now what he must prove is that he can lead a country.
Mr. Hancho Kim is a Korean-born U.S. citizen who has spent 27 years living in Seoul. A retired businessman and bestselling author, his most recent book is “That’s the Way It Was” (Yal Lim Won Publishing, 2006). In 1979 he was incarcerated for 4.5 months in connection with the “Koreagate” political scandal in the U.S.
