S. Korea Anti-Americanism on Rise : U.S. Efforts to Combat It Are Stepping on Chun’s Toes

SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. officials have begun an effort to combat anti-Americanism in South Korea, but are stepping on the toes of President Chun Doo Hwan in the process.

James R. Lilley, who has been the American ambassador here since last November, has met with editors of campus newspapers and leaders of the Catholic Farmers Assn., which has been highly critical of both the United States and former Gen. Chun’s authoritarian rule.

He has also let it be known that he will visit college campuses to talk with students. So far, he has received three invitations.

The U.S. Information Agency is publishing a monthly Korean-language newspaper aimed at getting American views across. It is distributing the paper on 53 campuses and circulation is expected to rise in the weeks ahead from 20,000 to 30,000.

The paper, Lilley said in a speech earlier this year, is designed to bring “a romantic, uninformed commitment to Marxism” out into “the sunlight of facts.” Anti-Americanism, he said, “will collapse if the people know the truth about us.”

Americans are even speaking out about the insurrection at Kwangju in May, 1980, trying to counter the widespread belief that the U.S. government sanctioned the use of Korean Special Forces troops there. Almost 200 people were killed when the troops put down the anti-government protests.

It was Chun’s suppression of the Kwangju insurrection, which started peacefully, that carried him into the presidency, and for this reason, many Koreans think his government lacks legitimacy. He has been enraged by the United States’ raising of the issue, U.S. officials here indicate.

A decade ago, anti-Americanism was unheard of in this country. Because the United States had come to its aid in 1950 when Communist North Korea invaded, South Korea was considered one of the most pro-American of all U.S. allies.

Today, though, anti-Americanism is not only serious but growing, a U.S. official said, asking not to be identified by name.

“I think we’d have our head in the sand if we didn’t recognize it as a problem,” he said. “Students are the most active, the most extreme, but I think it’s spread much broader in society. In a way, we see anti-Americanism all over the place. Some say it’s a mile wide and an inch deep, but among certain people, it’s . . . pretty strong.”

Korean national pride has grown along with the country’s economy, and this, coupled with a patronizing attitude on the part of many Americans, has exacerbated the problem, the U.S. official said.

So, too, has an intertwining of political and economic complaints against the United States, complaints that have emerged only in the past few years.

An American trade deficit with South Korea, which did not begin until 1982 but reached $7.1 billion last year, has forced the United States to abandon its “big brother” attitude, but many Koreans continue to look at the United States in that light. A clear majority of Koreans, who still believe their country is poor and struggling, now regard American demands for an opening of Korea’s closed markets as unfair and high-handed.

More economic trouble lies ahead this year, the U.S. official predicted.

“We’re going to change our trade laws,” he said, “and (the Koreans) . . . who think they’ve got a good deal now . . . don’t want them changed. . . . The fur is going to fly on that one!”

Moreover, pressure from Washington for an opening of South Korea’s markets is escalating.

“We get hit all the time,” the official said.

On the political side, Korean history is being reinterpreted to depict the United States and its 41,000 troops here not as a friend but as the creator and perpetrator of national division, as well as the chief prop of authoritarian government in South Korea.

More than anything else, the perception of U.S. responsibility for the bloody incident at Kwangju is at the bottom of the anti-Americanism. And it was reinforced by an impression that the United States gave, three months after the uprising, that it welcomed Chun’s takeover of the government.

Until recently, the United States had said nothing publicly to challenge this perception. Then, in January, the embassy urged William Glysteen, who was ambassador here in 1980, to speak out on the subject. The U.S. Information Agency paid Glysteen’s travel expenses and provided a forum for him to meet with Korean reporters.

Glysteen rejected a charge by the Chun government that Kim Dae Jung, an opposition leader, instigated the insurrection. Instead, without naming Chun, he blamed the former general for sending in Special Forces troops whose violent tactics helped turn the incident into a general uprising, with citizens raiding armories and taking to the streets.

An American general was in command of U.S. troops here, and most South Korean troops as well, but Glysteen said that the troops responsible for the incident “were not under U.S. command.”

Moreover, he said, the United States advised Chun that sending Special Forces troops into the city to quell the rebellion was “a very dangerous idea.”

Glysteen acknowledged that he and the American commander of that day, Gen. John A. Wickham, now Army chief of staff, favored restoring order in Kwangju by sending in troops of the 20th Korean Division. But he insisted that the 20th Division acted in a manner “quite humane and quite careful.”

“Almost all the casualties, all the provocative actions,” he said, “happened before our decision about the 20th Division.”

U.S. officials acknowledge that Glysteen’s statement enraged the Chun government. Nevertheless, the USIA gave wide circulation to a transcript of his remarks.

Glysteen echoed the rising concern about anti-Americanism, citing as one cause of it the fact that “the United States has been associated now with two governments that came to power by unorthodox means.”

First, he said, was the government of Park Chung Hee, in 1961, and now the Chun government, “although our relations with those governments have been inescapable from a real point of view.”

The eventual outcome of the effort to combat anti-Americanism, diplomats believe, depends on whether the United States becomes associated with yet another South Korean government chosen by undemocratic means.

Chun is scheduled to step down in favor of a new leader in February, 1988. But so far there have been few signs that he will carry out a promise made by his Democratic Justice Party to give the Korean people “a free choice of government.”

“If anti-Americanism grows very significantly in Korea,” Glysteen said, “it will begin to affect all the key relationships. It will affect the way Americans handle economic questions in Korea. It will eventually affect security relations.”